You Don't Say

Suicide. It's a shocking, frightening word. Say it and you will catch your listeners' attention, but not in a good way. Say it and you might lose something you value.

Suicide. My brother committed it and I seriously considered it as recently as last month. But even when writing about it or talking about it, I tend to use other words and phrases: end my life; took his own life; hurt myself; stop living. Even in the psych ward, the professionals would say "do you want to hurt/injure yourself or others?" Suicide is a bit beyond 'hurt/injure', don't you think?

Depression. This one is slightly okay. I can say "I was so depressed I couldn't stop crying" and that's non-threatening. Adding "I was looking for ways to kill myself" filters my listeners and readers: some immediately want to call me and make sure I'm alright and get together with me. They want to talk to me and listen to me talk and tell them how I got that depressed, how I'm going to keep from getting that depressed, and I'd damn-well better call them if I feel that depressed again. And let's go have lunch next week.

The other people freak out. I lost a freelance gig I loved (but it was beyond my abilities), the present opportunity to even work for them for free, and the trust of the friend who was also my supervisor (plus, I think he really freaked out); and I may have lost a second gig and friend; she hasn't written back so I don't know yet. But the lack of response doesn't look good. I really love that gig, too.

So unless you want to separate the wheat from the chaff in your life in a quick and unflinching manner, say 'depressed' but don't say 'suicide' or any euphemism for it. It's bad enough to be sad in our culture; contemplating ending your life is possibly the most offensive and disturbing thought you can introduce to some people. I suppose it should be disturbing, but telling someone "I thought of killing myself" shouldn't be a reason to be cast aside. Imagine — if enough people did that, a sad and suffering person could end up feeling all his pain was valid, and he could go ahead and end his life, commit his suicide, feeling he had made the right choice. Think about it. 

(Not me. I now have enough people threatening me with bodily and spiritual harm if I so much as seriously consider this unspeakable act. I have no desire to fail if I tried it, but even worse would be succeeding and spending several eternities being punished by the spirits of my friends and family!)

Paranoia Doesn't Mean I'm Not Right

Before I checked myself into the psych hospital at the tail edges of my little meltdown/nervous breakdown, I let a few people know so they wouldn't worry. Among the people I told was a man who I report to for my favorite part-time job, the man who talked me into this job. His email reply was short, but supportive.

I emailed him when I got out, mentioning how I'd not done well on the job before I went in and wondering what he wanted to do about that. He usually emails me or calls me a lot during a week just to keep me up to date and to keep in touch.

I've had one text message, basically the same as the one he sent before I went in. And that's it. According to another member of the team, this man who supported me seems to have the same phobia that another good friend of mine (same age cohort as the man with the job): a fear that people with "mental illness" are never as stable or dependable as "normal, healthy" people and as such should be avoided as employees. At least, that's my fear and my current perception of this situation. 

And this situation and these reactions, ladies, gentlemen, and others, are why I choose to make this blog as anonymous as is reasonable and why I have not told my more stable job about it. I'm paranoid, but not a complete idiot. Just a partial one with a lazy streak.

Back

Well, for those of you playing along at home, you may have picked up on "Quitter" that I wasn't only referring to Camp Fire Girls and Job's Daughters but about my life. Raise a hand if you caught the barely veiled references to suicide. Anyone?

If you don't know it yet, I brought that bit of prose to my therapist and, on her very strong urging, I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital for Thanksgiving. 

I was in there for a week. The first two days I spent most of my time in my room. I came out to the Day Room for meals and meds, I was examined by a physician, and I went to a couple of group sessions. While the group sessions were fine, they were nothing earth-shaking. The meds were supposed to be what I brought, but the pharmacy apparently would rather bend me over provide me with their meds rather than use what I brought and somehow everything got messed up and I was off my two primary meds for three days, and off one of them for another two after that! So I was experiencing weird withdrawal symptoms as well as being in a strange place both spatially and mentally. 

Quitter

My parents used to call me a quitter.

• After a year or so of Campfire Girls, I didn't go back. It wasn't any fun and I have some very bad memories of it.
• I was in Honor Choir in 5th grade and I quit it to play softball. Because our lives revolved around my brother's sports, I thought I'd get some of the attention if I played a sport. (There is a whole, ugly story around this, but now isn't the time.) I wish I hadn't done this. I'd have been happier in Choir. But I was only 10 or 11.
• In 6th grade, I joined Girl Scouts. After about five months, all we had done were a handful of crafts. We didn't go anywhere or do anything. I had joined with two other girls, and they were also bored and unhappy. They made me the spokesman to tell the leader we were quitting. She cried. I was 11. My folk began calling me a quitter to my face.
• I was forced to join Job's Daughters when I was in 7th grade. Didn't want to, but the family had promised my dying grandfather (and given several things, I certainly felt no compulsion to follow that promise). I stayed for a year and a half before being able to leave it. My parents again accused me of quitting, of never being able to stick with a thing.

Not Enough

Today was my mother's birthday. She would have been 72.

I'm doing particularly badly today, but have been doing generally badly for weeks. I've done virtually nothing on one of my jobs; I'm sure they are just so glad they asked me to do it.

I'm so miserable and I don't know what to do about it that I'm not already doing. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to be dead on almost a daily basis. I hurt and there is nothing that gives me any reason to think I'm going to become appreciably better. I have no family. What friends I do have are really just friends: none of them will ever come to visit me here or make me truly part of their family. And I haven't made any constant friends since I moved here. Given my experience, that's likely to remain the case.

Anyone who's reading this is already thinking "oh you should have hope" and "you don't really mean that" and "you don't know that's the case" and all that other optimistic stuff. And I wouldn't be able to convince such people — even if I bothered trying — that I have done and thought and felt all the hopeful, positive, productive things anyone has ever told me about, asked me about, or that I've read about or even thought of independently and none of it has worked.  But nobody ever believes me about that anyway. Just call me Cassandra.

11.11.11 — Welcome to My Party

Depending on who you listen to, today's binary date brings either great evil (Zombiepocalypse anybody?) or great good (The Rapture, if you are of a specific belief system; The Rapture, if you are the rest of us). All I know is that I have fallen many steps backward in my journey out of the Abyss. As I told a friend last night, I'm just a goopy, weepy mess right now. Kind of like a puddle in the Abyss. A goopy puddle. And this is my Great Big Goddamn Pity-Party.

I'm stressed about all the stuff I still haven't done, especially the Estate bills so we can close out and I can get my damned money (you would think that would motivate me; maybe I procrastinate so the others won't get theirs?), and the manager/coordinator job, which I haven't done much at all with. I feel guilty and I beat myself up over it. And no, the apartment is no better ... it's worse. It's almost a year since it's been entirely clean. Almost a year since the carpet (which is not entirely visible) was vacuumed. I'm afraid to look under some of this stuff — I know there will be dead (please oh please oh please no) bugs under it, or in it.

Getting fatter, not getting stronger. Eating junk with lots of sugar, something I have such an addiction to that I seem powerless in the face of it. If I have sugar, then that's all I want. It's overwhelming and compelling. I'm not walking, nor am I exercising. At my age, I need to change this. I need to be as strong and flexible and mobile as I can be; there is no one to take care of me in my old age.

I feel lonely, in that "I have no family" sort of way. No family, no partner, not even any friends who love me enough to invite me to be with them during xmas or New Year's. Except my BFF, but if the others don't seem that interested, there's no point in flying all that way. And feeling unloved. My BFF and his whatever-she-is are nice enough, but exceptionally dysfunctional (pot? kettle?) that it's sometimes uncomfortable to be with them. And BFF and I have minefields galore. And I have no friends here who are so close that they will spend significant (if any) time with me, much less holidays. I love my online friends, but that's what they are: online.

I need to touch and be touched. I desperately need to be held; I have had little of that since Mom died. I need it for comfort and to fill a physical need that connects me, to the ground, and to other people. I feel so inexpressibly alone.

All of which leads me to the goopy, weepy mess. Fat & flappy? Check. Self-pitying? Check. Weepy? Check. Sliding backward, erasing months of progress? Double-check.

Thoughts (which Karen the Therapist would tell me I should address with Cognitive Therapeutic thoughts, but I just don't feel up to it, or even deserving of it):

• If no one else cares enough to take care of me, why should I care enough?
• I'm going to disappoint everyone eventually; might as well get it over with.
• I'm going to live my life alone. I'm going to end my life alone. So what's the point of it? I'm not suicidal, but some days the thought of slurping down the entire bottle of one of my meds seems attractive.
• Maybe some people are right and mental and emotional problems only get worse as we get older — never better. That would suggest that I am engaged in a futile waste of energy.
• I cannot have the man I love. I have seen him less than 5 times this year. It's not entirely rational, but I feel unloveable and always second-best. Hell, the guy I lived with for a few years even chose computer games and video recordings over me. Given my experience — decades of it — I have to conclude that men just don't want me particularly. They don't value me particularly. It's all written in invisible neon lights over my head.

Well, that should provide a selection of what I'm thinking and feeling. I'm a mess. I'm weepy. And I am gloopy — disgusting and flabby and disturbingly sticky.

I don't like myself. I don't like my life. I want out. But I don't see any way to like myself or get a life I like, so I'm stuck. I don't see anything — possible — that I want or that is more satisfying that what I have.

If you are still reading, then thank you for attending my pity party. Time to go now. I feel another cry coming on.

I am a Mystery

So said my therapist today. It takes awhile for a therapist and client to get to know each other, and for the therapist to discover important things about the client. I have a history of surprising or dumbfounding my therapists.

All of this stuff — the being barely functional, the depression, the anxiety, the paralysis — she thought was just since Mom died. Some things are so old-hat to me that I don't think to mention them, or else I think I already have.

Today's session was fairly free-ranging due to my unfocused and sedated mind. (My psych bumped me up to 4 mg of Lorazepam a day, which can be taken singly or in combination not to exceed two, and rather than diminishing my anxiety, it's just sedating me, which kind of increases my anxiety.) I led Karen the Wonder Therapist all over the place.

Eventually, I got stuck talking about my ex. This is the guy I moved in with and lived with for three years. This is the guy I wanted, and fully expected, to marry and have children with. This is the guy who so diminished and battered me verbally and emotionally that I think he broke something important inside me. This is the issue that Karen thinks may be more important to explore than the sexual abuse. And when we got to where I said I felt as if something had been broken inside me from my relationship with him, she thought for a moment and then said, "You are a Mystery." She had just discovered that my dysfunctions didn't start with Mom's dying. She perceived more of the big picture that is me.

I kind of like being a Mystery (yes, the capital M matters), but I'd rather be a Mystery for something more cool than my mental and emotional dysfunctions.

Current homework: attack the estate bills in small increments, earning computer privileges. Karen is one savvy therapist.

Pecked to Death By Chickens

A good friend of mine has a plaque on one of the walls of her house that says "Having children is like being pecked to death by chickens." (The sign hasn't seemed to have done any lasting harm to her children.) They all understood the concept: they had chickens.

Readers of this blog have some idea of how my life has gone in the past year and some. I haven't blogged much in the last couple of months, what with dealing with the estate, having surgery, finding work that is low-paying but gratifying (and anxiety-producing), and now getting a fairly solid respiratory infection that may have also endangered or even ended another work situation before it started. In fact, it feels a lot like being pecked to death by chickens, Universe-style.

I'm just trying to make progress. All I want is a life of health, financial stability, and the chance to pursue my happiness and my dreams. Given all my fortunate advantages — white, from a middle-class family, well-educated, and highly experienced in my field of endeavor — getting the life I want shouldn't be so hard. But every time I think I have my feet under me, things beyond my control knock them out from under me again: Mom, overwhelming grief and depression, unemployment, emergency surgery for god's sake!, illness, and timing.

Good things have happened: friends have helped and supported me in some places, I found a great therapist (and a mediocre psychiatric nurse), I got the one project. I know that life is hard. I also know that life was simpler and easier for my parents; it wasn't a painful struggle. We were all very happy and content (until my dad died and our lives completely fell apart, but that's a separate story). I just think that continually having to try and shovel myself out of a hole full of mud is harder than it needs to be. Add to that the continuous and uneven peck-peck-peck of my life's disasters — small and large — prevents me from making progress. And it wears me out completely.

You'll notice I haven't given up. I keep trying through some, potentially foolish, belief that I can grasp that life I want, one where I can withstand the difficulties because I have enough of the good to cushion my falls. Or maybe I keep on because, really, what else is there to do?

Only keep trying to dig myself out of the mud and avoid the damned chickens at the same time.

I'm not that fond of chicken.

What's a Beautiful Morning?

I don't wake up looking forward to the mornings.

I did when I was a child. I loved life and I loved being alive. As I got older that changed, bit by bit. Was my cousin in the house? Then it might be a day where he would so something I didn't want to do. Was it a school day? By the end of elementary school, every day was a day to be tormented and made to feel like less than dirt. And then, after Daddy died, well, there were many days when it seemed like there was no reason to get up because he wasn't turning my light on and saying "Good morning!" And with the pain and the distance within our little family, well, there was nothing to look forward to.

There were times in between, when I looked forward to my days. I loved college. But then my little brother killed himself and that brought me to many years of "why bother because it goes to hell."

"I like living myself --- not just beng happy and enjoying myself and having  a good time. I mean living, --- waking up and feeling, all over me, that I'm here --- tickling all over."

Agatha Christie, A Murder Is Announced

Ray Bradbury remarked that he woke up like a rocket, all at once, bounding downstairs with life and joy at starting a new day, to spend four hours writing.

As I've grown older, I have be come less and less interested in starting a new day, less and less interested in going to sleep because when I wake I'll have to start a new day. I exist, and I don't enjoy it. There is so much I could and can do with my time, but I waste it away, trying to avoid my own life, my own experiences, to avoid that I don't wake up "tickling all over" or like a rocket.

A life of verve and vibrancy: I had it. I lost it. I want it back.

Pretty Well

People tell me that I'm doing pretty well right now as I'm dealing with a number of difficult tasks. It stops me each time someone says that because I'm not even thinking about how well I'm doing. I'm not thinking about how what I'm doing even has an emotional context — I'm simply doing what I need to do. That's what it seems like to me.

But when someone tells me I'm doing pretty well, or that I'm doing great, a small alarm goes off inside my mind. Why wouldn't I be doing well? Is there something I don't know? Because I am not paying attention to the larger picture. I'm looking at each discrete task and achieving it, or figuring out how to achieve it. I completely forget why I have to remove things from the house, why I have to arrange for movers, why I have the vague feeling that each day here is one more closer to my very last.

What this all means is that the emotional context will come crashing down on me all at once and swamp me. I can accept that. I hope it waits until I'm home again.

A More Civilized Pace — Please!

Change. I know life is full of it, but I do remember when the changes in my life were more leisurely, when they weren't falling over each other in their eagerness to meet me, when they weren't pulling me along at rocket-speed and dangling me behind them like a toy on a tether.

I complain about everything, right? But my life seems to be on a bullet-train of change. I'm half a century old: change should slow down! Just let me catch my breath, at least. And how about balancing things out with some positive changes, such as financial independence (or at least security), and love and friendship (close on a geographic scale, please)?

I'm not a jet-setter. I'm not an adrenaline-junkie (but there are a couple of things I wouldn't mind trying again). I may walk briskly, but I also like to "stroll about, lookin' at the shops."* I love spending long, slow hours with friends and family, telling stories and laughing, taking long and scenic drives, playing games, and watching children play. I love spending time with someone special, curled up at opposite ends of the couch, and reading news articles, comics, and book passages to each other. I like to savor.

Mind you, I'm not only slow. I enjoy fast-paced movies and books. I love to watch MythBusters and the more explosions the better! I like fast rides and short lines. There's nothing like running and laughing with children until everyone collapses with exhaustion and giggles.

My social life at home is too slow: it's dead. With no work, my days drag. If I weren't paralyzed with fear over my impending complete brokeness, I could at least write. On the other hand, there have been jobs, Mom's cancer and death and all the many months of follow-up to that (that are speeding up now), and changes in my social life that brought it to death, freelance gigs, meeting people professionally — it's cocaine one one side and pot on the other, but not balanced and neither healthy nor fun.

Do you know what I want? 

1. Financial independence, or at least financial security, so I don't worry all the time, expending my energy fruitlessly.
2. Friends with whom I spend time with frequently.
3. Enough to do without it being too much. If I work for pay, then less than 40 hours a week and little or no commute: why spend my life on things that don't add to it? If I don't need to work for pay, then enough volunteer work and activities to keep me interested and interesting but that leaves me with plenty of time and energy to spend in other ways.
4. Someone special to spend that time with on the couch.
5. Two cats.
6. An office and studio that is full of light and comfort and that inspires creativity. In fact, an entire house like that. My house.

I know life is full of change, and that you cannot control all of it, or even most of it. I know change comes at all speeds, but lately I've felt exhausted by it. I want some good change in my life, and for my vehicle of change to move a bit slower. I don't need to ride in a stealth bomber.

*Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed

Fine. Be That Way.

Yet again, no help is offered from Life. "You are so strong!" "Look at how much you've done!" "See? You have already done it!" Sigh.

Maybe from your perspective, but not so much from mine. I can see how much more there is to do. And I'm TIRED!!!! So I want a little help. (Yo, Universe! A little help?)

I don't want to recreate the wheel. If there are established ways that work in my situation, that help to develop more positive mental states that last, then it seems to me that following those paths would be efficacious. This is not necessarily a time when "go the way less travelled" or "go your own way" or thinking outside the box is the good option.

Fix now, creative later.

===

Much later ...

I've spent the evening with my neighbors on the south side of the house. They rock. I haven't had any alcohol for awhile due to my previous psych saying "no no" due to the medications I'm on (other medical folks have been less stringent), and they gave me some wine. Then some more wine. Then dinner. Then, when it was just me and her (because he was asleep on the couch in front of the TV), homemade kahlua and cream over ice. Mmm. And lots of talking about Mom and grief and Mom's choices about the estate and about their family and about my special friend (because they were a couple I shared the potential with back when it started) and all kinds of stuff. I haven't been tipsy in quite awhile. If I can, I'm going to join them for their 7:30 am walk. If not tomorrow, then definitely the following morning. Tomorrow I may not manage it. I am feeling pretty darned good.

Anyway, I got plenty of validation about being alone and trying to do things alone and it being difficult and nothing about being all positive. I liked it. I know other people are trying to be helpful, but it is also very helpful for someone to say "yes, you are alone. yes, it is hard. I hear you and my heart goes out to you. Have some more wine."

I had a great time.  Now I'm tipsy. And tired. I'll write tomorrow when I can function mentally.

A Cry for Help in the Darkness

Anger, resentment, discontent, desire, scarcity: these feelings fill my mind and my heart far more than any positive emotions. I tried very hard to develop more positivity in my thoughts and was doing pretty well, I thought. 

Slowly, stealthily, the positive thoughts and constructs leaked out of my mind and the dark, negative thoughts slid in. I didn't even notice, the dark ones feel so familiar. I feel consumed by the unfairness of life, grief, and loss. There's a positivity-sized hole in my mind: how do I stop it so I can keep my mind balanced and positive? After all, a friend spent an entire week writing about positivity in response to my desire for validation for my less-than-positive reality.

My mind is not a happy place to reside in. I cruise my usual blogs, but comment seldom because the useful- and/or positive-comment area of my brain is empty. All around me, fairies are falling to the ground and kittens are crying. I can feel my hair and my clothing turning black. What's the music Emo kids listen to these days?

When my mind is filled with sadness and despair, my body hurts. One of the joys of fibro, but it's also a side-effect of depression. My sleep is affected and pretty much everything sucks, thus completing the feedback loop that says the Universe is a dark and dreadful place.

It's like a prison. I want out.

It seems I am always saying — and asking for — help. This case falls under a request for help doing or learning to do something. I want a coach to help me regain my positive frame of mind, my reality-tinged optimism of former days. A coach who is sensitive to what I've gone through, the validation I need, and who won't go all perky and chipper on me. But I expect that, as usual, I will be left to do this all alone. Again. I honestly think this makes the process go much more slowly, leaving me depressed and and full of darkness for much longer. I can't see how this helps me. But then, it's not the Universe's place to be helpful or play fair. The Universe is just what it is. 

But maybe the force and energy that is Life will help me out a little. Something, someone, please give me some help here.

Something Else Tonight

No actual post. I'm doing my homework tonight and tomorrow morning. I'm at the point in the story where Mom dies, so that's going to kind of take up all I have to give for now.

Body Battle

My body and I are in a struggle right now. It's not life or death, it's more like which lane to drive in. Kinda.

Basically, I don't feel much like eating. If it's a popsicle or some ice cream, I'd eat it, but I don't feel like going out and getting food. I have salad stuff, bread, butter PB, eggs. I'm out of milk and berries. So I do have food, but it's food that doesn't spark any craving or interest in me. Part of me knows I should eat something, for many reasons, such as not throwing my body into famine mode. But my body isn't particularly sending me any hunger messages and I'm just not interested. It's been a very long time since I've had this response to stress and anxiety. It beats eating a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting! (I did that after my cat died.)

My mind is suggesting things like going out and getting some fast food, including a dessert. It might slide past my "I don't feel like eating" stance and it should definitely bump my body out of feelings of famine. But I'd need to keep giving it sufficient calories to keep that state going.

I've lost a little weight, but part of it is a loss of muscle mass because I'm so sedentary. When I go off to deal with the Estate next week, there will be plenty of exercise involved. Packing and unpacking boxes, lifting and putting down. And there are hills and a beach just made for walking on. Perhaps if I'm moving around I will feel hungry.

I haven't yet decided what to do tonight. I don't think the dark chocolate with chili bar has sufficient calories and I can only eat a square or two at a time anyway, which is why I bought it. I'm giving more thought to driving to some fast food place, maybe Wendy's because they have a pretty good fish sandwich and I could get by without ever going to a McDonald's again. I haven't eaten beef in well over a year, so having a hamburger would just give me a stomach ache. And I don't want to go out to eat; tonight I'm not up to doing so alone.

If only I weren't so bored by Chik fil A — they are the closest fast food place. Their real milk shakes and their lemon pie are awesome, but the food just makes me yawn now.

I can put together a basic salad — nothing special — but there aren't many calories in that. And my mind-body thing is saying "ho hum". I could hard-boil a couple of eggs — my body isn't saying no to that. But it still isn't high in calories.

I think there is a very real business niche for dessert delivery. I would pay more to have ice cream or cake delivered to me in the evening so I don't have to get dressed and go out and get it myself. 

Still I sit here, battling with my body about whether or not to eat something and if so what. At least I'm losing some of that extra weight I put on!

Value-Added Sleep

Sleep is good for you — we all know that. People have different needs for sleep and vastly varying sleep schedules.  Some folks nap and some don't.

And some of us sleep away the majority of a day without planning to do so. Today I felt immensely tired at 1:30, so I set my alarm for 3:00 (2 alarms, actually). I don't remember turning them off. I woke up just before 7pm, just before another alarm went off. 

I certainly didn't accomplish anything to day. Nor did I work up an appetite. I had a piece of buttered toast and two popsicles for dinner. And didn't get to the store for milk and berries.

I don't take regular naps. If I lay down, I'm going to sleep for at least an hour, usually two. If I sleep longer, well there's a reason. The reason right now is most likely being worn out from severe anxiety, and/or avoiding my life. There isn't much I can do right now about significant aspects of my life, so sleeping through some of it makes a certain emotional sense, if nothing else. Certainly it doesn't help my life. But I don't have the ability to help my life significantly right now, which is just not at all a nice place to be. Thus the sleep.

I'm up to taking an entire milligram of Ativan 3 times a day. It helps me reduce the anxiety (I don't grind my teeth and my shoulders can actually drop down away from my ears), but it also makes me sleepy at that level. I might try for 3/4 of a mg. Half just isn't doing it right now.

I'm half looking forward to working on the pre-sale work next week and the following. If I get involved and focused enough, I can refrain from thinking about all the crap that is making me so crazy and fearful. I can't do anything about any of it, so I might as well avoid it by doing something else.

But I need to stop sleeping during the day.  It really doesn't allow me to do things that will decrease my anxiety. Doing activities to avoid anxiety (even unconsciously), which raises it. Really effective.

Sometimes

Ya know, sometimes it's just not possible to be positive. And sometimes I want to be negative, or at least not-positive. This has been an ungodly shitty year, the latest in a life punctuated by unexpected and tragic losses and other traumas. (I am the poster child for fibromyalgia, which is thought to develop as a result of one major physical or emotional trauma, or repeated ones. I'm in on all counts.) Sometimes I need to acknowledge the shit.

I need to acknowledge that my life sucks right now and that the non-sucky part is still somewhere past the horizon and that it's quite possible that my life is going to suck even more in the very near future unless a series of miracles occur.

To me, being positive in the face of these things or, even worse, about these things is like saying they don't matter or they aren't real. It's unrealistic and irrational. Bad stuff must be acknowledged. Pain and fear and the very real possibly of going stone broke — even having spent my jars of coins on food — is right before my eyes. I can see it. That's not being pessimistic, that's being rational.

Acknowledging the bad doesn't give it extra power. I think that ignoring it gives it power; the power to overwhelm you because you were so busy positively ignoring it that all the realistic things you might have done you didn't.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to be all bright and hopeful and positive, I'm really on the edge of tears.

This has been my life. This is my life. If things entirely out of your control repeat in your life, is that a lesson? If so, mine appears to be that life is about pain and helplessness that slowly whittle you down to nothing over time.

I guess the main thing I'm trying to say is this: sometimes being positive and pushing the bad stuff aside invalidates the very reality of the bad stuff and the pain that has been happening and that is happening right now. And just because something good happens or I have a good day does not negate everything else that continues to be Not Good in my life. I've been doing all that I am able to do, from when all I could do is crawl out of bed in the morning and back into it in the evening until now when I can wash my breakfast dishes as well. I have not been capable of looking for a job in an organized or energetic or even useful manner if at all, so no money is coming in. All the affirmations and visualizations in the world have not brought me money through other means (bequests, lottery tickets, philanthropy, whatever). Reality says that if I don't become stone broke in the next 6 weeks, then I'm going to miss it by only a hair and that missing it might as well be luck.

So, this being positive thing. Don't take it to extremes. Doing so feels disrespectful and invalidating. I rather need some validation now and then throughout this terribly shitty time. I need some now. Just because I can manage a smile doesn't mean I'm not in hell.

The Art of Focusing

As was obvious from last night's post, I am feeling overwhelmed and not at all like I'm "handling" anything. I feel my greatest accomplishments are a) not dying, and b) not screaming. The only reason I wasn't hyperventilating today was because of one of my cute little quirks I have when I'm tense: I was holding my breath.

I'm one of those people with a noisy mind. Music, musings, conversations, commentary — it's all going on in my mind all the time. My mind is rarely quiet. It's quieter when I write, but then there is frequently my "talking" as I write and there are other things in my mind that may or may not make it onto the screen (or the paper, if I'm going low-tech). One thing I've noticed is that the more anxious I feel, the greater the noise in my mind. It's like the noises are faster and more shrill, winding up like the "hamster-wheel" meltdowns I've experienced in the past. There's a correlation, but I'd say that the increased anxiety probably causes the more agitated noise rather than the other way around.

The noise and anxiety and near panic were almost making me sick today. I have a lot of stress places on my body, and my stomach is one of them. During times of extreme stress and extreme physical and mental tightness, I've actually lost a great deal of weight, even when there wasn't much to lose. I have high hopes for this phase, because I'm sure as hell not hungry and when I do eat, the food ends up feeling like a solid lump in my stomach. Add to this some exercise due to the work I've got to do back at my mom's house and I should drop a good 10 pounds easily in two weeks. If I had a scale to measure myself on today, I'd do it, but I'll have to wait until I get to the house.

The noises in my mind today seemed to be ratcheting my anxiety higher, like a positive feedback loop, and I was quickly working up from panic to screaming, so I tried some mindfulness and meditative techniques to see if they helped. I focused very precisely on exactly what I was doing. I allowed myself to hear the sounds around me, such as the refrigerator compressor or the table fan. I felt my clothing on my body and focused on my cup of tea as I carried it to the couch and as I sipped it. If a bit of song slipped into my mind, I tightened my focus, listened for sounds around me and outside. 

This level of focus exhausted me. I don't have the discipline or the skill to maintain it for very long, so my quiet moments were short and choppy. But they were there. And when I was that focused, paying that much attention to what I was doing, I wasn't aware of anything other than what I was doing: I wasn't aware of panic and anxiety and hamsters and wanting to puke. 

So there are very good reasons to practice this kind of focus. Maybe doing so will save my sanity, what there is of it. If it keeps me from puking or screaming, that's a win right there! I think the anxiety/panic connects to the hamster-wheel meltdown — they are all part of the same craziness. If paying attention in an aware way calms the craziness pieces, it's worth taking the time to practice. And it will take time and energy because my mind just is not able to focus for that long. It's very hard work.

Of course, I'm likely to forget how focusing helped me today. Maybe having it written down here will help me remember, because I have a tendency to forget things that benefit me, or things I like to do, or things that will get me to where I want to be. Makes me want a personal secretary who, while telling me what appointments I have to attend and what phone calls I must make, will remind me to pay attention and to go for a walk and who'll make sure I have salads for dinner, too.

I know, I know. Post-Its. Lots less expensive than a personal secretary but they probably won't go out and get me lunch.

Not Dying

On the one hand, I think the folate/folic acid is working as an add-on to handle my depression. On the other hand, I think my anxiety has moved into stealth mode. It perks up when I start thinking about paying bills, but because I am in a very quiet mode where I'm focused on dealing with the house sale and the estate sale and having to go back to Oregon — many logistic details — I think my anxiety is simply being quiet, too. As long as I don't disturb it.

I'm glad that we're getting a chemical handle on the depression; I should be able to begin getting a personal handle on it, too. I'm also becoming more functional on some fronts — I'm not crying so much. But I wish we had a national short-term disability program, or at least have a disability program that didn't take years to get covered under, because I'm not fully functional yet and don't know when I will be.

I feel completely submerged by my current focus. It's like swimming in dark water with a flashlight: I can focus on only one section at a time. There are some other logistic issues that I've simply had to throw up my hands at and walk away from because I can't handle them right now.

Most folks handle all this stuff plus work a job plus handle a family. I don't think I could care for a cat.

I know everyone has been telling me I can handle it all and cheering me on and saying that the Universe/God/whatever never gives us what we/I cannot handle, but I've seen otherwise. I am experiencing otherwise. My anxiety is sitting there like an undetonated bomb — will it go off; how much vibration will set it off? I'm coping because I'm ignoring a lot of it and I'm desperately hoping that the bomb isn't triggered. If you judge that simply staying alive is "handling" what the Universe sends us, well that's no big deal; there are many reasons for not offing yourself that have nothing to do with indicating one is "handling" what the Universe has "given" you. Being a zombie for months or years, shutting off large sections of yourself or your life, living inside a very tiny virtual cocoon: I don't consider these ways of "handling" it. These are ways of not dying.

I look like I'm doing well to those outside my home. I probably look like I'm handling things better to those of you who read this. But for the most part, I'm really just not dying.

I'm going to do what I can do with the house and all. I can handle certain responsibilities and the pain/fear of not doing this stuff is greater than the pain/fear of doing it. There's a motivator for you. I'm terrified of dealing with my own storage unit, which is completely necessary to keep me from having to pay for two storage units with my own money.

Progress? It's been almost a year since Mom died. I can now wash my dishes after each meal (altho' today I am four meals behind) and I make my bed 75% of the time. Before you start cheering me on for these positive steps, please note that I haven't completely cleaned my bathroom or vacuumed since I moved in in December. I haven't finished unpacking. I haven't paid bills in a couple of months. When I venture out of my apartment it is notable. There are still a lot of things for me to trip and fall over on the floor. And I still don't shower every day (you really need to down here, what with the sweating and all).

Yeah, sure, celebrate the little steps I suppose. But they are like throwing pebbles in the ocean. So far, I'm just not dying. Now you're going to go and make that into some big positive thing, aren't you.

Negative Space

There is a style of painting and drawing where you use the "negative space" to create a picture. Generally, the negative space is the dark spaces, the shadows, and you draw the shapes of these dark areas until ... you have a recognizable picture! When done well, it is dramatic and beautiful.

Julie has recently called me on how I note the negatives and failures in my posts but not the positives and successes, even when I mention them. I don't even see them: I am drawing and seeing my life through the negative spaces, not the areas of light. I actually have a prose piece I wrote a few years ago when I was enduring great loneliness and depression and in it I speak of myself as living under shadows and looking out onto those who live in the light. Creating a life out of negative space is very dramatic, but it's not beautiful.

I have been better at perceiving positives at other times in my life. During those same times, I was usually doing gratitude journals or going through focused visualization and affirmations before bed. Sometimes I was "faking it until I made it" — smiling when I felt like frowning and so forth. But I was doing things that directly contributed to my positive mental health, beyond therapy or medications.

This morning I spent about 20 minutes on visualizations and affirmations (and where's that damned winning lottery ticket?!) — I felt more awake and more cheerful when I rolled out of bed than I usually do. I haven't been getting much out of doing a random reading out of each of some meaningful books, so tonight I'm going to start reading the Buddhism book by Boorstein one short chapter at a time; that has made me feel good in the past and has had a positive effect on my mental state. I believe doing these activities will make me more aware of positive occurrences and successes in my life. I hope to build in a positive feedback loop. Heaven knows I've got a very effective negative loop!

So feel free to point out the positives I've missed, Julie and anyone else who wants to. As I retrain my perceptions, I can probably do with a little help. I may have forgotten what successes look like!

Not Afraid of It

I made a commitment a few months ago to blog every day about my therapy and my growth and change. I haven't managed it. I did well until my Haldol-induced Zombie-tude in June. And since then, it's been about 50-50.

Part of the problem is that I've felt dull and like I've had nothing interesting to say, or nothing to say at all. Part of the problem is that I've been so depressed or so anxious that I could barely talk. Neither of these aspects lend themselves to blogging.

Another part of it is that I have this blog, and I have my more public blog: these two have to have different faces, different subject matter. I've been writing more for the other one than I had in awhile. Sometimes I have to stop and think about which one I'm writing for. Sometimes I'll think I'm writing for this blog, but it turns out the post is better suited for the other one, and occasionally it's vice versa. Well, today I added another layer of complexity and started a professional-facing blog. That's the one I've attached my whole, real name to, my web site to, and that I'll let everyone know about. I don't think there will be a problem figuring out when I'm writing for that blog.

So what do I have to say today? I accomplished some things, then fell back into immobility? I still haven't gotten out and walked, but I've done some deep knee bends, a bit of boogying, and some kitchen-counter push-ups? My muscle tone is scarily poor, but just doing a couple of things seems to have an effect.

I'm just still having problems with these damned speed bumps!

I don't know. Maybe there is some very forceful visualization work I need to do. It's been a long time since I've done any. It couldn't hurt.

I'm in a dreadful place of anxiety right now, with Julie's "Hungry Ghosts" ringing me — I can see their teeth and hear them sing. But as Julie says: acknowledge, distract, distract, distract. I add to that sedate, sedate, sedate! But the anxiety is making paying my bills a problem because even thinking of paying my bills brings the anxiety and the HGs.

Because of the weight I put on in the past year, a lot of my clothes from the previous 2-3 years don't fit. So I bought 3 pair of shorts and a nightgown. The shorts are just a tad tight, which is okay. Not tight enough to pop buttons or be uncomfortable, but tight enough to fit me for quite a few pounds down. (Plus, they are shorter than anything I've worn in quite a while and even with that lack of muscle tone my legs still got it!) As for the nightie, well, the cut was nice and the fabric is cotton and modal. Sigh. It's pink, true, but more of a peony pink than a Barbie pink, so I'm good with it. It fits so well and it's so comfortable. So these four items were good buys for me, no matter what.

Well, there. See? Communicating. However, that's all I got right now. I've written two other posts already tonight! And I find I can write and edit a post, even one that I'm being all professional with, in 45 minutes for a post that was as high as 600 words but final count was 571. Not too bad.

Turn Off, Tune Out

Even with the new ideas I'm having here, the great work, and the epiphanies, I still ignore my life. I am still not living, I'm only taking up space and air.

Most people in my position would be finding some work, any work to help pay bills. Most people would have made the calls to find financial help.

I just watch streaming video and read blogs.

I have lived vibrantly in the past, even in my adulthood. I've even lived vibrantly in the last few years. But I've done so less and less and that disturbs me. I don't want to spend how many years I have left just taking up space, simply existing. I want to enjoy living.

Sure, right now the zest is still pretty much gone, with Mom gone and my having a distinct lack of social life. I love my online friends, but I need face time. I need to be able to hug someone, or even just touch their arm or their hand. Not being able to touch is kind of like being in prison.

I've had some times with The Man that were beautiful, truly beautiful. I've spent some time with one of my girlfriends here, just talking and talking, that was very fine. When I still lived at the beach, and was walking regularly on the beach, and was not wallowing in self-pity because I didn't have any friends at the beach or a lover, life was beautiful and joyous. (And my body was in good shape, too!)

I want ... I need ... what I don't have, and that stunts me. I feel that living is unpleasant and a chore. I'm sure as hell not having fun and haven't had much in a long time. I know — just do it and all that other stuff. It's ungodly difficult when I don't see any payoff for me in terms of what I want, what I need. I'm not such a great person that I can live to serve others. In many ways, I've been there and done that, from family to manager to lover. I keep thinking the pendulum is going to swing back my way, but family is gone, I'm desperate for an income so I don't have a lot of choice about a managerial relationship, and I don't see The Man choosing me (yet, in some ways, I honestly see us together) nor do I see me choosing another.

So far I've gotten little zings here and there, from mental breakthroughs and good therapy, but it's all popcorn stuff — it doesn't satisfy except for a few moments.

Voices talk to me in my mind — not those kind of voices! — telling me all that stuff about just do it, be satisfied with what you've got, ya gotta give before you can get,  you'll only get love/friends/whatever once you stop wanting it (and what kind of psycho came up with that one?), etc. 

In the Buddhism book I like to read, the author refers to a couple of her friends who died young of cancer. One of them wrote a letter to all his friends about how he would have wanted more, but he had never wanted other.  You know the sayings about living without regrets? My life is filled with regrets and ways I wish my life had been "other." This is nothing like the life I wanted to live, and I never imagined I would be on the far side of middle age and completely alone as regards family and geographically close friends. This is nothing like the life I always imagined, not just in little ways but in huge, powerful, reasons for living ways.

So it's not really hard to figure out why I don't look forward to tomorrow and why my depression recurs and why this time it is so damned hard to shake. I can't even call my mom to talk to her about my sadness and get her sympathy and pep-talk the way I have a thousand million times before. 

I have no one I with whom I can exchange "I love you." "I love you, too." I miss it.

Life Changer

"Depression is a lifelong, chronic condition, and it needs to be maintained like any other disease." Catherine Winters

A "lifelong, chronic condition." "Like any other disease." 

Oh my fucking god. No one has ever expressed this concept to me. All these years, depression has been something that happened to me, or that I let happen by not stopping it in time. It was something that came and went, often for no discernible reason. And I've always wondered why it keeps happening to me. Why do I keep getting depressed?

Because clinical depression is a chronic condition, like my fibromyalgia. Neither of them currently has a cure or even a known cause, just surmises and theories. But the depression, like the fibromyalgia, needs to be treated and I need to stay on top of things that may trigger an event. Looking at it this way, I can handle it. 

I know how to handle my fibro (and I haven't been doing so well, but I think the heat and sun are providing balance against the lack of exercise), and I have to take a regular med to keep it under control. I know the warning signs of a fibro event (and I am thankful that I haven't had a major one in years). If I can stay on top of the fibro, I can stay on top of the depression. (You have no idea how difficult it was to type that sentence without any modifiers such as "I think I can stay on top" or "I can probably/most likely" stay on top.)

For example, if I overexert myself, do something physical enough to cause extreme fatigue, then I will suffer from this fatigue for a few days. I know that fibro makes me become more tired faster than other people, and it takes me much longer to recover from fatigue. Strong emotional events or highly stimulating events (such as going to a crowded festival or concert) have similar effects. And if I keep going and don't attend to my health needs and the signs from the fibro, I could end up in bed for days and barely able to move for weeks.

So how does this translate to the chronic condition of depression? Well, I didn't have a lot of options this last time, what with grief and exhaustion and all that I had to do. I got hit with a sledgehammer and there was no way around it. But I'm coming out of it, here and there, so I have the opportunity and the mental and physical capacity to examine this condition and learn how to keep it under control in the present and the future.

Like with the fibro, keeping myself healthy will have the greatest benefit for my mental condition. If I eat well, I'll have all the right nutrients and chemicals roaming around in my body and brain. If I exercise regularly (take walks, do a few body strengthening exercises, do some yoga), I'll get endorphins and keep the fibro pain down — pain can trigger depression, which is why fibro and depression are such close companions. And probably one of the most important factors in controlling the depression: do what I love to do. Write. Draw. Make things. Play. Dance. Maybe the effort it takes to completely inhibit my creative aspect causes depression because it takes so damned much mental energy!

There. This whole idea is going to roll around in my mind for weeks now. Always before when I've been told ways to get out of depression, it seemed like guessing. And besides, it always came back. Well now I see it from a new perspective and suddenly everything looks different. As a visual person, I can tell you everything literally looks different. As a tactile/kinesthetic person, I can also assure it that it all feels different, too, as if the texture of everything around me — even the air — has changed.

I'll probably go on about this in the near future. A lot. So you've been duly warned. Now I need to go watch the marbles roll around inside my skull.

Homework

I finished my homework for tomorrow: four hand-written pages of memories from last summer. I hand write it to make it more personal and immediate. For some reason, while I can write faster using a keyboard, I feel a distance between me and what I write. I am also more prone to edit as I write when I'm on a keyboard. I'll have to address this when I begin writing my own stuff again; I don't want to be distant from that.

In case you're wondering, I wrote about the end of Mom's radiation through her first fall --- a total of 2-3 weeks. I am constantly surprised at the amount of information I can bring up when I am writing about it. There is a lot of worry and fear in this part of the story. We were both still hopeful and optimistic at this point.

There is less than four weeks from the end of this week's homework until Mom died. I want to make that homework end the Sunday before an appointment, not on a week I don't have an appointment. It's going to be hard.

I've been thinking about the anniversary of Mom's death. I don't want to just hang out alone in my apartment here. I think that would be very bad. A friend suggested I do a peaceful ritual, which sounds nice. But I think I also need some people for the rest of the time around it, to help me not completely drown in grief. I'm just not sure what. I used to be a very decisive person.

So accomplishments today. Not too bad. And leaves me in an emotionally vulnerable place, just right for therapy tomorrow. Sigh. Yippee.

The Depression, She Returns

I guess it was the quietude before the sinkhole. I know recovery is not linear — I've said it often enough to myself, my therapist, on this blog. But it's still a shock when it happens. Even though I met a person in business who could be a great help to me, and who I could be a great help to, I feel overwhelmed and sad and in a hole. My laughter has disappeared again, and my smiles are small and variable. It's depression and it sucks.

Hell, even with an amazing thunderstorm, I didn't get too excited.

The sleepiness came upon me (I should have had more to eat for lunch, but I thought I'd be going out again) and I gave in, set the alarm for 45 minutes (I really need to set a more boisterous alarm), and woke about an hour and a half later when the phone rang. It was The Man and we had a decent time of talking, both of us sleepy. He can't go to the Dog Show with me because he has worked too hard again and had too little sleep this week, so he'll be welcoming his son home and sleeping. After having him for long lunches both days last weekend, I know better than to expect him again this weekend, but still it makes me a little sad. After we talked I lay back on the couch to just relax a bit before getting up, then spent the next four hours drowsing off and on ... until 9 pm. That's extreme even for me. I had dreams, but I don't remember them.

I still believe I will end up together with The Man. It doesn't feel like a desperate wish, just a calm sureness. I generally know when I'm fooling myself; if I am in this instance then I've become much, much better at it!

And now it's another weekend, which will be quiet and solitary. I should walk; my legs hurt from inaction and I'm doing myself damage by being so immobile. I should work on the house — I have some energy right now. The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak. Not quite the usual thing.

A good weekend to start a little yoga, a little meditation (probably walking for me, otherwise I tend to drift off). And there's nothing wrong with doing some work on my professional presence on the weekend; it's not like I've been doing any during the week.

If the depression lifts. It's a heavy thing and sometimes holds me down like a large boulder that has smashed me flat on the ground. And I've no one to help roll it off of me.

When the depression hits, so does my loneliness, my sadness, and I suppose my self-pity. Poor, poor me. Such a sad sack with such an awful life. Sniff, sniff.

So finally another post. And it's pathetic.

Among the Stars, Floating Freely

I've had difficulties coming up with something to write about. Part of it is that I haven't done anything dramatic in therapy lately and part of it is that I'm not feeling anything intense right now. 

I have to remind myself that this blog is not about entertaining anyone, not even myself. It's a journal of my journey through therapy and mental health. Quiet times are part of that journey — I don't think I could manage if my life were all sturm und drang.

Right now as I sit on the couch in the near dark, I feel like I'm floating almost weightless, wheeling in black space surrounded by stars in all directions, near and far. This floating is different from the floating of "broken thinking"; I am connected and centered. I guess this feeling is one of calmness, quietude, and restfulness, like the calm within the eye of a storm, or the quiet when all the neighbors are asleep and the traffic has died away.

My life contains so many difficult challenges right now, on all fronts, that I'm enjoying this hiatus, now that I've realized it's nothing pathological. I think that's one of the problems of being in therapy a lot: soon every mental state seems like a pathology. It's like when I first paid attention to "what cancerous moles and lesions look like" and I realized that most of my moles and freckles etc. have all the characteristics of "bad" ones! Yes, I am a touch hypochondriacal. Does the psychiatric community still use the word "neurotic"?

I'm going to enjoy the quiet as long as it lasts and take this time to focus on finding work and doing my damned therapy homework. More than likely, this next set of homework will take a chunk out of my quietude.

You Are What You ...

Eat. Watch. Read. Listen to. 

Everything that you are exposed to has an effect. For example, people who watch, listen to, or read the news regularly tend to have a more negative view of the world and feel that crime has increased over time, because that is what they are exposed to.

I'm a highly sensitive person. Add to that extreme introversion and PTSD and you'll find that my nerves are all right there at the surface. Some of them may even extend past my skin. 

I learned over a decade ago that I have to pay attention to what I let in. Very dark books, tv shows, and movies are hard on me. I take them inside me and the darkness tends to stick. I remember the most horrific things from such stories and they pop up years later. Given my obsessive thinking, it can take days to get the thoughts to go away. 

When it comes to the news, I keep in mind the way it can bend your perceptions, so I mostly scroll over the headlines online.

Although I learned my lesson over a decade ago, I have to keep relearning it and re-remembering it, as I do with everything. I have remembered to not read books about serial killers that won't die, but I keep forgetting about TV shows. I watch CSI and CSI NY (I think CSI NY is less dark than the original). But the worst is that I've been watching Criminal Minds. That's all about mass murderers, serial killers, and bombers! It's one of the worst things I can do to myself. It's like an addiction. When the next season comes around, I'm going to remind myself to Watch Something Else. 

Now, I cannot watch movies about psychopaths, because they are monsters that exist and I'll have nightmares and my anxieties will increase. But I can watch movies about non-human monsters, such as giant sharks and behemoths that come out of mountains. And I can watch natural disaster movies — the worse the disaster the better. Maybe these are cathartic for my anxiety, my PTSD. Certainly they stimulate me and make me breath faster, make my heart race. Perhaps they are helpful in balancing out how withdrawn I can become due to the hypersensitivity and the introversion.

Some of my friends are very thoughtful and mindful of my sensitivities and will caution me about various movies or books, even going so far as to say "don't watch that, ever" or "don't read that, ever." I love that they care and that they know me well enough to be able to tell me this. Their doing so makes me feel loved.

Lately I've been bingeing on monster movies, now that I have Netflix Streaming Video. It coincides with a lightening of my mood. I cannot even apply a correlation because I have nothing to base it on; there are other things that do have some correlation. However, the movies don't seem to have a negative effect on me, so I think I'll continue. Anything to feel better, right now. Anything to feel better.

This time I'll remember what is good for me to watch, read, or listen to. This time I'll remember what is bad. This time I won't listen to the little voice that says "it won't hurt you, you enjoy this." I'm sure many people have heard that voice and knew it meant the exact opposite of what it says. This time I'll remember to sick my big, protective voice on the evilly seductive voice. Who do you think will win?

This time I'll remember to take good care of myself. Forever.

The Cure

If you could be completely "cured" of your oddities — your moods, your tics, your dysfunctions — would you?

In the past, I have fought against reining in my moods because I didn't "want to lose my creativity or lose my real self." I was in my early 20s then and felt that having large mood swings were integral to who I was and that losing them would make me dull and boring. I fought my therapist on this point and, after a particularly bad phase agreed to consciously control my mood swings. Guess what? They weren't integral to my personality and losing the extremes didn't make me dull or boring. 

I fought going on medication for my depression, because I didn't want drugs and I was afraid they would tamp down my personality, make me dull. Neither happened in that case, either. It took years, but I finally accepted that I would need to be on some medication for my whole life. I became okay with that.

I have not come to terms with the amount and levels of medications I am currently on. I have good reason to be against this on a long-term basis because last year at this time I was on just two of these meds, and at significantly lower dosages. It's my belief, thought, and opinion that once I've healed to some specific extent, or once I've dealt with enough trauma through therapy, or once a fairy drops enough pixie dust in my hair, I will be able to drop back to last year's medication regimen! 

Last year, I felt good. I felt right. I've always had and always will have mood cycles — we all do, but most people's don't affect how well they function — but they were controlled both by the medication and by me. My anxieties — free-floating, social, PTSD-related — were controlled, probably almost all by the medication. Or else, enough was controlled by the medication that the rest of any anxieties became insignificant, maybe weren't even there because the big stuff was fine. But I felt Just Right. The way I would feel if I hadn't had to struggle with this mental and emotional crap.

I'd love to be cured of needing medications. I'd love to be fully functional for the rest of my life without wondering if and when another bomb will drop me into the Abyss again. But would it be good for me to be entirely free of them? And would being free of my "cycling mood disorder of unknown origin" and my PTSD and other anxieties also "free" me of my idiosyncrasies and quirks? I know that I've always been afraid of losing myself and all my quirky bits. So afraid that a "cure" will cure me right into being just like "the norm" rather than the endearing little statistical outlier I have always been.

I've learned self-discipline (which I always seem to forget about) when I began to control my mood swings. I learned self-awareness by becoming aware when my moods were becoming negative; I could use the discipline and skills to dampen the intensity. Maybe I would have learned them some other way, but maybe I wouldn't.

However, there is no reason to stay handicapped if you don't have to be. My mental and emotional turmoil have handicapped me for months, keeping me from being able to even look for work, thus taking me to the very brink of absolute poverty (I'm not kidding here — I need money NOW). I would agree to be cured of my mood disorder and my anxieties, but not my personality or my way of looking at things from my own special perspective or even those times when I think I'm being perfectly normal and everyone else is looking at me like "and how long have you been visiting our planet?"

I'm pretty sure that no one knows where mood disorder stops and personality quirk begins. Maybe it's all just about how well you function.

Karen the Wonder Therapist wants me to not define myself as "mentally ill" or by my mental and emotional problems. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't; it depends on how they are affecting my life. I have felt terribly ill since my mom died and have been barely functional for most of the time since then. Insurance isn't paying for my therapy — they obviously have decided I'm not sick — but I'm not exactly well.

I'm just me, swimming around in the Sea of Life, looking for hospitable land and trying to not drown in the meantime. I really could use a life preserver about now.

Maybe I'm Resting ...

As Julie suggested in yesterday's comments, maybe this muted feeling I'm experiencing is my psyche's resting phase. If so, I'm still in it. I'm moving slowly and not doing much (did 2 loads of laundry and a bit of a project and a short walk, however). 

But I've had to up the anti-anxiety meds today. I took a whole pill this morning (well, in 2 halves because I thought a half would handle my anxiety) and a half a pill this afternoon. It's not quite time for my evening one, but it will have to be an entire pill. While part of my psyche may be resting, the other part is almost paralyzed with panic. It is, of course, mostly about money.

I haven't paid my bills. I haven't paid the Estate bills. I haven't looked at my bank balance. I haven't contacted an agency about helping me pay my health insurance. I haven't contacted anyone about bankruptcy (because I overslept by several hours last Saturday and the next open lawyer day is probably not until next month). And I am thinking about looking into food stamps, although I haven't done that yet, either.

There is a pressure inside me, so strong that I feel as if I am about to blow into bits. I want to wrap my arms around myself to hold myself together. Having someone else's arms wrapped around me would be better — isn't being alone so fun? I find that being alone exacerbates my anxiety and panic, whereas having someone who will hold me, or just touch me and who I know will watch out for me and keep me safe relieves those feelings. Yes, I know. I'm supposed to handle it all myself, whether that's because it's the lesson the fucking Universe wants me to learn or it's something I have no control over that I have to accept or it's just what grown-ups do — I don't care.

I'm not communicating with others much right now, which may seem counterintuitive. But this muted phase, which may be partly a resting phase, is also one where I have to keep everything in complete lockdown to keep myself from having one mother of a panic attack and become even less functional than I already am. When I'm locked down this tightly and holding myself so strongly, I can't say anything meaningful to other people, whether it's in person, over email, or in a blog. I can't risk losing control in this particularly situation. Yes, losing control — or letting go of control or the illusion of control — is a good thing in some situations. If I did that now, you'd all hear the screaming. Control is a good thing right now. And I just don't tell people what I'm experiencing, because what could they do? They'd feel uncomfortable. They'd feel powerless and uncomfortable. It would be awkward.

I'm vibrating with these feelings, with the feeling that something is trying to get out, and I continually need to take deep slow breaths to ratchet the intensity back down a notch or two.

I wish I ran. If I ran, or if I had a bicycle and could ride it for a long ways, I would go and go until I was so exhausted I'd have to stop and recover before returning. I feel as if they would quiet what's inside of me; too bad I don't do either. When I was in my 20s, that's what I did. Or sometimes I would walk and walk, and sometimes end up places I would normally not go, such as fifteen feet off the ground. Then I'd have to wait until I accepted that the only way to get down was to do it myself. I don't miss doing that.

This was part two of the Muted/Resting aria. If I don't write anything tomorrow, just say to yourself "ditto."

Muted

Lately I have felt like someone turned my volume down. My voice (already soft), my interest in beginning or maintaining conversations and my attention to anything — it is all muted. Nothing feels urgent or important. I use fewer words when I do have to communicate. My best friend called me on it, but what could I say? Not much. No interest in analyzing it — I'm tired of self-analysis, of analyzing anything. I'm tired of myself and my life, and I don't know what to do. Right now, I don't feel like doing anything.

Other than my soft voice, I usually tend to live unmuted. I'm in bright, living color. When I am well and fully myself, I am vivid and saturated and vibrant. And I feel odd just writing this, because I don't feel any of those things. Even my usually strong feelings seem to be set on "low."

Intellectually, I see a need to unmute, to be all those other things again. Maybe to analyze, maybe not. But right now it doesn't seem important.

Well, this post isn't keeping even my attention. But it seemed worthwhile to post something; I didn't post anything yesterday and I would rather stay closer to every day than further away; I don't want to make extra work for myself.

What Do You Think You Feel?

Most people consider thinking and feeling to be two separate things: you think thoughts or you feel emotions. Not me. I tend to mix them up a bit.

If I feel something, I have to analyze it. "I feel sad" — am I sure I feel sad, that it's not depression or a headache; why do I feel sad; what else am I feeling; is this a true feeling or a habitual one. If I can over-think it, I will. I was surprised when a previous therapist informed me that not everyone thinks about their feelings.

Then there are my thoughts. Often, if I have a thought that isn't one of my every-day thoughts (need milk; remember to take clothes from dryer; where is my turquoise ring), then I ask myself how I feel about that thought. "I wonder if I should move?" — do you feel lonely; why would you want to move, I thought you were happy here; it's scary to move; you'll be sad if you move.

Today in therapy, I read my therapy homework that I had managed to pull together this morning. Afterward, my therapist suggested I get back into the routine of writing my homework as a narrative. Doing so will incorporate the emotional aspects better. The last two times I've done this homework, I've presented it as bullet points of events. They've been quite unemotional. If I keep doing my trauma work that way, it won't provide me with any benefits. I don't know if I've been doing the homework like that because it's quick and easy or if I recognized the lack of emotional content in doing it that way and so went with the lesser emotional content path. Because, doing with full emotional content hurts like hell.

One of the problems with therapy, especially therapy that goes for years, is that nothing seems simple. Every thought, feeling, and action has layers and layers of meaning. A banana is not just  banana. I'm not sure if I was naturally this self-analytical before I started therapy or if therapy created it in me. Or if I had a tendency toward it (I think I've always thought about my feelings and felt about my thoughts to some extent) and therapy merely enhanced that in me. See? Always questions, seldom answers.

I would like things in my life to be simpler. I'd like to feel an emotion and simply feel it. No questions, no analysis. I'd like to think a thought and if I don't accept the thought as is, then the only thing I want to do to it is think other thoughts about it. No more screaming meemies or greyhounds on hamster wheels or anything else that keeps my mind going and going and keeping me awake or keeping me from simply thinking or feeling or doing in relative silence.

I'd like my mind to simply shut the fuck up already.

Like a Rerun

I didn't do my home work. Again. Because suddenly it's after 9 pm on a Sunday and that's way too late to do something as potentially emotional as my therapy home work.

And, that's just it, just like every other week in recent memory. So much for my being so motivated to get through this therapy, right?

Motionless

Our bodies are made for movement. To whatever extent a body can move, it needs to move. Recent articles tell how all kinds of non-good and even bad things happen to and within your body when you don't move it.

I have barely moved in 10 months. My muscles are shortened and tight. My body hurts, yet walking causes pain as well. While I fear what I am doing to my body, my inner paralyzation controls me more than that fear. As my therapist says, what you do depends on which fear is strongest.

My life has been motionless as well. I haven't looked for work (and even if I'd had an interview, I don't think I'd have managed it well, given how messed up I've been). I haven't pursued help for financial problems. I've been a little mouse in a little hole who fears a cat is waiting right outside the hole.

This is not how I want to be! I used to climb trees and ride my bike. I also used to lie on my bed and read for hours. When we had a swimming pool, I could swim laps for hours, enjoying the feel of the water and the movement of my body. (And one time, when no one was around, I swam naked, which is the most blissful feeling in the world.) I used to dance in my house in the evening with my stereo turned up and the only light the flickering of candles.

Of course, I felt safer then. When I was a child, I didn't have to worry because my parents took care of us. After Dad died, I felt the beginnings of the instability of life. Later, I usually had enough money to get by. Even when I had no health insurance, I was healthy and young and didn't need it. I had work, I had enough friends, I had comfortable homes, even if I did move rather a lot at first. For all the problems I had and the traumas and griefs I endured, I still felt a measure of safety that allowed me to move.

Then, in my mid-30s, I had my first immobilizing depression and anxiety. I eventually overcame them, or they went away, and I recovered. I had a few other times that weren't quite as bad, but still I moved less than before. But none of those times of immobility were as long as this one, or as completely paralyzing as this time. Even at the worst of those times, I would get up and move — dance just a little, go into the garden and pick something to eat, walk around the block or on the beach.

I'm old enough that everything I do physically is more significant for my future than anything I've done until now. If I want to be physically fit and in good condition so I'm self-mobile and can take care of myself for a long, long time, I need to move now. I need to exercise now — not the run-a-marathon type or the body-builder type or the gym-rat type. However, I need to be able to walk long distances, briskly, while holding a conversation. I need to be flexible and strong (yoga, pilates perhaps). I need upper body strength as well as lower-body and, most of all, I need to enjoy moving my body, and to move my body because I enjoy it.

Maybe part of my immobility comes down to enjoyment: I don't do what I enjoy. My mind is a strange and sometimes unfathomable place, even to me — it wouldn't be impossible that I am punishing myself for some perceived fault. Fear or punishment, does it matter? I hold myself motionless, strapped down with invisible bonds — and not in the good way. I've emptied my life of so much I enjoy, other than the hurtful binges of fat and sugar that only mimic pleasure, that I'm empty of almost everything but fear and pain and grief and longing ... and the memory of everything good.

Years ago, when I owned my first home, I bought an orchard ladder: a very, very tall three-legged ladder made for people picking fruit from tall trees. I've had a fear of heights since I was a child, but it was my house, and my fruit. As I told my friends and myself, "I will not live my life controlled by my fears." For some time, I lived by that credo. Even a few years ago, when I made a major, unbelievable change in my life, I chose to do so in spite of my fears.

The incalculable grief and loss of the last year, all the changes in my life that I had absolutely no control of, the feeling of falling from a high cliff toward rocks many miles below — through them I forgot how brave I am. I forgot my credo from many years ago. I forgot me.

I'm still walking a tightrope with no net below me and each day is scarier than the last, with my continued unemployment and my dwindling resources and my beloved safety net gone forever.  But I can do it. I can do this. I have endured and overcome so many, many things in my life and I have come up from the Abyss again and again to smile, love, and enjoy my life. I need to remember: it never wins.

Remembering this, I must get up again and smile and love and live. Because pain sucks and just existing sucks and if I run out of money and have to go live in someone's basement it will suck, too.

Smiling and loving and living won't hurt me any worse than I hurt now. At least they will make room in the fear and pain I've surrounded myself with so I can move. And the next time that I get knocked down, get my feet wet in the Abyss — because it will happen again and again in my life — the voice inside me will remind me that it never wins and I'll get up and walk and dance my way out of that damned Abyss, out of the paralysis of fear and I will win, because I have done so before. If I can do it as many times as I have, there is every reason I can do it again.

So move.