Deep thoughts #1

Sometimes all that is needed to raise my self-confidence on a dreadful day or a lousy week is for one really noticeable or significant item to go just right so I can say "Yay me!"

Today, that one was making the reservation for a room for tomorrow night. It's a bit more room than completely necessary, but I am a woman of taste and grace and a small sitting area for myself and guests is a small necessity.

So, YAY ME!

Floating lightly, as if smoke on air, and peeing

Between feeling like a cat — just a breath away from a nap — and feeling as if I have no responsibilities when I'm here (which isn't exactly correct), I've been drifting from one thought to the next, none of those thoughts being particularly deep. That's fine, but half of my two-week vacation is gone and I haven't accomplished what I planned to do: go through the storage unit to sort more of my things out and to find things to send home. I do have a couple of hours here and there I could devote to it, but so far most of my hours are completely filled. It's totally weird. And I still haven't set a time for dinner with the neighbors.

My two deep thoughts are about my health. First: why am I so bloody tired? Needing to take one or more naps a day is not normal for me, and my first (always my first) thought is that I have cancer or some other wasting disease. Because dying now would simply round out the story of my life: 1, 2, 3, 4 — Dad, Jim, Mom, me. Hypochondriac? Maybe, but more likely it is just another part of hypervigilance and always expecting the worst so I'm prepared for it. And yet, as with Mom and last summer, I'm only prepared for the worst in respect to myself. I mean, I've been grieving since September 12th; I've only been sleeping all the time for the past two months or so. The napping and the grieving don't match up.

The other health concern is about my urine. If you have a problem with bodily TMI, better skip out now. Are they gone? Okay, now it's just us. The problem with my urine is that it's gone completely clear and it smells a bit odd. No pains in my kidneys, but this seems like something wrong. Is it my medication? Am I dying? Is it something else? I've called and left messages with my psychiatrist and my physical doctor (because the psych wasn't calling back). I left info about symptoms. That was earlier in the afternoon for them. It is now mid-evening back there ... I doubt they are calling me back today. Does this mean the symptoms are nothing to worry about or that no one has actually looked at or listened to their messages? A call back would have been nice. Kind of like a signal on one of the SETI radio telescopes. "Yes, we heard you. You are not alone."

Napping and peeing: important issues at the beginning of life and often at the end. Let's just hope it's also a problem in the middle of mine. Not like I'm paranoid.

Tidal effects, perhaps

I had thought that, being away from my every day for two weeks, I would be able to write. Write the blogs, write my therapy homework ....

I was mistaken. Instead, I have had friends stay overnight, which has been great. I've had a few just-for-an-hour visitors. When I've had no visitors, I've slept. And slept. And slept. One day, I got up at 1pm (bedtime by about 10), ate, went back to sleep at 2, up at 4, drifted off for most of the next 5 hours, up at 9, in bed by 11:30. Slept great. If nothing is demanding my attention, and sometimes even it if is, I want a nap and I want it NOW. I'm taking a drive inland a bit in a couple of days and I'm going to have to buy some energy drinks just to make the trip both ways!

Even being physically uncomfortable doesn't keep me awake: it makes me want to sleep. I am sometimes peaceful and comfortable and sometimes quite twitchy and uncomfortable. But I always want to sleep.

Maybe I need to sleep a lot to make up for all that grieving. I don't know. I guess I'll just ask my therapist.

Hey! It's 9 o'clock! It's almost bedtime again! Yay!

Dream a little dream

I did not accomplish all that I planned, but I accomplished much of what I wanted today. Tomorrow I must be very focused and energetic to finish it all. But I have the time, before I go to bad, exhausted and surrendering in the struggle against the mosquito bites: I've put stuff on them (Campho Phenique), I've put bandages over that. Some I haven't managed to bandage (try putting bandages on YOUR scapulas!). I'm just giving in and feeling itchy. Because some things still itch, I'm not sure if the other stuff itches less, or even not at all. You know how that happens? The sensation simply swamps your receptors and there's no way to differentiate incoming signals.

Which, unexpectedly, leads me more or less to tonight's topic: dreams and PTSD.

When I dream, my PTSD hallucinations are real. So the bug-shapes I see out of the corner of my eye in real life are large black bugs that jump at me or pursue me or go where I cannot see them in my dreams. The pet-sized shadows I see are actual dogs and cats and who knows what in my dreams. And sometimes there are people, too. As you can see, my PTSD shapes are generally not beneficial in my dreams.

Except this morning. In my dream, I was getting into my car and struggling through black webs and spiders and tree roaches and just webby kinds of barriers. When I got into the driver's seat I jumped and brought my foot up to see what was on it and it was a skinny black lizard. It wasn't scary and I wanted to catch it, or at least leave it in the car to eat the pests.

So, Julie, Dream Interpreter Extraordinaire, tell me what the heck this means?

(Does this sooth your OCD cravings for my blog posts?)

A pass

I'm getting myself ready for my trip in a couple of days. As such, I'm giving myself a "Get Out Of Blogging Free" Pass for these next three nights.

If I finish my tasks each day early, then I will blog about something.

But given my anxiety issues, I think it's best for me to give myself a worry-free pass on having to blog. Just for a few days.

Then I'll be back and writing about Angst on the Oregon Coast.

Can't post tonight

Tired. Feeling kind of weak and ill. No mental abilities to speak of.

I'll be back tomorrow with something fabulous, I'm sure.

A late childhood

Several people have written how it's never to late to have a good childhood. In some ways they are correct (given you have the option). And who better than you to give it to yourself? Who knows what you really want, once we realize that Santa doesn't?

Oh, sure, my folks often got it right because my brother and I were verbose in our desires, and our desires were fairly simple. We both got our 10-speed bikes. I got books. He got cars. Now, I also got Barbie, who I hated with a passion. And the year i asked for a stereo, my brother got the stereo and I got a small TV, which I had no use for, not being at all interested in watching TV in my room (it ended up in our camper for camping trips).

My childhood was fairly decent, except for the fear of being with my cousin, the fear of all the me-improvements my aunts would initiate every time we had a family get together, the fear of a variety of school bullies who recognized the victimized part of me ... a little too much fear for a truly good childhood. Unfortunately, I'm still experiencing rather a lot of fear for a truly good adulthood.

But maybe giving myself a new childhood, free of fear, will alleviate at least some of the adult fears. Thus, I think it's time for a plan. Okay, maybe making a plan for a second childhood is rather antithetical and a little ridiculous. How about an un-plan, which sounds a bit Peter Pan-ish?

For example, clean up my rooms. If they are clean, I'll have room to play with my toys. Note: get some toys. I'll have room to dance around and be a goof.

Also, go outside, even if it's just a short walk. Or go sit on the dock nearby and draw.

Write stories that are goofy and have no plot.

At first, I might actually need to remind myself to play and have fun. I might have to schedule it. I hope that the simple pleasures and joys will take on a life of their own and I won't need to remind myself.

In the past, I have been silly and goofy, even as an adult. I have a whimsical nature, when it isn't in hiding due to the simple fear of going stone-broke. I've even been given the best of all compliments by a pair of 9-year-old cousins, when I was about 30. 

I'd been playing outside with one or both all afternoon until they'd worn me out. So I told them I was done for now and was going inside. They wanted to know why. I told them I was tired and besides, I wanted to hang out with the adults. They couldn't fathom why I'd want to do that, so I explained that I was an adult. At which they went into giggles and said "No you're not!" Best. Compliment. Evah.

I need to spend time with kids again; they are my preferred peer group and we get each other. It's also a good way to remind myself to be like a child. In the good ways, like finding awe in simple things and laughing just because life is funny, not in the bad way like stomping my feet and crying because I can't have my way. Of course, those behaviors have something to recommend them, too.

So here's to toy dinosaurs and LEGO castles and Star Wars figurines, to play-doh and water colors and coloring books. To staring up at the stars and down at the dirt. To painting my nails all different colors because I can and to then giggling at them because they are funny.

It might be time to pick up a DVD of old Bugs Bunny cartoons, too!

Night-night

My tummy hurts

(Blogger was down. So was I. This was last night's post.)

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I've eaten four of my five last dinner's at Chik fil A, which is one of the better fast food places. And nothing to do with the fact that, because I have no gall bladder, my system cannot break down fats very well.

Not at all.

I think I'll curl up with one of my fleece blankies, clean from the washer and dryer. And no, I do not suck my thumb. Anymore.

Meet my friend and companion: Fear

Fear and I have known each other for a very long time, longer than I've known anyone still living. (If I've known someone only sporadically, then I've known them for less time, you see.) In fact, it was my evil cousin who introduced me to Fear. From then on, Fear has never left my side. Few other's have been so constant.

What has Fear given me? 

Distance from others — no sense in letting anyone close, they will only hurt you, as has happened very time I turned away from Fear's advice.

Detachment from my feelings — if you cannot feel, you cannot be hurt, except with those pesky sticks and stones. It's also good to detach from my compassion because what good does it do me to care about others when I cannot help them and they will turn on me as soon as they no longer need me.

A philosophy of life — all things can hurt me, and the Universe hates me quite specifically. Fear left me no room to question how the Universe would target me and why it would hate me. In turn, I was given the gift of the fear of the dark, being alone, other people, knives, tools, and heights. Fear set no limits, leading to my fears of dolls, frightening books that seemed to call to me after I read them, furniture, cats, dogs, commitment, in fact everything on the planet except trees, my bed, and non-terrifying books. Only those were my haven. You could usually find me in a tree or on my bed with a book.

Yet, even with these gifts, I managed to get hurt, often. Betrayed, abandoned. Even beat up occasionally (always boys started these fights — I don't know why). Fear told me it was my fault for not following its instructions to the letter. And Fear caused me to cling desperately to whatever single person didn't hurt me. Very few people can cope with that: my dad, my little brother, and my friend Leah, when I was a child. My friend Steve since college, because he has fears and clings too. We are a pair.

As I've grown older, I've learned that Fear wasn't such a caring companion after all.  I've even escaped this "friend" from time to time and doing so was heady and felt brilliant, all light and power and freedom.

Fear bided it's time, knowing there would be a place where it could come back into my life. And there was. Moving in with Thom, I grew to fear all my insecurities and flaws, for he felt no compunction about telling me about them.

Fear and I parted company and became distance acquaintances when i left Thom and bought my own home. I even freed myself from much of my fear of the dark (but not all of it), and of being alone (with a cat).

But things happen and confidence and freedom are fragile things in the face of Fear. After all that has happened lately, I am now Fear's favorite again, but I now know its other names: PTSD, free-floating anxiety, and learned fear. As I work on pulling the dark, sticky tentacles of Fear from my mind, it clings tighter, making my fears more vivid and powerful. However, I have help, and I have friends who know all this about me and more, and they haven't turned away from the darkness inside me. Some admit to struggling with Fear themselves; Fear, that slut.

Fear is still controlling me, keeping me inside, keeping me immobile. But it cannot keep me from my therapy and psychiatry appointments. And it cannot keep me off the internet. I am struggling with my fear of scarcity, of not having what I need, and for very good reasons. But fearing them only brings them closer.

Over at JulieLand, Julie pulled a tarot card about fear just last night.

"The keynote here is: what you resist will persist.  What you fear most is what you will become.

"Hear is the lesson:...stop talking about horrible things happening and get rid of ‘what if’ in your vocabulary.  This card may signal a time of worry about the future or of trying to exercise your control over that which is not yet in form – the future.  ...changing [the] shape [of fear] into the things that you need, not those that you fear."

With the help of my therapist, my psychiatrist, my medications (of which I have so many), and my many, many friends, I will beat this addiction to my companion, this narcissist Fear. And then I will see the love, self-power, and confidence are the strongest things in the world, stronger even that my old friend, Fear. I will not be the Rabbit, which fears everything. I will be the raptor that sees for miles and miles, whose fears are few and tangible. I will be the cougar, Empress of the mountains. I will be me, plunging head first into my very own life. I bet the water is just cold and crisp and deep enough to clear the last vestiges of Fear from my fine and brilliant mind.

By my fingertips

London Mabel made an interesting metaphor in her comment on yesterday's post:

You're the intrepid explorer, reporting back saying: "Yep, guys. There really truly is jack ---- up here. And now I'm lonely as hell. Why did I get sent on this mission??" And we're all. "Thanks Chameleon! You are SO brave! You have confirmed this theory that we have long suspected! We must depend on ourselves." And then only one person remembers to send you an e-card for Explorer's Day, because we're very selfish. And you're all: "Being an Intrepid Explored SUCKS."

Not only does it suck, but I am hanging on by my fingertips. Only two other times have my mental health issues been this bad: in my 30s, when I ended up taking health leave for mental health reasons TWICE in the same year, and in my 20s, after my little brother killed himself; that time I felt quite suicidal myself. At least this one has the upside of my not feeling suicidal at all. Unfortunately, while I would not step out in front of a speeding truck, I might not move too quickly to get out of the way if one came speeding toward me.

Not a worry though: I can barely make a move out of the apartment even to take care of myself. I have very few food items in the house. My mail keeps stacking up and the mail carrier then keeps it at the post office so I have to come get it or lose it. (Well, my little bitty mailbox gets overly full.) My legs are going to atrophy off. Okay. I can't detail any more of the very real issues, in a funny manner or not. My anxiety just popped the top of my head off.

New med: Haldol. Among the things it can do is make you sleepy (I took a 4-hour nap today) and photosensitive (I am a fair-skinned person living in the South). Yippee.

Therapy knocked me down and made me cry

Yeah, that therapy is a big ol' bully. Makes me cry. Makes me look at things that hurt me. Knocks me clear on my butt and leaves me sore and tired all the rest of the day. Sheesh.  Therapy is a mean muthuh.

What made me cry? Well, we talked about Mother's Day. I didn't get teary or even emotional yesterday. But I cried on Saturday because someone told me she was aware that this, my first one without Mom, would be extra hard and that she was thinking of me. No one else said anything to me, until they read the blog. Not my oldest friends. Not my mom's friends; not even her best friend who was supposed to adopt me. I felt ignored and that the people who say they care simply didn't think about me or felt it wasn't important. I felt even more alone and isolated than ever.

So when Karen-the-therapist and I began talking about it, I began crying. The more we talked about it and how I felt and why, the harder I cried. I even became inarticulate from time to time, I was crying so hard. It just wouldn't stop, all my feelings of loneliness and missing Mom and feeling that my friends don't think of me (whether they do or not, this is how I feel) came flooding out. 

I was a mess.

I read something in a blog comment today that really bothered me. Someone had written in about how isolated and hurting she felt, and how hard it was to see how well the blog author was doing after a year and the woman who wrote in felt she'd made no progress. 

One of the commenters was trying to be helpful and going on about how the only person you can count on is you, that only you can do this stuff, and you always have to do it alone. Except, I don't think the commenter is all alone. I think she has family. When you have backup, even if you are doing things yourself, you are not in isolation. It bothered me because I truly am doing things all alone and I'm not doing so well or quickly. It's harder than the commenter made it out to be. But I didn't want to be mean on the blog, even though I didn't think it was good advice to the woman who had written in.

So many of my buttons were pushed in therapy: loneliness, abandonment, fear of total isolation and friendlessness, anger that someone has diminished my experience. And therapy caused me to live through and describe each one, which hurt like hell.

That's how therapy beat me up, knocked me down, and made me cry.

Stole my lunch money too, but you have to pay for the privilege.

Losing it

The cruelest thing about mental illness is the loss of one's true self. Trauma such as sexual abuse can have the same effect: you mask or hide your true self for survival.

At one time, long, long ago, I was a cheerful, outgoing, talkative little girl. I was bright enough that the school considered bumping me over 3rd grade. I wish they had: I had social issues even among my own grade-mates. Jumping a year wouldn't have hurt me that way at all. And I was so all-consumingly bored by everything but math — and that just stomped me into the ground.  So all that boredom squashed me a bit. Don't stand out. Eventually I took only the classes I knew I could get As in so as to please my parents.

But the effects of the abuse hit me at puberty and I became shy and awkward and tended to slouch and mumble by about the age of 10 or 11. My parents couldn't even get me to take the check up to the restaurant cashier and pay it; I wouldn't go without my brother. Thus began my social phobia and ended my fearlessness.

I wasn't supposed to use the words or the knowledge that I had from reading or my gifted class — that was showing off and unacceptable. (My parents probably didn't understand everything I said by the time I was 12.) But my brother could show off any physical prowess he had. That was okay.

I wasn't supposed to correct adults, even if the teacher was teaching something wrong or an adult went back on what they said. Squash. I lost my vocabulary. I lost a lot of my brightness; I became dull.

At least I kept my room clean and tidy. Very. I liked clean and tidy and organized, even when I became a teen. No tossing clothes around and being a general slob.

I was a bit untidy in my mid-20s, when i shared a house with two guy friends. I was so miserable, still borderline suicidal (still considered it an option if I couldn't handle things), no boyfriend so I felt ugly and unloved. I began keeping my clothing in a nest around me in my bed — a queen mattress on the floor. I liked my weird-shaped room in the attic but I froze in the winter. That might have sparked the nesting.

When my best friend Steve and I shared an apartment together, I kept my space and the house clean and tidy in partnership with Steve. He, too, has always been neat and tidy, so it was easy to be that way. And I was that way with Marlys when I roomed with her. I wasn't too untidy when I moved in with Thom, but he kept all his computer stuff in a mess, so it began.

When I moved into my own house in my early 30s, at first I was very tidy. That's what I like. I loved sweeping the old oak floors. I loved that house. But then I hit a major depression, so bad that I even took two leaves of absence from work for mental health reasons. My house became the Pit of Chaos. My Mom and her second husband came and helped me clean up once. I tried, but was only able to keep parts of my home clean. Never the kitchen. I stopped cooking much at all. This continued to the coast and was the worst ever in my little apartment at the end of my life on the coast; I never even unpacked for the year I lived there. I felt lost and hopeless and terrified, with a wide-open future in front of me. Being alone in my apartment where I live now, I achieved only moderate tidiness, but it was better than nothing. I was still over-stressed. I had lost the tidy, organized, happy me.

When I moved back to Oregon to take care of Mom, I wanted to keep the tidiness up to her standards. It was bad enough she had to deal with cancer; i wasn't going to make her uncomfortable with clutter. So I kept things up fairly well. Mom had a cleaner come every other week, which was very helpful because that was beyond me. I didn't cook much for us. But I kept the clutter to a minimum and mom was comfortable in her beloved home with the brand-new kitchen until she died.

Return to Houston: my home hasn't been this bad since those bad days in Seattle in the house I loved. There are papers, mostly mail and discarded empty envelopes, all over the floor. No single surface is clean and tidy. My clothes are piled in bins and on the white wire shelf in the closet. No, I don't have a chest of drawers, or enough shelves in the book shelf. I don't use the desk because it has the TV and more stuff on top of it.

I hate this, hate this, hate this. I want clean and tidy. I want my life to be simple and easy to maintain. The times when I've achieved that, even briefly, I have experienced peacefulness and happiness. To say that this mess is contributing to my depression and anxiety is an understatement. But I don't have the energy to pick up. I'm behind on my bills, on the estate's bills. I don't even know where they all are. I am unhappy in part because my home is a mess, and when I'm this unhappy I cannot keep it clean and organized: it's a Catch-22.

I need help. Don't seem able to provide it to myself; that's something else I've lost.

Are any of those things even findable?

Variables and charts and math, oh my!

I keep track of my moods, and other stuff, in a spreadsheet. (Yes, I am a totally geek, and a nerd to boot.) Not only do I record numerical values (plus notes), but I created some line graph charts to show me in visual format what's happening.

Unfortunately, I cannot see anything useful in the graphs. Maybe the data really is random. Or maybe my lack of mathematical ability and understanding is the problem. (Maybe?!) I'll print it all out (on the printer I am so much in love with that I intend to marry) and take it to my psych and my therapist, see if they have anything useful to say.

I have been all over the map lately. Good days, bad days, days that are highly variable within themselves. Today I got up feeling detached, probably due to Mother's Day tomorrow. Then I read a very touching email that a friend wrote me and I cried and cried. Then I felt better. I hate to say it, but crying appears to be helpful to my moods.

Maybe I have so much hurt and fear inside I could never let out that I need to simply cry and cry and cry it all out to get better. Seems a lot like this trauma therapy. Put everything in its place in the past, cry your eyes out, feel better.

Luckily I already use high-powered eye drops. Sigh. Better put stock in Refresh eye drops!

Really, there is no more to say today. It's a variable day. And now I'm depressed. But I did feel better earlier.

Who goes there?

Ah, the proverbial military security phrase, usually preceded by "Halt!" Movies and books have shown simple ways to get past guards: throwing gravel, pebbles, rocks. Making the guard jump, look, even go investigate. In a way, movies and books were telling us a bit about the PTSD a soldier can get. Hypervigilance — jumping at noises, seeing shadows.

It doesn't take declared war — or military action of whatever name politics calls it — to create PTSD. Just trauma, being placed in a situation (often repeatedly, but sometimes just once) where showing extreme vigilance was a survival mechanism. It means being hyperaware of sights, sounds, smells. And it means assuming, and mentally preparing for, the worst-case scenario.

Please just stop

It's sunny today; looks gorgeous outside. The birds are tweeting (they have very tiny smartphones). I've had some truly good days where I felt very, very good.

So I don't know why today I feel like absolute shit and want to crawl back in bed and into a ball underneath the covers. Not only would I be too warm under there, I would soon find it difficult to breathe do to the carbon dioxide build up. I know this from experience.

I didn't do anything differently. Went to bed at the same stupid time after letting myself stay up until I was seeing two of everything. Got my now-typical six hours of sleep. Got up at 9am or so. All very usual. Ate the same foods, did the same unproductive routine: tea, breakfast, sitting on couch reading blogs and email, taking meds, putting drops in eyes. No different than the last many, many mornings. So why were the past several days good and today is very much not good?

I feel bad today, in many senses of the word. I feel mentally and emotionally in a bad place. I've not fulfilled some very serious commitments, making me feel like a bad person. i left some comments on two blogs that i wish I could take back because in the one case I feel chastised and in the other ... I just feel like I've done the wrong thing and everyone is simply ignoring it. And because the two people who run the blogs are friends who share a house, I feel as if they are talking to each other and saying "geez, she's such a pain. And all she talks about is herself. I wish she'd go away." I feel like I wish I weren't here, not necessarily forever, but just for awhile.

The bills are all late and I think the city may have cut off mom's water. I'm a totally crappy executor. I haven't been keeping records, I rack up late fees. It's even worse for my own finances. Fifty years old and I cannot even keep track of my own money or keep up with my checkbook.

I am having a really, really bad day. I'm starting to cry. Just a self-pitying blob. And I'm not saying this to get people to feel sorry for me to to validate me or any of that. It's just how I feel: I feel like a pathetic example of humanity, incompetent, self-centered, moody, immature, can't-suck-it-up-and-cope nothing. And everyone is getting tired of me bitching and moaning all the time; pretty soon no one will want to even be my friend because I'm so tiresome.

Hell, any more of this and I'll dump me.

I want cake.

Changing my mind

Warning: This is an exceptionally long post, even tho' I cut and cut and cut. Sorry. You can skip this one if you like.

I've had many world views over my life, and many religious and philosophical beliefs.  When I was in elementary school, and my little brother was in kindergarten, we went to a Mormon afterschool program. it's like Sunday school, but during the week. I learned about God and baptism and heaven and hell. The whole God thing didn't make sense to me. I couldn't accept that He would discard people who hadn't ever heard some version of HIS message or that He would punish babies who hadn't been baptized. So at 11 or 12, sitting in the kitchen with my mom and my little brother, I announced I was an agnostic. 

You would think I'd announced I was an axe murderer and could I start with my little brother. Mom told me if I ever said that again, she'd tell my father. I wondered inside if she thought he'd beat me into believing in God. (For the record, my father spanked us very seldom.)

I had the fairly typical "jesus freak" stage at 15-16. I went to church with my best friend and her family. I went to Youth Group. i went to Bible studies. I wanted more than anything to fit in, and those groups claimed to love everyone. My parents weren't any more thrilled by my evangelistic Christianity than with my agnosticism. Once away from that environment, my belief faded and was entirely gone by the time I entered college.

I had a great post today

I had this great post, suggested by Sierra. Unfortunately, I had a very late dinner because I'd been so tired beforehand. Then I talked for a long time over IM. I started, but one of the press releases came back for revisions. Then a friend who really needed to talk called and we never talk for less than an hour (72 minutes this time). The press release came back with a different set of revisions. The other release came in for first review.

And supposedly all this was going to go out the 1st. Then the 2nd. Obviously we've missed the 3rd and the 4th was The Date to Hit. If so, it will be late on the 4th. Especially because I am exhausted and the two women sending me stuff live on the West Coast, 2 hours behind me. They are still active and almost perky, I'm sure. So I'm sending them email that I'm asleep.

Then, instead of a blog post, I'm writing an excuse. And I keep nodding off and my eyes are crossing. A good sign I'm out of it.

That is why I'm not writing a blog post. But at least I'm ahead of the game for tomorrow!

The balance between gravity and flight

Tonight, I and several friends spent time on Facebook accomplishing a group project and it spawned a great deal of activity; double-, triple-, and quadruple-checking; and laughter. It has also left me with the jittery feelings that come when I let loose the dogs of hypomania, to completely destroy a phrase. The feeling is the same as when I was in college and didn't know about mania and mood swings and crashes as anything other than the regular feelings I experienced and assumed that many others experienced as well. 

In my 20s, I always encouraged and followed that emotional arrow as it flew up and up, past the birds, then the clouds, sometimes clear into the lower Earth orbit. The arrow would halt there, for a moment, balanced almost perfectly between both up and down forces, and that moment of balance was better than alcohol, better than pot, better than sex. However, gravity always won and the emotional arrow would plummet down, faster and faster until it achieved terminal velocity and crashed into the solid Earth, leaving me exhausted, in a vicious mood, confused, and often ill. 

When my first therapist first talked to me about controlling my highs in order to control the crashes, I was ferociously against it. I was convinced I would lose my personality, be some dull drone. I knew I would lose my creativity and my whimsy and spontaneity. It was another 3 years or so before I gave in and, tired of the crashes, began to recognize and control the arrow as it flew upward. I was relieved beyond words to see that it didn't kill my creativity or those parts of my personality that I valued so much. In fact, I think it made those facets better by virtue of my achieving some control. Later, when we decided to go further and add a medication layer of control, I wasn't so dead set against that. I'd grown accustomed to and grateful for control and the loss of those crashes.

In the past few years, I've also learned that I do have a cycling mood disorder and that the medication doesn't remove the cycling, it only dampens it. The rest is still up to me. I didn't have any awareness of those cycles until a friend who had gotten to know me very well and who has a keen perception pointed out to me that I fell into these phases where I would feel as if rabid hamsters were running on wheels in my mind and I couldn't control them. During those times, I would become dramatic and sure that the very worst thing that could happen would happen. These phases happened, he pointed out, every three weeks. Nothing I could lay to female hormones. 

Now that I've become aware of those three-week events, I've been able to perceive and control them. Over the  years I've come to appreciate control. So do my OCD and my PTSD and my hypervigilance and my regular anxiety ....

Running in place

I haven't been so good at keeping up with the myriad details of my everyday life. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone. Bills, picking up, cleaning, phone calls, record-keeping, even getting together with friends — all of this has been difficult if not impossible for me in the past months.

I've even found it difficult to keep up with my therapy homework. Three hours ago, I started my homework for tomorrow ... and then spent two hours on the phone with one of my best friends. Talking with my friend was terrific; we haven't talked in a few weeks. But now it's after 10 pm and I should finish things up and go to bed.

.... Who the hell am I kidding? I haven't gone to bed before 2:30 in months. Often I'm up until 4 am (Hey Julie! ::waves::). Unfortunately I don't spend my time doing anything useful in any way.

My sleep schedule became completely fucked up in 2007, after my cat died. In the aftermath of the death of my companion of over a decade, I realized how much more she was to me than simply one of my most-loved companions. She was also my security system. If I woke in the night —a not-unusual occurrence — I'd automatically look to her. If she was asleep, or simply looking back at me as if wondering why I weren't asleep as I should be, I could lay my head back on my pillow and drop off easily. But if she were looking about alertly, then I had to get up and walk the house. Once I thought I saw someone in the back yard and I called the police. Several other times it was deer in the back yard; it is quite disturbing to carefully pull a curtain aside to look out ... and see a long deer face looking back at you! I was definitely the more startled.

After my furry security system died, I routinely woke in a drenching sweat from dreams of gangs of intruders hunting me down in my home. The sleeping pills my doctor gave me made the nightmares worse, so I quit them and began staying up later and later. To occupy myself during the late hours, I built a highly detailed imaginary life and I whiled away the hours between 9 pm and 3 am with this life, with listening to Vonda Shepards "Maryland,"and with watching the moon wash across my bed and the floor in the next room. It was pleasant.

Now I have no place that is washed by the moon and my heart is once more broken, even worse than before. I don't currently have anything to look forward to in the morning, or in the moment after that, or the moment after that, so I stay up, surfing the same sites over and over, and running in place in the hope that the next moment doesn't come any sooner.