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My First Blog Post

When you have to start somewhere…

I have what may be described as a rich imagination.  I am certain I can distinguish the difference between it and delusion or some complex society I escape to.  Mine seems low in the order of things.  I want faeries, bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster to exist.  I want wild animals to want to cuddle.  I speak to wild and domestic animals; they do not speak back, nor do I expect them to.  I like to imagine the animal kingdom has a rich Wind in the Willows type society; I know they don’t.  I don’t dwell on these ideas; they are fleeting moments when I admire the animal kingdom.  I write these things to explain I do know the difference between what are playful ideas of bears having tea parties and instances when I am not sure if what I am experiencing is happening to anyone but me and those times I know it isn’t happening to anyone but me.  The times when I don’t trust my brain.

I have tried to pinpoint when my mental illness started manifesting itself.  I have a very early memory, five years old or less, when I frequently described to my parents my life “when I used to be big”.  It involved calico clothing, the sounds of my boots running on a wooden floor, fields and horses.  The colors and sounds were very vivid.  It was the 60s and I had never been exposed to anything like that.  Was it then?  Is that when it started?  Around the same time, I have very vivid memories of a woman in my bedroom.  I saw her many times.  There were only three of us in the house and it was not my mother.  When I was just a little older, I remember my first full blow anxiety attack.  I was walking home from school and got in such a panic that I could not figure out whether to go back to school or go home and so I sat on the sidewalk and cried.

My memory of it all becomes cloudy for the next few years.  In my early teens I began to develop a sense of worthlessness and despair.  Teenage angst?  I knew something was wrong and hoped the commercials warning parents of their children being on drugs would spur my parents into action.  I began to think about suicide, became convinced people were spying on me, following me.  Telephones became full time listening devices, my heart raced, I felt I couldn’t catch my breath.  Sometimes being outside became too big for me to handle.  I began to develop skin conditions that no amount of creams cured.  I scrubbed my skin, sometimes until it bled.  I developed blinding headaches, sometimes I didn’t sleep, then I would sleep for days.  My inner voice turned against me and chanted incessantly “you are worthless, you are useless, you are a failure, you are stupid, kill yourself”.  In another full-blown panic I was taken to a doctor for a “tumor” on my tongue.  It was not a tumor and I was sent to a psychologist.  Finally, someone was going to help me.

That first experience in therapy will stay with me for the rest of my life.  The anger I felt walking into an 80s version of forced calming and the resentment toward the big, patronizing smile is branded in my brain.  The woman had a voice like syrup, and she assured me these were the best days of my life and there was no reason to be sad.  I walked out thinking if this were true, I had no other choice but to kill myself.  Instead, I just didn’t go back.  What I learned is:  you don’t talk about mental illness.

What I have learned since then is you must.

There is no talking in mental illness…

The lock down months have brought a large amount of focus on talking and supporting those of us with mental illness and our new members who have previously not felt mentally unwell.  I have been curious how this is going with others because talking to friends and family during my lifetime of mental illness has never gone particularly well simply because they are unable to cope with my truth.  The “I want you to be able to talk to  me” and “you can tell me anything” standard statements feel similar to the greeting “how you doing today” no one really wants to know, it just sounds more interactive than “hey there”.

After a rather rocky patch in my relationship, my SO wanted me to bare my soul with nothing being off limits.  My friends and family, inundated with social media reminders that people are suffering with mental health issues, have begged me to tell the truth about how I am.  No one ever seems to be prepared.  I cannot say, “I had a really good day and considered leaving on a high note” or “I haven’t gone shopping because I simply can’t get myself up and out the door” or “no, I don’t want your company right now because the thought of having to deal with anyone is more than I can bare”. “I worked on the playlist for my funeral” was met with sheer terror. So I am still unable to find a balance of truth and until I do, I  will simply be fine, working or have other plans.

that undulating beat

I scheduled a ninety-minute session in float tank Saturday.  The salon was incredibly quiet and smelled of cleaning peroxide.  It was warm and felt like a good space.  The pod itself looked like something that was going to be launched into space, the water slick and warm.  I could hear my breathing, heart beat and the blood coursing through my vessels and in no time it felt as if I was drifting through the vastness of space. 

I am not bothered by quiet; it was hardly quiet with my breathing and joints popping as they adjusted to weightlessness, or confinement.  When the lights were out there was no sense of edges, only when I would inadvertently brush the sides did I remember I was not afloat in nothingness.  The session seemed to go fast and about five minutes before the voice came on to alert me it was over, I had the sensation of spinning, slowly, down a drain hole.  I was sorry that came so late in the process.

I will be curious what happens next time.

The ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ‘ought to be’

I had to take a break because I couldn’t think or settle, so here goes…

There was a fugue in my head for months.  So loud, so abusive that I could not think or sleep.  I had to get my meds adjusted and now there is relative quiet, comparatively speaking.

I managed to get a five-month contract in August, and even though the screaming in my head refused to give, I was so grateful to have a job that I pushed through.  I drove home at night staring at the moon and stars and watched foxes run beside the road while I tried to drown out the racket.  I went above and beyond, worked over, worked weekends, hoping that when the five months ended, I would get an extension. They smiled and thanked me and gave me assignments that would last far beyond the five months.  And then December came, and they said you’re great, but you have to go…don’t be surprised if we call you back.  I knew they wouldn’t, people are afraid of the truth not realizing the damage they do when they can’t or won’t say what they mean.

By some miracle in mid-December, I was quickly and without application, offered another job and set about being anxious and paranoid about it.

Because I can never do one thing at a time when I start falling apart, another layer emerged. My already somewhat fragile relationship began to crumble and then break. Saboteurs in active participation that I began to notice in October.  It kept my anxiety high and made sure my head had more than one thing to chide me about. I have said I can’t trust my brain, but this was no regular paranoia. I watched it like an outsider, paralyzed to confront it but planning my departure. With no affordable housing available in the area, I began spending time figuring out where I could sleep in my car, where I could get cleaned up, a route that led to someone I could “visit”.  I have let my mental illness come between me and society and that list was blank.

Out of sheer desperation I had to finally say it.  It was not ugly, it was sad.  Heartbreakingly so.   I see a broken vase held together by rubber bands in my head.

It is no one’s fault when they need.  We all deserve to be happy, to have happy lives.  So, I wonder if I did the wrong thing, forcing it out in the open or rather saying I see what is happening and I want to know what the plan is. 

I don’t think of it in terms of trust.  I think I interpret trust differently than the average person, the steady swarm of paranoia and anxiety that clouds my thinking doesn’t allow me to notice a trust path, but I can understand need and desire, comfort and happiness.  Joy.

I don’t know how to escape the cycle of jobs and relationships I feel I am not good enough for OR jobs and relationships that seem to consume me and leave me lifeless but I need to learn how to cope with it.

Rupert (2002 – 2020)

You left me today

during a tremendous cloudburst,

fierce,

like the miniature jungle cat you were.

When I finally walked outside to breath

the sun broke through.

And as I tilted my face toward its warmth and light

a rustle of leaves and a purposeful wind rising up.

The elements?  Or was it you

reminding me that

although you are no longer part of this world,

You do not cease to exist.

Inside a broken clock

I have not been just absent from here, but from everything.  Sometime in April I fell into an oblivion.  I drew a long conscious breath on the 3rd of May.  I only know this because I felt compelled to write but never posted because, suddenly, I was back to the shadows.  I first blamed it on a magnesium overdose and then realized I had not taken any magnesium or my prescribed meds for weeks…and here we are, a month after that and I have neglected my meds…for two months.  It is an incredibly stupid thing to do.

I have had three days of fairly heavy anxiety, I suspect brought on by thinking about my dying friend, who left us this morning.  I am letting guilt punish me and feeling like I deserve it for not following her example.  She enjoyed every moment and I am wired such a different way.  Today I considered if my quantum reality of knowing her was to observe her wonder.  To be inspired, even if I am too paralyzed most days to act on it.

Are we, the mentally ill, the story tellers?  The ones lurking in dark shadows marveling at the bright stars, reduced to tears by beauty in what ever form we see it.  The feelers, wailing out the heavy weight of emotion brought on by existence. Artists trying to learn how to live with our turbulent minds and souls.  Occasionally, some of us, finding the medium to let it pour out to the awe of others.  I want this to be true.

This evening I am considering my dissociation. It is the longest one I can remember in my sketchy memory, and wondering if it is over now, or, if I am just surfacing for a deep breath to go back under.  The fantasist in me wonders if I went to another reality. I want this to be true as well.  Unfortunately, if it is, I brought nothing back to report.

There ain’t no good thing ever dies

The moon looks full, but it is waning, and my friend is preparing to leave this reality.

Cancer is her escort.

It is breaking my heart.

I have never known a woman so strong, so vibrant, so happy to be alive.  I feel privileged and grateful to have been in her path and happy to carry her with me as I move toward my next journey. 

When we were young she would shout Rush lyrics as we drove around and although I have never really appreciated Rush, I can’t help but see her clearly, red hair that would not be tamed, wide smile, singing Tom Sawyer out the window into the evening sky.  In the years since, I admit that when I heard Rush, after my initial woeful sigh, she is who my mind conjured and those gleeful times.  I will miss you my lovely friend, save me a place.

a blanket from the moon

I have been taking magnesium every night, in threonate and glycinate form, for a week.  Prior to that I was taking it in oxide form, which is one of the normally stocked magnesium supplements on drug store shelf. 

This is from the journal article I posted previously about magnesium deficiency:

“Magnesium was found usually effective for treatment of depression in general use. Related and accompanying mental illnesses in these case histories including traumatic brain injury, headache, suicidal ideation, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, postpartum depression, cocaine, alcohol and tobacco abuse, hypersensitivity to calcium, short-term memory loss and IQ loss were also benefited. Dietary deficiencies of magnesium, coupled with excess calcium and stress may cause many cases of other related symptoms including agitation, anxiety, irritability, confusion, asthenia, sleeplessness, headache, delirium, hallucinations and hyperexcitability, with each of these having been previously documented.”

I have been meditating every day and listening to guided sleep meditations every night.  I don’t know which is helping or if they both are, but I am enjoying the relative calm I have been experiencing.

Monday night I got a call from the agency that yesterday would be my last paid day of work.  That doesn’t calculate to three weeks to me and I was angry but not raging and my anxiety stayed low when I called my employer to ask what was going on. The explanation was ridiculous, but I stayed calm.  More importantly I don’t feel any sort of major mood disruption looming.  I know there is still time but for now

I feel so much better than my usual normal.  Breakthrough?  Fingers crossed.

a crooked wand

I tend to lump my compulsions into two categories, maybe I shouldn’t but they seem like two different kettles of fish when I consider them.  One is what I think of as my everyday rituals.  They are so much a part of my life that I just accept them and play the game.  The other happens less frequently but I think of them as life altering if I were to participate.  I had one of those yesterday.  When the second type gets in my head, I know immediately it’s the wrong thing to do and it makes me wonder:  why do I submit to the odd numbers, the hand washing, the checking when I can clearly stop myself from submitting to the life changers?  Is it as simple as one soothes me and the other would cause havoc and I am aware enough to do a self-intervention?  More importantly, will I always make that hard stop. That is the more important question to me, because I have been wondering about it for years.

You’re innocent when you dream

Being a shut in suits me.  But I already knew that.  I naturally social distance, preferring to watch the world rather than participate. 

The strange calm is still here.  Perhaps because they gave me three weeks of work before they chuck me out.  It is also being away from the stress and anxiety of the place; I soak those up like a sponge and use it to feed my monsters.  And I have been listening to guided meditations all night for the last few nights.  I don’t know if it helps but my desperation drives me.

I look for employment which makes me laugh to myself because the world has shut down.

I catch myself thinking about encaustic art, photography, fog hovering above still water, singing songs in a village pub after too much Guinness but room for more.  What fresh hell is this?  Hope?  I am afraid of it.  I am afraid of my brain.