Dear Internet,
I made you a mixed tape:
[iframe src=”https://8tracks.com/mixes/4788779/player_v3_universal” width=”300″ height=”250″ style=”border: 0px none;”]
TRACK LISTING
Sangria – Remi
Swim Until You Can See Land – Frightened Rabbit
Call It Clear – Halloween, Alaska
I Just Love You More – Kate Nash
Aujourd’hui, ma vie ce’est d’la marde – Lisa LeBlanc
One Day Like This – Elbow
Make You Feel My Love – Adele
My Favorite Book – Stars
I’m Not In Love – Queen Latifah
All The Rage Back Home – Interpol
Love Will Tear Us Apart – Nouvelle Vague
xoxo,
Lisa
Category: diary
everything is true, everything is a lie
Dear Internet,
Of the three of my main mental issues, Borderline Personality Disorder is the one I least talk about. BPD is behavioral and not chemical, but it does underscore a lot of my bipolarism so I don’t write about it too much. I also went through fairly extensive training using dialectical behavior therapy in the past and I’ve been fairly successful in controlling it.
These days it tends to rear its ugly head when I’m under extreme stress and that’s when my world starts to fall apart. The bipolar mania? I have been super awesome on controlling the triggers and impulsivity. The anxiety? I can self-care and if it’s bad, I can take a klonopin. But the BPD? This is the end game boss. I need all my hearts to wage this war.
The linchpin with BPD is that it is a relationship destroyer, because at its core it’s about abandonment issues as well as self-preservation. I could be in the most stable platonic or romantic relationship ever and I will be utterly convinced of a myriad of things are happening even if there has not been a word said or a hand raised. Attempting to verbalize it was hard then, because I sounded like a needy, jealous harpy. Because I knew, KNEW there was no reason to think these things. But I continued to let whatever those thoughts eat at me until I felt so rotten, I’d be the one who would do the lashing out and destroy the relationship. But after I got into treatment, and started working on it, I could verbalize it and thus, reign the fucker in.
Except, apparently, this week.
With BPD, I’m always looking for protection and backup plans. Never you fear, in any relationship I’ve been in (platonic or romantic), I am always making sure I have a way out. Because you lot are all going to leave me one day and I need to protect myself. I get why some of my ex-lovers accused me of being duplicitous about some things, they weren’t far off but never in the ways they assumed.
In 14.5 hours, the car service is picking me up to take me to the airport so I can fly east to start building the foundation of my new life. There is a lot of apartment hunting, friend seeing, and other things happening. So it would seem pretty awesome for my brain NOW to decide to revolt and lead me down this trail with the following thoughts in my head:
- TheSoonToBeExHusband whose never raised a hand to me, even in jest, is going to harm me in my sleep
- This is later underscored when putting dishes away earlier this evening, I placed a chef’s knife in the butchers block and wondered which of our knives he would stab me with
- TheSoonToBeExHusband, who does not have access or authority to any of my bank accounts or credit cards, will take what last of the cash I have
- TheSoonToBeExHusband will hide/destroy my passport and immigration papers so I can’t leave the country or him (I’ve been seriously looking for a place to store my stuff that he can’t easily find it for the last four days.)
- TheSoonToBeExHusband will lock me out of the house when I get back and leave me without a home or a car
- The gracious host who is putting up with me for the next 3.5 days will ditch me at the airport
- The gracious host, and everyone else I had plans to see this weekend, will ditch me en mass and I’ll be stuck in a hotel room, miserable, and broken hearted
Rationally, I know the likelihood of any of this happening is minute; I have a better chance of winning the lotto. Obviously I can’t fix number 1. Number 2 is illogical because he does not have access to any of what remains of my riches. Number 3 is also illogical because my name is on the title for both things, AND I have options to stay elsewhere if that did happen and I could rent a car. (And the proceed to hire the shark of a divorce lawyer I have spoken to and take him for everything.) Numbers 4 and 5, well, again illogical but again, I have cash on reserve to bail myself out.
See. Backup plans.
BPD is not rational or logical, it is a destroyer and gives no fucks about backup plans. It cares not for your puny logic or rational. All it know is that I’ve been abandoned before, thus it will happen again. With anyone, at anytime. Anywhere. With BPD thinking, I cannot make anyone happy. I cannot be happy. I cannot find joy.
It is so persuasive, that my heart feels like stone right now. It feels like I’m being ripped into shards because all that is coming that could be good, I do not deserve. I have never deserved. I will never be accepted or loved for me.
I, thankfully, kept my old notebooks from DBT training program. Thus this feeling is not permanent. This is an emotional state. Emotions are fleeting. I got myself here and it’s my responsibility to get myself out.
With that, I go take a bath.
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013
she who gives
Dear Internet,
We’re rattling around the fancy house like ghosts with Restoration Hardware chains around our waists. We would give Miss Havisham a run for her money with our shenanigans.
On Monday, TheSoonToBeExHusband saw a nurse practitioner who put him on Wellbutrin, which seems to be working. He has an appointment in a few weeks to talk with his own shrink and to start making headway on working on the problems he needs to address. He has finally agreed that we need to be apart while he works on his problems and I work on mine; that the two of us together only hinder the other in our mutual goals of mental happiness. I am making no promises to him, which is why I don’t want to be only separated, I want to be divorced.
Because this is the core truth: Love often isn’t enough. It hurts. It breaks. It shatters, but it is truth.
I’m tired. A Lot.
My sleeping patterns have been fucked for a while because of the unmedicated mania, but now it’s worse. Thursday I napped for a few hours and dreamt I was walking around with lockjaw. No one in my dreams could understand what I was saying, which of course frustrated me even more. My mouth was aching when I woke up; thankfully none of my teeth were broken from the gnashing in my sleep.
On Friday, I posed the following to my Facebook wall,
PSA: Why you should masturbate on a regular basis:
If I had not attempted to masturbate this morning, I would not have found the lump in the left interior wall of my vagina, which turned out to be a filled Bartholin gland. If I had not taken myself to the ER this morning and gotten it checked, the gland could have gotten infected, which would have meant they would have gone in, drain the gland, and there was a mention of 4-6 week catheter and other fun stuff.
Instead, I take drugs, wear a maxi pad, and place a heating pad on my crotch to hope it drains by itself.
Masturbate! And often!
I have to spend a few hours a day with a heating pad on my crotch and take long baths. Good thing I like long baths.
So on top of it all, my vagina is now broken. I used to joke to the TheSoonToBeExHusband if he didn’t fuck me enough, I would get clogged.
And well, here we are.
Or it could be from my chronic masturbation the last few weeks of dreams and fantasies that I can now indulge in that I could not indulge before because it didn’t fit the parameters of my now dead marriage. Am I revealing too much? No, I think that was the problem to begin with: I was not revealing enough.
I have nothing left to lose here, in this world, and I don’t think many of you will understand the freedom that comes from this weight being lifted from my heart and soul. Things are clicking into place that were put on hold for a very long time, and as I reveal those plans slowly, some of you have expressed concern. I get it. I do. It all sounds stupidly overwhelming and incomprehensible. How do I know I’m not in mania right now?
Easy. Mania is about impulse. This is not impulse, this is about righting myself on the path I needed to be on so many years ago. If I was manic, I would be indulging in reckless behaviors and I’m not. It’s just that simple.
I am lucid, clear, and in control of myself.
What I hadn’t expected as the result of the fallout of my marriage? Things like this:
The creeper is a high school boyfriend who dumped me when I wouldn’t put out. I was 15 and still a virgin. He was also fairly instrumental in helping promote my reputation as the high school whore when the swim team attempted to gang rape me at a sleep-away event for our science classes. I escaped by climbing out of the bathroom window when my two female cabin mates couldn’t smash down the cabin door. Of course we never told the adult chaperones on that trip, because hey, I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Who’d believe me?
I found it intriguing he wanted to be FB BFFs a few years ago. Even more interesting was he never said a word to me until I did a beta readers request a few weeks ago about my new adventures in writing erotica. And then I became his unwilling mother confessor.
As I’ve been working on reclaiming my sensuality for the last couple of months, and have been more public about it. With the collapse of my marriage, he and numerous others have been circling like vultures because apparently being public about my masturbation habits and enjoying sex is an open invitation.
You know, because being blunt about sex means I’m just begging for it.
I started out this piece in a calm but sad space and became so fucking angry that I’m shaking. I have a lot of great support on both coasts, and instead of working with them to keep me in this nice sane place, I have to spend my extraneous energy fighting off sexual predators. Thanks. Much appreciated.
Thursday I’m flying out to the East coast for a much needed mini-break. I want to be somewhere where I won’t get yelled at. Or sued. Or harassed. I’ve got the best possible host lined up who is going to take very good care of me and I plan on being underground for a few days. There are those who know where I will be in case of emergencies but the rest of you? Bye. See you next Sunday afternoon.
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day In Lisa Universe: 1999
into which the cosmos will collapse once again
Dear Internet,
In January, I found out I was soon going to be out of a job.
In February, I lost my beloved Wednesday.
In June, it was revealed I am co-defendant in a $1.25M defamation case.
In August, I separated from my husband.
The last 72 hours have been a corporeal version of bipolar. The cycling in this house, between the two of us, is so fast and furious, the sheer amount of willpower to keep myself together has been exhausting.
Yet, this is the most lucid and clear I’ve felt in years.
The tl;dr is I will never see his joyful face in my Instagram feed. There is not a single picture, with perhaps the exception of our wedding photo four years ago, where he looks like he wants to be there.
The condensed version is I’ve struggling with leaving him for the last two years. Shortly after my 40th birthday, I had the arthritis ankle surgery. Several months later, I knew I was in such a bad place, I sought out help. I wanted to be sure that whatever feelings I had were because of the crazy, not because I was unhappy in the relationship. On paper, my relationship looked flawless.
During all of this, I would voice my concerns to him, tell him what was going on in my head. We would have these big sit down talks about the status of the relationship. I would continue to work on making me whole, he would do his bit.
But he never really did.
And since I am the Guinness world holder for navel gazing, I documented all of it here, so I know, I KNOW, I fought for my marriage and for him. But after two years, and not seeing myself or ourselves go forward, I knew I had to make a choice: Me or my marriage.
I choose me.
He’s angry right now and he’s lashing out at me, and I take it because I am not arguing, debating, or correcting his impressions. I’m a terrible person because he stuck through with the surgery and the crazy, why can’t I wait for him? He vilifies me in one breath and tells me I’m the love of his life in the other.
I’m selfish because I am not keeping to my vows. The same vows he ridiculed for years because as we all know, he only married me to give me health insurance.
There is more to this, ALWAYS more to this, but this is all that you need to know. For now. When the time comes, and it will, to examine with microscopic intensity the demise of my relationship, I will commit it all here.
As for me? Well. I have nothing left to lose anymore. I have lost everything. So, once the home is sold and the divorce is settled, I’m leaving Michigan. Hopefully for good this time. I always come back to lick my wounds here, but there is nothing left is this state for me anymore and hasn’t been for a very long time. Of those I’m leaving behind that I care about, I am sorry, but I cannot be here anymore.
I’m heading to the east coast, going to couch hop for a bit, and then find a place to settle. Get myself a sunny apartment, and with my teddy bear in one hand and a pug leash in the other, start over.
xoxo,
Lisa
she rides the sky in a chariot drawn by the horse Hrimfaxi
Dear Internet,
This has been my normalized state as of late; the moods cycling like the ever changing weather. I get some work done until my brain decides to be broken and then I stop. I rest. I wait. And then I do what I do best, I hide.
It does not take me long to get tired of these routines, because they are not healthy and also frustrating as fuck. I have shit to do and having a broken brain is not pushing me forward. So I do what anyone in their right mind does in these situations, I make a plan.
I went over that plan with Dr. P. Monday and there were a lot of tears spilled as I spoke (though to be fair, I probably would have cried at the leaves rustling I was so heightened by emotion). And I’m sure, absolutely sure, when this is all said and over, there will be more spilt tears and my own heart is going to be broken a million times over. That was hard to swallow, that realization I had to do this not only alone but that I was going to break my own heart repeatedly to get through to the other side.
A big chunk of that plan is getting back on the drugs. Two weeks ago I contacted my GP to make an appointment to get that recommendation. But her schedule for such matters isn’t free until mid-September. With my appointment with Dr. P. much sooner, I asked him for recs to see if I can get this quick started earlier. I am not in crisis, but I am in pain.
(For those of you playing at home, my previous medicating therapist, Dr. H., is not being contacted for this next journey because he does not take insurance and charges $300/hr. YAY being crazy!)
That conversation with Dr. P. on Monday was the apex of the appointment and I thought my request was easy enough. Apparently, not quite. There is an aging population in Grand Rapids in regards to psychiatry so finding someone to do treatment AND within my insurance network can and could be difficult. Dr. P. gave me a few easy things to begin the search while I wait to see my GP.
The first was to search my provider’s website for medicating therapists, which surprise, turned up no results. They want me to go through the GP first. Okay, sure. That appointment is already made in September. What’s the next step? The second of Dr. P.’s recommendations was to go through a local psychiatric hospital and get in on their day patient list to see a medicating therapist whose sole job is to keep my meds inline.
This is the same hospital where Mumsy was committed after she attempted suicide back in 2001. I can still recall the emotional naked vulnerability of the patients and how desperate I was (and still am!) to not end up in that place. That was my arrogance then, how I was that much stronger than they were. I could handle myself better. I was faster, stronger, and more in control of my disease. Jesus, even as I write this I cannot believe this is how I often feel at times. Like they are weak and I’m the superhuman who could save the world. (But I can’t and my own arrogance is also my own shame.)
Even when I had been adamant for ages on not getting back on the drugs again, it changes because often I feel defeated about my brain. I feel so fucking broken at times that everything with me is opposite of what is supposed to happen. Giving up on the drugs, claiming it is easier to go without then to fix, seems reasonable after you been psychotic because of drug interactions. It all seems reasonable. (It really isn’t.)
But I am telling you, seeing people get their lives together and seeing someone have pure unadulterated joy can begin the digging deep of what you need to change one’s mind. And there is a LOT OF DIGGING.
Here is where the system falls short. The phone calls I’ve been making to the psychiatric hospital? There is a wait. There is always a wait. I am not in crisis, so my needs are not as important. Yes, there is no reason for me to continue being in pain (or suffering), but I am waiting. This is my life now, I wait.
I leave messages and wait for phone calls that come a day later. Which, of course, I miss because I did not hear my phone ring or I’m on the another line. When I return the call, no one answers, and it goes directly to voicemail. I leave my message and the clock resets. This has been the theme of dealing with this hospital this week. They have still yet to return my latest telephone call and it has been over 24 hours. (And they still have not returned my call.)
This morning, however, luck finally decided to hitch herself to my side. I tried the third path of Dr. P.’s which was to call several medicating therapists offices directly and see if they were taking new patients and if they took my insurance. Snake eyes. One of them accepts my insurance AND she’s accepting new patients.
Thank the gods in all their glory for listening to me again.
But there is a catch. (Always.) I need to get my GP to sign off on it (medicating office will fax her the referral, they will fax their assent. Since I already have an appointment with the GP next month, this quickens that process and I can more than likely cancel the appointment). Then my records from Dr. H. need to be sent over, which is a truck load. Then they need to pull my records from 2005 when I was outpatient at another local psychiatric hospital. They can pull out the full list of my drugs from all of the combined records and figure out what drugs I need to get on next. (No SSRIs and no ADHD drugs. Definitely not. I am not depressed. If the bipolar gets stabilized, then I will not need the ADHD drugs.) Then they can schedule me in as a new patient, probably in early October. Now I have a time frame.
Nine years ago, not long after TheBassist and I broke up and I was simultaneously preparing for undergrad graduation, I started looking at getting a more definite clue as to the status of my brain. I wanted nothing more than to be stable and ready for the new life ahead of me. After receiving the results, I said,
There are three main things I want to accomplish with this:
1. I want to be stable. I want to not to feel the alternating mood swings, crying jags, suicidal thoughts, and what have you on a almost daily basis. I want to be able to maintain a job, social network, and intimate relationships without feeling like these are difficult things.
2. I want to keep my personality. I like my personality, just tone down the aggressive behaviour and some of the exhibitionist that seems to pop up occasionally. My experience with legal drugs in the past have left me meandering as a zombie and felt like I had zero control; I don’t want to go through that again.
3. Manage my life more efficiently without this constant UP swing that seems to prevail where I get lots of work done coupled with weeks/months of time where nothing is done and shit just slips by.
And here we are nine years later, better in a lot of ways. Able to handle the impulsivity and other traits better. Able to recognize when the crazy hits and when my brain is on fire.
But even with all of that self-check in place, I am still broken by the hypomania that continues to wreak havoc in my life.
But those three tenets from nearly a decade ago? Those have not changed. They were what drove me back to getting on the drugs two years ago and what drives me now. This may be the recurring pattern in my life — get on the drugs, let me body go to war, go off the drugs. Rest. Began the battle again.
I do not want to exist in this place as a mass of water and bone, just waiting it out until I can collect my pension and then one day die. (If I do not take my own life before hand, because this is also a truism. If I cannot get my brain sorted, I have no problems doing just that. Demons not of your making that cannot be exorcised, haunt me.)
I want to have a fucking life. I want to enjoy the world and not be imprisoned in this gilded cage of my own making.
xoxo,
Lisa
This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2003, 1999
the 49/51 split
Dear Internet,
I woke this morning at 5:37AM with a particular song in my head that was not meant for me. However upon audible relistening, realised it was perfect for a variety of reasons that will only make sense to me.
This has been happening more frequently as of late; I’m waking in early hours with a song in my brain (it is never the same song), that most times, comes out of nowhere. Some mornings, like this morning, there are two that play tag with the other. Then I need to go listen to them on repeat for a bit to exorcise the demon out.
This morning also bequeathed me tears that were shimmering and caught below and I thought The Sads were back. Again. I felt the rough edges of The Sads last night and made immediate plans that upon waking up, I would do nothing but self-care. In that instance it meant curled up in bed, reading all day, under my blanket fort and forgetting the world existed.
But I did not feel depressed, in fact I’m still quite manic. So this was new — to be feel so profoundly emotionally bare and raw but not depressed, in fact, there was some joy. I laid in bed for a few hours this morning, always flipping to find the cool side and always having to have my toes hang over the edge, trying to figure out what this all meant. I checked my phone and caught sight of the email notifications piling up. I knew I had to do some adulting today, I could not push it off like I always want to do. I made a deal with myself — do not think of the larger picture today, but think of the small things you can do. Begin first, with a shower.
When I tell people I am taking a year sabbatical to write a book, they think it’s wonderful and how lucky I am. I jokingly point out sure, come talk to me in a few months when my hair is disheveled and I’m laying about in my own filth. Except, this is not that far from the truth. When I was still working at the academic library, and we were granted nearly a month off at the holidays, TheHusband and I barely left the house. Let me also not speak of how little laundry I do during that period, amongst other things.
It’s easy to get sucked into a routine that is of no good, and I found these old habits raring its head these last few weeks with TheHusband and I working from home. Cobbling together a routine when I was alone at the cabin was easy and I could stick to it, but there is something about being home with him 24/7 where we just feed off the others bad habits that pulls me in its undertow.
So when I cannot get up to the cabin, and I’m working from home, I made myself promise to not fall into those traps, and to begin by just getting up and shower. Even if it meant putting on yoga something and a sports bra under the tshirt of the day, just get up and shower.
(With growing out my hair again (it’s now shoulder length), and not being a big fan of combing it, it is starting to dread. I’ve already had to cut two dread knots in the last week. Keep it together, Lisa!)
The shower.
I started crying in the shower, but it was small sobs rather than a big ugly cry. This had been the crying pattern of late, beginning with the welling of the tears, that turn into a silent storm, with an odd hiccup thrown in. Then I started laughing at myself because a few days prior, I was in a similar stance in the shower (feet spread, water pounding on back, hands on the subway tile) trying to figure out the logistics of a sex scene for a project I’m working on and here I was, on the complete opposite spectrum.
It was time, I knew as I began to shave my legs, to do a self-check if I was having The Sads or it was something else. Here were my truths as I knew them:
- I’m not in crisis
- I see my talking therapist, Dr. P, next week, my GP next month to get a referral for a new medicating shrink. I will also ask Dr. P. about another in-network referral to get back on the drugs
- I’ve been having really near daily soul cleansing conversations with two of my favorite people in the last week
- My period began earlier in the week and I always get a titch more emotional than usual
- I cried during Guardians of the Galaxy — YES. Vin Diesel made me weep. I am NOT ashamed
- One of said favorite people sent me links to cute pug tshirts, earlier in the week a couple of not-so-much-favorite-but-still-up-there-folk sent me links to pug pictures, so I had a big ole case of MissingWednesdays. My pug ovaries are hurtin’
Most of these feels are the normal human condition, heightened sure by the bipolar and raging period hormones, but normal. Sometimes it’s totally okay to pull back and cry. I promise.
So I did.
Once the checklist was done, I was cleansed, and let us not be surprised that now the world did not feel like a big ole chaotic mess. I could deal with this. I got dressed and planned my next step. And when that is done, I will plan the next step. And I will keep making these small steps until the day is done. Build the foundation.
Earlier this week certain lines kept rolling in my head and I recognized their presence from a piece I wrote about a decade ago. The words still resonate, but now for wholly different reasons.
I had, at the time, gone on to record it as an mp3 which you will find below.
(This is not one of my strongest pieces and in fact may be complete crap. I had also just had a bout of reading nothing but e.e. cumming so I was feeling all fancy when I wrote it. I have not listened to the mp3 since the day I recorded it so hopefully it has not degraded over time.)
Emotionally Stripped – the mp3 or you can listen via the embed below
there is a world somewhere, in-between but not here that exists emotionally stripped in this world i am free in this world there is something, anything everything emotionally stripped how far are we willing to play in this dangerous game how far how far how far emotionally stripped i don't believe in bittersweet endings of love that is never consumed of things to yearn for and never have emotionally stripped i don't believe that i'll never touch your face or feel your taste or see your skin against mine shining with sweat there is a world somewhere, in-between that exists sliding, sliding downward fall only to be caught emotionally stripped
xoxo,
Lisa
valkyrie in reverse
Dear Internet,
I’ve been beset by an attack of the rages these last few days, the anger so deeply embedded into my chest I can taste the bitterness at the back of my throat. This is one aspect of being bipolar I apparently never opaquely discussed. Mania? Sure. Being depressed? Absolutely. But the anger bit? Apparently never.
Maybe because it’s the least understood part of the disease I always seem to forget until it pops its little head up now and again to remind me it’s still there. I remember lamenting a few years ago when I was dipping low I had loss all emotion, a blank slate anyone could write on. I had forgotten what it felt like to experience deep rooted sensations. I missed being angry because if there is one thing anger does quite well is that it reminds you are alive and you are more than happy to pay the price it demands because the fernalness of what it gives is intoxicating. (This is true.)
Anger fueled so much of who I was and still am despite the past when I was not sure what it was or how it worked. There seemed to be one thing I did know and that is in anger’s wake, it left gorgeous destructions. I gave no fucks then who I hurt or what I did. My tongue was double ridged for battle and I slew down any opponent who attempted to penetrate my stronghold.
Now, now I’m older. Better prepared. I’m not a novice fumbling with their first bow, but a stealth fighter who no longer targets the ones she loves with diamond edged words. With nothing more than a polite, “I do not wish to engage,” I remove myself from situations that under normal circumstances are wholly benign but in my world tend to be the foundations for attack. There is no point in hurting people unnecessarily when I am being pumped by rage. None.
Then, it was all their fault. Always. The world was out to destroy me. Present, I know that is not the case, but to preserve myself (oh god, the guilt of the after that would engulf me when the rage attack was over was far worse than whatever slight I felt was being made towards me by ten fold), my relationships, I retreated in the ever safe space of my head until the rage attack was over and the metallic taste of its bitterness has finally left my throat.
But even now, in my enlightened state, I stop engaging absolutely to protect myself (and others) from the dragon that sleeps in my belly, and I’m polite about it sure, but people don’t always listen. Some keep on throwing things in my cage, poking me with their swords, waiting for that dragon to roar. Perhaps it is here that I get most maudlin of all, when clear boundaries are set and then trampled over in needs of getting their last word in, their needs met.
I do not loathe these people, but simply feel sad for them. Sad they must fight invisible battles to prove a point that has no meaning. Sad they have no respect for humanity. Sad they do not recognize their own attacks as being just as hurtful as their defense. I recognize all of this within them, for that was me not too long ago.
The gorgeous destruction is breathtaking, but in the end, the price is too high to bear.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. I keep saying this but it always bears repeating: the constant awareness of being on is exhausting. Emotionally AND physically. Holding myself to be present as normal, to constantly check/recheck/recheck before any action is worked or words leave my mouth, is exhausting.
disappear in the sweet, sweet gaze
Dear Internet,
It seems everyone around me is getting their shit together mentally, physically, or other. I’ve got friends of varying diameters from my heart who are all taking the big leap in making their lives whole, and you know, I don’t want to be left out. I may seem to march to the beat of my own drummer, but secretly I want to be part of the band.
The other half of my year long sabbatical (other than to write, natch) is to do also do a jump start on Lisa-love. Now that most of my major social obligations are out of the way, I can get working on the Making Happy project, which I started back in late December 2013 but did not continue. I got sucked into everything else happening outside my world and then forgot to do self-care bit. No, I’m not doing that anymore. I refuse to participate in any culture OR relationship where I can’t get my needs met OR interact with people who don’t desire to become better human beings. I’d rather be alone for the right choices then be in places to satiate some sort of stupid societal design.
(One of my favorite people, nina, talks about the importance of self-care and standing up for yourself in her post, I Desire to Be More Sensitive. Yes, she spins it from a professional point of view but honestly? If you continue to live in a world that only supports a small demographic, I don’t want you in my life.)
To that end, I am going to start documenting my moods/exchanges/other details to deal with getting my life on track and in order using the Day One app. It’s hard to make big decisions when I don’t know if what I’m feeling is the DISEASES whispering their madness in my ear or I genuinely am not interested in that thing. nina speaks the proverbial truth when she notes those who have mental health illnesses are punished when it comes to these feelings, “because they are constantly told not to trust their perceptions, intuitions, and feelings about the world (and themselves in relation to the world).”
I <3 you, nina.
The constant back and forthing on every decision is exhausting and defeating. I think I’m significantly better on deciding what is what, but for other things, not so much.
With all this in mind, I decided to go back on the bipolar drugs. Again. For the fourth of fifth time (I’ve lost track).
I know last year I was pretty adamant getting off the Lithium and focusing on holistic approach and it mostly works but it’s not enough. Constantly being ON takes so much out of me that I just don’t have the strength to do much of anything else.
And I’m missing out on the joy of life because keeping me on path is all I can do most days. I am desperate for my own Instagram feed of happy times, smiling faces, and good friends instead of food pics, random body pics, and dog pics.
I confessed to two people in these last weeks I thought maybe I had a good ten years left in me before ending my life by my hand. I’m continually amazed I made it to 42 because there was a long time where I didn’t think I made it to 30. A lot of what keeps me moving forward are those two people, and others, who inspire and touch depths of me that have never seen sunlight.
Even on days like today, where one cup of coffee is giving me a full body haze and the nerves in my face feels like a thousand tiny pinpricks on fire, I am buoyed by that love. I can grab joy in minute amounts, but fuck it, I want to hover up the whole buffet.
Yes, I am willing to do anything to amplify and extending getting to that joy and if that means I get back on the bipolar drugs, so be it. It will also help pull me back from me having to be ON all the time, which will allow me to enjoy life more rather than less. But I have guidelines, as you do, and this time no ADHD drugs or SSRIs. Lithium, any other drug that has lactose/whey as an inactive ingredient, is also out.
I crave mental stability much in the same vein I crave cake. I crave the details so refined to fill in the gaps of the experiences.
But I’m not going to give it all to the drug gods, no, I have to continue to do my work too such as refining the diet and continue with the exercise. And leaving the house once in a while.
Just like last year, just like now, I end this with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers:
There’s no point to any of this. It’s all just a… a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know… a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle… and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt. Troy Dyer
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2012, 2010, 2010
Daily walk: First A.M.E. Community Church, 1922
Dear Internet,
4:21AM comes at you like a stealth thief in the night. One minute, you’re in some far off dream land and the next, you’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed listening to the echoes of Interpol’s Slow Hands on repeat in your brain for another 40 minutes.
The only thing you can at this point is get up, which you do by reading the internet in your self-contained blanket fort. Shortly after this, you say, “fuck this,” and go into your office. None of this hiding under the covers business.
But then the hours creep on by; soon it’s going on 9AM and the only thing you’ve since you’ve crawled out from your blanket cave is mindlessly scroll the internet. Weather looks to be hot (mid-high 80s) AND humid (90%), so if you’re going to do this, you do this now. You change into your workout gear, brew a pot of coffee (totally caffeinated, who the fuck are we kidding here?), put on your trainers, and get walking. You’re tired though, so you do the same route as you did on Monday, except backwards. The route, not you, just so we’re clear.
At some point you look at your phone and notice you’ve broken the 14′ mile pace like it was a walk in the park.
So you decided to slow down a bit, because what is this magic of your feet? 14′ walking mile? Are now THE FLASH?
Yes, yes you are.
Distance: 1.19 miles
Walk time: 18:17
Pace: 15’16″/mile
Two walking days in a row where you’ve gone deep into the 15′ mile marker, and perhaps it’s time to start thinking about running. But not quite yet, how about a race? A race sounds good. Yule Run, I’ll Walk in November? Perfect.
Race you.
xoxo,
Lisa
daily mile: art of the table/wealthy street bakery
Dear Internet,
In the same week, I’ve had two house guests snigger at “Wealthy Street” when giving them directional information. They chorused it is a very fancy sounding name for a fancy neighborhood and consequently, I live in a very fancy house.
I won’t disagree too much with their assessment. Wealthy Street was one of the original city streets (as evidence that much of it is still brick) and trolleys used to run down it towards Reeds Lake, which during the turn of the 20th century was a popular amusement park and day tripper spot. Captains of industry lived in my neighborhood and they would journey the few miles to Reeds Lake for their various entertainment, both of the day and nighttime variety.
Now Reeds Lake is ensorceled with homes owned by well to do white families and your self-importance rises by at least 30% when you cross the borders into East Grand Rapids.
This has nothing to do with my walk except that a part of it was on Wealthy Street and one of our favorite bakeries is six blocks from Throbbing Manor.
Wealthy Street Bakery and Art of the Table have snuggled next to each other for nearly a decade, beginning when this side of Wealthy Street was sketchy and a major drug dealer took up residence in the storefront across the street. In the last 3 1/2 years we’ve lived in the neighborhood, the gentrification that had started east of us has spun its magic in this area. Within a few blocks of WSB and AotT is a new brewery, a tequila bar cum taqueria, a coffee shop that roasts its own beans, and more, all that have open within the last couple of years.
What makes WSB so exciting to me is Tuesdays/Thursdays is vegan cookie day and they’ve been known to daily stock vegan chocolate cupcakes and will bring them out if you politely ask for them. TheHusband goes gaga over their danishes and I have a weakness in my loins for their chocolate babka (not vegan, but YOLO).
Distance: 1.29 miles
Walk time: 20:06
Pace: 15’28″/mile
I’ve been bemoaning my left calf for some time now, pain would grip it when I walked, regardless of how fast or slow. Kristin tipped me off to getting a calf sleeve, which I did, and it has made a remarkable difference in my pain, gone from I WANT TO CHOP MY LEG OFF to barely noticeable. And a 15″ walk?What kind of crazy is THIS?
The sleeve I first purchased is enclosed by velcro, to make it fit better but I have big calves! 18″ at the widest point and what fit snug at the top was definitely quite loose near the ankle. I’ve just splurged on a true sleeve and now I’m thinking I want to train for a 5K walk.
I am invincible.
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013