Tag: Mentally Healthy

liège waffle

Dear Internet,
Right. New plan.
It began when I was muttering to myself in the ladies at the TA in Youngstown, OH. This was pre-coffee, post-medication. Mid-late afternoon last week.
I was muttering that if only Throbbing Cabin (which TheSoonToBeExHusband is keeping) was open and available for me to go live at during the winter (TSTBEH is a generous soul) while I did my individual thing. But we closed it for winter back in September; Leelanau County received 241″ of snow last year; heating would run millions since the heating infrastructure is absolute shit and lastly, I would be miles and miles away from the nearest town. I wanted to be alone, not Jack Torrance.
(It was a very long pee.)
Then the near perfection dawned on me: Get a studio in Grand Rapids! It’s cheaper than the east coast. TheBassist would be doing his thing on the east coast, TSTBEH would start his new life in Louisville. I get my payout from the selling of the house, pay off the cards, pay off Jeeves, pay rent for a year, pay car insurance for a year and I’d only have to worry about food, phone, and interwebs and write that blasted book I’ve been banging on about forever, plus a few other writing projects.
Fucking genius.
It’s all coming together.
As soon as I got into GR that early evening, after spending a cumulative 16 hours driving, I immediately launched into my plan with TSTBEH. He had told me, and I had forgotten apparently in the Asian land war of my brain, that I was only to show up on his door if I was serious about getting back together and yet here I was standing on his front door step telling him we were most definitely not getting back together.
He accepted my decision gracefully and I think, along with TheBassist, that something about my demeanor (or the drugs were stabilizing me) was different than before as both of them seemed more receptive to this plan over any other cockamamie schemes I had come up with in recent weeks. TheBassist requested, and I provided, a PLAN as a guide of what I’ll be doing in money/job, mental health, physical health, living, and relationships. I also gave a copy of the plan to the cabal that is CMMRB and they too, whom other than the two men in my life have been holding me up every step of the way, approved of the plan.
ThePlan, is more or less a check list of things to do in the upcoming year with a review at six months. I also added in a three year and five year addendum for shits and giggles. Each topic has a list of things that must continue (for example, under Mental I have a listing of continuing to see my talking therapist, Dr. P) and need to be done (get a referral for a local medicating therapist to monitor my drugs and seem them on a regular basis). Some of it is reminders (stop eating dairy) while others are nudges (walk more).
After that I said on Facebook,
It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve been on the Lamictal/Abilify drug mix and I will say this:
Pros

  • When I get a million “to do” items in my head, I immediately create a ToDo list and work on it. Follow through on said items has been great.
  • I am prioritizing the ToDo list better.
  • Appetite is down and I’m not over eating at meals.
  • Daily tasks, like meditation, I have been diligent on.
  • I feel pretty good when I commit to a thing, I’m sticking with it.
  • The need to smoke is decreasing. Yay!

Cons:

  • Sleep is broken. I went to bed at 10:30 last night and woke up at 2, 4:30, 5:45, and finally at 7:48.
  • I cannot take SSRIs because I am one of the rare cases I’ll get suicidal thoughts though when on SSRIs, I obviously did not follow through. Now, I am getting destructive behaviour thoughts like when driving across the bridges in Pennsylvania, I wondered what would happen when I swerved into the medians. Using mediation techniques, I accept them as thoughts and let them come and then go and do not fight them. But it’s still slightly scary.
  • I am getting some relief and I don’t feel as yo-yoing as before. I have a long way to go, but I do feel like this is small steps in the right direction.

The big thing to note here is the ability to prioritize and accomplish tasks which, as someone with adhd along with the other delightful gifts, is damned near difficult to follow through. But so far, not really a problem.
That Friday I made phone calls/emails to six property management companies and referrals I found on Craig’s List. As of a week later, none of the property management companies returned my calls, but the referrals via Craig’s List did. I set up appointments, starting on Saturday, and took the first place I visited because it was absolutely perfect. Not a studio, but a 600 sqft one bedroom located in a 145 year old house that used to be a hospital after the Civil War. There are five apartments in the building, mine is a second floor walk up, and the amenities are out of the world.

  • Heat (gas) and water included. This is gold in Michigan since my last apartment I rented in an old house ran me $400-500 for heat a month during the winter, which combined with my reasonable rent, made it crazy expensive
  • Trash/recycle / snow plowing / lawn maintenance
  • Off street parking
  • Locked front door entrance
  • Pets allowed
  • All original wood floors, paneling, and molding throughout the apartments and building
  • 10′ ceilings
  • Same area as Throbbing Manor, so damned near perfect location
  • Big windows
  • Bedroom oversees the city landscape since I’m on mid-hill
  • Owner is allowing me to pay a year in advance, with 5% discount, and option that if I end up leaving before the year, monies will be returned once the apartment is re-rented (which shouldn’t be an issue)
  • Coin operated laundry in the basement

I signed the lease and gave my deposit three days later. So now I have a place, a budget, and a plan.
Right, to make sure we’re all on the same page:

  • TSTBEH and I are divorcing, finalizing probably in February
  • The house closes on 12/16
  • He’s moving to Louisville
  • I’m staying in GR to live the bachelorette life in my own pad and get my writing done
  • I have a talking therapist here (Dr. P.) and soon, a medicating therapist. My GP will be regulating my drugs until then

Three or six months or a year later, who knows. But at least now I have ThePlan to follow.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day In Lisa-Universe: 2013

bury the lede

Dear Internet,
It’s a clear night here on the east coast and I was outside having a smoke (or three), watching planes fly to and fro across the Sound. People winging their ways across the pond or coming back, minutes or hours from seeing their loved ones, taking a risk, starting a journey, or fleeing from a thing that is chasing them. This is an exercise I’m most intimate with, this thinking what this world around me is doing as it continually moves even if I’m standing still. In that frame, I felt insignificant and yet godlike. I have been all of those people, even if I am none of them now.
These are the times I feel most alone and most connected to others, for I feel the weight of their expectations, their glories, their regrets, and all other human emotion on my being. I was none of them and yet all of them. Here in this now, I am constantly running even in my brain and my energy packs are growing thin. I am gasping for breath and my head is on fire, even though I feel like I’m watching everything happening from an outside body. I watch my body move, smile, laugh, and fuck while my brain is somewhere else.
Brendan tipped me off to a service called ZocDoc, a service that allows you to search for doctors in your area and also allow you to narrow by insurance. You know, something your insurance provider should allow you to do without having to jump 15 hoops. I found a prescribing psychiatrist who had appointments open that day and by that evening, I had scripts for Lamictal, Abilify, and my trusty favorite, Klonopin.
Thus, I’m back on the drugs again.
Dr. P. recommended I not go down this road again until I was feeling more sure and stable in my current locale, but neither of us could have predicted that I would spin this far out of control. While he’s been keeping in touch with me, thank Nigel for that, I’m swinging too fast that by the time I talk to him, I’m stable for the moment again. But the moods are shifting too fast and too furious.
I need help.
Every day is as unpredictable as it possibly can be. Some days I’m up at and at ’em at a reasonable hour and days like Tuesday, I’m in bed all day crying or having some sort of massive panic attack. Others are a combination of the two. No one day is like its predecessor.
My smoking habit comes and goes, though if my need for control wears its hat properly, that is something I can fix so I’m quitting again. Tomorrow I plan on working on a daily schedule for myself to get in the grove to create a infrastructure and wait for job prospects to pan out.
During all of this, I’ve interviewed for two positions, of which one I was told to expect a follow up for a second interview while I was passed on the other. A third job prospect with an Ivy has weeded me from the pile of potentials to passing on to the selection committee for the position. This means nothing, no interview has been forthcoming as of yet, but it also means everything because of the potential interview. So while I’m emotionally falling apart, I am in some small ways, keeping my shit together.
That bit is important. I marvel at myself for having been able to not spiral so far out towards the sun.
The inability to articulate, when my verbal word retrieval fails me, has also been a huge part of the problem. I should be writing, even privately, but I haven’t been. Perhaps this is part of the problem I’m having in finding my footing. Not being able to communicate even to myself what’s in my head (even if scattered), which makes it even more difficult to communicate to those around me.
Right now, I do not know where I will end up or what I’ll be doing. But I keep reminding myself this is all very temporary, this shifting, while I wait for my moods to stabilize. Patience.
There are things I am certain of, of things I must do. But I must learn, above all else, patience. That will be my greatest struggle and fight, to remain patient as all of this works itself out.
While there is life, there is hope.
xoxo,
Lisa

headspace

Dear Internet,
I was gifted with a year long subscription to Headspace, a site that teaches you guided meditation in easy, bit sized chunks. In true Lisa fashion, I’m having panic attacks left and right during and after the exercises which sets off a whole slew of everything elses.
That surprised me. Aren’t you supposed to feel whole and unconflicted while doing your meditation and not a hot fucking mess? The answer is no: This is apparently a normal part of the process, as is sadness.
When I posted my experiences on Facebook, there were numerous comments from others that had similar feelings when practicing; hearing I was not alone was comforting. There are times when my own feelings seem to overrule so much of who I am, it is almost incomprehensible others may feel the same way or could fathom where these feelings themselves. Hearing related stories is helpful in addition to being comforting as it indicates no matter how much my brain tells me otherwise, I am not so alone in the world.
That is often very important bit of knowledge that I need to remember: I am not so alone in the world.
The big question Headspace asks is what do you intend to get out of the practice? I’ve been gnawing at this for the last five days as I’ve been working through my foundation pack and I realized the first thing I came up with was: I expected instant gratification and for all the emotional pain to just go away (which explains since I’m not getting instant gratification, I’m going into panic mode when I begin my session). That answer was not the direction I wanted to go in, so it helped for me to actual vocalize what and why I was thinking these thoughts so I can begin to formulate a healthier plan.
I’ve been in such an emotional free fall these last few months which has been amplified by the lack of a solid foundation that should have existed before making any big moves. I know people have got me, but I need to have myself and more often than not, I don’t.
While I find myself acting impulsively at times, mainly with money, I tend to catch myself before I’m entirely stupid. My thoughts are often racing. My verbal word retrieval, which is usually an indicator of how bad the racing thoughts are occurring, is fairly awful on most days. I often find myself attempting to panic on things that I cannot control, no matter how minute or out of my control they are or how ridiculous it would be to panic over that thing. Let’s say I need to do something in the next week. I’ll start the panic process on anything else related to that thing even if that thing is as benign on sorting items out to donate to the local Goodwill.
I have forgotten me in all of this. I have forgotten self-care.
Knowing that this feeling of panic is part of the process, that it is normal to feel this way, takes a bit of the sting out of the attack when it happens. While I’m still panicking during and after practicing, I know where the root of some of the panic comes from. I know that by bringing the focus back to the body more and less on attempting to follow my herringbone mind is totally okay and will get better with practice.
Headspace used the analogy sitting on the side of the road watching the cars go by, something I found I don’t really do at all. Often I’m so busy wanting TO BE the car I forget that I can just let the cars go by and not having to actually interact with them. Working on the meditation allows me to really see that sometimes these thoughts are really just that: thoughts and not concrete methods of decision making.
This was this week’s lesson learned: it’s okay to worry or have a panic thought, this is normal part of all the changes I’m going through. It’s okay to want to always begin with building your own foundation. Thus, for now, that’s what I want to get out of Headspace is the ability to make more mindful decisions, recognize thoughts are just thoughts, and to remind myself to be present in this world while building a solid foundation for myself as I do so.
xoxo,
Lisa

life-ring enclosure

Dear Internet,
Yeah, it’s been awhile. I’m at an undisclosed location for the week to make some hard choices, something I thought I did ages and ages ago when I decided to upend my life but apparently not as clear cut as I thought.
How did I get here? (Car and credit cards, but that’s the logistics and not the reasoning.)
While I’ve been doing a fairly good job of keeping my train wreck of a life off the internets except when absolutely necessary, you lot always knew the ends of my decisions and not the process of the whys. That was perhaps the most uncharacteristic thing about this whole blasted mess is that I’ve always kept a written track of what I’m doing and why, but as I’m being dragged through the mud across the internet due to #TeamHarpy1, I thought it might be just a bit wise to not to publicly say a damn thing.
But as the weeks have gone on, the impact of that internalization is damaging not just my brain, but also my body. I get random hives. My period is showing up every two weeks. I wake up at 4AM on an almost daily basis in a complete state of panic no amount of Klonopin can seem to fix. My moods are cycling so hard that I cannot trust what I’m feeling one minute to the next. I am free falling emotionally that what seemed like a brilliant decision one moment can feel great regret the next, which alternates with almost complete stoicism with emotional shutting down. I have been in tears so much, I’m surprised I’m not a prune.
What seemed so crystal clear weeks ago is now muddled and chaotic.
In order to regain control I made a few concrete decisions: Disconnect from the internet for awhile and find some place to be alone for a few days to clear my head and do some really hard thinking. But fuck the haters, I am going to put everything out on the damned blog. Maybe seeing it in print will help with the clarity and it will keep those who are needing to know how I’m doing.
So now you know WHY I’m here, so let’s move to the WHAT.
The stories consist of three main characters: Myself, TheBassist, and TheSoonToBeExHusband. So I’ll give you the tl;dr for the moment, with a fuller explanation tomorrow: I am in love with two men.
I did not leave TheSoonToBeExHusband for TheBassist. TheBassist and I started a relationship after I separated from TheSoonToBeExHusband. My marriage had been deteriorating for the last several years and this past spring, I had a sit down with TheSoonToBeExHusband about working on our marriage. He agreed to work with me on making changes. It didn’t happen. This was not the first time I had a sit down with him but it was the last. I had originally planned on using my year long writing sabbatical to also get my life back on track and hoped TheSoonToBeExHusband would come with me on that journey. When it became clear that he had no intent, I left.
TheBassist entered after the separation. We met up to see if the spark was still there after so many years. It was not a spark, but an explosion. He offered me many things TheSoonToBeExHusband would not and it was a chance for a true partnership with someone who would and could be my lover and equal.
So I decided to take a risk.
During the period as I started getting things ready, I felt very lucid and clear about all of my decision making. I had gone through a series of internal checklists and worked with my therapist on making sure I was doing the rational thing. Yes, there was emotions involved but I needed to also make sure what I was doing was not impulsive but the right choice for me.
And it felt right. Up until the day a few weeks after that I woke up out of a dead sleep at 4AM, woke TheBassist and said in all seriousness, “Why should I stay?”
And my emotional state has been getting progressively worse ever since.
To be clear, nothing has “happened.” TheBassist and everyone here have been beyond fantastic. I’ve been treated like visiting royalty and if I am indeed having a nervous breakdown, I couldn’t ask for better group of people to love me as I went through it. Also to the clear, TheSoonToBeExHusband has done nothing wrong since I left. He’s been an utter gentleman and is completely supportive of me.
This is nothing more than a pure case of my brain eating itself with something needs to be sorted and soon before I crack.
And with that, now I slumber. Until tomorrow.
xoxo,
Lisa

1. #teamharpy: The flurry of activity after the public announcement of the case in mid-September has died down a bit, but two new recent articles in well regarded spaces (one a professional library publication and the other, a oft quoted law blog) has brought a flurry of new support AND haters to the fold. I’ve been laying low on Twitter, even more so after reading the hashtag, as it causes some massive FEELS. In addition to the slagging across Twitter, nina and I are being eviscerated across other social networks (reddit, Facebook groups, blogs, and so forth) on everything from we’re too ugly (her) or fat (me) to get harassed to questioning our mental health (mainly mine). Of course there is always the question of the legitimacy of our complaints with complete dismissal of nina and I as human beings because she’s transgendered and I’m bipolar.
After the first few dozen rounds by anonymous cowards on reddit and blog comments, my skin has grown thick, but the sheer viciousness and regularity still surprises me. What is also interesting is how much of my life is being scrapped from this site, digested, and reframed in an attempt to shame me. Which is kind of hilarious in its own right since I’ve always been brutally honest in the presentation of myself to the world. I have nothing left to lose, I’ve been saying that since the beginning, and yet not a day goes by where someone attempts to be helpful by pointing out I’m mentally unsound because of REASONS. It’s extraordinary the lengths trolls will go through to make their, albeit weak, point when it’s all been right there, in public view, for years. Trolls may be vicious, but they certainly are stupid.

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 1998

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:
creeper
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

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

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2011, 2003, 1999

valkyrie in reverse

good girls go to heaven, great women go to valhalla
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.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2010

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