Tag Archives: mental illness

The Sparkly Feeling

28 Monday Dec 2015

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I just began the sequel to my WriMo, in which the cats (and I) consult a cousin chart and then more or less give up on the “once removed” and whatnot: They are looking for a missing cousin, leave it at that, and her wife. I have no idea what happened to them or how they are to be found; I have an image of Darjeeling in his panther form slinking through a field of wheat, but I don’t know if it actually occurs. I am in a place of mystery, and it sparkles.

I need some sparkle this morning; I had to leave a message with Boston Housing to tell them I am now essentially unemployed; I’ll keep leaving messages for a few days. I also filled out a tax form (badly), only just now spying the information which I should have put in a couple of boxes. I have other tax forms awaiting me, as now that I don’t have a child in college, I haven’t coaxed said child into filing my taxes for me. (I am so, so, SO phobic about paperwork. I’m not sure why. I’m pretty sure it began with poverty–very inconvenient of it.) Still ahead is knocking on the door of the food stamp people. Sigh.

But my brain is already feeling better about not having to Go Back There. It was all just so stressful, and I really do think that the “convenience” of having paratransit made it much worse. Paratransit is when you’re too disabled to use public transit well, so they send a car or a weird little truck to your door. It’s about twice as expensive as taking the train, but a fraction of what a cab would cost. When my right meniscus finally shredded itself to bits, I couldn’t walk up the half-mile hill to work anymore. Sigh. So not only did I end up waiting impatiently for their very random arrival and departure times, I lost some cardio and gained some weight. Grrr. More stress.

I’m also unsure about my fitness to continue working in what’s called direct service, which much of the time means dealing with highly stressed out people who have major life problems. It’s a brutal challenge to your patience and compassion, especially if you’re me and they have continence issues. I suspect it triggers me back to my unimaginably squalid childhood in the hands of a psychotic and alcoholic, which is my personal problem, but it wears on the brain nonetheless: I need to work somewhere where I don’t smell pee-pee. This all limits my options as a peer specialist, so the writing needs to take off.

At least that is still sparkly, although I have some horribly triggering stuff in Terry’s story to wade through. But I’ll wait til later; til my brain grows back somewhat. For now, sparkly.

The Music! The Trees! The Dead Cats!

06 Sunday Dec 2015

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I have about a zillion tiny changes to make in a bunch of Publisher files, and seeing as tomorrow I’m unavailable from roughly 1pm to bedtime, guess what? I’m avoiding doing it now! Yay me!

I also have to finish looking at somebody’s YA novel–50 more pages; thank mercy it’s a) better than usual and b) I dimly recall the first one, done 18 months ago. Then there’s a write-up. Also stalling there. Instead, I decided to catch you up (read: whinge) for a bit.

How do y’all feel about holiday music? I go all over the place, from fist-shaking and snarling (usually in stores, and when Mariah Carey is involved) to enjoying it (usually when doing something holiday-esque, and when the Rat Pack is involved). I am sad to say, though, that I’m not feeling the feels as a young neighbor practices Jingle Bells on some simple wind instrument. He just can’t get that G to save his little life. ( E-E-E! E-E-E! E . . .F?)

The issue is problematic at work. As far as I can tell, I have a few uncaring people, a whole bunch of rabid Christmas people–and one sad, lonely, angry guy who finds holiday music triggering and depressing. Oh sheep. Last week we were lucky, because he had a cold, but this week is going to be–unpleasant. I can see it now. We will probably resort to Mozart and please nobody but me. But I’m the boss, so hey now.

We are buying our first live tree in years next weekend, and I’m already nervous about it, as if it’s a temporary pet: I’m afraid of it dying on me almost immediately. That happened once; through the universe’s bad taste in black humor, one of our cats died right underneath it as well. (Probably a heart attack–sweet little guy, but he looked like he swallowed a bowling ball.) So I loaded up the tree, took it back to the lot, and was hysterical and incoherent. The poor, poor guy patted my hand a lot and gave me another tree for free. The kitty suffered the ultimate ignominy of ending up in the dumpster, seeing as the ground was frozen and what with Christmas and all, we didn’t have the funds for cremation. The whole experience was, shall we say, scarring.

And then there was the Christmas where we were new in town and discovered that the trees weren’t drilled for our spike stand. I remember digging into the pine with a pair of scissors and getting nowhere . . . I think twine played a part in tree support that year, and since we put it right near the heating duct on the floor, duhhhhh, of course it died too.

On the other hand, both kids hate the fake tree with a passion that ruins the tree trimming. So this year, I’m getting a real tree, baking me some cookies, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Looking Back

30 Monday Nov 2015

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I started writing about my alien people almost eleven years ago. I also did other things during that time: wrote a doctoral dissertation, had a major breakdown, was homeless for seven months, spent three years being able to only deal with one major thing a day–and by major, I mean going to the doctor or doing my laundry. But I kept writing, and to my surprise when the story was DONE–it was the length of a trilogy: Moby Dick and a half.

I then found out that agents weren’t magickally falling out of trees, and began the almost as difficult process of finding somebody–anybody–to just read the sheeping thing. I found a few, and most of them gave up early. One said that I never used an adjective if two would do. As you might imagine, my iddle feelings were hurted, but then I got a sympathetic writing buddy who made me sit down with a couple of highlighters and underline all my adverbs and adjectives. Whoa Nelly! I gave up on the adjectives after a few pages, because the adverbs were bad enough. I then pounded hard on the first volume–only to give up after a year of pounding because I didn’t know how to sell a book that had only one third of a plot curve.

I turned my back on it for three years and wrote Max instead. Still no agents stalking me in dark alleys, but I discovered something tonight, when starting to go through the other book again. (I got bored, k?)

For over a year after the first draft of Max was done, I rewrote and polished and had it beta-commented and all kinds of stuff, until I said ENOUGH (babies were going out with bathwater with every new run-through). But–it seems to have taught me a lot about writing, at least compared to the trilogy, as I discovered to my dismay just now. Never one adjective if two would do, indeed! Mind you, Max has its flaws (all books do), but at least it’s readable.

As a prologue, I tacked on the short story which was the first thing I wrote on the topic, so I peeled it off and will beat it with a stick, then run it through here for your amusement. Once it’s, you know, better.

 

What Does It Feel Like?

21 Saturday Nov 2015

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As recent readers know, I finally just caved in and accepted the tattered hand-me-down mantle of Writing Person For Reals. I had the epiphany that it didn’t matter whether or not I’d found an agent for my current novel; what mattered is that real flesh and blood people had beaten it into me that I Had It–that my writing was what one beloved beta reader called “absorptive.” And that was all I ever wanted for the Reader’s experience–that for a little while, in even a little way, they could be Somewhere Else. That’s the first step, isn’t it?

So what does making something like that feel like? Well, to be honest, very rarely does the Inspiration Fairy drag you out of bed and make you write, and when she does (a friend in an APA once remarked that the Inspiration Fairy smokes cigars and wears hob-nailed boots) it’s often a tad on the self-indulgent side, screaming “Oh my GOD I’m NAKED over here editor PLEASE.” Instead, most of the world’s writing is done the old-fashioned way, which looks suspiciously like work.

As many have remarked, the first step is putting your butt in the chair. Then you open the file or the notebook. This is accompanied by a whiny sort of vagueness: You’d sort of rather be doing something else, and you may or may not know what it is, but right now there’s this blankness looking at you, tapping its foot.

For me, it is processed like mild pain: My fingers are clumsy and sluggish. I scrawl or tap out something inspired like, “Miranda rang the doorbell.” At that point, I don’t know why Miranda is dropping by, I just know that it’s at least remotely plausible that she might. And then I stare at it. Slog, slog, oh god I’m no sheeping good at this, another sentence. I stare at them and heave a sigh. Maybe two, remembering that I should practice good diaphragm breathing for choir anyway. My brain feels dull and far away, and the idea that this will ever be a novel is a possible symptom of incipient mania.

And that’s where the scariness starts to happen. Miranda, the wench, opens her mouth and says something–and Darjeeling says something snarky–and then they’re having a conversation, and the conversation is bringing new ideas into the piece of writing just like you thread a new piece of yarn into knitting–really; that’s the point of that metaphor: You watch your fingers as if they’re possessed of a sudden ability to type or make the pen work, and new colors appear before your eyes like magic.

Something way back in the distance snaps, and your hands start making words as fast as they can. You’re no longer at your desk or at Bucky’s, you’re in that crowded Victorian living room with Miranda, Darjeeling, and the intruder they turned into a garden gnome. Your deeply beloved child of your actual loins, who will care for you in your old age, stops by to say “Good morning,” and you grouse something curt at them, because dammit Darjeeling is saying something exciting, and you can’t wait to know what it is.

You feel sort of stoned. This is only aggravated by your caffeine intake. I exhort you to drink actual water for each cup of speed.

You take a break to obey Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice (“Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches”) and hate your body for being so interrupty. Then you get back to it.

It is addictive.

For me, after about two-ish hours I can stop for at least a while; at that point, I admire my word count (especially for NaNoWriMo). Then I do at least a little of the other things in my life, knowing that again and again I’ll have that almost nauseating start-up, maybe in the same day.

Worth it–for me. Then after it’s DONE and I scream and do a bit of the hokey pokey, it’s time to edit. And that’s for you.

The Scariest Thing to Ever Happen to Me

20 Friday Nov 2015

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Sitting here at the computer, having just posted a catch-up blog for the first time since July. I’ve been depressed for that long. Sheep. No job is worth living like that; what was the point to work really hard to become mentally well if it was only to become mentally ill again?

The idea of quitting a PAYING JOB terrifies me; appalls me with its stupidity. It was only a part-time job–I knew that I couldn’t handle anything more, at least until my recovery got stronger, so luckily I didn’t lose my disability. I won’t starve, and there is a roof over my head. What amazing luck! How glorious a miracle! For reals, that sentence always makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery. I guess skipping some meals so your kid gets to eat and becoming homeless–twice–changes your perspective.

Anyway. The scary thing. I’ve just realized that–I have to write. And possibly do other art. It would be swell if I find a way to monetize that, but if I don’t, I am choosing to give up the luxuries of clothes shopping and always being able to eat out (somewhere cheap). If I don’t, I’ll get sicker; I might die. And I don’t want to die.

I have a strange little life, being mentally ill. My plans just changed at the last minute this morning, and for a few minutes my ADHD had a tantrum while it rebooted. Hate that. I would love to be spontaneous, but my brain chemistry has different ideas. I have to work around that every day. It’s a challenge to just be me, let alone living life on life’s terms. Why make it even worse?

If you’re not an artist, you may not understand this; if you are an artist, then you will: We are wired differently. If we don’t create, we wither and die. Our growth stops. Our joy vanishes. And then we start looking at knives and pills with a certain longing, as we calculate the odds: How much longer can I stay alive just for Them? Because staying alive for US is about as appetizing as the freezer-burned bargain-brand burrito you forgot about last June: A hard thing to swallow; we chew each day, trying to overlook its taste of cardboard.

I was definitely in the burrito stage, realizing at the end of each weekend that I had to go back to that place. At last the tears broke through my concrete facade and I told my boss (who has been the main thing keeping me in the job; I stay because I love her) that I wasn’t coming in this week. We have next week off anyway; by its end I will have exercised (and exorcised) my rusty, weeping brain by finishing my NaNoWriMo project, and I’ll see if I’ve built up enough residual joy to garner a few more small paychecks.

Very small paychecks: All they buy are the depression force-feeding me the bargain-brand burritos, pre-wrapped in neglect; only in my field they all smell faintly of unwashed bodies and of urine.

Working and Playing

19 Thursday Nov 2015

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Sorry to be so silent for so long, but I’ve been grappling with a huge chunk of depression and writer’s block. I was half-afraid to even try to come here, expecting that it would just turn into a clod of whiny crud that I would only end up deleting at some point, the sooner the better.

My daughter, who is wise, has been telling me for several months now that I need to quit my day job. (Or at least the main one.) Being at heart a Worker Bee and a Brave Little Soldier, I resisted. Then my desktop computer in my office blew, and so did something in my brain. It wasn’t that I was using it for immoral purposes or anything; pretty much anything I did on it I could do in the receptionist area. But there was also this petty political foo-foo going on–and I finally realized that I hated my job.

Not when I showed up, partly because since my knee blew (more on that later), I’ve been using paratransit and that entrance is the one that doesn’t smell like pee. No, it would hit later in the day, after I’d put out the usual fires (when you’re the boss, even a little one, there are always fires). I used to live to put out fires. What happened?

I think it was because when my computer blew and they didn’t replace it because of a completely different chunk of sheepness, I realized how little my employer (Huge Faceless Hospital) valued my job. That the only reason HFH knows I need a TB test is because the timer on their HR software went ding; not because I’m assdeep in homeless people all day and others with questionable coughing hygiene.

I realized that instead of being a valued professional employee, I am a paid volunteer. The last time I ran into that concept was when I was in another sheepish job similar to this one, and the local Girl Scout leaders were being paid to lead their troops. Having done my time in this particular gig myself as just another mommy, I was kinda furious. But it was the only way those little girls were going to get any scouting at all in that depressed neighborhood. So it goes here too.

Everybody talks about how little we spend on or care about mental health, and as a peer specialist I see it from the bottom of the sheep pile. We are only now beginning to be billable; i.e., major insurance and Medicaid/care is seeing us as a valuable and exploitable resource. We give provably comparable or better support, and because we “aren’t professionals,” we’re paid and treated accordingly.

Enough of that: I took the week off, and will go back after Thanksgiving for as long as I can hack it/until Christmas/or my knee surgery. Then I will slip into being JUST their webmaster and graphics person, where I don’t have to do any direct service, and can stay home, where the only shenanigans my computer gives me is turning off when I play WoW. (Either the Powers are trying to tell me something, or it’s a fan problem.)

Meanwhile, I walk with a cane now because I effectively no longer have a meniscus in my right knee. Time to be a cyborg! I was lucky enough to listen to the Second Opinion Club (thank you, all of you!) and found a doctor who is willing to operate on a fat person. I see him on the 9th of December and VERY hopefully will be scheduling the surgery at that point. No idea when, because he might well be booking two months out. More on that as it develops. I am already working out and doing physical therapy to prep the knee and the rest of me for the rehab period. (I already know it’s a bear, but I am Kidney Stone Lass, and have a high pain tolerance.)

Anyway, I spent the first day off sleeping and writing (NaNoWriMo time!), then went back to the writing today instead of so much sleeping–and I realized I am no longer depressed. Whoa. I need to pay attention to this. The reality about my recovery from Major Mental Illness (primarily Bipolar Disorder I) is that some things are more important than others. My brain has been saved through a combination of miracles and a lot of hard work, and I can’t soak it in the smell of pee until it regresses into illness again. That would be stupid.

Having been raised in the Protestant Work Ethic, this scares me to death. (There are no peer specialist jobs that don’t smell like pee, and very few of them are part-time.) Guess we are in Wait and See Land.

Doncha hate that?

 

I’s a Fat Lady o’Color. Ain’t That Enough?

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

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Well, apparently not. From the Just-Can’t-Win Department:

I just came back from the orthopod, where I was told that the sometimes excruciating pain in my right knee means I most likely have a degenerative tear of my meniscus, which isn’t worth scoping. He also told me that it didn’t matter what the studies said about fat people having a decent outcome for knee replacement, Hospital Protocol said BMI of 40, which for me means losing 45 pounds. End of discussion.

I wasn’t at my best for it even if I did have a shot in Sheepdom, because the PA had put me on the exam table with my head near the door, and thus I had just heard his entire little precis for the attending, which included the words:

“She’s not a good candidate for it no matter what she does–she has a history of bipolar disorder.”

I mean, sheep me. He said WHAT???

Apparently stigma is alive and well in the People’s Republic of Cambridge.  So I came home and wrote the following letter in their MyVoice(tm) email system:

Please make sure Dr. Ortho sees this; I expect a response from him. [These emails are read by the entire team, or can be. Attendings are too important for this sheep.]

Dear Dr. Ortho,

I’m not sure whether or not you realize it, but (having my head right near the door while on the table) I heard every word of what Jerkface said to you before you came in the room: “I don’t think she’d be a good candidate no matter what she did–she has a history of bipolar disorder.” I unfortunately am one of those women who cry when they’re really upset, so I didn’t say anything while I was there. But–I’m REALLY upset.

I’m not sure why my *past* history of BP automatically makes me a bad candidate. I do know, however, that although I’m not a big success at controlling my weight, I kick serious butt in recovering from a major mental illness. Check and see–I haven’t been hospitalized in over seven years, and in fact my job requires me to be in strong recovery.

Jerkface’s remark was ignorant and insensitive. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t meant to overhear it, it shows that he needs to learn a lot about mental illness. He gives a good shot, but I’d rather he not be involved with my care in the future. I very seriously suggest that your staff have an in-service on mental illness and stigma: NAMI is a great source for such things if you can’t arrange it in-house.

As for my being a poor candidate “no matter what:” I’m fat, not crazy. I’m fat, not incompetent. I’m fat, not lazy. I’m just fat, not some creature without feelings. Just fat.

Please respond.

Most sincerely,
Me

(Ok, I didn’t call him Jerkface.) What surprised me about this was how upset I got. Why should I care what some escapee from an overzealous tanning bed thinks about my mental status, based on a five minute interview and a cursory scan of my chart? It’s not like Dr. Ortho responded with, “Yah, I don’t cut them crazy bitches. We cool.”

Maybe it was the sum of the whole visit, with stigma piled on top of the obligatory medical fat-bash. (Dr. O did say something like, “WELL. It all depends on how important your knees are to you.”) I dunno.

I think I’m going to take the rest of the evening off and have some ice cream. With a potato-chip garnish.

Just Whose Rehab Is This?

03 Sunday Aug 2014

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I forget how the dollhouse got to Maryland from Wisconsin when we divorced. I think maybe my ex put it in the truck when he moved the kids in for their placement with me. Or maybe he added it to the several exceedingly heavy boxes he air-shipped. I know that somehow it got there, but I had my hands full having a new life with a job and single parenting. Losing the job made things harder, not easier; so did losing one of the kids. I fell apart. Got really sick. Looking back, my being held together with duct tape was a bad idea–maybe a hospital would have been a Good Thing. Maybe they would have given me an accurate diagnosis. Or maybe I would have just lost the kid I had left. I just kept on applying layers of duct tape and soldiered on.

Speaking of tape, somewhere around there, the dollhouse was taped shut to move it. (Unlike the tin ones we looked at yesterday, mine opens in the front, with its facade on hinges.) On some moves I would remove the tape and wince at the “scars” the glops of adhesive left and vow to fix it. Someday. Once in a while, I would find some miniature furniture at a craft store and sort of toss it in. I had an assortment of small dolls in there; at one point they included She-Ra, Princess of Power, who was being clearanced out at Toys “R” Us. I also had (still do have) Mammy, from Gone With the Wind. She’s a classy little doll, made in Germany with bendable limbs (they sit at the diningtable in Deutschland), complete with rustly red petticoat from Massa Rhett. It was a motley crew, and seeing as my furniture didn’t match either, what the hell?

We had two episodes of being homeless, where we had to put our stuff in storage. And even though the damn thing was falling apart and taking up space (it’s roughly a meter square and half a meter deep) I . . .  just . . . couldn’t . . . let go of it. It got jammed into corners, and I kept waiting for something to bash in its walls. But it held up. Mostly.

sad dollhouse

This is how it looked as of two weeks ago. Half the roof is missing. You can see the tape on the addition.

Things got a lot better for me, but not for the dollhouse. Lack of time, lack of space, lack of . . . moxie, I guess. But it still mattered. I’m not a giver-upper, as a rule.

Last apartment, when my son (now an adult) moved in with us (yay!) was only a two-bedroom (boo!) and although I thought we would move in July, it took til December. It was . . . stressful. I remember breaking down into tears at one point, and what was I sobbing? That I didn’t have space for my sheeping dollhouse. Mind you, even before he moved in it was in the combination storage/ferret room, where the only pleasure it was giving was to the ferrets themselves, who when let out to play could get through the gaping door. I felt like getting that novelty scotch tape that has “crime scene” printed on it. At least the ferrets weren’t doing crack in there, to the best of my knowledge.

So now this hunk of junk is in my room, and . . . for some reason, mainly because it’s close enough to the computer to touch and my debit card was on my desk at the time, I thought, “Hmm,” and checked to see if they had dollhouse shingles on Amazon. They did, with free shipping no less. So . . . what the hey. They were cheap, which was good, because I knew that with this horrible piece of wood’s history, they’d just lay around inducing mild guilt until the end of time.

But then the next day I found myself buying a sheet of foamcore and a sharp knife. Gotta put the shingles on something, right?

The house is designed to have one (missing) side of the roof hinge up so you can use the attic for storage. Or something.

The house is designed to have one (missing) side of the roof hinge up so you can use the attic for storage. Of your refrigerator.

Tools of construction. What bodes this?

Tools of construction. What bodes this?

I now have a history of finishing complex projects, so I’m just sort of sitting back and watching myself now. Pretty scary.

Because I don’t want to be fired . . .

22 Saturday Jun 2013

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. . .  I just redacted my last post. It talked about stuff at work, and in a sort of recursive fashion talked about how they have a somewhat slavering belief in Being Very Careful About Email. Seeing as this is a blog, and I’m sure the dead-curious can find out who I am, I figured better safe than sorry. Damn it.

I was fairly annoyed when I wrote the post, and now having to self-censor makes me even more annoyed. However, I am sure my lack of skill at office politics will bite me in the ass sooner rather than later; I just hope like hell the kids have jobs by then. But then I can publish without being damned, bwah ha.

It’s a toughie–for so many of us, work is such a big part of our lives. How do you handle this, folks? I change names and small facts and try to be as anonymizing as possible. But I’m pretty sure that anything other than a glazed-eyed, slogan-spouting chirp will be seen as some sort of tragic heresy.

The slogan I’m thinking of is “Recovery is Real,” and it refers to the fact that people with mental illness can and do recover, using a combination of therapy, medication, recovery planning, and alternative therapies. It’s a powerful and exciting thing–I’m living proof of it–but sometimes . . .

. . . like any new idea, it can be kind of culty, and in a sense, we’re supposed to act like ministers for a religion that frowns on any critique of the church because it might be snapped up by the Evil Opposition. I’m not sure of who the E.O. are, as the concept of recovery is spreading like the good news it is.

But I’m an INTJ working with ESFPs (if that makes sense to you) and I totally fail at being circumlocutory. My emails have been harshed on because I keep confessing the emperor to be naked in matters great and small. It would help if the only professional training available didn’t only meet once a year with 30 slots; I’m pulling a lot of this out of my butt as I go along, and because for five months they just dumped me alone at my center, I haven’t even had the benefit of more experienced people in the field until just recently.

But in general, I do love the job, and am going to be telling myself so all week as I pull together a proposal for my first conference (woot!). God alone knows how *that* will be critiqued.

Le sigh.