Bad Medicine!

            For legal and ethical reasons, I don’t feel I can name the medications I’ve been on, for a few of them I would never endorse to a single soul. Let’s just say the one that worked the best (we’ll call it M for shorthand, and it stands for Medication), had the worst side effects a person could imagine for me. Even starving myself and doing TaeKwonDo several times a week as exercise, I continued to gain until little, 5’2” me weighed 226 lbs. I could barely breathe, or climb stairs. I certainly couldn’t run. My father has Type II Diabetes (adult onset at that), and I was deathly afraid I was going to die from M. I begged and begged to get off of it, and finally the doctors acquiesced. Within just a few months, I lost over half of the weight I had gained on M. That is not to say that I weigh less than 113 lbs! Far from it, but half of the weight I had gained while on M is gone. I can breathe, I can run, and I can turn over in my sleep comfortably. I can shop in normal clothing stores. I am a person again. But I have been left with some crippling, long-term side effects, such as an anxiety disorder that began with M and some others.

I guess the lesson here is to say quite loudly that if you feel your medication is not working for you, and the side effects outweigh the benefits (pun intended), talk to your doctor about alternatives. Remember, doctors are there to help you, and it is your life. In my humble opinion the docs work for me, not the other way around. Stand up and be heard! Your voice is valuable.

From Half-Way Around the World

Bec in my library, 2011

                My friend Bec came from Australia to spend a month with me (excluding her lark to the wonderland of Harry Potter-ness in Florida). I wanted to include a post about her, because she is one of the most important friends in my life. Like me, she suffers from mental illness. Like me, she writes embarrassingly emo stuff about that tug-of-war that goes on in her mind. Like me, she finds stress relief and therapy in words, art, and song lyrics.
                I met Bec about 4 years ago in a poetry chat room online. Our words fell in step together like soldiers in the war for self-confidence. It was immediately apparent that she also hid behind the beauty of metaphor and imagery and we became sisters in the online years that followed. She has overcome the hardships of a family that does not understand mental illness, the stigma against homosexuality, and homelessness. Now, armed with her words and her political activism against oppression of any kind, she has resewn the bond with her mother, become a speaker and activist for gay rights, and attends university full time while holding down a job. My struggle with mental illness has been far less stressful, and she reminds me every time we talk that everyone has something to teach.
                This post today is a blog tribute to her.
                Thank you, Bec. You are an inspiration.
                You are my friend.

Upon Request:

These are a few of my watercolours. (The first is of my Aussie friend, Bec. Forthcoming are pictures of the culprit ...)

Paintings of Bec by ME!
(The bottom right is impressionistic)

Watercolour of Tim Lincecum by ME

(Sideways) watercolour of Mary Manson by Me

It should be pointed out, by the way, that I own the originals, and if you or anyone you know claims they painted these ... expect the plagiarism police.

All in one day?

Okay, I suck at multi-tasking.

I don’t have a bajillion things to do today, but I have 3 or 4 – and that’s enough to make me mental (well, okay, a little more mental).

My friend from Australia arrived yesterday, and despite not sleeping the night before from excitement and the fact that we were too excited to see each other to go to bed last night until at least 1am, today I had therapy and a meeting with a Zen master, plus some shopping to do. I’m freaking exhausted and worn. But there are guests here now (the boyfriend, and the Aussie pal), dinner needs taken care of, and my mind is blank blank blank.

If the blog suffers for my suckage at handling more than one thing at once, I apologize.

Almost there ...

Public Domain image

            He stands up as straight as the finger I want to show him. He comes to me with cameras, with excuses, and venom. As soon as his appearance registers in my brain – there is a shift in my mind that slides into an unknown slot – I am filled with dread. He hates me. I hate myself vicariously. Suddenly my life is all in 3^rd person. I see him seeing me; I see me seeing him. I feel him hating me, wanting to beat me and belittle me and abuse me. He has been watching for a long time with recording devices. He’s everywhere. I rub my eyes to exorcise him from them. The skin around the lids becomes red and sore and nothing results. As always, he’s only almost there.

If you hadn’t noticed, I am not always “there.” My mind warps and weaves itself away from reality. I drown in what is at best a daydream and at worst a full-blown psychosis. On any given day I exist somewhere between the two. But wait, you say. Psychosis? Are you saying you’re psychotic? (Or at least you are saying this if you remember those word root exercises from the 3^rd grade.) And yes, I am.

For those of you who need a distinction between what I go through and all those distasteful things that are lumped under the word “psychotic,” this: There is indeed a difference between psychotic and psychopathic. Psychopathic means that one’s brain has been hardwired without a conscience, rendering that person capable of brutal and heinous acts which they perceive as having little or no emotional consequence. All that psychotic means is that I am hallucinating and delusional enough to believe the hallucinations are real, thus warranting some kind of response.

To sum up the differentiation: Psychopathic = climbing onto a clock tower and taking people out indiscriminately with your deer rifle and not feeling any need to apologize. Psychotic = talking to the voices in your head in all alone in a room you are too paranoid to leave. Yes, both can be dangerous, but only 2% of people in prison for a violent offense is considered psychotic. If you’re into math, it is deducible easily that this leaves a whopping 98% of folks incarcerated for violence who are discerned certifiably sane. Think about that.

So, the first paragraph today is a small taste of what it’s like to have these annoying People inside your head. I know they aren’t real, but somehow it still feels like they are. This makes it difficult to keep it together in public, especially if the situation is stressful. “They” are all around me, anonymous and ubiquitous. It’s like I have an entourage everywhere I go. Honestly, it makes me feel bad for the numerous celebrities who really do have people following them everywhere with cameras.

Myself, I have never been violent, and believe me my case of schizophrenia is pretty severe. My main problem is being able to tell between reality and fantasy. But I take medicine like a religion. I try to sleep enough. I practice Zen meditation to still my thoughts. I take care of myself and keep in touch with my support system. I see a psychotherapist along side my medication doctor. I still have bad days, but I’m getting well.

And I’m almost there.

The Poetry of Madness

If I were to say anything about my poetry, it would include a sense of freedom. Its cryptic language can seem like a barrier at first, a verbal barb to keep intruders out, but if one peers carefully between the bars of type they will see a soul. It is mine. Under its weave of metaphor I create myself, remember myself, understand myself.

I have thought a lot about whether I will post any poems in this blog. I understand that works created after 1977 need no official copyright to be protected under the law, but how many others do? I know it’s legally my property as soon as it rolls off my pen. The disparaging fact is that there are still some who don’t know this. And yes, I am afraid my hard work will be taken from me by some inconsiderate plagiarizer. You, gentle reader, will no doubt understand. Maybe my poems don’t garner me any money, or food, or even respect, but they are still fruits of my labour. So I have reservations.

Yet, this blog is in itself an act of bravery and good faith. I am rolling out my corpse for the masses, throwing rot and glitter on it to see if it is truly quelled by its mortality. To see if anyone can understand, or even relate. Also, the title of this blog itself came from one of my earlier poems, one that I wrote for my mother just fresh from a diagnosis. So, after much consideration, I am posting a piece that I feel expresses my frustration with this insidious madness and the insult of medication that comes with it. Who knows? Maybe someone who has my diagnosis in whatever form will see that there is a place for understanding, for love, and for freedom in words? Here goes!

Infirmity

Recovery is made complicated

by a collapsing of will, by a folding of fingers,

by the coughing mechanism in my brain

that subdues all thought.

There is synchronicity in failures,

as though their coming together makes the universe

sane or digestible.

I am difficult these days:

a nesting doll of insufficiencies,

one hidden under the other like layers of protective skin,

each one thickening my lucidity.

I am impervious to the cutting edge of reason.

I go nowhere; my bubble is perfect.

Reflections pass through me, distortions

of the places or people I’ve been.

A layer of film thin as fingernails

shimmers its rainbow at me and I blink,

dazed by its fabulous promise.

I can’t get to it without breaking

the skin, without bursting through walls

of blunted stupidity.

I am blank.

The slug of my mind regresses to regularity and

mediocrity takes the place of art or hope.

Brokenly I walk on rheumatoid limbs,

the chop-chop of the clean sidewalk impedes me

with its consistency.

I am so centerless and crooked

that brute force is required to counter the injury of boredom.

Grey and listless, there are no true circles –

only twisting, toddler approximations.

My bedside table is littered

with vapid letters, stunted pencils, and crude lines.

I lean forward to it in expectation, but nothing results;

I am the white blindness of meditation.

My pen has no edgy nerves.

My hands are filled in with concrete, dry and heavy.

My fingers flake off like chalk,

dust drops from my sagging eyelids.

I am unable

unable

unable.

What it feels like to be nobody

Public Domain image from the internet.

            I am always tired these days, yet I hardly sleep. When I am alone in bed, when my consciousness drops, I am filled to overflowing with self-derision and hopelessness. The voices in my head clang and clamor for notice. They become accusatory and critical, shouting at me about my weight, my looks, and anything I can do nothing about. Sometimes they become silent watchers, looming over me like an impatient crowd. Have you ever tried to sleep with the feeling that someone was watching you? It’s gotten so that even the bathtub is scary. Lying naked and prone and helpless does invite stress, and when stress is involved, so are The People (that’s what I call them). I doubt they’d be scared of the washcloth or my leg razor, which is all I’d have to fight them with.

            I have various strategies for dealing with these kinds of invasions. Usually, I turn The People into giant milk cartons and imagine running them over with my car. The SPLAT  they make is incredibly satisfying. Sometimes I just repeat to myself, “No, there’s nobody there. No, there’s nobody there.” My mind is excellent at searching out holes in logic, or gaps in plans, though. As soon as I can think of a defense against these phantasms, they’re on to it. Attack and counter-attack. Point and counter-point. An endless war no one can see.

The problem is I can feel them there, watching. And I can hear them there, commenting. That feeling you get when there’s someone standing behind you is the same feeling of a presence I get when The People are nearby. And they are never far away from me.

When I was younger, I thought they were ghosts. I thought I was special. I thought the gift of seeing all of these apparitions was for me alone. Everything had to do with me, and I ran round and round in my egocentric circles. That billboard? A special sign for me. 3 stones in a row? An augury of great importance for me. A double-take on the street, or a penny on the ground? You guessed it. That must be why there’s a “me” in “meaning”. Everything I thought had a circular logic that brought it back to me.

On medication, this all changed. The fabulous circus exploding in my head was gone, wiped clean and fresh as new milk. Except that it came back. Small at first, and unnoticed, it crept in like a burglar. It took the things I valued most: privacy, serenity, silence. The difference is I’ve learned that chance happenings in the world or random glances from others have nothing to do with me. Indeed the planet requires no observation to do its boogey-woogey thing. Still, The People haunt me.

Here’s the thing that makes me human, the thing that keeps everyone guessing what the difference is between them and a madman: in my head it’s still all about me. Everything I see or touch is filtered by my cognizance of it. And the contradiction strikes me flat every time I think of it. Inside is this “I” that has a sense that it is valuable and rare. Outside is proof that millions and billions of I’s exist all at once, each pushing and pulling according to their own little introverted desires. Welcome to humanity, I say. This is what it’s like to be nobody.