30 Days of Mental Illness Awareness Challenge: Day 7

Question: Do you think there are any patterns or triggers to how your illness affects you?

YES … and there’s so much!

You know those “before and after” pictures make-over people get? If you want to think of my PTSD diagnosis and subsequent therapy as a bit of a mental health make-over, you’ll understand why I am going to bifurcate my answer into two, easy-to-swallow, dissolvable, before and after gel caps for ease of consumption.

BEFORE I ventured into the realm of truth telling in therapy, I assumed any kind of stress, including but not limited to being touched, loud noises, bright lights, and startling movements triggered my schizophrenia. With the smallest worry, I would launch into a black whirlpool of hallucinations of “People” trying to rape me, who told me lies, poisoned my food, and tried to trick me into killing myself. I couldn’t keep a schedule or routine because I couldn’t predict what might trigger me or toss me into a paranoia so profound I couldn’t leave the house. (This still happens, but less now.) The People kept me up at night until I would collapse completely after about 3 days of no sleep. My eyes would sometimes involuntarily roll back into my head and I would pass out into sleep for 4 hours, only to get up and do it again for another 3 days. Unfortunately, I had no accompanying mania. (Unfortunate, because there was no productive output, although I’ve heard mania can be pretty hellish, too.) I was the victim of complete a-volition. Agitated inertia and distress followed. Oh yeah, and don’t forget my total loss of touch with reality. It wasn’t until I spoke to an excellent group of folks online that I began to suspect my sense of being invaded and made powerless had something to do with trauma.

AFTER I recognized stressors related to trauma, I realized what could set off an already schizophrenic mind into a tailspin. Anything that surprises me and which I can’t prepare myself for triggers me – and no wonder! – into dissociation. I’ll have to retreat to home or a ‘safe place’ to clear my head. That is one pattern, and possibly the most common one.

Unwelcome touch, people sitting too close to me, and long periods of time in public, are all triggers. If I have to hold The People in for too long, I feel like I am going to explode and have to escape the scene.

I’m learning now about people in my past who were manipulative, which also triggers me so subtly I don’t always see it right away. This push-me-pull-you, passive aggressive waltz some people like to do is crazy making for me in the end. In therapy, I am also learning how to pay attention to my body. My stomach and bowels are the organs most affected by stress (except, of course, my brain). I’ve also noticed I react quite strongly to scenes of violence/rape/unfairness in movies, television, and even books. Either I cry endlessly over it, or I assimilate the characters into my delusions and try over and over to save them. This limits the amount of fun I can have, too: I miss out on all those science fiction mind-fucker movies I love. 

Patterns I recognize are that I am not usually able to follow through with plans or finish projects. And I am extremely codependent; I always assume the things that go wrong are my fault somehow. But I see boundaries now, and am learning to set them. With therapy I am learning the compassion embedded in the word NO.

I've hit rock bottom and have started to dig.

Well, that's not exactly accurate, but I'm getting there.

I am sooooo tired, friends. Tired and need to sleep. The Horrible Hands make this impossible tonight. I've had a busy day, so there was a bit of hiatus on Day 7 of 30MIAC. It'll pop up soon, I promise.

I was trying to sleep when The Hands started up. I was being used. Strangely, after being used, I was rejected. My "Fantasy Man" (the current guy in the mental Rolodex my fantasies have fixated on), left me for dead. I couldn't stop the delusion. In the psychosis I was killed while pregnant with his child, and he didn't care.

Pencil sketch of Self, circa 2004

I keep having little loops of delusions (they're almost like .gif files that go horribly wrong inside my head). In them lately, I am almost always killed while pregnant. And it reminded me of the child I can never have because I am too sick. Too sick and unable to be so selfish as to bring a helpless being into my world of insanity and lethargy. I love my imaginary/potential child too much to have it. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, to plow on into the world I inhabit when no one is looking, I thought the child was a Me, a Self I was trying to form. But no. This one is so literal and so obvious I missed it.

I grieve for a motherhood I cannot have. And Fantasy Man? I grieve the impossibility of him, too. And then my thoughts connected in that strange way they do when one is almost asleep. It startled me awake. I have always been rejected by the guys I am attracted to. I was always put down by them as well. (I was that nerdy kid who brought a massive poster of the Millennium Falcon to summer camp, instead of photos of her family.) And then THAT thought connected to something else: my hatred for compliments, and why I have trouble accepting them.

Compliments hurt. Now I know why, and this is important: it's because I know they're TRUE. I can feel you shaking your heads across the ether in misunderstanding, so I'll clear it up. I know they're true deep inside, but I am still rejected by the people who I want to see all those "wonderful things" the most. If it's true that I'm nice and compassionate and funny and intelligent and fun to be around, why am I always teased and put down by men? Especially the ones I really like, and who I want to like me back? I may be all those incredible things people want to be, but -- here's the clincher -- most people don't give me a chance to show them how incredibly cool I can be. I'm dismissed and invisible.

Which brings me back to Fantasy Man. In my psychoses and delusions, he never never ever gives me even the slightest chance to prove myself. He assumes, and then leaves (but not before he kills the child I want so badly). And then I discovered what is so depressing about all of the baby-wanting thing: I would feel like my life meant something if I could pass on a piece of myself to a kid. (I know that's damn selfish, which is why I persist with rigid birth control. I do have a conscience.) It was a shock to discover in myself that I put so much massive meaning on motherhood. But I do, and that is why I had to type all this out. I had to so I wouldn't cry anymore tonight. I'm tired of hurting.

30 Days of Mental Illness Awareness Challenge: Day Six

"... But a black sheep with a crumpled horn." - Dylan Thomas

Question: Do you have a family history of mental illness or mental health issues?

The answer to this is No ... at least, not that we know of.

I have no family history of "disappearing grandmothers" or "eccentric uncles," or anything else of the sort. But the important thing to remember about this is that I was born in the mid 1970's, and people just didn't talk about these things then ... and certainly not before then. So, who knows? Maybe there is a history and the people in my family were really adept at concealing the afflicted, or the poor sufferer(s) were extremely good actors? It's possible, but the answer is still, "No ... not that we know of." I know that's strange, especially since I had such early onset and my symptoms are considered "high acuity." Researchers and pshrinks will shake their heads (believe me, I've seen them do it when I answer this question for them), and Medical Model doctors get their panties in a bunch about it. No genetic markers? How can this be?? (I refer you back to Day Five, and the 1.5 post in the middle of Day 3.) Not that I think mental illness is a choice. Not that at all. But a reaction to trauma in the very place we have allowed America to become ...? That certainly must be a factor.

All I know is I can't solve it for-sure-sies. (Unless the CDC or some independent researcher finally finds the elusive "genetic marker" for certain and we exhume all the bodies of my ancestors to test their DNA. But this seems unlikely.) Sorry I have no juicy stories of gothic-style, pure, literary madness to astound you. But then, maybe the odd fact that I seem to be the first one in our family's history to come up with schizophrenia might be astounding enough.

ETA: At first I wrote out "Metal Illness" in the title and didn't catch the rather apropos typo. *Jams to metal on the MP3* Jungian slip, perhaps?

Friends Unfinished

Work in progress: I've got the need to draw!

Pencil in progress, 2014

Obviously, this still needs some work. The whole left side is pretty raw at the moment, but a huge THANK YOU goes out to this delightful pair of friends for their support and inspiration. Any suggestions as to additions of colour would be appreciated.

30 Days Mental Illness Awareness Challenge: Day Five

Question: Do you believe nature (biology/physiology), nurture (environment), a mix, or something else has an impact on mental health?

Warning: I'm gonna get a bit nit picky. If I take this question apart critically, "believe" and "impact" change the tone of what it's really asking.

I can understand the word "believe", because after all the millenia of mental illness, no one is yet able to say just WHAT makes it begin its malicious circles. And not for lack of trying. Scientists, psychologists, doctors, politicians, religious authorities, and just about everyone else have been struggling to find some objective, empirical truth that will clear up the cause of these monsters in the human mind. To no avail. No such luck, pal.

So we're down to belief. No physical tests exist that pin down mental illness. It's hit and miss, and even the medications to treat it are trial and error. Psychological testing is slightly more accurate ... but only slightly. They tell you the WHAT, but not the HOW. So yeah, belief kicks in. It's almost mystical these days. Perhaps it always was? Perhaps that's why so many were thought of as shamans, or mediums, or witches? Perhaps that's why many were either revered or destroyed, depending on their culture? But the word "impact" strains too hard to be politically correct. Of course EVERYTHING has an impact on mental health, just as EVERYTHING has an impact on EVERYTHING ELSE. The wording of the question is misleading.

What the question means to ask, quite plainly and let's admit it, is "What do you think caused your mental illness?" Don't get me wrong; it's a fair question. It's even an important question. It's a big deal, but it isn't a question for which I have hope of a definite answer to in my lifetime. So let's go back to the word "believe", since it's all we have. In the meantime, we'll pretend the phrase "has an impact on mental health" really means "is the cause of mental illness." Just for clarity.

Nature or Nurture? A mix? Something else?

I believe the fact that I hallucinate and get paranoid and have delusions is biological. However, contrary to the Medical Model, I believe that what I am hallucinating, paranoid, or delusional ABOUT is purely psychological.

If my brain produces too much dopamine (the current, accepted theory on schizophrenia), who knows if it was "built in" that way with my genes, or brought on by a chemical change from trauma? Both are plausible in my mind, but I am no neuro-expert. In my opinion, it's most likely a mix of so many factors we just can't wrap our heads around it all yet.

With medication, my life is better than it was without it. (It was a total malfunctioning breakdown.) Still, I can't ignore that therapy is progressing to a point for me that I am doing pretty well, as long as I can cut out stressors. If it is a mix, or one, or the other, or something else, it has been my experience that different things work for different people. Boxes and compartments are useless within the multitudinous dimensions of the human animal as a whole.

It's a game of 'chicken or the egg' for me. It's an endless loop of speculation and guesses at this point in history. And to be honest, at the end of my day it doesn't matter much. It is what it is. When someone self-identifies that medication (and nothing else) helps them, I believe them. If they testify the case is the opposite for them, I believe them too. Until someone figures it out, my (unasked for) advice is to try anything you think will help you.

PS And be wary of people who advise you to do things that do NOT help you. You are the only one who can decide what works for you and your relationships with those around you.

30 Days of Mental Illness Challenge: Day Four

Question: What are the pros & cons of having a mental illness, or your specific illness(es)?

For ease of reading all this enormous text I've been posting, I'm reverting to bullet points this time. There is no other way to shorten it!

PTSD. PROS (I can't believe I actually came up with a few. It took some thinking!) :

•  Being able to alleviate some of my schizo symptoms simply by recognizing where a few of them originate. 
• It opened the door for the telling of my toxic "secret", which helped me get the support and help I needed.
• Forced me to be more aware of my self and my body and my reactions to triggers. Previous to this diagnosis, I just tried to numb it all away with medication and shuffled it under the grim sentence of schizophrenia.
• Therapy for it is more effective (at this point) than the known treatments for schizophrenia alone.
• The stigma against it is not as enormous as ... some others I could name.
• Support groups for it are numerous and higher profile. They are the reason I have the support I have in my friends/life. 
• I am more sensitive to others have lived through abuse or trauma of whatever sort. I believe people when they say they have PTSD by default action, which is healing for everyone.

                       CONS:

• Nobody deserves to be brutalized and it's not fucking fair. It hurts so much.
• You don't get to choose when PTSD (or triggers) will sneak up on you.
• The only way to heal it is to re-live it. (Hopefully with a competent therapist.)
• Flashbacks, nightmares, paranoia, being in combat-mode, and never trusting.
• Hating touch, and an all out phobia panic reaction to sex (for my particular case, anyway).
• Blaming myself and never feeling "good enough." 
• Irrational anger at people who didn't try to stop it from happening, even if those people didn't know it was happening.

Schizophrenia. PROS:

• I've learned a lot about being "different", including the amazing phenomenon of EVERYONE feeling they are "different" somehow, and can relate to others on that level.
• I get a unique perspective on how to teach others that we're not all crazed idiots with assault rifles. We are real people with real friends and loves and cares and thoughts of profundity. Sometimes I do so through poems and art, and sometimes with actual public speaking about mental illness and schizophrenia.
• Um ... it sure beats dining alone? XD 

                     CONS:

• The unbelievable stigma I get when I am taken seriously, and the unbelievable doubt when I present well on a good day. 
• The medication. All the damned, poisonous, toxic medication.
• Lowered life-expectancy.
• The inability to hold a job (or get a job due to silent discrimination).
• Avolition and the inability to handle stress.
• Relationship failure. When the "mask" comes off and the boyfriend (whomever he might be at the moment) realizes I really am too sick in private settings and the whole thing goes down the crapper.
• The symptoms! Oh dear god, the symptoms! ALL THE SYMPTOMS.
• There is no real cure. You just have to learn to live with it and cope with your own personal entourage of demons.

Then there is the one con that traverses all mental illness or "abnormal" diagnoses:

          THE INVISIBLE DAMAGE. "You don't look sick!" Or, "I can't see it, so you must not be that bad." Or (the worst): "You should be able to fill in blank. You seem fine." Because, if you already knew all of this (especially about schizophrenia) and you still think we're all violent, unpredictable weirdos, I should let you in on a very public secret:

Those with mental illnesses are EIGHT TIMES more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than to be the perpetrators of one. So here's a bonus CON for your edification:

• America has turned into a giant "One Flew Over the Coo-coo's Nest" nightmare. Think about it. If something violent went down between me (a total peacenik weakling), and some neurotypical person (do any actually exist anymore?), who do you think they would listen to in a court of law, whether I started the altercation or not? Whether I even fought back or not? Who would a jury believe? Probably not ME, I'll tell you that. (And just to rest your unquiet minds on the subject, I have never been violent. And I have no desire to become so. I abhor guns and bigotry and hatred and all sorts of other horrible things. You are perfectly safe within my diameter.) End rant. 

30 Days of Mental Illness Challenge: Day Three

Question: What treatment or coping skills are most effective for you?

*sigh* Okay, dammit. I guess I have to include a “hidden” post now. It’s not in your computer settings and there’s no “hide me” button. (I wish I owned a “hide me” button. But then, doesn’t everyone?) This is something I wrote out on Day one, but didn’t include. It’s tightly tied to the methods that calm me and will help me answer the list a little more completely.

Here it is! TA-DA!

Day 1.5 Question: Any other diagnoses? Explain it a little.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

About 2 years ago, I heard about a sexual abuse survivor’s support group. I always knew it happened to me: as a child and again as a teenager, by two different people. I also knew the bullying I received in school was a little different from the others’. I was SINGLED OUT. I was never into the popular stuff the others were into, and besides that, I had a blossoming mental illness with extremely early onset. (I lost touch with reality totally by the time I was14.) It only served to isolate me and complicate matters. Although I already had a therapist, I had never been truly honest with them. I decided to find a therapist I could trust and relate to right before I found the survivor group. I finally laid out my story.

I argued with myself over this post. Should I, or shouldn’t I? Honesty that might heal, or silence that might protect? A friend pointed out that I have already been scathingly honest as it is with Lost On Ethel. It also brought up the question of how many people have been hurt (mental illness or no) with the so-called “protection” of silence in the matter of abuse? So I name my second diagnosis here, but I really don’t feel I need to hand you the details like a gift-wrapped box of poisoned bon bons. The minutiae of my past are dented and bruised by too many hands already. There are enough fingerprints in my private spaces to last me a lifetime. I’ve swam through enough muck to know the danger of an audience I can’t see.

“It’s no wonder,” you’ll say, “that the haunting, horrible Hands grope at her. It’s no wonder she doesn’t sleep or feel safe. It’s no wonder she doesn’t trust us.” And I don’t. Not really. Sometimes my delusions and hallucinations and paranoia are simply flashbacks to a childhood I wish had never happened.

But this is not for you to worry about. I do what I can with my new therapist. Even some of my “treatment resistant” symptoms of schizophrenia have subsided from psychotherapy and EMDR. The groping hands are less intrusive, and I am FINALLY learning (at this late stage), about boundaries and real social interaction. I draw a line, then, by sparing you the blood and gore and guts of my tale in full. I’m not proud to have been so horribly wounded, but I am honest enough to say that I have been scarred and left a little dead by what others have done. How this affects the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia – and how schizophrenia affects PTSD – is a story for another day. But this is key: if someone out there is reading along and this turn slaps them in the face with an ice hand and they realize they are not alone in whatever diagnosis they might have, I’ll have done something worthwhile. 

collage of my brain matter 2014

… And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Day Three

Obviously, I do continue to take medication for schizophrenia. Without it, I spiral into a down-sliding vortex of delusions that eventually lead to catatonia. It’s nearly impossible to communicate with me in such a condition: just ask anyone who attempted to relate to me in high school.

I don’t name the names of the drugs I have to swallow to create my prosthetic synapses. I don’t feel it’s a good idea to suggest that what works in my case works for anyone else. Besides that, I’m not a big endorser of Big Pharma. (America seems to prefer to medicate the living fuck out of people to meet standards we don’t even comprehend. If you don’t agree, take a poll of 10 different people’s idea of “normal” and compare them. I’ll bet you’ll get at least 11 opinions.) I choose to sacrifice my body for the sake of my mind, but I refuse to pigeonhole another person into mandated treatment. However, I will say anti-psychotics have helped me and they continue to do so. But they’re not the only trick in my magic show.

Talk therapy and dream analysis have helped me unravel quite a bit, although without a specific therapy (called EMDR), it does little more than help me identify my feelings (which is important), and keep me coping for another week.

EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is a fucking Relief Bucket of Wonder. I wrote out the words in the acronym so it will be easier for you to look it up if you wanted to. Perhaps you’re already aware of the benefits it affords people with trauma, though, and I don’t want to waste time explaining its finer points. I hope it suffices to say the hallucinations of the Groping Hands have been recognized in EMDR for what they are (flashbacks), and I have almost completely reprocessed them.

Mindfulness is a great therapeutic endeavor for me. It puts me back inside a dissociated body that needs paying attention to. Once I feel my stomach cramping before the stress hits, I know how to combat the stress. I pay attention. It makes a bigger difference than you’d think.

These are the treatments that keep me grounded. Of coping skills, I only know two.

The first is creativity. I write and draw and collage and knit my way through the heavy days, when the world is a weight in my skull. Those are the days I have to be alone, the days when I need insulation and solitude.  My poems are cryptic, doused in a language that loves riddles. My short stories are often disjointed and not-quite-right. My doodles are painful to absorb. Knitting is a great distraction. Its challenges keep my mind occupied, and its rhythm calms me at the same time. My journal entries (and I guess this blog too), are the most straight forward ways I have of communicating my struggle for sanity.

The second is the community I’ve accumulated around me for support. There is my family, who are always willing to embrace me and hold the space for me and my crazy… even when it’s out in the open on my sleeve. Then there are the friends I’ve gathered in the last few years, when I finally decided to step out of my shell and realized it’s okay to reach out. (You know who you are, and thank you.)

Wow. This was a long post. I hope the collage aided in the consumption of so much information. If not, I hope you come back and finish reading sometime. I also hope I helped someone.

These are large chunks of me. Be kind to them, please.

 

30 Days of Mental Illness Awareness Challenge: Day Two

30MIAC Day Two. Question: How do you feel about your diagnosis?

This is a quicksand question. When I try to decide how it makes me feel, I feel a plethora of emotions around those feelings. And then I question my feelings.

For example: "I hate it! It took my life away!" is technically true in its own way, but isn't actually fair because along with it came different advantages and disadvantages (which we'll encounter in Day 4). It would not be PRECISE to say I hate it. In a way, I am perversely proud of it. I have lived through so much that I find myself more open minded about different ideas -- from philosophy to disability -- but it is not precise to say "I'm proud," either.

I'd rather not have schizophrenia at all, frankly.

BUT it has been with me for so long, I don't know if I have any sense of Selfhood without it, and this is problematic. I've got an illness-based identity, which is more crippling (if you really think about it) than just having a illness. I can't say I'm at any extremes (not even an extreme middle point of view) when it comes to the emotive intake of my diagnosis.

I have come to a place I squirm to think I am at: I'VE ACCEPTED IT.

Some people would rejoice to reach such a landing point. I don't, and I'll tell you why. I've lost hope of ever getting out of it, of ever recovering. I feel SAFE inside my bubble of madness. And friends, that's dangerous.

30 Day Mental Illness Awereness Challenge: Day One

So as usual, I'm a bit late on this one ...

Day 1. Question: What is/are your mental illness(es)? Explain it a little.

       As of the DSM V, I have "general schizophrenia," though when I was originally diagnosed in 1994 (under the weight of the DSM IV), I was beaten by the phrase "chronic, undifferentiated schizophrenia." My pshrink told me "undifferentiated" stood out because, although I exhibited symptoms of all the other subtypes, I seemed not to prefer one over the other (i.e. I was just as paranoid at times as I was likely to be catatonic or disorganized). And so began my journey of labels and disability forms ... even though the DSM V dropped the subtypes after much discussion.

(As a side note, I'm a bit glad of the subtype drop. It means others who have gotten the delightful 'Grab Bag O' Mental Illness (you don't want it; there's nothing good in there), can be treated as specifically or generally as suits our needs. I'm told it also makes the billing easier for insurance companies - for those of us who are lucky enough to have such a thing as insurance - even if the meds that work for us are not in our specific category of our diagnostic "subtype." And I like the idea that we are all on a SPECTRUM, which opens the dialogue of diag-nonsense to include other factors.)

But back to the business of diagnosis.

What does the word "schizophrenia" even mean?? (I could go on about Greek word roots here, but I won't. If you're that interested, Google it.) Most people think schizophrenia means Multiple Personality Disorder (or Dissociative Identity Disorder, for those of you who keep up with the times). But it's not. Sadly, I have only this one, dilapidated, boring personality. Sorry, folks. What it does mean is that I get hallucinations (of all sorts: audio, visual, oral, olfactory, and tactile), paranoia and delusions.  I'm not "split" from myself. I am split from reality.

Like most schizophrenics, I am often confused about what is really going on around me in the real world, in real time. (For some, this even happens when on all the right meds and with all the right therapy.) For example, when it's dark, I sometimes hallucinate lights passing me, like headlights on a nighttime highway. Or I'll hear whispering, and no matter who is whispering or what is actually being said, I automatically assume it's negative ... and has something to do with me. (I can't speak for everyone, but I am very egocentric in this way.) I hear and see and feel the touch of celebrities in grandiose proportions, but then become paranoid and attach delusional narratives to it that usually run along the lines of, "I hate Sue. I hate her and I think she's ugly." Again, the ego-centrism!

I've been told that, from the outside, my psychosis looks like I'm "tripping on acid." The fact is, I've never taken LSD. I've never even seen LSD. When I am in psychosis, it's like I have blinders on. A myopic tunnel vision that excludes everything except the circus in my head. It is a tornado of chaotic obsessions, and sorting it out becomes a clusterfuck of rules.

Some days, The People In My Head are much more important than remembering to eat, or change out of my pajamas. I hone in on their worlds, and I can't escape the sticky spiderwebbing of their comments and invasions. It's only when someone points out that I am talking/laughing/screaming at The People that I become - and seriously, let's all talk about this, because I don't know if anyone ever has - I become EMBARRASSED. My stomach clenches up. I freeze and turn alarming shades of red. I've been caught! They've called me out! What's worse is that they (probably) just heard everything I uttered. Even worse than THAT is the fact that whoever heard me is real, real, REAL - inescapably so. And I can't undo it. I can't "rewind" or "erase" their memories the way I seem to be able to with The People In My Head! It's not a pleasant experience. It's almost exactly like being caught masturbating. Sure, the activity might've been perfectly normal to you, but HOLY SHIT! ... Right? (So be kind, dear reader, when you see or hear someone responding to invisible enemies or friends. It's not done for your benefit ... and sometimes, we just can't help it.)

There're some posts I've already made in this blog to describe it from the inside ("Almost There", or "The good news is it isn't fatal. The bad news is it's chronic" or "How it feels to be nobody"). I re-read them yesterday (I hadn't read them since I wrote them back in 2011!), and I guess I did an okay job describing the experiences. I'll let my words skip too much repetition, even for so worthy a cause as Mental Illness Awareness.

I write that last phrase with a little trepidation, but also with hope, because I think if you really care about this (and it is something about which I care very passionately), you will read more than just today's blog post, more than just this blog in general, and more than just the biased, reported opinions of newscasts on your TV set. This stuff is everywhere, and in an age of information and global connectedness, you should look beyond your own scope at mental illness. Yes, it might scare you, but isn't that all the more reason to learn about it and be informed?

Hats off to Marci and her blog-savvy crusade against stigma! Hats off to every blogger who has taken up the challenge since then, and to each one who will do so in the future! And hats off to YOU, gentle reader, for staying tuned to read our clumsy attempts to describe situations and crises language seems to have no words for.

This. YES. THIS.

This! THIS.

I'm gonna do it!! Watch out, blogworld! Shit's gettin' real.