Perchance to Dream ...?

And The Worms Will Eat Me Up, pencil by ME, 2005

My sleep's been all wonky lately.

Not only does it take me close to 2 hours to fall asleep on a normal night, my sleep is very fragmented. I wake to tactile hallucinations, the People In My Head poking and prodding in very uncomfortable places. Or audio hallucinations will wake me suddenly. The other night I heard a voice in my ear telling me to make sure not to paint my house avocado green. It startled me from my sleep. So my pshrink ordered a sleep study.

The techs at the sleep center were nervous and new. I clenched my teeth as it took the New Guy over an hour to hook me up to the equipment that would measure my sleep. I kept in mind this would reveal all the problems I have while sleeping and tried to grin and bear it. I had to wait a week for the results.

I went in with the assumption there was something terribly wrong with me that could be easily fixed. I was wrong. My page-sized chart of sleep was punctuated by 3 small dots of actual REM sleep. The rest of the page showed the zig zag marks of me hopping in and out of sleep. The stats said I wake up on average 10.6 times PER HOUR I sleep. When I asked why, the sleep doctor admitted he just didn't know.

"I can tell you what it's NOT," he assured me. "It's not sleep apnea; it's not restless leg syndrome; you're not having any seizures. As to what is waking you up, " he continued, "we don't know. It was not a full EEG, so we are just as stumped as you are." He folded his hands in front of him in a very doctor-like way and told me to try "sleep restriction" to see if that helped. That means he wanted me to limit myself to about 5 or 6 hours in bed, to see if I would sleep through it out of pure exhaustion. I pointed out that I'm already exhausted when I go to bed, and that I have school during the day. "Good points," he said and left the room.

My pshrink was alarmed when he saw the results. He said he wanted to try a med for narcolepsy on me, one that requires you to be on a national register to take. Red flags popped up in my head. I Googled the medicine (named Xyrem), and found it is government controlled GHB. The side effects were alarming. Sleep eating, bed wetting, psychosis and memory loss just a few of them. It also said not to ever take it if you are on ANY meds for mental illness. No thank you, No thank you, No thank you played through my head. I crossed my mental fingers that the doctor could not prescribe it to me based on interactions with my psych meds.

And it turns out he couldn't. Phew!

So he tried another sleep medication, which kept me awake all night with respiratory depression. I laid awake, afraid to sleep for fear that I would stop breathing entirely. My breath came shallow and difficult. So the next night, I halved it. I woke less disturbed in the night, but am still exhausted all day. I still wake up to the feeling of hands where they shouldn't be, though no one is there. And I still must deal with school, despite my fatigue. But no respiratory distress last night, and I hope after a week of it I can begin to sleep normally.

I wish this could've been a post of hope and perseverance. It's not. I just can't sleep well, and no one knows why. In its unsatisfactory way - like most true stories - there is no resolution ready on the page.

Busy Work

I don't know what to say about this collage, except that it is not quite finished.

There are too many left over spaces, and my mind goes straight to them when in need of comfort from chaos or colour.

For weeks I have been feeling the constipated surge of energy that rattles under my fingers, bends my spine, and colours my eyes. It has been waiting to be let out. This evening, I took on a project of collage work. This one is probably my biggest yet, and as you can see, I've taken stuff from discarded poetry notebooks and sketch pads to adorn it ... along with some of the more classic art of others' (such as the painting "Climax", by Aubrey Beardsley (1893), and a photo of the famous Shiva sculpture).

I know it's a lot to take in at once! (Heh. Welcome to my brain.) So I've highlighted a few things for your amusement:
1)

I chose the dichotomies we humans live inside to represent my seemingly endless struggle with sane/insane, normal/abnormal value systems. It seems I am caught in this binary, like Jonah in the belly of the whale.

and
2)

The snazzy application of glittery butterflies, which signify metamorphosis and change.

It's now 2.13am, and I have reached my artistic limit. I cannot look at this with new eyes. Any suggestions on what might finish it?

4 a.m. Adventure

Pastel in progress, 2011

I might have an art show coming up in Spring. I've been racking my brain, trying to come up with pictures that hold a narrative in some way. Or at least have interesting images.

I have a friend with magenta-pink and snow white hair. She's a botanist. Someone took a lovely photo of her, surrounded by flowers as tall as she, which were the exact same colour as her hair. It's a striking photo. So I thought I'd add it to my list of projects to do for my possible show, hoping someone would be imaginative enough to find a story behind it of their own and take it home with them.

The search began for a pastel pencil that could capture the radiant beauty in the flowers and her hair. I was halfway done with the face when I realised my carmine red just didn't cut it. It was 4 a.m. What else is open, but Wal*Mart?

Bravely fighting his fatigue, Bryan trudged with me in full winter attire, 2 hours before dawn this morning, to the local behemoth of chain stores across town. The only drivers out were police, so I mindfully watched my speed while I dreamed of finding that exact pink at the exact time I needed it.

I wondered as we strolled the empty aisles how fun it might be to work the extreme night-shift at one of these stores. Observation revealed it would be no fun at all - all the employees were stocking shelves and buffing the floors with giant, whirring machines. I couldn't imagine staying interested in such tasks for long.

Finally, we arrived at the crafts section, which was disappointingly small. In some pre-holiday frenzy, the art supplies were stripped down to ONE 8 pack of chalk pastels. None of the eight colours was even approximate, much less close, to what I needed. Frustrated, exhausted, and cold, we left for home.

At 8 this morning, I was up again, ready to scour the local art supply shop with the friendly manager and playful dog. They always carry everything an artist could possibly need ...

And there it was. Red Violet. The colour of dreams.

That Nerve-Wrecking First Post!

This happens to be me, in my totality (plus a dog). Obviously I collect books, which I keep because I enjoy re-reading those that catch my fancy. This picture was taken in my library, and believe me, that's not the only wall covered in words. My hair is tied back; my feet are bare. I have an extremely severe mental illness, but I look normal enough. Right?

If you take the time to look at the post date, you'll observe that I don't sleep so much. Or maybe you'll come to the conclusion that I am nocturnal. Whichever. Both suit me just fine. I am keeping weird hours not as an experiment, but because I usually have nowhere to be on any given day. That song by Nirvana, "Lithium"? That's me. So I decided to start a blog. I can't promise whether my words will be inspiring, or just downright clumsy in their mini-efforts at meaning.

I also can't reassure you that these words will always make sense to you, or that they will be in any coherent order.

I am hoping against hope that I can lighten the onus of mental illness for someone with this blog. Or maybe I can teach a loved one who deals with the bizarre changes they see in their brother, sister, daughter, husband, friend, or partner just exactly what goes on in the mind of at least one schizophrenic. It may help, and that's all the impetus I need to keep writing.

Susan