Category Archives: mental health

Did you know you’re supposed to be able to feel your face?

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I shared with my partner today that I’m starting to be able to feel my face- the way it behaves on its own accord, all the little twitches and emotions that play across it that I don’t plan on.

It’s wild. This is new to me.

I’ve always felt like some gray blob of consciousness with a dim glow, trapped in the skin of me which is hollow and full of darkness.

I can know the factual truth about muscles and bones and organs. I can even have seen them, I once got a peek inside my chest when my surgeon showed me a process picture of my top surgery.

Doesn’t matter, I’m a stupid sad little gray blob trapped in a hollow body filled with expansive darkness.

Doesn’t make sense but it’s my self concept. Trust me, I’m in therapy, and it’s ON THE LIST.

I asked my partner if it’s normal to be able to feel your face. She (surely) lied back to me that it was.

I woke up today and did things that I needed to do outside the house of my own volition, and alone. I returned pop cans. I picked up meds. I bought toilet bowl cleaner. I made phone calls. I did chores to get ahead for when my partner got home. I took care of an unpleasant post office form. I did an email I’ve been dreading.

I need you to understand that this represents a nearly unimaginable level of energy for me. I MADE PHONE CALLS.

I have wanted to kill myself since I was in the second grade. I’ve gotten better and I’ve gotten worse and I’ve gotten lists of different diagnoses and I’ve gotten tons of medical trauma and I’ve been in institutions and I’ve been to rehabs and I’ve gotten CBT and IOP and ECT and REBT and DBT and trauma informed therapy and gestalt therapy and the one thing I never did was manage to get a real remission.

There’s little tingles, little pulls of strings, an occasional stab.

I didn’t realize how dissociative I was until systems started coming back online.

I’ve been on Auvelity for only 3 days and I’m starting to feel less hollow…

Because I’m Afraid

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Silence had broken out in The Garage, a workstation in a small town where nerds met weekly to plink away on projects and be nerdly in step together, never quite locking eyes in their imagined social landscape. This was actually almost inevitable, since my friend and her husband and I were the last ones left, and her husband was in another room, buzzing on circuits and code.
I finally decide to confront the feelings that have been choking me the past couple weeks.

 
“I don’t think it’s anxiety, but…”

 
This was in reference to a coworker of mine who had said “I don’t think it’s anxiety, I just have this sense of impending doom.”

 
That’s the goddamn definition of anxiety.

 
“I don’t think it’s anxiety, but I have this sinking feeling in my chest.”

 
“Is this a new feeling?”

 
Word vomit was my answer. “I don’t think it’s new in the sense that I’ve never felt it before but it’s new in the last couple weeks and I had been doing so well and I’m just concerned that I’m slipping backwards and what if…”

 
She interrupted. “Lock the door. Hide the key. Turn out the lights. Pretend you aren’t home.”

 
“Maybe it’s just loneliness?”

 
We ended up discussing this at length. How loneliness just is, how it shouldn’t bring such pain with it, how I need to learn to sit with loneliness, and historically have epically failed at doing so.

 
So really, at the root of it, what am I afraid of?

 
Because that’s the goddamn definition of anxiety.

 

On one layer of it, I am afraid to be alone.

 

But I’m also afraid to be with someone, afraid of the things that would come out, afraid of who I am when I’m also defined by someone else.

 

And along the way, I am afraid to put myself out there, to try with people.

 

Or, another example, I am afraid to fail artistically, so I take tricks and little advantages and cheats. I can’t get by without my reference photos and projectors and tracings. It makes the art more likely to be “successful” on the first crack, but I know my own limitations and weaknesses. I’ve guaranteed that I will never be able to view something as truly successful.

 

So, so, scared to succeed. That’s way worse. That’s why I self sabotage so expertly and so devoutly.
This is a tangent, but a relevant one. Dr. Bell looked at me one day and asked me what borderline personality was. I parroted back to him “It’s a personality disorder characterized by at least 5 of 9 traits, such as impulsivity, anger issues, lack of identity, suicidal tendencies, and a few others.”

 

His reply was “That’s just a list of symptoms. If I asked you to describe what diabetes was, you wouldn’t just say it makes you pee a lot.”

 

He went on. “Typically, in a borderline person’s life, someone was there that they looked up to, a person of authority, typically a parent, who would tell that person to do something but not how they wanted it done. And the child would try it their own way, because everyone’s got their own way, I’m a psychiatrist but my son’s an engineer, we have different ways, anyways, the child would try it and the parent would be upset that it wasn’t done perfectly in their image. The parent would say something like ‘No, you idiot, what’d you do it that way for?’ and that would be the smack. So the child tries again, and again, different ways, becoming a chameleon for what they think that person wants. Then they’ll grow up and do this for anyone important in their lives. That’s what they mean by lack of identity. ”

 

“But,” he continued, “these people, you are, very bright. And they’re afraid of failure, afraid of that smack, but they’re just as afraid of success. In fact, it seems like when things start going well for a borderline patient, like a good business deal, a graduation they’ll often self sabotage. Why do you think that is?”

 

This was hard for me. Precisely because it hit so close to home, and it felt like some real therapizing was about to happen. “Because…it’s easier…not having people expect anything of you?”

 

And there it was. It’s not just insecurities, worrying about what people thought of me, it was worrying about being a constructive member of society. About setting myself up to fail bigger down the road.

 

I’m afraid to have anyone rely on me.

 

Because I’m afraid I’ll let them down.

 

Because I’m afraid I’m not good enough.

 

Or simply not… enough.

 

Ultimately, I think that there’s something in me, that’s afraid to simply be. On a molecular level, I’m jittery.

 
I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Saturday Night Live

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It recently was the Saturday Night Speaker meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. In a meeting on Friday, someone said that the last time this guy spoke, he brought eleven pages of material and only got to two, so they were looking forward to the other nine. This was clearly someone of my species.

 
The speaker began after the usual fare.

 
There was only one Speedo joke. For those unfamiliar with Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ll let you guess if that’s a running gag with the fellowship or not. No mercy.

 
Near the end, he said something that really resonated with me. It was really near the end. Maybe that’s bad. Maybe I shouldn’t let him know how long it took for something he said to really stick.

 
“I’ve given up all hope for a better past.”

 
Wow.

 
Or…

 
Ouch.

 
The things I’ve done will never stop being real. Even, or perhaps especially, the things I don’t remember, because the period of time that’s ECT damaged was filled with heavy hurts and grief. I have, as a drunk, as a suicidal ball of depression and crazy, and simply as a person(three separate categories and three identical categories) done terrible things. I have trashed every living situation I’ve been in. I have lived in my car rather than resolve differences with people that love me. I have neglected animals. I have abused people I’ve been in relationships with. I have stolen. I have lied. I have attempted suicide.

 
I have made people worry about me. I have made people give up on me.

 
And still I kept drinking.

 
But that quote: “I’ve given up all hope for a better past.”

 
It’s very First Step. Life was unmanageable then. I was an active alcoholic.

 
And there’s hope for a better future.

 
I haven’t given up on that.

Snotmanglers? Why not?

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There’s a little secret to writing- it’s spewing crap so the screen isn’t empty. It’s not a secret to writing well, but it gets something on the page, which is often just enough motivation to continue.

And that, my friends, will be what we talk about tonight. Continuing. In spite of boredom, or frustration, or a goddamn broken foot. Continuing, when you’re in the fog and it seems endless.

I had a meeting with my sponsor last night and she expressed some worry. We went through a book she had and determined that I’m showing 6 out of 9 relapse warning signs.

Then I introduced her to Gorski, who she had never heard of, and we found that there’s 7 phases of relapse warning signs before one even starts missing meetings!

Which I guess I was doing. I got a tad complacent after my 90 in 90.

I’ll be honest. I’m getting a bit bored with the program.

My psychiatrist said that being bored was absolutely a good sign, because depressed people don’t get bored. They just lie around being depressed. With a broken foot and being off work, who wouldn’t be a little bit bored? It’s great news!

But that was boredom in GENERAL, not boredom with RECOVERY.

People just say the same thing over and over.
It’s just recitations from the Big Book.
The readings take forever.
Like 30% of everyone’s share is them saying how grateful they are.

God, I’m a whiny little brat.

It never fails that I feel better leaving a meeting than I did walking in. There’s not many things that can make that claim. Not even making art- that sometimes frustrates the living snotmanglers out of me and throws off a whole day.

I hate who I was as an alcoholic. Granted, I hated myself since I was sentient. The key is that that is improving as I get more sober time under my belt, and the quality of person that I am improves directly with the application of the steps. Where do I learn more about applying the steps? Those stinkin’ meetings.

I need to spend time associating with people and hearing their stories. I need to spend time telling mine. Otherwise I get jammed too damn far in my own head and I start forgetting that I’m not alone.

So you know what?

I think I’ll continue coming back.

On the Second Step

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My sponsor asked me to write a paragraph or two about my higher power.

When I close my eyes in the darkness and the silence, nothing comes to me. There is no still small voice. When I meditate, my mind wanders away like a neurotic puppy, and I bring it back, but I find no peace or joy in the activity. When I try to pray, there is no presence. When I grieve, there is no comfort.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

That’s Isaiah 55:8. It’s the verse that I most relate to.

So much spiritual abuse has been heaped on me. So much pain in the name of God. Manipulating, forcing, cajoling. Writing pages of the bible until my handwriting improved and I developed mild carpal tunnel. Not believing in mental illness, not getting help, watching me retreat further and further into myself until I was a shell and then trying to break me down with an exorcism. I regret not being stronger but more I regret needing to be strong. Needing to be protected from those that were only acting out of love, only doing what they knew and thought was best.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

No, I don’t find God like that.

But when I am making something, something fanciful takes over me.

I see God in the way an edge gets shaded just right,

or a piece of sheet metal bends precisely how it needed to,

or the twirl of a burr being removed,

or a cut falling away.

My higher power is not passive. I must worship at the alter of calluses and minor burns.

I must seek out the Muse. She is not a god of prayerful prone postures. She delights in mad midnight marches of over-caffeinated whimsy.

And with that, I close my prayer.

The Pit

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I think one of the scariest things about depression is how alone that you feel. A depressed person is not only lonely, but lost and forsaken, feeling unworthy of love. It isn’t about physical presence, because you can be in a crowd and be the only one there. It’s not about mental presence, because you can be engaged with somebody, wholly involved in an experience, and still be desperately alone. It’s not even about emotional presence, because a depressed person can still be a functioning partner in a relationship.

It’s about the pit.

I imagine an endless gray landscape, dotted with abysmal pits. I imagine a smattering of trees, and a thick fog. This is where people go when they are depressed. All you can see is the inside of the pit, the clammy, rocky walls of the pit. They are rough, jagged, hopeless. Far above, there is a pinprick of light. The opening. There is nothing comfortable about this pit.

It is not impossible to get out of the pit, but it takes help. Help that IS OUT THERE because DEPRESSION LIES and YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are people that love you milling around outside that pit, wondering the best way to get you out. Waiting to help in any way that they can. You can’t see them, though. Because you’re in the pit. You don’t have the right perspective.

Maybe someday something magical starts to happen. Your medication starts to work. You’ve started ECT. Something clicks in therapy. Suddenly, there’s a rope being lowered into the pit. You don’t know whether to trust it, but you give it a few yanks and it feels solid. So you start to climb.

It’s hard work. Everyone is looking down into the pit and cheering, but their voices bounce off the walls, seemingly turning into mockery. Depression, you see, has a tendency to distort everything. But you climb. And climb. And climb.

Maybe you get out this time. Maybe it takes a few tries, a few rests, some time to strengthen your muscles. But you make it!

And shockingly, there’s all your friends and family. You just couldn’t see them before. I’m looking around right now, on the cusp of genuine okayness if not wellness, and I can see that the droning that was driving me mad while I was in the pit is my support system excavating a staircase down to the side of my pit. These are my skills and coping mechanisms, now out in the light and ready to be practiced daily so that I may learn them truly. So that future visits to the pit can be a lot easier to get myself out of. So that they can come visit me.

There can be something comforting about the pit. If nothing else, it’s yours. It’s a safe place. A place for you to feel miserable, but safely so. It is so devastatingly difficult to leave, but so easy to return to, especially if you are afraid to make a new normal. The kind of bravery it takes to get out of the pit is nothing compared to what it takes for the first few steps to the land of new being. That’s where unhealthy coping mechanisms get analyzed and shed, where toxic relationships pass into memory, where bad habits meet their demise. Replacements for all of them are forged, and you become a stronger, healthier being.

Wherever you stand today, friend, I would like to encourage you. Do not succumb to the lies of the pit, nor those of the gray landscape. Keep stepping forward.

Becoming

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My mother often jokes about the crayon marks on the wall- you’d think that in a 150 year old house, with a husband that does custom paint jobs on cars, my artwork would have been painted over in the last twenty years. However, it perseveres, abstract renderings that my mother claims will make the house worth more when I’m famous. I think of this sometimes when I traipse through the living room… What will these be worth when I’m successful? That phrase then sticks in my head, wandering over and over, taking laps through the same worn paths. Half the time I can’t tell whether the thought “when I’m successful” boils down to “when I’ve achieved something of significance in my life” or “when I’ve done it right while attempting suicide.” I’m sure both would add value to the scribbles on the wall, entirely different kinds, but still, something.

I’ve attempted suicide twice in the last two months. Maybe this is too honest, maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this. But things don’t change by letting them sit in silence. When I get chastised for joking about another attempt(as I do), I’ll often reply “I’ll try harder next time.” How this becomes a joke for me can be unclear to others, I know, but I can’t help it. I’ve wanted to die for as long as I can remember. It’s all I know. I think it’d be evidence of being more unbalanced if I COULDN’T joke about it.

Cognitive distortions. I’m told these are the things that tell me I am worthless. I currently only see them as truth. That is the way it will be until I put in the very, very difficult work of training myself otherwise.

Someone once told me, “If you could see yourself through other people, you’d know you are worthwhile.”
My reply was “If I could see myself through other people, those people would need to go to the hospital.” Snark is a defense.

The hospital is a place I’ve been several times. It doesn’t seem to help for very long. Therapy is a place I‘ve been several times, through several programs. It doesn’t seem to help for very long. Hey, I’ve even had an exorcism. That sure as hell didn’t help.

A last ditch effort was ECT, electro convulsive therapy. The phrase makes most people immediately jump to a Cuckoo conclusion, but things are very different now than were portrayed in that film. It’s highly civilized and ultimately very hopeful. I got several weeks of what may have been normalcy out of it. I’ve also gotten a fair amount of damage to both my long and short term memory systems, some of which may shake out, some of which is permanent. However, once again it didn’t seem to help for very long. I did more damage to myself than I ever have before, after having been normal and happy for awhile.

Now I’m starting DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is all about teaching people to respond to stress, harmful impulses, bad thoughts, etc. in healthier ways. I’ve just started, but I’m feeling very hopeful. I’ve already gotten a bit of practice with one of the techniques. It’s an intense program, and a commitment. A patient signs up for an entire year of the program, which, for me, meets an hour away and twice a week. It will be worth it if I can achieve healthier mannerisms through this process, naturally, but if this also fails me, then I have run out of options.

I am determined to make this year mean something.
I will learn.
I will learn to believe, believe the good things that people tell me that I am.
Because I am stronger than I can see.
I am more than I believe.
I am above the sum of my faults.
And I am worthwhile.
I am creative.
I am kind.
I am talented.
I am loved.
I am smart.
I am funny.
I am giving.
And I am capable of changing the way I think about myself.
I am capable of becoming what I am.
I can’t think of anything that would make me more successful.
Wish me luck this year.

Youthful hopes.

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The rubber strap wraps around my arm.

“This will be tight, I’ll loosen it as soon as I can…”

I’ve heard Melissa use that exact sentence probably dozens of times as she starts an IV on someone in the prep room. Melissa is tall and slim, with chin length wavy silver hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but ask- “So how many times do you think you’ve said that?”

She smiles. “That’s something that I’m gonna ask God when I see him. My husband wants to ask what’s the closest he’s ever been in proximity to buried treasure.”

I smile and take a deep breath as she warns me “Little poke…”

She fiddles with the tape and looks at me before she asks “If you could ask God one question, and he had to give you a straight answer, no comparisons, no parables, just something you could completely understand, what would it be?”

I try to come up with something clever but the phrase “Why me?” pounds through my head over and over, eventually leaking out my tear ducts and my lips.

Her face melts with empathy. “You mean with the struggles you’ve had to deal with?” She asks me my age and tells me that when she was my age she struggled a lot too. “You know, a friend once told me something that I found to be true. There’s people that struggle when they are young, and there’s people that experience their struggles when they get older. You’re just getting yours out of the way. Things will get better.”

Saline drips down my arm. “I sure hope so.”

“I wouldn’t have believed me when I was your age either. But know that there’s hope.”

They wheeled me into the treatment room for my weekly seizure, the ones that feel like hope.

Enough.

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Near the end of tonight’s session at Celebrate Recovery, we did an exercise where we were supposed to write down the things that we were struggling with, our baggage, or in denial about. It wasn’t particularly difficult for me to fill up the index card. I had scribbled down an “A” before the leader even finished giving us instructions. I’m perfectly willing to share my list because I am not ashamed of my struggles. They are a weakness that will allow me to grow in strength.

My list was as follows:
Alcohol has a hold on me.
I take my relationships for granted.
I am unappreciative.
I am lazy.
I am cruel.
I take advantage of people.
My suicidal tendencies are so deeply ingrained that I worry I can never change.

The segments of these that are mind sets are already a work in progress. And I am grateful to say that I currently have a week of sobriety under my belt(I know, not that impressive, but hey, you have to start somewhere.)

Early in the session we got a reminder that one cannot find self worth based on what others think.
That’s important for me to remember. I also like to remind myself that although these are truths about me now, they do not always have to be. There are also a multitude of other truths about me, ones that can qualify as affirmations.

Truths like:
I am creative.
I am intelligent.
I am good with animals.
I am quality driven.
I am skilled with my hands.
I am analytical.
I have a good eye.
I am witty.

Now, my abysmal self esteem is preventing me from coming up with too many more, but for once I’m actually pretty convinced there are some.

Also, despite that fact that I am currently going through some grief and heartache, I still find that I am improving. Smiles seem to come a little easier, a little more naturally. Some of my suicidal tendencies are starting to feel a tad absurd, for the first time. The buzzing tension that my body holds is there to teach me that as long as my heart beats, there is hope.

And that’s enough for now.

Value

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I was having a discussion with my parents today and the following statements came up:

You’re perfectly capable. You have ten fingers and ten toes. In fact, you’re above average in a lot of ways. You’re very bright. You’re above average intellectually and have above average skills, and yet your intellect is trying to process your self worth, and you’re accepting some lies that are mixed with some truths. In your heart and in your spirit you know you have value, but you’re processing mistakes and failures in your mind and you’re assigning your self esteem and your worth to these mistakes and failures and that’s not right.

They asked me if I had anything to say about that.

I did.

“Can you write that down?”