Category Archives: mental health

Forgetting

Posted on by

My father called me, from inside the house. Asking if I knew of any zip ties. I reassured him that his guess what as good as mine. He asked me what I was up to. I said I was watching a show on Netflix with my husband. He replied “well that’s a priority.” before I hung up.

He called me back, a while later. Said that I was not to be forgiven for taking something as pure and light as thanksgiving and turning it into resentment. I had made it very clear that I needed to stay home and mourn Grandma in my own way. And then I went with my husband to the nursing home where his grandma stays, and endured the pain and vague atmospheric contamination of human feces to be, for a few moments, a member of a human family.

He called me again later and told me that he and my mother cried and stayed up at night, worrying about me and how I abuse them. That I should look for alternative housing solutions.

Which might be true. I used to think this place was all I ever wanted. But now it’s empty, and it exists as a pure vessel for pain.

He made an ultimatum during this last call. That I should come down there and talk.

He and I talk best during action. Neither of us are great at eye contact, and a helluva lot worse at seeing eye to eye. So I let him work on plumbing while I stacked wood. The only words he said to me during the half hour that I sweated? Asking where the air compressor was.

I left. I went upstairs. I tooled around.

I made a decision.

I heard him start to vacuum. I went out to my car and loaded my gun.

Today is the last night before my most hopeful treatment for depression, ECT. And I was ready to make it my last night.

I cried. And waited. And watched as his headlights flicked on and left.

It was the closest I have ever been to shooting myself.

If there’s any hope out there, it involves forgetting my family. I see that now.

Schemes and irony

Posted on by

So, despite repeat conversations with my treatment team, my husband has done a piss poor job locking up guns. The shotguns are off the wall, sure, but now they’re just in cases on the floor. Because, godammit, when I want to blow the top of my skull off, I will surely be vexed by zippers!
Good thing I’d rather not use a shotgun anyways, but I’ve got a trick.
I’ve manufactured a state of increased poverty that prevents me from having the petty cash and gasoline to be able to go buy ammo. I bought a new car. A new plasma cutter. Toys to keep me occupied, hopeful, and strapped.
I do this because I know a great many people that would be mightily pissed at me if I were to scratch that itch inside my skull. For mysterious reasons, they like me better alive.
I must be prettier with my eyestalks still on the inside. Can’t think of any other viable reasons.
But, as a result of my scheme, I am consistently too poor to do things like hang out shopping, get dinner, etc. So I get to watch the people who love me get more agitated with my presence.
It’s a kind of silent irony.
The kind I’ll never mention.

Likeable.

Posted on by

I had a job interview today. I felt very calm, and wondered to myself why I wasn’t nervous. Probably something to do with this newfangled confidence I have.
I distinctly remember thinking “Of course they’ll like me, I’m likeable.”

Likeable.

Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve believed that about myself? It could genuinely be never. And here it was, popping into my head from my subconscious.

In November I spent a week taking day classes at a mental institution. Intensive Outpatient, it’s called. One day in group therapy we were going around doing affirmations about ourselves. We had to mention positive things that describe us.

We had gone around the circle once or twice when my brain locked up. I couldn’t think of anything good about myself. Nothing.

Watching me slouching over, staring at the carpet while my mouth moved uselessly, Kenneth spoke up. Kenneth, mind you, was the very embodiment of a tough guy. Tall and lean, he seemed to try to back away from himself while nearly lying down in the chairs. He rarely said anything, except to talk about how angry he was with his dealer for giving him bad pot. Very occasionally, his whole face would light up while talking about his kids. His entire demeanor changed when that happened, and his thick mumbling voice would ring clear.

It was with this authoritative voice that the spoke to the circle, bailing me out. “Loveable.”

Loveable.

Do you think I’ve ever felt loveable? I cried.

We modified the exercise slightly, so we had to give an affirmation about ourselves and the person on our left. When it came to Cheryl, she said “I’m kind.” I raised my eyes to meet hers. “And you’re brave.”

With the faces of these strangers, I began to realize that my existence did not piss off everyone on the planet. I was not universally hated, or a bad person. Maybe I’m even a few good things. Like creative. Or loveable. Or brave.

So today, when I matter-of-factly admitted to myself that I’m likeable, it represents such a massive change, such a vital one. It shows I’m starting to change the voices in my mind. It’s high time.

Something

Posted on by

I don’t remember what exactly we had been talking about when Alyssa looked at me and said “You’re destined for greatness.”

“Yeah, okay, JOSH.” Kind of sad that the best response to that was to point to another person with similar hopes about me.

“You have too much going on in you to not be meant to do something.” The emotion in her eyes was genuine.

I brought up a story from the night before. “You should’ve heard what Josh said when I mentioned trying for that job. He goes on, ‘When they ask you to weld aluminum to titanium and then stainless steel and loop it around again, you smile at them and say “I got this. I did that last week.” Because you can. You tell them that you’re the best damn welding engineer in the city. In the state. Because you KNOW you. You know your learning curve, you’re smarter than 99% of people out there. You got this. You just gotta know it.’ I just looked at him, a little stunned(only slightly thinking about the metallurgical sins he mentioned) and said ‘You really believe that.’ He gave me his you’re-the-smartest-idiot-I-know grin and said. ‘I do. ‘”

“Yeah, he’s right. There’s no reason that you can’t be the best in the state.”

“There’s a lot of people out there that are smarter than me.”

“Josh and I both see something in you- and we’re negative people. For you, we’re hopeful cynics.”

I cocked my head and nuzzled in with “I collect the delusional.”

“We’re not delusional. We just see the potential in you. And how brilliant it must be, if the negative people see it in you.”

I kissed her, she wrapped her hands behind my neck and told me to leave.

“I’m getting mixed messages…”

She smiled, kissed me, and then let go of my neck.

“Go home. Write me something.”

HOW-dee.

Posted on by

A long talk on the phone with Buttercup usually means tears. Almost always, actually.

This time I beat him to the punch, and was already crying when I dialed him. I wanted to set up a formalized accountability partnership with him, to give me a bit more support in my attempts to stop drinking.

Buttercup is an unusually wise man, and prone to babbling platitudes with a twist. We spoke of my last blog, how baffled I was that four people had shared on Facebook. I laughed through the tears, but he went on. “People are connecting with it because they’ve found someone eloquent enough to put words to what’s on their heart. There’s value in knowing that they aren’t alone in a struggle. That’s what they’re seeing, that at least one other person can relate, that they aren’t alone. You’re influencing people. You’re benefitting them, changing them”

I was quick to backpedal. “Yeah, but that post was basically just me admitting that I’ve been drinking. How would that change someone’s life?”

“Just because the subject matter is dark doesn’t mean the impact is dark.”

That sentence may prove to be one of those that stick with me, like “You don’t get a soul until you’re 26” or “Learning is like boiling a lobster. Ideally they never know it’s happening.” Before this moment, I had never realized how similar that Buttercup is to Mr. Shaw, my beloved high school physics teacher. They are both whip smart, funny, and quotable. They even have that same nerdy white boy look, and I highly suspect that buttercup might also throw an electrified pickle at someone.

See, this is what blogging is good for. Putting words down can change your relationship to those words, and you can discover things that you wouldn’t have otherwise. I can’t say that the realization that Mr. Shaw and Buttercup are similar is particularly world shaking, but it’s something.

Just because the subject matter is dark, doesn’t mean the impact is dark.

I don’t know what it’s like to not be depressed. I live in darkness. I roll around in it. I wear it like a scratchy, asbestos laden blanket, and I know it’s not good for me but I don’t know how to go through the world without the bit of protection and solace it gives me. But just because I’m dark doesn’t mean my impact has to be.

That thought tasted a bit like hope. It felt like it the moment he said it, too. Which is why I scrabbled for a notebook and told him. “I’m gonna write that down.”

Buttercup preened a bit at hearing that, then went to his dejection cycle. There was proud of himself, flaunting how OF COURSE he’s worth writing down, a claim of getting written down all the time, and finally an aww, just kidding, nobody writes me down or ever takes me seriously. It was immediately back to me after that. This man has the quickest pity parties I’ve ever seen.

 

He ruminated on my support structure, I suspect because I had recently commented on how it seems like I never use it or reach out. “See, you’ve got this amazing support structure where you crack the door a little bit so people can see in, but you don’t let them in to interact. You rail on about how alone you are, but it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. As long as you’re holding everyone at bay, you’re alone. ”

I guess I’m opening the door a crack for him. I told him that and he said “I’ll wait for you to let me in, until then, I just need an eye hole. Hehe, eyehole.”

He went on. “Another thing you find as you spend more time with people and engage with your support structure is that we all wear masks. You know the masks.” It’s true, I can identify several of his very well. Other people too. I can’t say whether or not I’m any good at identifying someone’s real face, but then again, I don’t have any practice with that. I don’t think anyone does. “You have to realize, it’s not an unhealthy thing to put on the mask of a happy person. It’s like, laughter is the quickest way to… how does that go? A smile is the quickest way to become happy? Something like that. It’s only phony for a while and then you become it. Fake it til you make it.”

“Number one platitude, right there.”

“Well, you know, it’s what I’m good at.” He has a bit of a sore spot regarding platitude accusation, and I’m more than willing to take a poke at it here and there. “Anyways, play the role of happy. Surround yourself with things that make you happy. Do things that make you happy. You’ll become happier. I struggle a lot with the concept that I wouldn’t be able to describe myself as classically happy. But I really think that classically happy is an illusion.”

At this point, I see a car pulled over by the side of the house. “Oh, the dead people are here.” It must have sounded a tad strange. “I mean, they’re visiting the cross. Where the man got killed last year.”

“So the dead people are the people associated with the dead man, gotcha.”

I noticed the buoyantly affectionate Golden Retriever, Rusty, had crossed the line for the electric fence and was greeting the visitors.

“Go get your dog from the grievers.” Buttercup chastised.

“Not my dog. Gabe is coming. Besides, for all we know he’s helping them.”

“Holy crap, did you se how well you just reframed that? That was brilliant! Did you see yourself doing that? Wow. Learn from that, I bet you could get really good at-”

I was impatient enough hearing his praise that I interrupted and spat out the wisest thing I’ve said all day. “Of COURSE I thought of that. You act like I can’t see these things, I see all kinds of things, I just usually choose the bad.”

We both are actually a little stunned by how profoundly honest I was in that moment.

All he was willing to say to that was “Yeah. HOW-dee.”

We move on to talking about other random stuff.

When the call ended, I was laughing.

There were no more tears.

Doing and not doing

Posted on by

I haven’t been blogging lately. Or writing at all, really. Or exercising. Or getting up on time in the morning. One thing that I have been doing is drinking.

Depression and alcohol abuse are really a chicken and the egg problem. I know the depression came first in my case, since the first time that I told someone I wanted to kill myself was second grade, and I certainly wasn’t abusing alcohol then.

Together, my drinking and my depression spiral with each other, in an elegant, lumbering dance to the shame pit.

My husband mentioned to me regarding my recent binges “I don’t know what happened, you were doing so well.” It was hard to hear my sobriety as a thing that I would or could be doing well at, or think that it has a moralistic view to it, not drinking good, drinking bad. This is because I like to pretend alcohol doesn’t have a grip on me, or at least not that bad of one. These are the lies I tell myself.

I know what drinking does to me. I know what it did to me, the damage it’s caused. A hundred pounds of weight gain, 2 institutionalizations, a brilliant mind that’s become twisted with doubt and fear, wasted time
wasted life
getting wasted.

Why did I write today? I don’t know. To be honest, I had given up on me writing. I guess it’s because I was thinking about the measures of success. For me, today was a failure because I didn’t get up on time and I had drank the night before. I viewed it as a failure before it even started. I’m crying right now at that realization, the standards I hold myself to. I know I wouldn’t want anyone else to think the way that I think, especially because today was a good day. I cut a lot of wood with my husband and my dad. I spent 6 hours with some of my favorite people planning for an Artprize project that’s bigger and more out of my scope that I would ever dream of accomplishing, and I’m honored to be a part of. But as we were packing up, I was overwhelmed by the sense of emptiness that sank in my chest. I don’t ever seem to remember the good moments, the laughter, the productivity, the engagement with the team. But I know I will remember that feeling of emptiness. In fact, it’s creeping in right now.

Maybe I’ll go have a drink.

And maybe tomorrow I’ll try to focus my self sabotage making me human, not a failure.

Sanity

Posted on by

The question that got me tonight was “What is your definition of sanity?” It’s a question almost too simple and too complex at the same time. I didn’t want to answer it at all because I was sure my response would be way out of bounds from normal, so, naturally, I volunteered to go first.

I don’t think there’s any such thing. I think that everyone’s got some things that are seriously dysfunctional in their life. I think you can’t look at anyone and declare they are sane or not. I don’t believe I’ve ever met a sane person. I’ve seen some that are radically not, but that tends to come with the fact that I’ve spent a combined 5 weeks in psychiatric facilities over the last two years. I’ve seen some crazy people, but I’ve yet to see any sane ones.

One of the ladies made the observation “If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then sanity must be the opposite; learning from mistakes and correcting behaviors.” I like that a lot, it’s better than the definition the book provided. “Wholeness of mind, making decisions based on truth.”

I still stick with the idea that there’s no such thing as sanity. There’s just insane that’s thinly veiled.

Call it good.

Posted on by

“I’ve been treading water.” I came into therapy with an immediate admission of guilt- I’ve not been writing. I’ve been sleeping instead of living. I lamented my laziness. That’s what it’s always been treated as.

Kathy immediately countered with “What if you’re not being lazy? What if it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism? Someone that’s abused has a hard time envisioning a life where they aren’t abused. So they seek out familiarity. You’ve said yourself that you don’t know what it means to be happy. It’s very normal for people to have a ‘default mode’ that they switch back to.” She alluded back to my first words. “You’re going back to your default to avoid having to swim.”

“If you don’t know how to move forward, you’ll seek familiarity. You’re learning how to be a new you, to be happy.” The shaft of light that’s been progressing across the room is getting closer to hitting her eyes and I wonder why she doesn’t shift to run away from it, at least for a little while.

I don’t know what a new me will look like. I don’t even really know what the old me looked like. Pretty sure I hate them both. I asked “How will I know that the me I am, the me I’m becoming, the me I will be, is a worthwhile one?”

“Good question. How indeed?”

“I guess I have to look to others because people that fall short of the standards that society sets, or the ones that aren’t contributing to the GDP or whatever, I still think they have worth.”

Her reply was a rigorous batch of finger quotes. I don’t think her fingers stopped wagging at any point. “Those that don’t ‘Measure up’ or ‘have value’ by ‘societies standards’ of ‘worth’ are still worthwhile and you know that. So on some level you must know that about yourself.”  She gives me a gentle smile. “I think you just give up on yourself too quickly.”

“Grandma saw your value, right?”
“I don’t know that.” I tend to view it as a sort of “gotcha” technique when she invokes the name of my recently deceased grandmother, but I don’t argue with the fact that it’s highly effective.
“Would grandma have wanted for you to give up on life? To kill yourself?”
This is an easy question. I actually start laughing through the tears. No, she absolutely would not have and several times she was the reason I didn’t.
“So you know that, even if you can’t quite put it into words. And if you can know that, there will be other knowings.” She finally shifts to avoid the beam of light. It was driving me crazy.

We transition somehow into the topic of creating.
I ask her if she tells all her clients to create or if I’m special.
“Yes, we are all creating. It’s what we’re supposed to do. I’m a person of faith, I don’t know where you stand with that, but I think God created us to be creators. To create with him. When you create, you are bringing yourself strongly into the world.”

“If you’ve stopped creating, if you’ve given up to just lie in bed, of course you aren’t going to feel purpose and joy. People create with words, things, ideas. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s like God says ‘I gave you this huge big world, enjoy it!’ Look at it from the perspective of ‘How can I go out in the world and create today?’ Co-create with God. Have fun. Enjoy life.”

“Some people like to live in very prescribed ways, they don’t want to be challenged. It’s safer living that way, though it limits their creativity. You are not one of those people, don’t try to live like you are.”

“Poets, prophets, artists, musicians, they are on the fringe of society because they think outside the box. Artists challenge society. But we can’t force them to think the way society does. You’ve been dealing with being different by assuming you are flawed or broken. I don’t fit in, therefore I’m bad. What you don’t see is that you’re brilliant. You have the ability to see beyond what’s there. You’re not bad, broken, lazy or flawed. Those are labels that you’ve accepted. I’m challenging that, I’m suggesting that it was never true.”

“Maybe you’re buying into those thoughts because you don’t fit into somebody’s idea of what it means to be productive(I use that word a lot). I wish I could just shake you!” She looks visibly exasperated while she gesticulates at the writing I’ve brought in to give to her.

“Van Gogh was never appreciated in his time and it caused him to be very depressed. I just wish that he could have listened to his critics and talked back to them a bit. ‘That’s not how you do it. Clearly it’s not. It is the way that I do it.’”

“So have your voice. Express what’s inside. Maybe people will judge, because that’s what society likes to do, but you have to remember that those are the insecure people who like to live in very prescribed ways. I have no intent of doing that or aspiring to be that.”

“Approach every day as an opportunity to create, and it brings with it a sense of peace and happiness.”

“There’s still our prophets, our creators, our edge live-ers. I’m okay with that, because they’ve got something to say.”

“You have a voice, you have creative abilities, please don’t stifle it. Please don’t take yourself out of the game. That’s what you are doing when you just stay in bed.”

“God made some crazy things, and he called them good. So create, and call it good.”

Blank

Posted on by

 

I remember frantically scrabbling around the house, looking for a bible. I was at a low point and looking for some words of wisdom, or perhaps salvation, in my final hours. I’ve had a lot of final hours and conversations with guns, little blocks of invincibility where you are prepared to die and nothing can hurt you but yourself. This time, I needed God.

I saw a bible atop a pile of clutter and checked it. There were several pages of notes about horse training, and then nothing.

Boxes of books were in another room. I had my husband help me stack and re-stack the boxes as I looked through each in turn. I found another one.

This one had a few meager sketches from a multicolored pencil in it. Otherwise, it was blank.

The house was torn apart for a renovating project. That giant bookshelf in the middle of the destruction zone, covered in towels and plaster dust. I lifted up a wrinkled sheet and thumbed along the dusty spines. I found a bible.

I opened it. Blank, every page blank.

Not again.

I could not find a single real bible in the apartment. The place was littered with fake ones from my sister, she used to work for a publisher and she’d commandeer the binding sample copies whenever she could. They make great gifts.

I once gave one to a friend of mine who is a professor of anthropology, and his eyes positively sparkled. “It’s like, it’s so beautiful. I don’t even know what I want to do with it, there’s so many possibilities, it’s just pregnant with promise.”

I laughed and took a swallow of my craft beer. “I’m sure you’ll think of something good.”

And then here I was, searching desperately for the word of god and not finding it.

Seems to be a metaphor for my relationship with religion. I seek for something real, tangible, and useful to grasp hold of, and every time I think I’ve found it, it ends up being empty.

I never did find a bible that day. But I did borrow one later. The promise of it was good enough to get me through the night, and that was good enough for that night.