Hope is scrappy
and
hope is nebulous.
You can think
you’ve got
your fingers
around it
and then
get the
wind knocked out
of you,
and then
ultimately
later find
that others
were holding
hope
for you.
There is,
however,
a limited
certain number
of times
that someone
can be kicked
before they
make a decision
about it.
Continuing to
get kicked
is the result
of inaction.
Maybe you
never asked
to be
in this ring.
Still gotta
make
that
decision.
I have learned
in my twenty plus years
of craving to die
that hope is non-optional
but on this very day
one that will live
in infamy
hope tastes just
like ash in my mouth
It hits with a sudden shame,
the realizations of all the people
who have given me relief,
cash in times of need,
a bed when I was homeless,
when I have failed to offer them
even the slightest regard in return
and failed to keep my promises.
My cheeks flush
and names begin to pound in my head,
debts that I owe,
time of my life that
I must offer back,
amends that must be made.
My heart rate goes up
and I feel top heavy.
I stagger to the bedroom
and consider,
this is a road well traveled.
I can go into the shame pit.
Just moments ago
I was so excited
about the possibility
of getting into a new apartment,
starting new ventures,
even pleased as punch
at the simple hot dog I was eating.
I was satisfied in life.
A rare feeling.
I was due to self sabotage.
And so now I contemplate
the nature of the psychic drama,
petting the cat
and accepting that
recovery can mean sitting back
and feeling the feelings
in a controlled way
and asking the questions
that really matter
like “does this thought
help me or hurt me?”
or “does following this path
of self pity lead me towards
where I want to go in life?”
My head’s still buzzing
but my thoughts
aren’t controlling me anymore.
I can choose to slog
my way out of the marshes
but I have to pick a direction
and go!
Then I recall
that my
worst flaw
is that
I for sure
lack action.
We shall see
if I can go
but did you hear
a boot squelch?
I had a really good day hanging out with a friend and running errands in preparation for a planned on trip to the psychiatric urgent care. Once there, they wouldn’t help me. Apparently the CMH wouldn’t authorize treatment because in the past I had been authorized for Pivot and not shown up. I wracked my brain for when this might have happened and the only time I can figure is right after my car accident, when I wanted to go in because I could feel a spiral coming on and figured I could do a 2 for 1 on my Emergency Room time. The ER let me go with the instructions that Robert Brown Crisis(not Pivot but its sister) would call when a bed opened up. I missed a call from a number that was listed as Unknown, and they didn’t leave a message, leaving me no way to respond. They absolutely dropped the ball and now I come along months later and say to somebody that my suicidal thoughts are getting unmanageable and they say “Sorry, you miss appointments, you don’t deserve treatment.”
Can you imagine what that feels like?
When your depression already tells you that you are a drain on government resources and are better of dying? That it’s almost your civic duty to get off the damn disability payroll by offing yourself?
How many times do you offer someone treatment when they reach out? *
One time?
Three?
A dozen?
I’ve been hospitalized 21 times so far.
I’ve had CBT, DBT, ECT, REBT, IOP, month long rehab, gestalt therapy, and I’m working on family therapy and EMDR as well as digging into trauma. I could probably think of a couple more if I really tried. I’m a heavily therapized individual.
I remember one time in IOP(Intensive Outpatient, basically sobriety night classes) that he had been to rehab 27 times before it stuck. At that point I was a lot earlier in my career of crazy, and I thought to myself “how could you not give up?”
I know now.
You don’t have a choice.
You keep on marching, slogging, because a little taste of hope is all you need to get hooked.
I thought it would be convenient to die tonight.
My zines are printed and could be available at the funeral.
My friend had all the paperwork about how I was feeling and witnessed the whole thing.
It would’ve been a great headline for that brand spanking new psychiatric urgent care. Might help make some changes in the system.
I was ready to be a martyr for the mental health movement.
But you’re supposed to live for spite, you’re not supposed to die for it. Don’t punish yourself.
I jerked myself out of those thought loops. I thought to myself “You know better. You can choose to stop indulging in this.” And it was indulgent, it was mopey down the to core, I could practically feel my chin inside my chest.
I reminded myself of the good things in my life. Of the good things that I believe I may still have coming. Then I realized and complimented myself on having rerouted my Inner Critic/pity party so effectively. I’d also like to think that my activism will mean more if I’m alive.
Later that night I realized that maybe the reason I was having a good day for today despite enormous setbacks in a few arenas and a shoddy one other days despite them being relatively innocuous is that I didn’t take the antibiotics I was supposed to for my tooth. I’ve had full blown psychotic reactions from antibiotics before, but usually only the very strong single dose ones, and this was just a standard course of penicillin. Then I realized, slowly, shakily, with more of a sense of fear and power than I have ever felt before, I could account for at least three of my hospitalizations being very close to rounds of antibiotics. I have a variable now. Something to test. I can maybe get records from the offices of places that I’ve stayed, and from my primary care physician.
Also, my healthcare provider called and asked if I wanted to be a part of the Spectrum All of Us research program, and as a person who is transgender and on a lot of medications, I believe I’m scientifically valuable so I’m excited to have that appointment coming up. I’m going to share my hypothesis.
*Every time. Any time. It’s so scary to reach out and so much of the mental health system is like “oh, you have a problem?” WHAP! and when you are consistently punished for reaching out, you stop doing it. Remember that you’re dealing with people who are tender.
I have never been able to view myself as smart. Other people would hold that for me- teachers, tests, peers. My self esteem would not allow it. My parents had a systematic lack of regard for what I HAD done versus what I COULD do. “A 97? Why not a 100? A 100? Why not perfect attendance? We’re worried about your weight. Say, why are you coming home in tears so often? I guess it’s a teenager thing. Must need some space.” I lived in the shadow of my own potential, and my potential whispered sweetly about dreams and a future and having worth.
I cried writing the end of that sentence right there. It sinks me that I remain so far away from viewing myself as a creature with worth, yet I can dialectically hold the concept that all lives have inherent worth. I remain a raw, rotten lump of meat in the corner, an exception.
It’s been a rough 6 weeks or so. I’ve gotten strep, kinda beat it, had it come back with a vengeance and morph into walking pneumonia. My testosterone shot caused a giant weird painful lump in my leg. My mental health regressed enough that I ended up in a crisis residential program for a week. Additionally I’ve been in the ER three times, the Urgent Care once, and my PCP once. I got in a car accident and messed up my shoulder nicely. My anxiety is through the roof. Also, I’m not sure if it’s related to the car accident or the strep-hell but I can’t bind because it makes me completely unable to breathe. I’ve missed enough work that I’m worried about whether they’ll just give up on me like my last employer did.
I also got married, so that was cool.
I kept doing this weird thing during all this stress though. I kept house shopping.
See, I found out we were eligible for a down payment assistance program that’s really nifty.
It was a fun distraction if nothing else. But I let myself hope, and when it came down to it, if you’re getting 36 hours and your company still calls you part time, you have to have been there for 2 years.
Bye-bye hope.
I’ve had big dreams in the past.
Now all I want is a cute little fixer-upper and to SOMEDAY finish a damn degree above an Associate’s.
I was supposed to be so smart. One of those assholes that throws off the curve.
I’ll probably work entry level for the rest of my life because I am deeply, profoundly mentally ill.
Maybe smart doesn’t mean much if you’re broken.
The big bad monster crept out of my mind to stab potential repeatedly.
It doesn’t whisper anymore.
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.
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.
When I
told her
I didn’t
deserve her,
she didn’t
pad my ego.
She only
told me that
she sees
the potential.
And I
can’t imagine
anything
more perfect.
She nuzzled
into me,
grabbing at my hoodie
every time
I tried to escape,
and I felt love
in each harsh tug.
It’s something
like comfort,
reminding me
that I am capable
of making choices,
waiting until I can
make a decent choice
all by my lonesome,
that I can
have goals
and succeed.
And she
kissed me
on the cheek and
let me leave and
closed the blinds
while I let
my tiny car idle.
I think tomorrow
I’ll put in some
job applications and
never ever talk
to my family again,
now that the only one
that truly cared,
the only one
who never made me
hate myself,
is gone.
It’s either
time
to grow
or
time to fail.
Someday,
there’s a story
I’d like to tell.
But
I have to
live
to tell it.
And
first
I have to
live
to
experience
it.
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.
Rexicorn 