It’s a bad dream we’re not having anymore

Therapy Man asked if I’d ever tried to make friends with the scary things in my head….

No! They are scary! Duh!

He wanted to throw me out of my session after about 15 minutes.
Fuck, I wanted to throw myself out of MYSELF a long-ass time ago, but that’s a no-go on that!

He has a point, really.
Make friends with the scary shit and it won’t be so scary.
Fuck, I can’t make friends with anyone else.
Why the hell not try to make friends with the bitches in my head?

I like it!

I want fun.

I want happiness… uhhh… that word is so ridicules really.

I mean… I have sorta lost track of what that really
might mean in the context of this world for me. .

Fun, though! Laughter! Smiling!

So Doc says I’m experiencing “mixed episodes”. I think I may be one of very few patients who does not feel strongly about researching her diagnosis. Who doesn’t need to learn everything she can about it… BUT… let me explain. For the last 28 years I have been diagnosed with multiple flavors and many different personality disorders. It was easier for her to ask me what meds I haven’t taken then what I have. I have been in and out of homes and hospitals. In the beginning I was recovering from some traumatic experiences on top of trying to understand the underlying mental issues that co-existed. I wasn’t in a position to care about WTF was going on. I just wanted to be safe and feel better. At that time I carried a strong belief that I WOULD recover. So… “gimme, gimme, gimme meds and I’ll be aaaalll bedder soooonnn” was sorta how I trudged along.

Oh…. silly, silly Padawan.

This latest attempt at recuperation has started to change things… that and my last Doctari visit. I’d always associated mixed episodes with a Bipolar I diagnosis. I was under the impression that I had a BiP II diagnosis. That diagnosis was changed apparently while while visiting with the dancing monkeys as the result of a hefty dose of completely unnecessary Haldol… during my last psych spa visit… And, since my psych resort is not considered a 5 star resort it’s possible that the diagnosis was changed and the conversation never happened at all. The “Docs” there aren’t the same Docs we see outpatient and they lack communication skills at times! LOVE THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM (different post that I will never have).

Anyway, I digress. So, my doc put me on a new medicine. Latuda! I was/am ambivalent. It kicked my ass from here to Egypt and back – which is a LONG distance from small town Indiana! But, it’s settling like most new meds do. We will see. I haven’t looked it up. I’m afraid to because if it says it might even possibly cause weight gain, Borderline Betty will say “Fuck that Noise” and I won’t take it. I’ll try my hardest, but she will win.

The mixed episodes I did investigate and serves me right… I am no clearer on the subject than when I started. Anyone willing to enter into a conversation with a dummy on the situation – I’d be happy to listen. Understand that I AM a typical blonde and it takes me a while to understand things… And, I ask a LOT of questions once I decide to try to understand something. All I told the doctor was that I feel good one minute. I’m crying on my couch the next…. then I’m snappin’ the next second and suddenly losin’ myself in a flashback or dissociating the very next… I wanna be with Danger Boy… I don’t. I hate him. I love him. He’s a jackass. He’s perfect.

Here’s the deal.
I know that I am sooo fortunate!
I have the right parts for a happy life.
I laugh.
I smile – yes, Sammy! I do!
But, damn it… Whew!
When I just can’t get past myself
My problem is that I perpetuate pain!
I know I’m headed for it and I can’t stop the damn train!

That’s why Therapy Man wanted to boot me out yesterday. He won’t and I know that. But, Gees-o-petes, I am right there with him! I want out TOO! It’s such a cyclical disease. I don’t even have to research that shit! And my brain goes round and round right along with it. I sit in the fishbowl and I see the happiness shit all around me… I reach out for it and I can’t get to it. Or, if I can get to it… Oh I fuck it up. My brain gets in the way. No matter how many times I say NO MORE!

Yes… I fuck it up some MORE…

That’s why I think I should buy a Starship.
Think you can get to Wonderland on a Starship?

I know it’s in me…
Not the Starship…
The happiness and fun 🙂
There is just something holding me back.
I’ve rambled through this post. If anyone is even still out there I will be surprised.
I know I can do this. I have been saying for years.
Make friends with the scary shit?
Would the bad dreams go away then?

Have you been aching with trust or just
Have you been waking yourself with lust?
Have you been making us up or just
Taking us home?

Brain’s trying to be my friend in true friend form….

‘Cause this smoke cloud’s giving me shelter
And I feel much better
And demons wave the white flag for me
Still my bones keep pleading to walk out
From all of this fall out
But there’s no way that I could leave
So I don’t leave
Turn my bitterness to sweet
I gotta find a new release, yeah.
So I’m trading blues for green

And so I write!

I have been experiencing a lot of what I call “snapping” in and out of myself in the last few weeks. Snapping just scares the shit out of me. It lasts just a second. I might be in my closet where my sister kept me locked away… or sometimes I’ll see someone in a messed up situation on the street and see myself as them  – there alone – very alone – only I’m 5 or something messed up like that. So they aren’t always situations that I’ve actually been in myself. But the actual “snap” lasts a second. It’s the follow up that lasts forever.

And, it’s not a panic attack. I’m a math teacher. Let me get black and white. It is fear! Shear, immobilizing, fucking fear! My body goes into Lock. Down. I become the little girl I was years and years ago sitting in the middle of my living room frozen in fear for a reason that now, 40 years later, shouldn’t even matter.

My heart beats through my chest. Sitting. Frozen. Tears flowing uncontrollably. Chest heaving. Just sitting there. I literally CANNOT move my limbs. Then there is my brain. My brain never stops. It just goes and goes and goes. It’s obviously moving into repair mode. It starts shoving shit into places to start protecting me from everything that I’m not suppose to remember. It’s like “oops, sorry… messed you up, Friend! Let me just fix that for ya!” It’s wrapping itself up like bandage. HA… This time it’s my best friend. In true friend form… It just fucked me, but now it’s going to fix me. It’s good though because no amount of xanax can help these episodes out.

The “snapping” is definitely coming from me finally clearing out the men in my life. With them gone, there is all this space for me to actually see me. I haven’t been single since I was 22. And when I say that, I don’t mean I’ve been married or with just one, two men. I have been, like my brain, shoving men (lots of them) into my life so I could avoid shit. So, clearing things up has left a scary little nest of abandonment issues in there to see. And, my 3 year little self is not a happy camper – neither are the 4, 5, 6 or 12, 24 or 36 year olds. Mother fuckers are highly uncomfortable!

Lately, life has been a lot like crossing a river – hopping from one small stone to another knowing that missing is NOT A PRETTY OPTION.

I’m sure this is me just dissociating… but I hate throwing terms around that I don’t completely understand. I’m good with “snapping”.

I have been very fortunate with my disease (Says NO ONE EVER!). Seriously though, I have had lows – extreme lows, that have landed me in hospitals for extended stays. But, I have recovered enough to carry on. I have been able to function as a full time teacher for 25 years – granted not 25 years straight… but the Indiana retirement people don’t care about that.

I have experienced these “snapping” episodes. I have heard voices. Politely I have talked back to them. I have seen things that weren’t there as recently as a year ago – damn monkeys! I have hurt myself countless times. I could go on. But I have always been fortunate to recover enough to get back out there.

Inevitably every new doctor will ask me if I am really a teacher… They are polite about it… I don’t think they believe me until they work with me for a while. Therapy Man puffs me up by telling me I’m not that crazy. It’s just a disease… He’s right. It is a mother fucker though!

I’ve just been damn lucky. And, I am grateful for that. I’m sure I will make it through this as well. But, FUCK these scare the SHIT OUT OF ME! It feels like my heart is going to come out of my chest every beat it takes. The eyeballs are going to fall out of my head with the tears as they come rolling out. And, I argue/fight/bitch at God for making me suffer through another one… for whatever reason. And he will again. 😦

I am grateful for what I have in life. That I can get up and go…. because I know how hard it is when I can’t.

Would I be happier without the FEAR of wondering when the next episode or hallucination or voice will come out? You bet your sweet bippy! But I have accepted that those days are never coming.

Do I know what I can do to help “possibly” lessen the chance of it happening? Yep… but, they will still come.

Should I just quit living my life? I mean… not die, but sit home and let everything happen around me or just keep trying to make it happen around me? Fuck it’s sooo hard to do. SEE NEXT QUESTION, PLEASE…

Do I get worn out trying? Hell yeah….. (see last question) It’s sooooo hard to do.

Do I quit? Well………. it’s not in my mixture to do that……… so, no. This is the do I quit for good question. God made me the person who is either too strong to quit (sorry if that offends anyone, but hang on) or, to weak to quit. I haven’t ever been able to truly figure that one out. Either way… I just won’t quit. Nothing about faith or belief. I just won’t.

‘Cause this smoke cloud’s giving me shelter
And I feel much better
And demons wave the white flag for me
Still my bones keep pleading to walk out
From all of this fall out
But there’s no way that I could leave
So I don’t leave
Turn my bitterness to sweet
I gotta find a new release, yeah.
So I’m trading blues for green

I fight happiness and I’m damn good at it!

I woke up this morning feeling like shit. Not physically, mentally. Of course! As I was taking my bath (sorry for the visual) it occured to me that maybe I shouldn’t. I just found out yesterday that I am teaching summer school. For me, that’s a HUGE deal. Sure, I’d love to have the summer off and do nothing. But that’s not at all healthy for me – mentally or financially. I heard myself actually thanking God for making it happen. I don’t thank God for much. I do fight with him an awful lot though! I cry in anger a lot in his presense. But, I generally don’t thank him for anything.

Acutally I fight with a lot of things… a lot. That’s what I do best. Fight… I fight happiness. I fight goodness. I fight healthiness – All of the positive stuff. I figure God wired me that way? Didn’t he?

I am trying to tread lightly here because I really don’t want to make this a debate. I have struggled all of my life with my faith. I purposely don’t blog about faith because I greatly respect others’ views. I listen a lot though. Lately, I’ve been feeling things open up inside… a willingness to acutally make space in my head to believe a few people’s “suggestions” or comments or…. I don’t know, observations perhaps. I have been blessed to have people like Sammy open up to me. He has a very delicate way of talking to me. I haven’t figured out yet how that has happened, but I am grateful for it.

I know what brought me here… or how it is that I am here… the sacrifice, as it was, that was made for me… I don’t wish to go there. I understand it very well. My faith is very separate from my understanding of my Christianity.

Maybe that is my problem right there… I have let my illness seep in and swallow up my faith. Mental illnesses will do that. Illnesses will do that! They swallow up what is good in us. What is confident in us…. They make us dark and angry and second guess everything that is good or right or moral.

All the medicine in the world… all the exercise, the eating right… the therapy sometimes isn’t enough. And then what?

I will tell you what happens to me…

I fall flat on my face….

………..

….did you hear that?

It was me falling, yet again, flat. on. my. face. And, it fucking hurts. It hurts physically – the emotions hurt physically. I don’t have to tell you that because I am sure you know.

But I get up everyday and I do it again. Without fail. Without giving up and and giving in because giving in and quitting aren’t options for me. That is an entirely different conversation.

Thank you, Sammy and others, for treading lightly with me because honetly, I am a bull in a china shop here! I am angry and sad and lonely and did I mention confused?

…………….. flat on my face!

Climbing Down the Mountain

Lots of things in the air right now. As they should be while I discover myself. How often do we go through this process?

I have been reading over my posts:
Walking a better path.
Learning to deal with my “self”.
The Love Addiction.
Moving past the “men”
The trauma in my past……….

I think I’m afraid of myself and of getting old and losing chances to make something of myself… which sounds ridicules but whatever… it is what is.

So I’ve been going through things lately – mostly to keep myself from falling too deep into my head and to keep myself out of other people’s “hands”. I have been through the recovery process so many times. Not in the normal sense of the word. Not in the “worked a program” sense. My recovery sense. Recovered from a sickness… sense of the word.

It feels like it’s about a balance for me really. … about walking the rim of this volcano. Because all of that stuff is in there… it moves around constantly. If I can stay safely just outside of it I will be just fine.

I suppose there is nothing keeping me from walking down the stupid mountain? That would keep from me the bubbling mess of my brain… that mountain is pretty fucking scary though.

And it goes on…

Waves….

My face above the water
My feet can’t touch the ground,
Touch the ground, and it feels like
I can see the sands on the horizon
Everytime you are not around

I’m slowly drifting away (drifting away)
Wave after wave, wave after wave
I’m slowly drifting (drifting away)
And it feels like I’m drowning
Pulling against the stream
Pulling against the stream

I wish I could make it easy
Easy to love me, love me
But still I reach
To find a way
I’m stuck here in between
I’m looking for the right words to say

I’m slowly drifting away (drifting away)
Wave after wave, wave after wave
I’m slowly drifting (drifting away)
And it feels like I’m drowning
Pulling against the stream
Pulling against the stream

From Eden…

Everything about this song takes a ride in and out of my being… the music, the lyrics… his voice. Oh, his voice! It puts me in a daze… When a song can do all of that with all of those things…  Look the fuck out! This is not a song review. I don’t do them. I don’t have the vocabulary to write reviews. In fact, that’s all I got.

Babe, there’s something tragic about you
Something so magic about you
Don’t you agree?

Tragedy and magic… what an explosion. Whew!!! A ride for sure. And that definitely describes my life.  As I get older it seems like I can’t remember the magical stuff as well. I can only remember the tragic shit. I want to be that magical girl again!

Honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

I’m not sure what I think when I hear that lyric… Who or what slithered into my life. Was it my disease? The men? Was it the disease that brought the men? I could go forever wondering. That wondering turns into wandering… and that ride it all takes me on perpetuates that fear of me I talked about in one of my recent posts.

I like to believe that I am the Queen of Idealism. I am the Bitch of Unrealistic Thought! Sometimes I get so lost in it… I suppose we all do.

The medicine is suppose to help that shit. But, in the end, that’s how really sick I am… takes a whole lotta that shit to help me! To stay outta the closet that I was locked in… To stay out of the back seat that he took me in… To stop me from sending those messages I sent… To keep me from sleeping with that guy… To keep the man in the black hat outta my head.

Someone commented on my last post that you can’t stay in protection mode forever that we have to move forward… or something like that. I agree, but I think everyone’s forever is different!

Sometimes I get so lost… I know that’s because I am protecting myself. I used to get very frustrated with Therapy Man because he wouldn’t help me process the things that happened to me. I thought that was going to help them go away or something. As I get older I see how there is no understanding them… no processing them… they aren’t going away. They aren’t changing. How my little girl inside of me… at least MY little girl…is not growing up and getting better. Maybe someone else’s little person can.

This is definitely a ramble. It definitely did not go where I thought it was going and I’m not sure there is an ending to it. I am lost right now in my head. Lost in the closet where my sister kept me as a three year old. Hmm… I’ve been there most of this past week – off and on of course – so that I could function like I needed to. This is a huge step forward for me. So, we can’t stay in protection mode forever. We can’t. But, I’m 48 years old. For some of us… who have worked with our disease our entire adult life – full time – we have to go into protection mode at times just to save ourselves from losing it.

There is nothing cut and dry about a disease. No disease. Cancer patients will attest to this… We do what we have to do to survive. I have been teaching school for 25 years. One year I was taking 800 mg of seroquel a day and still taught full time. That’s a fuckload of seroquel to be active on – let alone teach a class – for me anyway. But I did it because I didn’t want to give into the disease.

I’ve been bitching a lot about not giving into my disease. I’m not exactly sure why. I wonder if it’s because I am really alone for the first time… ever. I have no one to fall back on… no one to really pay attention to… to draw my attention away from myself… I’ve also been talking a lot about having to be with myself now. Which is scary.

I’m just afraid of the ride. Roller-coasters scare the shit out of me. I’m scared of the dark… I’m afraid of the creatures that are going to come seeping out… I think I’m just fucked in general!

How Academic Risk-Taking Dies in the Classroom

Chase Mielke

Picture a baby. A fresh one. Straight out of the womb. It’s probably making a bunch of noise. It’s probably gross looking (let’s be honest: this whole “cute newborn” thing is a myth). Despite the grossness of this baby, it came into the world wired with a certain skill set.

On a résumé, this baby would probably list skills like:

– Defecation

– Crying

– Nonsensical noise making

– Breathing

– Sleeping

– Eating

That’s essentially it. In other words, this child has zero employable skills (Psssh … millennials these days …). But there’s another major ability this child has in excess: risk-taking.

We are born risk takers. We will do just about anything as babies, no matter what the outcome of the risk. Some of these risks are idiotic. Others are critical. Think of one of the most basic functions: walking.

Picture Baby A about to take his first…

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Here’s the problem.  I’m afraid of myself!

I’m in Chicago right now waiting for Therapy Man to do his thing. I just officially broke up with Danger Boy this morning. I’m not sure how that will go. I have never done that before. It’s always been him and it has always existed around some sort of shit storm. No shit storm this time (yet). I just got tired of him… um, I  think. Chasing him or whatever game it was we were playing because in the end it was just sex and I was losing regardless… good sex or not.

Ironically,  he got me right where he wanted me to be…. he kept saying, after 3 years of it, that it was just sex and I kept saying it had to be more… finally I agree with him and I’m not interested anymore. He should have just let me do me. Boys are dumb.

How does all of this make me realize that I’m afraid of myself?

It doesn’t.

The rest of my week does. And, the rest of my week is so effing crazy that I’m not entirely sure where to start or even sure if it matters if I do.

I do know that as I begin to remove people from my life I am realizing that all I have left is me…  as I was driving to Chicago it occured to me that I scare the shit out of myself. I’m a goodish person. But, I am crazy as hell. It’s very well documented! I’m not sure I can deal with myself… that is why I let so many awful people in.  Hell, I will let anyone in – case in point.. Danger Boy!

I don’t know.  People do not stay in my life for a reason. If others don’t stay how long am I expected to? I drive others crazy? Are you pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down here people? I am not an easy person to deal with, obviously!

I think you get it… I’m off for therapy. 

On a scale of 1 to 10… I’m a 12

I am not downgrading physical pain at all. I am thankful that I have always been able to control it. Emotional pain… not so much. Emotional pain causes great destruction in my life.

On a scale of 1 to 10 today I am a 12 emotionally. I figure I won’t over exaggerate just to make my point. I have abandonment issues as I figure many of us here do. Step one to abandoning Jami is to ignore her. Fucking drives me up a tree.

I’ve talked about my my mother spending a lot of my childhood behind a closed door on the back porch. It was her coping skill. Who said coping skills always yielded good results? That one didn’t… it was the start of some serious issues for me.

It doesn’t matter if I tell the story of what has caused this anger today or not. What matters right now is that I don’t destroy things. I don’t destroy relationships… don’t destroy property… don’t destroy the path that I have walked to get where I am today. That’s the important thing.

My last post I bitched about people giving up on therapists and therapy. Just so ya know… that was the first thing I did. I contacted him. Then I took medicine and curled up in a ball until he called me. Thank God he had an opening and could call me. We have a plan… a list. He loves lists. I suppose I should also, but they tend to stress me out a bit and … eh…. We’ll see if I can stick to it.

In the past, I have talked about how we don’t get “better” when we have a mental illness… how we can stumble and fall and then get up and learn to walk again… maybe walk a new and better path. Understanding that we… that I… don’t get cured was a bitch for me. Accepting that this pain that I am feeling comes like it does… it sucks and I so much want to just run from it and do everything I can to not let it happen.

Every path I take will lead to some kind of pain – some kind of letting go –  regardless. It will always lead to people letting me down in some way. I think people do that in some fashion or another… maybe I have too high of expectations. Maybe, I surround myself with people who have very low standards because I don’t feel like I deserve to be around people any better. Maybe… this is just life? I need to toughen up.

I have often been told that I live in a fantasy world. I am not perfect. And, I am not nice … a lot! But to purposely do something to someone KNOWING that it is the ONE thing that hurts them more than anything… to call them your best friend in one breath – to tell them you love them and then to do something so hurtful in the next moment…. I know I’m not capable of that. I have never been capable of that.

I’m not sure how this ends for me today. Hopefully I don’t destroy things that actually do have meaning to me over something that shouldn’t. We will see. I know that tomorrow I will feel better if I don’t. But, the problem is that the emotional pain is sooo active and so real in my gut right now that I can’t feel tomorrow. I need to feel that. I can’t. Talking to Therapy Man helped. The list (fucking lists) helped. Medicine doesn’t do much for me like this, but it will help some. If anything it will make me sleep. Like I said… we will see.

Ah, but we can walk again

‘Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I’ll give my all to you
You’re my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I’m winning
Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you, oh

– all of me, John Legend

She sits in pictures on the window sill just above my laptop and usually at my feet when I’m writing. She’s like a little rag doll… floppy and bouncy and brings me toys and say “Momma… it’s not all that serious! Tell ’em all to go to hell and let’s just play with Mr. Squid man instead!” That’s why All of Me is our song! She’s my beauty queen for sure!

She does make writing about the things I’ve been writing about lately weird. Yeah, yeah she’s a dog. To YOU she’s a dog. To this girl she’s a …. IDK… she’s got a spirit! And.. she listens! And.. she is mine! Hey, I’m the one who was afraid my stuffed animals would be hurt if they didn’t all get to sleep on the bed every night with me. The one who was sure my bike would be scared if it was left out and not safe in the garage where it belonged! Yeah, yeah! I had serious issues! Ya pickin up what I’m putting down here???

Fairytale may NOT be the proper term here 🙂

Need I explain the necessity for Therapy Man? So I think my dog understands me some – is that so bad? LOL. I grew up with a very active imagination because I had to… it’s all I had. Life was scary otherwise. My possessions were what I had. Like it or not we are products of our environments. My environment drove me into my head. Simple as that. I gathered my possessions very closely to myself! I didn’t necessarily say that what was going on in my head was normal!

Another blogger is doing a series on Mindfulness. I won’t go into… I may ask if I can’t link this to her blog and you could get some info that way. I think it’s a great tool for anxiety and just … yeah. I think it’s great. I cannot do it. My mind is a hot mess. It has been for as long as I can remember for as many reasons as I can remember. I have done a lot of work with Acceptance Commitment Therapy and love that. Great source for anxiety…

I think the key is finding the right therapist and NOT giving up – no matter what – until you do. Seriously. I hate hearing people say “I have tried and I quit.” They are all the same. Well… they aren’t. Just a basic observation… there are psychologists and social workers for one thing… they go about things in different ways… jus’ saying… in my opinion. But, I’m not here for that… I have, however, been around the therapy block a few times.

Mental health sucks, doesn’t it? Of all things to suck! We fuck around with not taking care of our brains. The very thing that make decisions for us every moment we breath. And yet we fuck around with deciding if we should get help for it. We let others dictate so much about what is cool about it and not. Messed up! Oh! How I hate it!!! Granted it’s hard to fight the gremlins in there… I KNOW. IIIII KNNOWWWW…. then there are the bullies who make it hard!

Oh therapy and therapist. Tricky. Fuck it’s all tricky. Trusting. Starting over with “the story” each time. Yeah… it’s a drag. The risk of never getting fixed? OHHHH, maybe that’s it. We don’t ever really get fixed. And, maybe that’s it.. pisses us off. We don’t want to accept it.

Here’s the thing though… We can always learn to walk again. And just maybe the path we start walking down is better than the one we were walking before?

May – be? Hm?