Change of plans.

The last few weeks have been a neurological nightmare. In the digging-through-and-revisiting of my past to start writing all of it, I’ve been inundated with a melange of Crazy, sending me into fits of depression and maniacal behaviors (all outdated impulse-habits of mine, of course. Nothing new and special to deal with; just old stuff I’ve been trying to leave behind/slough off for forever) and dreams filled with antagonist probes and AAAUUGHDAMMITALTOGETHER.

There was dysfunction. There were moments of genuine Crazy. There were impulse behaviors and then there was predictable regret. There was a blow-up. There was a meltdown. There was bad.
There was Crazy.

Which is funny, ’cause I’d made the assumption I was… y’know… good. Not still-volatile-and-easily-triggered-into-insanity.

I found myself drawn to a Caroline Myss book I’ve had on my shelf since 2002, when it was assigned to me in a religion class my sophomore year (the only class that whole semester that I finished.)

Myss talks about healing and why people don’t; I read about her thoughts on “Woundology” and how, even though we like to say we’re “healing”, we actually just hang on to the process of “healing” and use that as a definitive part of our identities and maybe even a way of feeling some sort of clout over others that we can manipulate for sympathy or attention. She went on to state that that’s not really “healing” because “healing” means you get past the wound, but if you’re still in the “process of healing”, then you’re still paying attention to the wound and letting it run your life, even if your original intent was to get over it. She didn’t say it, but she alluded to the fact that this sort of thinking is pretty gross. And I found myself agreeing. In not these exact words, she basically said, “Y’all need to get over this noise altogether ’cause you’re not becoming any more enlightened by hanging on to ‘recovery’; it’s taking up all your energy and prohibiting your growth and forward-movement.”
I totally agreed.

So I’m doing that.

Because that seems more imperative in general if I’m going to have any sort of selfless and/or progressive existence… which is, incidentally, the goal here.

1) Thinking of aliases to assign my life’s antagonists is FUN.
(as in: “Chet was the kind of douchenozzle who boasted to everybody he met about being a ‘good guy’ despite his rampant self-loathing.”) (Uh, I don’t know anybody named “Chet”.)

2) Thinking of evil super-villain names to assign my nemeses is SUPER FUN.
(as in: “I still effing hate Medurncqes and Dr. Fuqen de Fartle, despite their unnatural lust for each other.”)

3) Thinking of childish, physical-flaw-based nicknames to assign aforementioned antagonists is straight-up addictive.
(as in: “For all I cared, Trollface O’Badgumratio could suck it… and probably did.“

Long-ago abandoned synaptic avenues have revitalized themselves behind my back, now coursing neurons through them with ease as though I’d never spent a day in therapy and, worse, causing me to gradually resort to emotion-based impulses I’d considered long extinct.

This has been going on for a number of months, in retrospect.

The benefit, however, of having wildly vibrant subconscious activity is that my conscious mind is at last enjoying the relaxing reprieve of silence.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

So, after years of hearing people tell me I should write a memoir about my life’s experience and realizing that my particular story could act as a vehicle to break down those nasty, outdated stereotypes about folks with mental illness and the intended treatment of such. And, yesterday, I officially decided to map out a game plan and spend the next few months of unemployment writing this great memoir of mine that discusses my bouts with the disease, the causes, the effects, the trips to the hospital, the results of healthy therapy, etc. I was psyched and ready to go and went out and made a proclamation, asking friends and relatives to help me fund this venture (http://www.indiegogo.com/IAmNotUnique) as I plan to spend a lot of time on the road doing interviews and researching to my heart’s content. Feedback came gushing in from my friends was overwhelming, with people cheering me on and saying they believed in me and all that junk that friends are supposed to say.

And then, today, I woke up with the greatest fear I’ve ever known. Even greater than the fear of dying, to be honest.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE A FRIGGIN’ BOOK! Where do I start? How do I make it poignant and effective without sounding melodramatic? How do I make it honest without stepping on people’s toes? How do I put words together so they don’t sound like me rambling about something most people don’t care to understand in the first place (i.e. this blog.) What do I exclude that’s totally cliched and overwrought? What do I include that’s scary and may hurt people’s feelings? How do I make it heavy enough to drive a point home but light enough that people will recommend it to their friends and maybe laugh a little? How do I pick out a title? WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?

I want to set the storyline up to illustrate a painfully-typical middle-class, white girl who was raised in the suburbs within a nuclear family and never wanted for anything (hi. That’s me.) but somehow found herself battling complete and utter insanity within her psyche that nearly ripped her in half a couple times and sent her to a few mental hospitals. I want to tell my story in a way that has minimal shock value, but drives home the point that this is the stuff that happens to millions of people exactly like me, but because of social stigmas or psychiatric overmedication, the issue isn’t dealt with in a solvable, maintainable way. THAT’S the bottom line of what I want to convey… and I have no fucking clue how I’m supposed to word an entire novel about myself into that.

So, cut to me on this second day, curled up in the fetal position and saying, out loud, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to write this shit. I can write blog entries and essays that get published but a book? A FUCKING BOOK?! That’s re-goddamned-diculous.” while my beloved spouse kept the house in running order and soothed my flailing self-doubt.

This is Fear. And I was not expecting it so freaking soon.

FUN FACT: I’ve accepted government handouts before, am not ashamed of that, and did my best to get off of them and back onto my feet as soon as possible! I’d like to discuss!

I don’t really bother with politics a lot on this blog because, frankly, I don’t have the energy or time to and, honestly, I don’t care enough to get online and become yet another pundit. Besides, I believe that our most powerful ballots are our dollars (as beautifully elucidated by some old friends at a recent reunion) and there’s no amount of screamin’-and’-yellin’ that’s going to keep people from paying whomever they want to do whatever they want.

HOWEVER, all this Occupation stuff has had me thinking and, while I’m not going to spout off a diatribe regarding the protests and my opinion of them, I have had a few friends say something about “the 99%” that has really rubbed me the wrong way on a personal level: “These are just people who want something for nothing.”

Enkay. As aforementioned, I’ve been on a government program before when our finances were tight, so I have the advantage of seeing that that argument is bullshit. In mid-2007, I’d just graduated college, my then-boyfriend (now-husband) was working 50+ hr weeks for nil, I was slowly becoming increasingly pregnant (read: unhireable) and, after all the bills were paid, there wasn’t much left over for anything to eat, so we went on the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. (We’d considered getting government help for prenatal care, but our parents covered that as a gift to us. I am aware of how blessed that makes us.) After the Bear was born, we stayed on WIC for another 6-to-9-ish months, as they helped us afford formula, fresh produce, and milk products for her.

NOW. Allow me to go ahead and dispel some misconceptions and inevitable rebuttals regarding “those people” receiving food stamps/government aid:

~ No, I wasn’t using it as an excuse to “get something for nothing”; I used it as a means to keep myself and my child healthy while we were in a tight spot. I figured I’d been paying taxes for almost ten years; this is the reason these programs were put in place for those who needed it.

~ Yes, I was livid when I’d see another WIC recipient roll up to the Health Department in a brand new Escalade with designer handbag/shoes/nails/phone. Those people were making a mockery of a program that my family needed in order to survive and were actively arguing against the cause altogether.

~ HOWEVER, no, I didn’t see the people who took advantage of the system as the majority. Not for the entire time I was a part of it, which was right at the beginning of this last recession.

~ Yes, I received information about this and other government programs from other women who were in my same situation. These women are still my friends and are also not prone to sitting around and receiving handouts in exchange for no efforts on their parts.

~ No, I wasn’t proud of or happy with being on a government-funded program, but, ego aside, I was damned glad we live in a country where receiving a little help is an option.

I actually had a friend hear me talk about that and reply, “I think I’d rather starve than take anything from the government.” Okay, first of all: ouch. Secondly, I never for a second thought that I was “taking” anything from anybody; I’d paid taxes and I intended to continue once we got through the slump. If anything, I was only taking advantage of one of the many government programs I’d helped to fund, the same way I don’t have to pay tolls when I drive on roads in my state; they’re there for me to use because I helped pay for them. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And, believe it or not, there ARE many, many people who adhere to this moral standard. Like me. And the people I know. And probably some people I don’t know, judging by the odds.

So, yeah, when I hear people sitting atop their horses and making declarations like “I’d rather we starve than take food stamps” I kind of just shake my head at such ignorant audacity.

Because the truth is, No. No you wouldn’t.

If you found yourself (or your children) starving, you’d realize that you, too, had put taxes into this program to help people like you and you’d take advantage of it because you’re lucky enough to live in America, where that’s been taken care of for you. I mean, you probably wouldn’t boast about it, nor would you be happy sustaining the rest of your life on someone else’s dollar (because you understand the importance and pride inherent in working for and earning your own lifestyle…right?), but you’d suck up your pride and take it for the good of yourself and your family for as long as it was necessary. And then you’d thank God or Allah or Halle Selassie or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever Higher Power you subscribe to for putting you in a country where receiving help from a taxpayer-funded program could keep you healthy and on your feet.

And THEN you’d think twice about screaming about the “evils of socialism” and the awful people who believe that a little bit of socialism isn’t bad.

That’s all I wanted to say. Well, that and “Thank you for helping me and the Bear out for a while there; we’ll return the favor when needed.”

I’d like to submit the following evidence, from least-rad to most-rad:

1) I’ve been sick all week and the Bear has played patiently and quietly by herself whenever I’ve needed to lay down. Most days, she’s let me sleep in until 8:30, only coming in to check on me or let me know if she couldn’t wait for breakfast anymore. Awesome.

2) Today I had to go buy some undergarments because mine are some 7 years old (what? Victoria’s Secret makes durable bras!) and are hanging off of me at this point. Every time I tried on a new one and turned around to look in the mirror, the Bear would exclaim, “You look like a MODEL!” and “What?! How you’s a model aGAIN?!” Excellent.

3) On the way to “The bra store”, she wanted to hear Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” on repeat so she could sing along. Amazing.

4) On the way home from “The bra store” she wanted to hear Focus’s “Hocus Pocus” on repeat so she could sing along. F*#king rad.

…and I am happy to use these small examples to rub noses in the fact that I knew my kid was blessed and special the whole time I was carrying her “in spite of God’s Will”. (I’m not bitter; just joyfully vindicated.)

(Actually, I hate it when people finish a statement with, “I’m just putting that out there.” Obviously you’re putting that out there; that’s why you said it. Just like when people say/write “I feel the need to express/say/state.” Yes. That’s obvious. Just say it.)

Two things:

1) Since publicly posting that image of myself at a smaller size, I’ve received a number of random-as-hell-and-unexpected emails from male figures from my obscure, platonic past (thanks, Facebook!) that’ve basically been “Ohbtw! I’ve totally always thought you were hot, but now you really areOMG!” in theme. Now, while I do appreciate the sudden, unsolicited compliments, I’m having trouble taking them seriously from these sources because come OOONNN, dude.

Really. You’ve aaalways thought I was hot, huh? How strange, then, that you’d wait until I dropped a crapload of weight some 5-10 years after meeting me to inform me. Was my weight inversely proportionate to your courage in sending me a simple compliment all this time? And what if I’d never lost the weight; would you have just never shared this information with me? (Any way you choose to answer these will be lame. There’s no need to risk it.) Also, no; I’m not going to start thinking of you sexually, no matter how many times you mention that my “husband is a lucky guy…” (I do, incidentally, get what that means… because it’s transparent.) The only real validation of my new body that I’d seek is with him, actually, and that’s not going to be tough because he loved me when I was pregnant, leaky, and 95 lbs. heavier than this…

…which leads me to my Real Point Here: The compliments of those guys/girls who thought I was attractive before a few months ago are all suddenly validated in light of these new flagrantly-hormone-driven perspectives that’re coming in. If you’re reading and you ever bothered to try to hand me a compliment about my looks (usually for me to cower away from) allow me to sincerely thank you now. And apologize for letting my weird self-esteem cloud your opinion. (I get it. I’m a little slow on the uptake.)

2) This is mostly addressed to the Universe (assuming the Universe checks in with the blogosphere.) but I’ve been aching for inspiration recently. I haven’t written anything in a while and that’s weird for me. No short stories, no personal essays… Hell, even my blog entries have been short, stunted, uninspired and really just relaying-of-information instead of exploratory and exciting [to me] like they’ve been in the past. I hate it. I miss writing and the feeling that I HAD to write. It’s been months and months of dry nothingness and I can’t stand it. I can’t even try to wring emotion out of prompts these days and I don’t get it; I’ve never had a problem just freewriting until something of substance (even if it was tiny and relatively temporary or only significant to myself) came out of me but recently… nothing. I’ve sat down and tried to pummel substance out of words at least a dozen times in the last couple months and I’ll get three pages in and realize I’m rambling about nothing and I’m just forcing verbiage because of this habitual drive and my restless fingers. It feels wrong not to write; I feel like I’ve just been living in stagnation because I’m not writing. Even when I’ve sat down with a clear objective/subject in mind, it all just sort of fizzles before a form or concept can congeal… even in bloody rough draft form.

And I’ve been reading and changing up my reading selections to keep my mind active (I went from Michael Pollan to Hilary Winston to Deepak Chopra to Harlan Ellison, all in the last 4 months) and loose and open to new strains of mental activity but still… nothing.

I don’t want to say something obnoxious like comparing this to torture, but I’ve found myself at 2 a.m wandering the house/internet looking for inspiration. The energy to stay awake till all hours and create is still there, but the muse isn’t and it’s a bizarre sensation, like breathing but not retaining any oxygen. Instead, however, it’s me wanting desperately to write, but sitting on MentalFloss.com until the sun comes up. (That’s a true story that happens about twice a week.)

Hell, I don’t even care if I’m writing anything worthy of publication at this point - just something that I can complete would be nice. I’m past self-criticism or fear-of-not-living-up-to-expectation; I just want to put the pen to paper and have something come out of it that isn’t a grocery list.

So, Universe, I’d really love it if some inspiration fell into my lap. Just putting that out there.

Let the record show that I have been a size 10 or larger (usually larger) since the 8th grade.
I’d like to submit this unedited photo of myself wearing size 6 jeans today (while angels apparently sang, judging by the [also unedited] lighting in this image.)

Holl. Ah.

AAUUUUGGGHHHNNOOOOOO!!!!!!

IIIII :::inhaaales:: SUUUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUCCCK.

If you haven’t been paying attention recently, I’ve been running into walls and having Epic Mental Meltdown 2011: Redux (and kinda freaking out about it) and generally unable to function like a grownup recently, thus prompting my psychiatrist (to whom I had to travel in a cab because of my inability to work car do drive things) to send me to a neurologist (because, dammit, if I’m going to have mental illness, I’m going to cover all my bases… not doin’ nothin’ half-assed, no’way.)

And then, due to a series of events afterward, it became apparent that my complete neurological dysfunction is caused, incidentally, by a character flaw I’ve been plugging my ears and eyes in the presence of for, like, the last two years and now it’s become a trigger for completeanduttermentalimplosion.

Or, in regular-people speak: I’ve been slowly becoming less sane because I’m chickenshit.

:::sigh:::

I’m probably going to be away for a while.

I’m going to say up front that I hate writing this even more than you hate reading it. I’m just as exhausted and weary of this whole motif as you probably are. I’ll also warn you that this is probably the worst one I’ve written yet, simply out of fear and my desire to put it into text.

And the other thing I hate about all of this is that I am, arguably, the single most blessed human being I know:
~ On Saturday, I will celebrate 3 whole years of marriage with a man who is strong and dedicated and honest and compassionate and full of love and good at cuddling and who is fearless and inventive and intelligently hilarious and really, genuinely loves making me happy
~ I have a 3.5 year old bundle of blonde love who runs around my house and encourages me to play dress up and to sing and to read to her and who demands to let her make me feel better when I am sick.
~ I have a family who has sat through a LOT of bullshit from me and still celebrates my victories.
~ I have more important, loyal, creative, loving friends than any person should. (Most of whom not only give a shit about me, but always ALWAYS come to my rescue in my seemingly endless bouts of The Crazy.)
~ I live in and love North Carolina
~ I have every physical necessity I crave, in addition to every physical desire I want.

All of these are reasons that cause my unexpected bouts of depression seem to compound in my psyche; because there is absolutely no reason for them. Thanks for 10-ish years of therapy, I dealt with and exorcised all the emotion-attacking triggers and, have since, been living a life that perpetuates happy healthiness! (No more toxic relationships/friendships! No more drinking to get hammered by myself! More asserting myself when I don’t want to be in a crappy situation! No more tolerating bullshit I don’t have to! Hooray!)

However, this doesn’t change the [nauseatingly overstated] fact that I still deal with the “chemical-side” of depression every so often, for no real reason. (In fact, I usually get it in the spring.)

These symptoms include:
~Throbbing in the head/ears
~Loss of balance
~ Inability to drive safely (which I learned today as I made a wide turn and nailed my mailbox.)
~Aching limbs and muscles
~Inability to focus on anything long enough to accomplish simple tasks. (Kinda like being stoned and being unable to get up off the couch because the beeper on the microwave has been buzzing for 3 minutes and you barely notice.)
~Losing track of time. (Kinda like being stoned and looking at the clock, seeing that it says “3:00″ then looking back a minute later and it saying “4:30″.)
~Inability to form sentences because your brain won’t put words together. (This is why I prefer to write; sure, it takes a lot of editing because of my misspellings and nonsensical phrases, but at least the finished product is better than trying to talk to me.)
~ Inability to physically focus on anything, as the colors in my periphery blur and I seem to become encased in a solitary little universe. (I don’t call it “The Crazy” for nothin’, folks.)
~The inability to dress myself, sometimes. (That was one of the lowest points, admittedly. Thanks again to my fearless, loving, patient husband.)
~ Finding myself subconsciously acting on scary/insane impulses that I haven’t in over a decadel. (for example: In 11th grade, I was at a party where every single one of my friends was being flirted with and I was being ignored. Suddenly, I looked down and realized I’d driven my car keys deep into my forearm without noticing. That wasn’t the first instance of that, but is the only I can remember.)
~Pain in the presence of sunlight.

However, in the last three-ish days, I’ve had a sudden Crash between Chemical and the Emotional depression - the latter of which I have not experienced in over 5 years. There was no recent trigger. There is no tangible reason. Everything in my immediate life is going better than it has in a long time, actually (which is saying a lot because I’ve been pretty damned happy since early in 2007.)

I am just simply and suddenly crippled by the physical symptoms and those long-forgotten emotions in which I do not just feel but deeply believe/know that:
~ I am useless, untalented, unintelligent and not at all significant.
~ I am wasting space and energy by being here and continuing to put the people I love through the burden of listening to this completely self-serving “disease”.
~ I am mundane in general, but I won’t shut up about it.
~ I am pretentious and don’t have the balls to find nor live my own identity.
~ … and maybe this identity is too boring to seek out in the first place.
~ I am insignificant in a day-to-day sense as well as a career or social sense.
~ I am selfish (but try to overcompensate by giving to charities and volunteering for causes)
~ I am self-centered and don’t listen enough
~ I am rarely as important to certain people as they are to me.
~ I am lazy
~ There is nothing important coming out of my mouth or through my actions.
~ I am spoiled
~ I have no global perspective at all
~ I somehow graduated college as a complete idiot in my field.
~ I am taxing to my friends.
~ I talk too much because I’m afraid I have nothing to talk about.

All of these things are the emotional staples I’ve had since… forever, I guess. And now they’re back and attacking me along with the chemical fucker while I’m down. I forgot what this felt like; I haven’t had this since the spring of 2006, when my life was significantly different. I thought changing my life to something completely different and better would fix it, but now I’ve Crashed again and I don’t know how to get out of it or where to start. But one thing I do know for sure is that I’m scared in exactly the same way I was before: at least that hasn’t changed.