ah, the little miracle that is facebook. what once was lost now is found and all that. the problem is that many are being found that may have been better off lost, yes?
not that i believe i am one of those. but there's a side effect to my past coming out of the digital woodwork on which i had not counted, and while it may have been a side effect regardless of timing, it's suspicious at best that some of those magically delicious long losties are popping up on the heels of my stint behind doors which required a badge to get out. not in some 'they've been watching and waiting for me to fall apart' way, but in a cosmic, destiny-is-creepy kind of way. some of those who are now in the list of one-hundred-some-odd folks who count as my 'facebook friends' were once among my best friends on this earth, and it no less than convicting that someone to whom i was once a trusted confidant was recently married and i was not even aware, let alone invited. (i say this not to blame her, mind you - this is entirely of my own making).
and so it now strikes me that i have spent my life cycling through people the way many cycle through clothing. you have a particular wardrobe that you bought for a particular year, and much of it goes by the wayside quickly as it has gone terribly out of style. in this way, a lot of friends are like acid-washed baggy jeans with pleats, and i don't think that is abnormal. everyone has people that come and go swiftly from his life. but then there are the staples: a good brown sweater, a handful of t-shirts and that one pair of levi's 501s that are just right. but in the end they're clothes, and clothes wear out. eventually, the t-shirts get holes in them, some chick steals the sweater one night and you wear the jeans while hanging christmas lights and tear the ass clean out of them and have to climb down hoping none of the neighbors is outside that day because you decided it would be a short project and you'd go commando....but i digress. the point is this: even your staple clothing one day will be gone, and generally in 5-6 years or so if it's something you wear frequently. but most of you are probably not like that with friends. i am, or was. or am. hard to say these days.
starting in 6th grade when i moved to texas i cycled through a lot of friends quickly. i had one set of best friends for 6th, another for 7th and 8th, another for 9th and 10th, and yet another for 11th and 12th. now, there were some holdovers into college, even while i was in denver my freshman year, but starting with my return to dfw a whole new group came on and i left those who had been my friends and lovers behind yet again. now these people to whom i have shown no respect, but to whom i was simply willing to disappear (and in a couple of cases, actively tried to avoid), are back. now i am finding that while in most cases i'm alright with that as it would likely have happened anyway, there are a few over whom i am finding i feel genuine regret.
now, some who read this may be thinking 'i've known this sap for more than 15 years! what the hell is he talking about?'. those are the people who have known me since brandie. the fact of the matter is that without her to keep me in touch with the people i call my friends today i'd have let them go as well. i can't explain why, really; i just know this to be true. i am simply not built in such a way as to be inclined to keep in touch. i don't call, i don't write, i don't send flowers, i don't sing love sings anymore. i just don't. i'm sure there's a pathology there that i'll uncover before too long, but for now i only know that i'm talking to people with whom i haven't spoken in more than a decade and some of them i wish i had known all along. too damn bad, you don't get a do-over.
life is funny that way. the ol' river only flows the one direction and if you try to swim upstream you'll find the best you can do is negate the current and go nowhere. forward, huckleberry. and in some way you might find that you wish you had been next to the other bank because you missed some really spectacular scenery, in another you may realize you napped right through the wide-open and beautiful bit only to wake up in a stagnant segment, dry-mouthed and covered in mosquito bites. and in the worst kind of way you'll find that the calm and serene fork was that left turn at albuquerque, while you're immediate problem has become the level 5 whitewater in front of you that you suddenly see leads for a fairly nasty waterfall. whoops. too bad. suck it. hold on tight, because i don't care how hard you swim, the best for which you can hope is that the pretty fork joins back up somewhere up ahead and that you don't break anything really important on the way there.
and i guess the final issue is this: sometimes that fork does join back up, and you can see what you missed. the trick is to find the beauty in that it has joined back up and not cry over the spilt-milk fact that you took the wrong fork in the first place. be lucky, feel lucky.
i kind of wish i had a do-over on today's entry. it's a little scattered, a little drunk-on-a-motorcycle. hope i didn't get any on your shoes...
30.11.08
29.11.08
thoughts
today is a good day to ponder the thought process and how it changes in a situation like mine, mostly because i was mulling over topics and this is what brandie requested. the amazing thing is that my thoughts haven't actually changed much at all - it's only the severity of those thoughts that have changed.
as near as i can tell, there is no drug out there that will make one happy. all modern medicine can do for someone like me is take the edge off the issues. as krisha, the on-staff therapist at the booby-hatch, said, these drugs simply make the lows less low. essentially, they blunt the effects of my own brain chemistry. and so, 2 weeks after a major breakdown, i still think the same way. i still look at things and wonder why anyone wants me to be part of them, i still haven't figured out how to be a happy person. the negative spiral still goes downward, but not as quickly as not as far. i still am filled with self-doubt. i still freeze up momentarily at the thought of having to speak to someone i don't know, and i still have a skipped heartbeat when i have to speak to someone i do know but who is not on 'the list'. there's nothing that can be done medicinally for that. hence, therapy. and that has only just begun.
i have to admit to continued curiosity about alternative treatment, though i think it terrifically unlikely that i will ever go that route again. my former natural remedy had lost its effectiveness without my realizing it, and i'm not certain i'm willing to take that risk again, not to mention my concerns with making such a switch again in the first place. but there is an analogy for brain chemistry that was shared with me once that makes a terrible lot of sense, and it is that analogy which bothers me.
picture your brain as a bathtub, and the water as your stability- and happiness-inducing brain chemicals. the water comes into the tub via the faucet, and exits the tub via the drain, and in a normal brain these two rates of flow are essentially equal, keeping the water level basically consistent. this is mental health. in a brain like mine, the drain is larger than it should be and the water level drops rapidly, creating depression. this is not mental health. now, faced with this problem in the physical world (i.e. were this an actual tub and not an analogy), one would solve the problem either by reducing the size of the drain or by cranking open the faucet; however, we haven't yet figured out how to reduce the drain flow and things are a bit unscientific when it comes to increasing the faucet's output, which was the intention of my former nutritional-based therapy. the issue seems to be that the drain eventually opens wider to accommodate the increased flow. so modern medicine has taken option c: add a few bricks to the tub to raise the water level artificially. seems to be a goofy way to go about it if you ask me, but it is effective and we've got it figured out to some degree. think of it like a man who knows nothing about home repair: he doesn't know enough to change out the drain pipe; he can turn off other water usage in the house to increase the water flow, but only until someone flushes the toilet or starts the washer; so dumping a brick or two in the tub will work just fine. simple, and he can easily see the results.
but in the end, the bricks don't belong in the tub, do they? and what happens when the tub is full of bricks, anyway? no, it seems to me that the only way to do this over a full life span is to figure out the water flow issue, not to mask it or compensate for it by using something outside of the system. over time, maybe this leap gets made and i can stop worrying about it. maybe in the long run i can go back to eating right and taking a few neurotransmitter precursors to increase the flow in, or we find the grail and manage to shrink the drain. for now, i am not happy with this solution but will gladly accept that it is working since i no longer wonder if it would hurt to run my car into the bridge support under eldorado parkway.
the rest of the thought process has to be fixed one malfunction at a time, like debugging programming code. you don't know what the next problem is until you solve the first one. so you work on the big bug you find first until it's resolved, then the next one pops up and you go to town on it. for now the program is still busted. it's just not taking the operating system with it anymore.
as near as i can tell, there is no drug out there that will make one happy. all modern medicine can do for someone like me is take the edge off the issues. as krisha, the on-staff therapist at the booby-hatch, said, these drugs simply make the lows less low. essentially, they blunt the effects of my own brain chemistry. and so, 2 weeks after a major breakdown, i still think the same way. i still look at things and wonder why anyone wants me to be part of them, i still haven't figured out how to be a happy person. the negative spiral still goes downward, but not as quickly as not as far. i still am filled with self-doubt. i still freeze up momentarily at the thought of having to speak to someone i don't know, and i still have a skipped heartbeat when i have to speak to someone i do know but who is not on 'the list'. there's nothing that can be done medicinally for that. hence, therapy. and that has only just begun.
i have to admit to continued curiosity about alternative treatment, though i think it terrifically unlikely that i will ever go that route again. my former natural remedy had lost its effectiveness without my realizing it, and i'm not certain i'm willing to take that risk again, not to mention my concerns with making such a switch again in the first place. but there is an analogy for brain chemistry that was shared with me once that makes a terrible lot of sense, and it is that analogy which bothers me.
picture your brain as a bathtub, and the water as your stability- and happiness-inducing brain chemicals. the water comes into the tub via the faucet, and exits the tub via the drain, and in a normal brain these two rates of flow are essentially equal, keeping the water level basically consistent. this is mental health. in a brain like mine, the drain is larger than it should be and the water level drops rapidly, creating depression. this is not mental health. now, faced with this problem in the physical world (i.e. were this an actual tub and not an analogy), one would solve the problem either by reducing the size of the drain or by cranking open the faucet; however, we haven't yet figured out how to reduce the drain flow and things are a bit unscientific when it comes to increasing the faucet's output, which was the intention of my former nutritional-based therapy. the issue seems to be that the drain eventually opens wider to accommodate the increased flow. so modern medicine has taken option c: add a few bricks to the tub to raise the water level artificially. seems to be a goofy way to go about it if you ask me, but it is effective and we've got it figured out to some degree. think of it like a man who knows nothing about home repair: he doesn't know enough to change out the drain pipe; he can turn off other water usage in the house to increase the water flow, but only until someone flushes the toilet or starts the washer; so dumping a brick or two in the tub will work just fine. simple, and he can easily see the results.
but in the end, the bricks don't belong in the tub, do they? and what happens when the tub is full of bricks, anyway? no, it seems to me that the only way to do this over a full life span is to figure out the water flow issue, not to mask it or compensate for it by using something outside of the system. over time, maybe this leap gets made and i can stop worrying about it. maybe in the long run i can go back to eating right and taking a few neurotransmitter precursors to increase the flow in, or we find the grail and manage to shrink the drain. for now, i am not happy with this solution but will gladly accept that it is working since i no longer wonder if it would hurt to run my car into the bridge support under eldorado parkway.
the rest of the thought process has to be fixed one malfunction at a time, like debugging programming code. you don't know what the next problem is until you solve the first one. so you work on the big bug you find first until it's resolved, then the next one pops up and you go to town on it. for now the program is still busted. it's just not taking the operating system with it anymore.
26.11.08
alright!
i'm sorry! i have been well and roundly castigated for being delinquent on an update. well, if i'm not writing, i haven't anything to say, so deal with it. truth be told, it really has been a head-down, nose-to-the-grindstone sort of week. after my vanishing act last week, there was an understandably large pile of work out from under which i had to dig, and that has taken much of my focus and energy. mercifully, all this happened right before a major holiday for which the nation slows to a crawl, and seemingly my business is as affected as most others which has allowed me to catch up. on the truly weird side of things, i actually produced a quote yesterday that totaled out at more than $109 million. does this sound like a sum for which i should be responsible to anyone?
which brings me to a bit of a revelation i had yesterday. i was talking to one of my great friends, and she and i were musing on our respective astounding abilities to hold onto a low self-opinion even in the face of mountains of reinforcement. she had her thing that she had just plain rocked and for which she had been rightly praised, and i was struck be the similarity of her reaction to my own. in the last couple of months i have gotten a new job and then been trusted with major, global level accounts due to some of my skills and tendencies that line up well with that, and yet i still feel like i'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, looking around at everyone around me and feeling that i really have the wool pulled over their eyes. and in the middle of expressing this thought i occurred to me - this is a rather sizable indictment of everyone around me, is it not? if i'm as simple and as incompetent as i think i am, what does that opinion say about the people who have evaluated my performance and ability and judged me to be not only worth of employment but of trust with our largest and most complex accounts? and this is to say nothing of the people who truly support me every day and feel i'm worthy of their love and compassion and friendship. so either i am surrounded by morons (a possibility one should never discount, mind you), or i am way better at what i do and at being who i am than i believe myself to be, which all sounds very self-help but i even have trouble escaping the logic in it.
but don't you worry, faithful reader - even should i manage to climb via this logical fire escape to the solid ground in the alley of reasonable self-opinion, the fires of other emotional issues will still burn brightly within my walls, waiting only to take down a handful of bricks to expose themselves to the oxygen-rich atmosphere that is this blog. i am a veritable burgeoning towering inferno of self-loathing and emotional turmoil, and i simply need time and a little more digging before another sore festers to the point where you can read about it.
and now we have come to the less-entertaining portion of today's post. i had massive reservations about posting all of this so publicly, and there were others who bore equal and even stronger concerns than my own, but i have never been so happy to have done something for myself. this blog has been a boon to my own creative impulse, as i find that truly enjoy writing it. but more importantly, the others in my life who have either themselves fought these same demons or have watched loved ones fight them are coming out of the woodwork, and the love and support and pats on the back and hugs (where i've been comfortable with them, and thank you to everyone who asks first!) have been flowing in a river the depth and breadth of which i would never have guessed. i have obviously touched more lives than i'd have thought, and that is a good thing to know and to feel. and it is both comforting and alarming to know that not only am i not alone in this struggle, not only am i not a rarity, but this is dangerously close to being a common ailment (though admittedly, most manage not to end up incarcerated!), which is a pretty harsh indictment of our modern world and the society we have built for ourselves, in my opinion. but that is a rant that will have to wait for another day.
which brings me to a bit of a revelation i had yesterday. i was talking to one of my great friends, and she and i were musing on our respective astounding abilities to hold onto a low self-opinion even in the face of mountains of reinforcement. she had her thing that she had just plain rocked and for which she had been rightly praised, and i was struck be the similarity of her reaction to my own. in the last couple of months i have gotten a new job and then been trusted with major, global level accounts due to some of my skills and tendencies that line up well with that, and yet i still feel like i'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, looking around at everyone around me and feeling that i really have the wool pulled over their eyes. and in the middle of expressing this thought i occurred to me - this is a rather sizable indictment of everyone around me, is it not? if i'm as simple and as incompetent as i think i am, what does that opinion say about the people who have evaluated my performance and ability and judged me to be not only worth of employment but of trust with our largest and most complex accounts? and this is to say nothing of the people who truly support me every day and feel i'm worthy of their love and compassion and friendship. so either i am surrounded by morons (a possibility one should never discount, mind you), or i am way better at what i do and at being who i am than i believe myself to be, which all sounds very self-help but i even have trouble escaping the logic in it.
but don't you worry, faithful reader - even should i manage to climb via this logical fire escape to the solid ground in the alley of reasonable self-opinion, the fires of other emotional issues will still burn brightly within my walls, waiting only to take down a handful of bricks to expose themselves to the oxygen-rich atmosphere that is this blog. i am a veritable burgeoning towering inferno of self-loathing and emotional turmoil, and i simply need time and a little more digging before another sore festers to the point where you can read about it.
and now we have come to the less-entertaining portion of today's post. i had massive reservations about posting all of this so publicly, and there were others who bore equal and even stronger concerns than my own, but i have never been so happy to have done something for myself. this blog has been a boon to my own creative impulse, as i find that truly enjoy writing it. but more importantly, the others in my life who have either themselves fought these same demons or have watched loved ones fight them are coming out of the woodwork, and the love and support and pats on the back and hugs (where i've been comfortable with them, and thank you to everyone who asks first!) have been flowing in a river the depth and breadth of which i would never have guessed. i have obviously touched more lives than i'd have thought, and that is a good thing to know and to feel. and it is both comforting and alarming to know that not only am i not alone in this struggle, not only am i not a rarity, but this is dangerously close to being a common ailment (though admittedly, most manage not to end up incarcerated!), which is a pretty harsh indictment of our modern world and the society we have built for ourselves, in my opinion. but that is a rant that will have to wait for another day.
24.11.08
running behind already...
so i don't have much to say, especially having just posted last night. but a friend shot me a note that spurred a thought i wanted to share.
i made note of the fact that my kids had checked out on me, already moved on as though i wasn't really part of things. they've already surprised me with their resiliency in the opposite direction. in just a small handful of days, my simply being more involved or engaged or whatever has got them giving me more smiles, more hugs, more everything. and isaiah in particular has bounced back in a huge way - he keeps coming to me to pick him up or to sit and watch tv with him or to play with him - just walks up and gives me the 'dada'. he's not really been that interested in me before now, so this is like a breath of fresh air. i have along way to go just to get to the level of crappy as far as being an involved father, but the motivation is there.
big day at work today. at least one major conference call, supposedly two, and a meeting with the vp of global sales. weird how one looks around one day and suddenly one is in meetings with people with titles like that. in any case, i'm already second-guessing myself, already telling myself i don't know what i'm doing. the problem is that in this case i really don't! so i'll simpy screw my BS generator up to eleven and impress the hell out of them, along with freely admitting when i don't know what to say and suggesting that i get back when i have all the information i need, and everything will be good. it's what i do.
if i'm lucky, somewhere in the next couple of days i'll met a friend or two for lunch. it'll be good to see someone who isn't part of my everyday life, i think. kind of a shot in the arm for the willingness to go back to normal life in a whole new way. then comes the turkey trot on thursday, something i look forward to every year now. he bibs have an integrated timing system in them this year, which makes it that much more of a bummer that i've been sick off-and-on for the past month - i'd have loved to go down and crack off a series of 7-minute miles and have it verified. unfortunately, if i can run 9s i'll be satisfied for this year.
i made note of the fact that my kids had checked out on me, already moved on as though i wasn't really part of things. they've already surprised me with their resiliency in the opposite direction. in just a small handful of days, my simply being more involved or engaged or whatever has got them giving me more smiles, more hugs, more everything. and isaiah in particular has bounced back in a huge way - he keeps coming to me to pick him up or to sit and watch tv with him or to play with him - just walks up and gives me the 'dada'. he's not really been that interested in me before now, so this is like a breath of fresh air. i have along way to go just to get to the level of crappy as far as being an involved father, but the motivation is there.
big day at work today. at least one major conference call, supposedly two, and a meeting with the vp of global sales. weird how one looks around one day and suddenly one is in meetings with people with titles like that. in any case, i'm already second-guessing myself, already telling myself i don't know what i'm doing. the problem is that in this case i really don't! so i'll simpy screw my BS generator up to eleven and impress the hell out of them, along with freely admitting when i don't know what to say and suggesting that i get back when i have all the information i need, and everything will be good. it's what i do.
if i'm lucky, somewhere in the next couple of days i'll met a friend or two for lunch. it'll be good to see someone who isn't part of my everyday life, i think. kind of a shot in the arm for the willingness to go back to normal life in a whole new way. then comes the turkey trot on thursday, something i look forward to every year now. he bibs have an integrated timing system in them this year, which makes it that much more of a bummer that i've been sick off-and-on for the past month - i'd have loved to go down and crack off a series of 7-minute miles and have it verified. unfortunately, if i can run 9s i'll be satisfied for this year.
23.11.08
sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!!!!!
well, this was a cool one. i suppose it makes sense just to go in order of events, right?
i got to play this morning. i've been playing so long now that it seems like it shouldn't be that big a deal, but for me it is darn near every time. with all apologies to my atheist friends, music is my language i share with the eternal. whatever label you want to put on it is up to you. i attend a methodist church. i play drums. and as soon as i hit that downbeat, the moment i feel a stick hit a drum and things start crashing and banging i am in a dialogue with God. i am perhaps not by nature predisposed to feeling the presence of the universal consciousness, but when the wall of sound goes up it is for me like the ultimate meditation. but loud. and physical. and good. through music, it is well with my soul. and so i thank everyone in the band and i thank God for what we laid down today, and i thank the congregation for letting me make that joyful noise in front of them. i really, really needed it this week.
part the second is a bit less uplifting. since i got back home i've had an issue. i've had plenty, i guess, but i've had one that i can control and this afternoon i did something about it. my hair was long. and it was getting crazy curly. while i was 'inside', i didn't have anything to keep it under control, so it was crazier even than normal. but i also took plenty of showers, so i spent a lot of time with it wet. the problem i had was that each time i climbed out of the shower here at home, each time i brushed my teeth, shaved, anything...i was back there. i would catch sight of myself in the mirror and it was just like i was looking at myself in the polished sheet of stainless steel that passed for a mirror in the ward. the wet curls that i had come to see as part of the way i am supposed to look became something that kicked off highly unnerving shift in the universe. i tried hard to fight through it, to let time pass in the hope that i would get past it - after all i have any number of follicularly-challenged friends who would kill me or shearing it off - but in the end i couldn't do it anymore. this morning it just became too much. so when i got home from church i ate lunch, then went to the bathroom and busted out the clippers.
i started with a good long guard in an effort to exercise some restraint, but when exorcising demons exercising restraint isn't exactly the name of the game. ultimately i ended up with hair no longer than my beard, and a major side effect i had forgotten: my beard doesn't connect to my hair line. there's a gap on each side of about 1/2 inch that only has about 10% of the hair it should. so suddenly my cure had become another disease, and the razor had to make it's appearance. i don't feel like having a clean-shaven face is an option these days - i tried that a couple of weeks ago and just felt exposed and a little freaked out. so the option? goatee, or technically, van dyke. so now i look a lot like edward norton in 'american history x', except scrawny and terrifically non-threatening.
but in the end i'm ok with it. i may not be able to do a decent barry gibb impression for a while, but that's alright. at least i can see myself in the mirror this afternoon without my head swimming and my heart racing. i'm leaving that experience behind one bit at a time, and today it was one hair at a time. hopefully that will be the last pruning i will have to do in order o move on.
i got to play this morning. i've been playing so long now that it seems like it shouldn't be that big a deal, but for me it is darn near every time. with all apologies to my atheist friends, music is my language i share with the eternal. whatever label you want to put on it is up to you. i attend a methodist church. i play drums. and as soon as i hit that downbeat, the moment i feel a stick hit a drum and things start crashing and banging i am in a dialogue with God. i am perhaps not by nature predisposed to feeling the presence of the universal consciousness, but when the wall of sound goes up it is for me like the ultimate meditation. but loud. and physical. and good. through music, it is well with my soul. and so i thank everyone in the band and i thank God for what we laid down today, and i thank the congregation for letting me make that joyful noise in front of them. i really, really needed it this week.
part the second is a bit less uplifting. since i got back home i've had an issue. i've had plenty, i guess, but i've had one that i can control and this afternoon i did something about it. my hair was long. and it was getting crazy curly. while i was 'inside', i didn't have anything to keep it under control, so it was crazier even than normal. but i also took plenty of showers, so i spent a lot of time with it wet. the problem i had was that each time i climbed out of the shower here at home, each time i brushed my teeth, shaved, anything...i was back there. i would catch sight of myself in the mirror and it was just like i was looking at myself in the polished sheet of stainless steel that passed for a mirror in the ward. the wet curls that i had come to see as part of the way i am supposed to look became something that kicked off highly unnerving shift in the universe. i tried hard to fight through it, to let time pass in the hope that i would get past it - after all i have any number of follicularly-challenged friends who would kill me or shearing it off - but in the end i couldn't do it anymore. this morning it just became too much. so when i got home from church i ate lunch, then went to the bathroom and busted out the clippers.
i started with a good long guard in an effort to exercise some restraint, but when exorcising demons exercising restraint isn't exactly the name of the game. ultimately i ended up with hair no longer than my beard, and a major side effect i had forgotten: my beard doesn't connect to my hair line. there's a gap on each side of about 1/2 inch that only has about 10% of the hair it should. so suddenly my cure had become another disease, and the razor had to make it's appearance. i don't feel like having a clean-shaven face is an option these days - i tried that a couple of weeks ago and just felt exposed and a little freaked out. so the option? goatee, or technically, van dyke. so now i look a lot like edward norton in 'american history x', except scrawny and terrifically non-threatening.
but in the end i'm ok with it. i may not be able to do a decent barry gibb impression for a while, but that's alright. at least i can see myself in the mirror this afternoon without my head swimming and my heart racing. i'm leaving that experience behind one bit at a time, and today it was one hair at a time. hopefully that will be the last pruning i will have to do in order o move on.
22.11.08
11.21.08, 5:00am
so, here i am. 5am. alone in the front room after 5 hours of sleep, and i feel pretty good. weird. i had gotten to the point where 9 hours wouldn’t have felt like enough. seems like maybe i’m getting back to my old self, but it could just be that i’m still not quite sorted out all the way, which is what i wanted to write about this morning.
i talked to a couple of different people about this last night, but i was still kind of processing it myself. when i was ‘on the inside’ (hee!) i built up this notion of coming home as all i needed. if i could just get back to my sanctum sanctorum, my home, the familiar things and people there would give me the security to be myself again the moment i walked through the door. i was fully prepared to come home, grab a quick shower and be myself again.
problem. i am not myself anymore. or more accurately, i am myself again but haven’t been in a while. so everything i see, everything i had been counting on to grant me security, is unfamiliar on some level. obviously nothing has changed here - i was only gone for 3 days - but everything seems different. i was ready for them to seem different (less threatening or burdensome than they had seemed when i left), but not for them to seem foreign. but i realized last night that for a long time now i have been looking at them through a very different set of eyes than my own, and now i’m seeing them for the first time as myself, not as some guy with a chip on his shoulder. i’m seeing them not as something to resent and as something that resents me being here, but as something of which i am supposed to be a part.
problem. i don’t feel like part of it, because i haven’t been. when i got home from my therapist appointment yesterday, grace and caleb were home from school already. i walked in, and it was like i wasn’t even here, or more like they had never noticed i was ever gone. and i think in a lot of ways they hadn’t. i’ve been gone a long, long time, i guess, and my kids had stopped missing me quite some time ago. brandie has missed me all along and is glad to have me back to some degree, but kids are different; kids are adaptable, and these guys just moved on. i’m trying to figure out how not to let that kill my enthusiasm and momentum for this new direction i’m on.
i talked to a couple of different people about this last night, but i was still kind of processing it myself. when i was ‘on the inside’ (hee!) i built up this notion of coming home as all i needed. if i could just get back to my sanctum sanctorum, my home, the familiar things and people there would give me the security to be myself again the moment i walked through the door. i was fully prepared to come home, grab a quick shower and be myself again.
problem. i am not myself anymore. or more accurately, i am myself again but haven’t been in a while. so everything i see, everything i had been counting on to grant me security, is unfamiliar on some level. obviously nothing has changed here - i was only gone for 3 days - but everything seems different. i was ready for them to seem different (less threatening or burdensome than they had seemed when i left), but not for them to seem foreign. but i realized last night that for a long time now i have been looking at them through a very different set of eyes than my own, and now i’m seeing them for the first time as myself, not as some guy with a chip on his shoulder. i’m seeing them not as something to resent and as something that resents me being here, but as something of which i am supposed to be a part.
problem. i don’t feel like part of it, because i haven’t been. when i got home from my therapist appointment yesterday, grace and caleb were home from school already. i walked in, and it was like i wasn’t even here, or more like they had never noticed i was ever gone. and i think in a lot of ways they hadn’t. i’ve been gone a long, long time, i guess, and my kids had stopped missing me quite some time ago. brandie has missed me all along and is glad to have me back to some degree, but kids are different; kids are adaptable, and these guys just moved on. i’m trying to figure out how not to let that kill my enthusiasm and momentum for this new direction i’m on.
le fin
thus endeth the journal. you'll likely have noticed that there's not much from days two and three. there are a couple of reasons for that. first, when my meds started to kick in i had a bit of a time keeping my thoughts straight. i had also developed a gnarly sinus infection that didn't help. mostly, as i got better the differences between myself and the others became less and less comfortable. i retreated to my room and read, which didn't give me much to write about. finally, conversely, as i got less chemically depressed i became more and more depressed emotionally from being in that place and i just lost interest.
i have one journal entry i wrote yesterday morning that i'll paste up here in a minute, and then we're on into real time. and then we'll see whether i keep up with this thing at all. i'm almost sad the journal is finished. now i have to come up with fresh stuff!
i have one journal entry i wrote yesterday morning that i'll paste up here in a minute, and then we're on into real time. and then we'll see whether i keep up with this thing at all. i'm almost sad the journal is finished. now i have to come up with fresh stuff!
11.20.08, 8:00am
i'm going home today. i thought i might actually be nervous, but i'm not. i am purely grateful. i know there's a lot in front of me yet, but it will be a joy to go through it after being in here.
snaggletooth joined us yesterday. i believe her to be homeless, judging solely by appearance. she actually seemed foggy but lucid for all of yesterday, but at this moment she is carrying on a phone conversation. problem is that she has the phone base in her lap, and that's it. the receiver is still on the hook. were it just rambling i may not have noticed, but there is clearly a second side to the dialogue. as near as i can tell, it is rough on young women named camela who are arrested for using lemon pledge bubble bath at 110 degrees fahrenheit. i swear, you can't make this stuff up.
snaggletooth joined us yesterday. i believe her to be homeless, judging solely by appearance. she actually seemed foggy but lucid for all of yesterday, but at this moment she is carrying on a phone conversation. problem is that she has the phone base in her lap, and that's it. the receiver is still on the hook. were it just rambling i may not have noticed, but there is clearly a second side to the dialogue. as near as i can tell, it is rough on young women named camela who are arrested for using lemon pledge bubble bath at 110 degrees fahrenheit. i swear, you can't make this stuff up.
11.19.08, 6:15pm
see if i can't think through the snot clearly enough to get some of my thoughts down now. i've sat in group twice today with david crosby, and that guy has a long way to go before he even is in the same neighborhood as better. his entire repertoire is about how he has been wronged and offended and held back, with no consideration for his own role in his problems. now i understand how i must have sounded for the last few months. the only difference is that i think ol' dave here genuinely believes it's everyone else's fault.
i'm actually kind of excited to start therapy. i've never had the guts to do it, though i knew i should, and now there are no excuses. i'm nervous about it - i understand it may be difficult at times - but at what price ignorance? it seems a foolish thing to say, but what a gift for someone to teach me how to be happy. for many or most people that is a natural response. for me it is not. i've had plenty of joyful moments in my life, but i've never been able to look oer a 4-6 week period and say that overall i was happy. and that's how i am broken. my brain chemistry fights happy, and even when it's ok my mind and heart don't know how to do happy.
i'm actually kind of excited to start therapy. i've never had the guts to do it, though i knew i should, and now there are no excuses. i'm nervous about it - i understand it may be difficult at times - but at what price ignorance? it seems a foolish thing to say, but what a gift for someone to teach me how to be happy. for many or most people that is a natural response. for me it is not. i've had plenty of joyful moments in my life, but i've never been able to look oer a 4-6 week period and say that overall i was happy. and that's how i am broken. my brain chemistry fights happy, and even when it's ok my mind and heart don't know how to do happy.
11.19.08, 11:00am
just finished up group, which has no worth to me when the group is filled with delusional psychotics and paranoid schizophrenics. understandably, they have a tendency to dominate the conversation.
king tut, who until now has struck me as likely a depressive or bipolar or some other basic disorder, apparently has some fairly expansive and complete delusions. he has found a new law in the koran by reading it backwards and is leading a new sect of islam. michael giorgio (his financial advisor) changed his name to giorgio armani after stealing from tut the jewels princess diana had sent him before dying in a car accident. whoa, nelly.
i found out that i'm not going home today. that was a fairly crushing blow, and one for which i was unprepared. it amazes me how the psychiatrists seem unconcerned with the psychological implications of being in a place like this. they are the mental health profession's corollary to the general surgeon - there's no holism, just a problem that needs fixing, nevermind the further ramifications of the remedy.
king tut, who until now has struck me as likely a depressive or bipolar or some other basic disorder, apparently has some fairly expansive and complete delusions. he has found a new law in the koran by reading it backwards and is leading a new sect of islam. michael giorgio (his financial advisor) changed his name to giorgio armani after stealing from tut the jewels princess diana had sent him before dying in a car accident. whoa, nelly.
i found out that i'm not going home today. that was a fairly crushing blow, and one for which i was unprepared. it amazes me how the psychiatrists seem unconcerned with the psychological implications of being in a place like this. they are the mental health profession's corollary to the general surgeon - there's no holism, just a problem that needs fixing, nevermind the further ramifications of the remedy.
11.18.08, 10:15pm
i am not a pill taker. i even eschew the use of aspirin and tylenol except in extreme circumstances. but tonight i opted for the ambien they prescribed as a good night's sleep is something one must purchase in here. i am told ambien is essentially side-effect free, but as one who is prone to hangovers i do hope sleep is worth the price i will pay.
today i have been admitted to the inpatient psych ward, evaluated and deemed unfit to leave, essentially forced to eat meat or go hungry (i hope for better things from the kitchen tomorrow) [the ward staff was on my side, but the kitchen couldn't seem to get a handle on the vegetarian thing], attended my first group therapy sessions, met an alternate-future-universe version of myself, carried on a 2-hour conversation with a schizophrenic during which i was accused of having black hair, wearing a black suit with red armbands, being at various times her abusive ex-husband james, her gay half-brother barry whom she loved, jesus christ, satan, and a handful of minor characters whose true roles i could not define. i had a friend and lover visit me and regained hope through that. and i now am being surprised by how quickly ambien acts. beware now the snorgle beet zoom, lobsterdog. hoocha!
as days go, this was a weird one. a new experience.
today i have been admitted to the inpatient psych ward, evaluated and deemed unfit to leave, essentially forced to eat meat or go hungry (i hope for better things from the kitchen tomorrow) [the ward staff was on my side, but the kitchen couldn't seem to get a handle on the vegetarian thing], attended my first group therapy sessions, met an alternate-future-universe version of myself, carried on a 2-hour conversation with a schizophrenic during which i was accused of having black hair, wearing a black suit with red armbands, being at various times her abusive ex-husband james, her gay half-brother barry whom she loved, jesus christ, satan, and a handful of minor characters whose true roles i could not define. i had a friend and lover visit me and regained hope through that. and i now am being surprised by how quickly ambien acts. beware now the snorgle beet zoom, lobsterdog. hoocha!
as days go, this was a weird one. a new experience.
21.11.08
11.18.08, 8:00pm?
turns out i've never been happier to see someone. the staff here are all sane, but they work here among the craziness and to me seem part of it regardless. but for andy and brandie [yes, i chuckled after i typed that] to come - people from outside of this, and two of my most trusted at that - was an absolute godsend. twice daily we fill out a 'mood sheet', and tonight's was the first i had entered my mood as 'hopeful'.
the downside to this hopefulness is that i am losing some of my feeling of camaraderie with my fellow...inmates? is that a downside? only in that i am here until tomorrow noon at least and do not feel part of it. again, that should be a good thing, but neither am i strong enough yet to be out among them and feel like i have something to offer or like i am an observer. instead i am alone here, a stranger in a strange land. i am the hopeful among the hopeless. and that is a mighty strange feeling when you can't pass that hope on.
i did get my own room for tonight, which a wonderful treat. i got my armful of belongings [brandie had brought me some clothes and books earlier in the day] moved, came in, closed the door and did what i had not been comfortable doing in a shared room - i took a shower. [bear with me here. i know i've rhapsodized about the shower before, but i did it again and i promised myself i wouldn't edit this] hot, wet and cleansing it was healing in a way few likely understand. my shower each day is my chrysalis, the cocoon where i change from my nervous, anxious dream-self into the person i present to the world. it is where i wash off the inability to cope and take in the strength to speak to people. those sheets of water are like massaging hands easing back pain - they push and free up the awkwardness and anxiety to become wit and affability. and there have been few that i have relished like this one. i will likely have another before bed.
i hope to go home tomorrow. nobody really said that would happen, but i think it could. i believe i'm ready, and not because i want out of here. i'm ready to go back to my life.
the downside to this hopefulness is that i am losing some of my feeling of camaraderie with my fellow...inmates? is that a downside? only in that i am here until tomorrow noon at least and do not feel part of it. again, that should be a good thing, but neither am i strong enough yet to be out among them and feel like i have something to offer or like i am an observer. instead i am alone here, a stranger in a strange land. i am the hopeful among the hopeless. and that is a mighty strange feeling when you can't pass that hope on.
i did get my own room for tonight, which a wonderful treat. i got my armful of belongings [brandie had brought me some clothes and books earlier in the day] moved, came in, closed the door and did what i had not been comfortable doing in a shared room - i took a shower. [bear with me here. i know i've rhapsodized about the shower before, but i did it again and i promised myself i wouldn't edit this] hot, wet and cleansing it was healing in a way few likely understand. my shower each day is my chrysalis, the cocoon where i change from my nervous, anxious dream-self into the person i present to the world. it is where i wash off the inability to cope and take in the strength to speak to people. those sheets of water are like massaging hands easing back pain - they push and free up the awkwardness and anxiety to become wit and affability. and there have been few that i have relished like this one. i will likely have another before bed.
i hope to go home tomorrow. nobody really said that would happen, but i think it could. i believe i'm ready, and not because i want out of here. i'm ready to go back to my life.
11.18.08, 5:20pm
this is by far the most surreal experience of my entire life. if anyone out there is like me, every movie you've ever seen about a mental ward you have dismissed as melodrama. i will never think that again. i have now had the same discussion with the same guy 14 times. literally, the same words from him. 14 times. incredible. adolf knows every hit from the 50s and is moving into the 60s. california dreamin' has never sounded so...twisted.
today i was in group with a guy we'll call jerry, if only because he is a guitar player who reminds me of the late mr. garcia. he has been my biggest revelation. he is what i could have been and could become. he is physically broken at 56. he has two grown children whose childhood he missed because of his drinking. he wasn't allowed to See them. he has an 18-year-old son who resents him for being a drunk even though he was around. he was drunk and cleaning his gun when it discharged, and no one believes it was an accident. that could be me. holy. crap.
andy's coming at 6:30, brandie at 7, and i don't know if i'm ready for it. i'm still embarrassed to the point where even though everyone knows about this i want to handle it on my own. alone.
duh.
today i was in group with a guy we'll call jerry, if only because he is a guitar player who reminds me of the late mr. garcia. he has been my biggest revelation. he is what i could have been and could become. he is physically broken at 56. he has two grown children whose childhood he missed because of his drinking. he wasn't allowed to See them. he has an 18-year-old son who resents him for being a drunk even though he was around. he was drunk and cleaning his gun when it discharged, and no one believes it was an accident. that could be me. holy. crap.
andy's coming at 6:30, brandie at 7, and i don't know if i'm ready for it. i'm still embarrassed to the point where even though everyone knows about this i want to handle it on my own. alone.
duh.
11.18.08, 3:30pm
i have actually had a really beautiful and strange thirty-minute conversation with mama cass. her name is not mama cass, obviously, but that's all you'll get out of me. she is easily the saddest, most broken person i have ever met. my guess is that she is paranoid schizophrenic, the break having happened many years ago. she will leap between times and places and subjects as though it is a consistent narrative. we have discussed her childhood living arrangement, the abuse she suffered as a young woman and the reason she quit her typing classes in july, all in no more than a handful of sentences interspersed with often shockingly accurate scripture.
20.11.08
11.18.08, 8:30am
interview with the psychiatrist. i'm not leaving today.
man, right now i don't even feel like writing. not sure if it's just that i'm feeling a little broken right now or if i'm just out of things to say.
honestly, i'm frustrated that i'm going to be stuck here. i don't believe that i'm an imminent danger to myself, yet they won't let me out until they're sure they have me stabilized. well, i feel stable enough not to be here. i feel less stable in here. i understand that there's not a 'depression ward', but to take someone in who's simply depressed and lump him in with schizophrenics and dementia patients is enough to push him. i am more depressed now than i was when i got here. honestly, based on the unpredictability of the personalities in here, i am afraid to talk to anyone. there are some potentially volatile folks.
holy crap. david crosby [not his real name, duh], alongside whom i was admitted last night, can literally talk about nothing in astounding detail. every last movement, each word and breath, every color and scent and sound of the day he found his cat. amazing the things that a damaged mind will focus on.
man, right now i don't even feel like writing. not sure if it's just that i'm feeling a little broken right now or if i'm just out of things to say.
honestly, i'm frustrated that i'm going to be stuck here. i don't believe that i'm an imminent danger to myself, yet they won't let me out until they're sure they have me stabilized. well, i feel stable enough not to be here. i feel less stable in here. i understand that there's not a 'depression ward', but to take someone in who's simply depressed and lump him in with schizophrenics and dementia patients is enough to push him. i am more depressed now than i was when i got here. honestly, based on the unpredictability of the personalities in here, i am afraid to talk to anyone. there are some potentially volatile folks.
holy crap. david crosby [not his real name, duh], alongside whom i was admitted last night, can literally talk about nothing in astounding detail. every last movement, each word and breath, every color and scent and sound of the day he found his cat. amazing the things that a damaged mind will focus on.
11.18.08, 7:30am
this is the worst place i've ever been. it is at least eye-opening. you go to the ER, you get admitted, you strip naked so they can document scars and tattoos, they take your shoes and belt, and you can still believe you're like everyone outside, but sad. but you wake up the next morning and you're in a room with adolf hitler and king tut. you realize the diagnosis means you are sick in the head, just like they are. different disease, same category.
adolf is recruiting a mexican army to take over the world before china and russia do. the good news? starting pay is $1000/week.
the social worker comes in. i'll get her name again later. she comes to the door and asks for a name. 'adolf' he says. last name? 'hitler' he says. she doesn't even flinch.she just asks if there's another name he goes by. amazing. she's pleasant and friendly without being patronizing. it's either natural or she's honed it over years. i actually like her.
by the way, mama cass is not dead. i have found her. she's older, obviously. and she is not well. she does, however, still sing beautifully, provided it's a hymn or christmas carol.
adolf is recruiting a mexican army to take over the world before china and russia do. the good news? starting pay is $1000/week.
the social worker comes in. i'll get her name again later. she comes to the door and asks for a name. 'adolf' he says. last name? 'hitler' he says. she doesn't even flinch.she just asks if there's another name he goes by. amazing. she's pleasant and friendly without being patronizing. it's either natural or she's honed it over years. i actually like her.
by the way, mama cass is not dead. i have found her. she's older, obviously. and she is not well. she does, however, still sing beautifully, provided it's a hymn or christmas carol.
11.18.08, 7:00am
i am unimpressed with an awful lot here. to begin with, not being admitted until 1am after arriving at the ER at 7pm seems a might inefficient. the whole place is dismal, dingy, the only vegetarian offering was crappy peanut butter and fruit. at least there was fruit.
overnight staff was actually alright, charlie the sunshine girl notwithstanding [ed. charlie the sunshine girl was a fairly sizable hispanic dude wearing a gray and pink sweater jacket who's whole aspect said 'glad to be of service - somewhere else, some other time'. he was the psych tech on-site at the ER]. half the 2nd floor unit is under renovation, which means that i, presenting with major depression exacerbated by social anxiety disorder, got a room mate. awesome. at least it was 1am and no one cared to socialize, but all i wanted to do is disappear under the water for 30 minutes and i didn't want to keep roomie up.
beds could be worse, could be better. brandie failed to plan for the possibility of my being admitted, so it was either sleep in my clothes or the handkerchief that leaves one's ass exposed.
7am, rise and shine. 5 hours of sleep on the psych ward. cool. vitals are taken. i meet adolf hitler. he sings beach boys tunes. LOUD. tells blonde jokes. i'm sitting and writing in the breakroom while he tells jokes while a quiet and affable black guy wearing a towel draped over his head reads the paper. i have christened him 'tut'.
huh. turns out that hitler claims he is about to win millions in a lawsuit over shock treatments he received in the 70s. claims he also killed the doctor who gave them to him. 'jumped the fence and then later ran him off the road in his new jaguar'.
overnight staff was actually alright, charlie the sunshine girl notwithstanding [ed. charlie the sunshine girl was a fairly sizable hispanic dude wearing a gray and pink sweater jacket who's whole aspect said 'glad to be of service - somewhere else, some other time'. he was the psych tech on-site at the ER]. half the 2nd floor unit is under renovation, which means that i, presenting with major depression exacerbated by social anxiety disorder, got a room mate. awesome. at least it was 1am and no one cared to socialize, but all i wanted to do is disappear under the water for 30 minutes and i didn't want to keep roomie up.
beds could be worse, could be better. brandie failed to plan for the possibility of my being admitted, so it was either sleep in my clothes or the handkerchief that leaves one's ass exposed.
7am, rise and shine. 5 hours of sleep on the psych ward. cool. vitals are taken. i meet adolf hitler. he sings beach boys tunes. LOUD. tells blonde jokes. i'm sitting and writing in the breakroom while he tells jokes while a quiet and affable black guy wearing a towel draped over his head reads the paper. i have christened him 'tut'.
huh. turns out that hitler claims he is about to win millions in a lawsuit over shock treatments he received in the 70s. claims he also killed the doctor who gave them to him. 'jumped the fence and then later ran him off the road in his new jaguar'.
here we go!
i realized after posting this earlier that the journal doesn't have any setup - it begins in media res, so lots of folks could be thoroughly confused as to the runup.
on monday, november 17th, 2008, i received a call at work from my wife, who told me that i would be going to the ER with her upon my return home that evening. i had gone off the deep end and she no longer felt i was safe, either to myself or with her and the kids. i got home, fully confident that we would go to the ER, they would evaluate me, write me a prescription for some anti-depressants, sugest therpy and we'd be home before 9. instead, we spent hours in the ER, they drug tested me, ruled out any number of pathogens that might explain my behavior, consulted with a psychiatrist and then told me i needed to check myself into a, in-patient crisis treatment program in order to stabilize while under watch. huh. never saw that coming. but they were serious enough that i agreed, and the rest is in the book.
ok, to clarify the way this thing is going to work:
i will be transcribing essentially directly from my journal. the only edits will be to change whatever information i feel is necessary to protect any identities. any edits to add anything that is not in the original journal entry will only be added in situations where i think more information would clarify, solidify or just make things funnier or easier to understand. i'm a giver. whatever i might add, nothing will be removed, but that's a pretty safe bet - there's not much in here that i'd hide anyway at this point.
i will try to remember to stamp the title with the date and approximate time each entry was written. i didn't always record the time, hence 'approximate' . but at least the whole thing will be presented in chronological order. whoopideedoo. i'm going to rest for a bit (this has been a big day!), then get to typing. i'll give you all i can with each sitting, but i fear for tonight that won't be much.
and so it goes...
on monday, november 17th, 2008, i received a call at work from my wife, who told me that i would be going to the ER with her upon my return home that evening. i had gone off the deep end and she no longer felt i was safe, either to myself or with her and the kids. i got home, fully confident that we would go to the ER, they would evaluate me, write me a prescription for some anti-depressants, sugest therpy and we'd be home before 9. instead, we spent hours in the ER, they drug tested me, ruled out any number of pathogens that might explain my behavior, consulted with a psychiatrist and then told me i needed to check myself into a, in-patient crisis treatment program in order to stabilize while under watch. huh. never saw that coming. but they were serious enough that i agreed, and the rest is in the book.
ok, to clarify the way this thing is going to work:
i will be transcribing essentially directly from my journal. the only edits will be to change whatever information i feel is necessary to protect any identities. any edits to add anything that is not in the original journal entry will only be added in situations where i think more information would clarify, solidify or just make things funnier or easier to understand. i'm a giver. whatever i might add, nothing will be removed, but that's a pretty safe bet - there's not much in here that i'd hide anyway at this point.
i will try to remember to stamp the title with the date and approximate time each entry was written. i didn't always record the time, hence 'approximate' . but at least the whole thing will be presented in chronological order. whoopideedoo. i'm going to rest for a bit (this has been a big day!), then get to typing. i'll give you all i can with each sitting, but i fear for tonight that won't be much.
and so it goes...
oops...
so, uh...day one, right? not so much. for those who are unaware, i've been away for a few days. i'm free now (free to look out the window, free to live my story, free to sing along...), but it'll take me a bit to re assimilate. spell-check thinks i just made that word up, and it may be right. feh.
i kept a journal while i was in, and it is my intent to post it here, unaltered except to change out some names that i may have recorded in it for aliases to protect identities. there will be no specific indication of where i was, no physical descriptions that would indicate that either, so that all concerned may have their privacies. but suffice it to say that the last three days have been the weirdest, most frightening, most enlightening experience of my life to date. this journal/blog posting (or, more realistically, series of postings) will no doubt be hilarious at times, and while in the moments those things were funny i want everyone who reads this to understand that each of these people is not a character. none of this is fantasized or dramatized or otherwise made up. none of these people is a composite. each detail in here is real and exactly as i perceived it.
i would also like to get out in front of something i expect will occur to some who read this, especially anyone who has mental health experience, and most especially those who have been on the patient side of the therapist's desk. there are not many revelations herein. a crisis intervention psych unit is not a place for revelation. it's simply not what they do. they stabilize, they make certain one is safe. the disparate nature of the illnesses and sheer number of cases make therapy all but impossible, to the point where the group therapy sessions are less about true therapy and more about being certain that no one is playing the shrinking violet and becoming a hermit. they can try to help socialize the patients, and they can make an attempt at therapy, but only in the very broadest of terms, so broad that they are all but impossible to apply on an individual basis. this is not to criticize at all; i admire the attempt. but it is the reality of it, and i wanted anyone who would read this and suggest that i haven't really begun to come to any realizations to understand that i already know this. that is what the coming therapy is for.
bear with me - it will likely take me a few days to get this posted. i'm not much of a typist, and though brandie has volunteered to transcribe for me i think it's something i'd like to do myself, both as a therapeutic process and so that i can edit names and details to protect those that need protecting.
lastly, thanks to jesse, clay, mary, kim, wilma, julee and all the others whose names i am already forgetting. you guys know who you are. i am amazed by what you do and the aplomb with which you do it. you are an impressive lot in an inglorious field, and it's a shame and a blessing that more people don't know that.
i kept a journal while i was in, and it is my intent to post it here, unaltered except to change out some names that i may have recorded in it for aliases to protect identities. there will be no specific indication of where i was, no physical descriptions that would indicate that either, so that all concerned may have their privacies. but suffice it to say that the last three days have been the weirdest, most frightening, most enlightening experience of my life to date. this journal/blog posting (or, more realistically, series of postings) will no doubt be hilarious at times, and while in the moments those things were funny i want everyone who reads this to understand that each of these people is not a character. none of this is fantasized or dramatized or otherwise made up. none of these people is a composite. each detail in here is real and exactly as i perceived it.
i would also like to get out in front of something i expect will occur to some who read this, especially anyone who has mental health experience, and most especially those who have been on the patient side of the therapist's desk. there are not many revelations herein. a crisis intervention psych unit is not a place for revelation. it's simply not what they do. they stabilize, they make certain one is safe. the disparate nature of the illnesses and sheer number of cases make therapy all but impossible, to the point where the group therapy sessions are less about true therapy and more about being certain that no one is playing the shrinking violet and becoming a hermit. they can try to help socialize the patients, and they can make an attempt at therapy, but only in the very broadest of terms, so broad that they are all but impossible to apply on an individual basis. this is not to criticize at all; i admire the attempt. but it is the reality of it, and i wanted anyone who would read this and suggest that i haven't really begun to come to any realizations to understand that i already know this. that is what the coming therapy is for.
bear with me - it will likely take me a few days to get this posted. i'm not much of a typist, and though brandie has volunteered to transcribe for me i think it's something i'd like to do myself, both as a therapeutic process and so that i can edit names and details to protect those that need protecting.
lastly, thanks to jesse, clay, mary, kim, wilma, julee and all the others whose names i am already forgetting. you guys know who you are. i am amazed by what you do and the aplomb with which you do it. you are an impressive lot in an inglorious field, and it's a shame and a blessing that more people don't know that.
17.11.08
day one
i realized yesterday evening that real life hasn't actually stopped just because i have. i have to wake up this morning and go to work. and that ain't going to be easy. it was one thing when i was still maintaining, but since the crack opened in the dam it's going to be a little harder. probably wouldn't be so bad if i hadn't just started the new gig a few weeks ago.
in any case, i'm sitting in the front room typing and trying to stuff the damn genie back in the bottle. all weekend, ever since the crack formed, it seems like it's been leaking out a little at a time. at first i thought the dam had broken wide open and the flood had come, but now i think that's not even close. i think that there's still just a crack, and it's pouring some, but not as bad as it could be. i roam around dazed, occasionally stabbed through with this miserable pain. that pain brings the tears and the shutdown. if i can fiure out how to spackle up the crack, to keep the flow stemmed, while i'm at work, maybe i can let it out in a controlled fashion when it's safe to do so.
so now i'm off to my soporific, the shower. the shower is a safe place, where water pours over my head and eases the tide of bad things. it is warmth and comfort and a welcome reminder that reality isn't all bad and that i am a part of it. each droplet hits and brings comfort. 'i'm here. i'm here. i'm here.' and so i will come out of the shower, towel off that security blanket of wet, and move into my routine that hopefully will remind me of how i've managed up to this point. automatic teeth, hair, glasses, shave (thinking while i shave how thankful i am for safety razors these days), clothes, gather lunch, pills, breakfast, computer, drive. and music. thank you, God for music, my other refuge.
this blog has already paid off, btw. turns out i know someone who has been through this, and still goes through it. i guess the odds should have told me that i know at least one person (i probably know more), but to actually see in writing that there's someone i know, a real person with whom i have talked and joked and watched with others, that sees the world like i do...that makes a huge difference.
in any case, i'm sitting in the front room typing and trying to stuff the damn genie back in the bottle. all weekend, ever since the crack formed, it seems like it's been leaking out a little at a time. at first i thought the dam had broken wide open and the flood had come, but now i think that's not even close. i think that there's still just a crack, and it's pouring some, but not as bad as it could be. i roam around dazed, occasionally stabbed through with this miserable pain. that pain brings the tears and the shutdown. if i can fiure out how to spackle up the crack, to keep the flow stemmed, while i'm at work, maybe i can let it out in a controlled fashion when it's safe to do so.
so now i'm off to my soporific, the shower. the shower is a safe place, where water pours over my head and eases the tide of bad things. it is warmth and comfort and a welcome reminder that reality isn't all bad and that i am a part of it. each droplet hits and brings comfort. 'i'm here. i'm here. i'm here.' and so i will come out of the shower, towel off that security blanket of wet, and move into my routine that hopefully will remind me of how i've managed up to this point. automatic teeth, hair, glasses, shave (thinking while i shave how thankful i am for safety razors these days), clothes, gather lunch, pills, breakfast, computer, drive. and music. thank you, God for music, my other refuge.
this blog has already paid off, btw. turns out i know someone who has been through this, and still goes through it. i guess the odds should have told me that i know at least one person (i probably know more), but to actually see in writing that there's someone i know, a real person with whom i have talked and joked and watched with others, that sees the world like i do...that makes a huge difference.
16.11.08
why...
well, brandie asked me a bit ago why i'm doing this. i still don't know. a lot of reasons.
altruism? perhaps, to some degree. had i read something like this might become, maybe i'd have had the strength to do something sooner. i doubt it, however. for some of us, the willingness to seek help all comes down to change becoming less frightening than the status quo, and i just got there.
i still think there's a lot to be said for my need to put this out in the public sphere. not so much that i need the world to read this, but to know that someone, anyone, could read it. i've been hiding in my own head for so long that i feel sort of compelled to put this all outside of myself, like somehow nothing will be able to help until i'm willing to admit completely freely that it's going on.
secondly, i want it documented. not necessarily for anyone else, but for me. i want to have everything written down somewhere independent. i can stop whenever i want, but what has already been written will be here. i suppose i have the option of deleting it, but somewhere it will exist on a backup.
whatever the reason is, i need this, at least for now. maybe that changes when i take the first few steps. but for now, this is working as something to keep my mind from going further down the rabbit hole.
altruism? perhaps, to some degree. had i read something like this might become, maybe i'd have had the strength to do something sooner. i doubt it, however. for some of us, the willingness to seek help all comes down to change becoming less frightening than the status quo, and i just got there.
i still think there's a lot to be said for my need to put this out in the public sphere. not so much that i need the world to read this, but to know that someone, anyone, could read it. i've been hiding in my own head for so long that i feel sort of compelled to put this all outside of myself, like somehow nothing will be able to help until i'm willing to admit completely freely that it's going on.
secondly, i want it documented. not necessarily for anyone else, but for me. i want to have everything written down somewhere independent. i can stop whenever i want, but what has already been written will be here. i suppose i have the option of deleting it, but somewhere it will exist on a backup.
whatever the reason is, i need this, at least for now. maybe that changes when i take the first few steps. but for now, this is working as something to keep my mind from going further down the rabbit hole.
15.11.08
social anxiety disorder
so, i had a friend ask me exactly what my intent was in creating this blog, especially with such a first post as the one below. honestly, i hadn't thought out why. i have a need to write things. i do it a lot. but this new...mess, has me needing not just to write, but to write to.
this is a side of me that a few people know. the messy side. i've never hidden the fact that i'm a little odd, a little weird, that i look at things differently and i'm not afraid to admit that i'm more than a little awkward. but i've always acted like i own that and that it's by choice, and i feel suddenly like maybe getting out of this mess might involve my admitting freely that i haven't chosen those traits at all. they're part of what's in my head, and what's in my head operates out of fear.
i was officially diagnosed in 2003 (?) with social anxiety disorder. most people have some idea of what that looks like, but i had someone ask me once what it means inside me to have it.
so, what's it like to have social anxiety disorder? have you ever said something truly stupid out loud, something you were sad to have said the moment it left your lips? and then you were left wondering if everyone in earshot thought you were maybe a little slow? ok, take that feeling and apply it to everything you say. now to everything you do. now expand things so that it applies to literally every person you see around you, not just the ones with whom you interact, and you're getting the idea.
we could try this one, too: remember back to when you were going through puberty, the really awkard part. there was someone you had a major crush on. and when you saw her (him) all you could think of was how sad you were that you were in this really awkward phase, and that this person wouldn't want much of anything to do with you. now, take that feeling and make it apply today to each person you meet, and you're starting to get some part of the vibe.
the difference? those things stopped over time. you grew out of puberty, that idiotic comment faded from memory. for me, each thing i say, every move i make is followed by near-paralyzing concern over what impressions are left. many of us feel that same kind of fear with each moment of our lives. most are blessed with short-term memory that allows us to forget that concern immediately. those like me cannot forget. we obsess about those moments, spiraling over them again and again, wondering what others are thinking of us. and 'those moments'? they are every moment spent speaking to someone that hasn't become part of the trusted few.
and that's the secret. there are only two ways i have found to beat it and unparalyze myself. in business situations, i have learned to tell myself silently and constantly that performance is the issue, not personality, that not only can my likability be offset by the fact that i am very good at what i do, it is perfectly likely that it doesn't even enter into the equation. thus, it is easy for me to dismiss my concerns as irrelevant. but personal interactions can't be treated this way, and the only way to beat that demon is repetition or blind luck. many people can never make it into the trusted file. i have few close friends for that very reason; i always feel uncomfortable. family is easy because they're stuck with me regardless (and frankly, they're as weird as i am). some few slowly become trusted because i have seen enough evidence to suggest that they do not judge me persistently. and then there is a subset so small it has only ever held a handful of very special people with whom i was immediately ok. people so tied to me in some impossible-to-explain way that i never for a moment worried about what they thought. i have some of those people in my life now, some have moves on to bless other lives, and there is one who is lost to this world forever. and they are my true loves, the ones who make this place bearable, the anchors who kep me from drifting into isolation and give me the faith in myself and the strength to go out into that big ol' scary world every day. without them, i would withdraw completely.
so there. that's what it's like. i fear everyone and everything i do, but for a small percentage. some are good people with whom i have formed comfortable rapport. some are my soul mates, i feel, angels of a sort to help me cope. and would gladly give my life for any of them, for they are what gives me any sort of life at all.
this is a side of me that a few people know. the messy side. i've never hidden the fact that i'm a little odd, a little weird, that i look at things differently and i'm not afraid to admit that i'm more than a little awkward. but i've always acted like i own that and that it's by choice, and i feel suddenly like maybe getting out of this mess might involve my admitting freely that i haven't chosen those traits at all. they're part of what's in my head, and what's in my head operates out of fear.
i was officially diagnosed in 2003 (?) with social anxiety disorder. most people have some idea of what that looks like, but i had someone ask me once what it means inside me to have it.
so, what's it like to have social anxiety disorder? have you ever said something truly stupid out loud, something you were sad to have said the moment it left your lips? and then you were left wondering if everyone in earshot thought you were maybe a little slow? ok, take that feeling and apply it to everything you say. now to everything you do. now expand things so that it applies to literally every person you see around you, not just the ones with whom you interact, and you're getting the idea.
we could try this one, too: remember back to when you were going through puberty, the really awkard part. there was someone you had a major crush on. and when you saw her (him) all you could think of was how sad you were that you were in this really awkward phase, and that this person wouldn't want much of anything to do with you. now, take that feeling and make it apply today to each person you meet, and you're starting to get some part of the vibe.
the difference? those things stopped over time. you grew out of puberty, that idiotic comment faded from memory. for me, each thing i say, every move i make is followed by near-paralyzing concern over what impressions are left. many of us feel that same kind of fear with each moment of our lives. most are blessed with short-term memory that allows us to forget that concern immediately. those like me cannot forget. we obsess about those moments, spiraling over them again and again, wondering what others are thinking of us. and 'those moments'? they are every moment spent speaking to someone that hasn't become part of the trusted few.
and that's the secret. there are only two ways i have found to beat it and unparalyze myself. in business situations, i have learned to tell myself silently and constantly that performance is the issue, not personality, that not only can my likability be offset by the fact that i am very good at what i do, it is perfectly likely that it doesn't even enter into the equation. thus, it is easy for me to dismiss my concerns as irrelevant. but personal interactions can't be treated this way, and the only way to beat that demon is repetition or blind luck. many people can never make it into the trusted file. i have few close friends for that very reason; i always feel uncomfortable. family is easy because they're stuck with me regardless (and frankly, they're as weird as i am). some few slowly become trusted because i have seen enough evidence to suggest that they do not judge me persistently. and then there is a subset so small it has only ever held a handful of very special people with whom i was immediately ok. people so tied to me in some impossible-to-explain way that i never for a moment worried about what they thought. i have some of those people in my life now, some have moves on to bless other lives, and there is one who is lost to this world forever. and they are my true loves, the ones who make this place bearable, the anchors who kep me from drifting into isolation and give me the faith in myself and the strength to go out into that big ol' scary world every day. without them, i would withdraw completely.
so there. that's what it's like. i fear everyone and everything i do, but for a small percentage. some are good people with whom i have formed comfortable rapport. some are my soul mates, i feel, angels of a sort to help me cope. and would gladly give my life for any of them, for they are what gives me any sort of life at all.
wake-up call
so, i came to a conclusion this morning after my world got a little ugly and i realized that i was the reason for the ugliness. or, i suppose it wasn't so much a conclusion as it was a moment of clarity that i managed to distill into a nice, neat trio of sentences.
when you're unhappy with yourself, it's pretty easy to be unhappy with your life. when you're unhappy with your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself you don't want your life. when you don't want your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself it didn't want you first. that makes you unhappier, and the cycle continues. this is what we call depression.
now, there are usually a lot of variables in play, too. i'm not discounting that fact. lord knows that i, in my own life and fight with depression, have more than my share of variables, many of which i have - knowingly or unwittingly - created of my own idiot accord. anything that has kicked off this latest round has unquestionably been my own doing. i can see some of them, and i know they are mine. but that fact doesn't actually matter.
the time has come once again to see someone. i have held my own psyche together for my entire adult life with nothing more than the psychological equivalents of duct tape and bailing wire. i have a southern-engineered mental state. and i have finally come up against the big bump in the road that knocks the coat hanger off the muffler. i wasn't ready for it, i didn't see it coming, and in fact i never thought it would. but it did, and now, this morning, i know it's time to take this thing into the shop. i can't fix it anymore.
when you're unhappy with yourself, it's pretty easy to be unhappy with your life. when you're unhappy with your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself you don't want your life. when you don't want your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself it didn't want you first. that makes you unhappier, and the cycle continues. this is what we call depression.
now, there are usually a lot of variables in play, too. i'm not discounting that fact. lord knows that i, in my own life and fight with depression, have more than my share of variables, many of which i have - knowingly or unwittingly - created of my own idiot accord. anything that has kicked off this latest round has unquestionably been my own doing. i can see some of them, and i know they are mine. but that fact doesn't actually matter.
the time has come once again to see someone. i have held my own psyche together for my entire adult life with nothing more than the psychological equivalents of duct tape and bailing wire. i have a southern-engineered mental state. and i have finally come up against the big bump in the road that knocks the coat hanger off the muffler. i wasn't ready for it, i didn't see it coming, and in fact i never thought it would. but it did, and now, this morning, i know it's time to take this thing into the shop. i can't fix it anymore.
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