Take my brain, please!

I just took a big dose of (probably useless) Ambien and decided to revise this post. I can only hope the medication makes the writing more interesting because the first time around was kind of a snooze for this one.

I had my every-six-weeks appointment with the psychiatrist today. I try to be pleasant when I go, but today I didn't have the energy to be chatty, so I didn't even try. If there's one place you should be free to show your mood, it's in the psychiatrist's office.

He asked what was up, and I just said, "Nothing."
"Is that a good nothing or a bad nothing?"
"It's just...nothing. No changes. I'm really tired." (Because I am too overwhelmed with drugs to add in that trozodone you prescribed. It sounds like a dinosaur.)

I think he was worried because I wasn't my bubbly self. Sometimes, I just can't put on that persona, no matter how desperately I want to. Lately, I rarely want to, but I still manage to dig deep and put on that face of normality so I can be convincing when I fake interpersonal engagement. Such is the problem with fall. And my work schedule.

Last year around this time is when I ran out of money. My malaise must have triggered a memory for the doc because he went into the special locked closet of pharmaceutical wonders and brought me about 30 sample boxes of EMSAM patches. Wa-hoo. He handed me the bag and I said the only thing I could think of : "Trick or treat."

The doc shrugged and said, "And Christmas comes early." I thanked him for his generosity (keeping in mind that there are only like five people in the entire city on this medication. It's not like there's a mad rush for samples). I think he was just trying to get me to show some enthusiasm. Smiling was not even on the menu today.

The doc asked if I wanted or needed anything else. What a stupid question. "Yes, Dr. Steve! I want a new brain! This one doesn't work right. It's defective and I want a replacement. Is there a warranty??"

He laughed and said, "May, your brain is just fine. You have a great brain. People like your brain. We just need to keep it tuned up. Why don't you like your brain?" Has he been sleeping all this time?

My brain complicates my life. The neurotransmitters don't work right, the frontal lobe has issues, and that damned amygdala needs an overhaul, and it should take its totally lame friend Mr. Hipocampus with it.

Dr. Steve told me to buy a light box for SAD therapy. I told him I had read all about it just like he told me to, but I wasn't feeling motivation to spend the big bucks, especially when the sun is free.

"May, May, May! Reading about it and using it are not the same thing. You need photons, lots and lots of photons! Unless you're going to sit outside for 30 minutes every single day, the light therapy won't work. It only works if you actually expose yourself to it. It's a discipline, like playing an instrument or learning a language. If you don't practice every day, your brain can't hold onto what it's gaining. Buy the light box, May."

Honestly, it's not just the price that puts me off. One of the most significant side effects of light therapy is...insomnia. Could I possibly sleep less than I do now? Why do I even bother to own pajamas?

Missing Person

Joanna, Joanna, where have you gone? I miss you. I've called and sent cards and email, but there hasn't been any response in about six weeks.

You're the only dependabe thing I have. You're the comfort when I feel like I'm cracking. You listen to me babble when the meds don't work. You tell me fascinating stories about science and whitewater rafting. I have no stimulating conversation here.

Please come back, or at least tell me where you are.

Around here we preach tolerance

What shall I bitch about today? So many possibilities. I’ve been on a roll about religion, so maybe I can revisit that since I had a confrontation of sorts about it on Friday.
I was surfing around on the Internet and I found this great line of stuff by a company called Bitchwear.com. Unfortunately, I'm writing this at work (shhh), so I can’t pull up the site and show you a picture. Anything even remotely naughty is blocked from out Internet access here.

So, here’s the thing. Why is it that people who are zealous about their religion want to tell you all about it, but have no interest in learning about your beliefs? Is this a universal truth? Why do these people think it’s at all appropriate to cram their ideas into someone else’s head with the arrogant attitude that only one religion should exist on this planet? How can it be that billions of people are making a collective mistake by not joining up? And why is brainwashing and ad nauseum Bible thumping (or Koran, or whatever) not perceived as obnoxious by the people who do it?

Last week I facilitated a training for community members as part of the outreach program I oversee. One of the immutable rules of the program is no prosthelytizing. The people we serve have been through enough, and many of them were persecuted for their beliefs. Those who endured torture or conflict dug deep into their hearts and put their faith in their God to get them through horrific experiences. Who the hell gets to tell them they’re going to suffer eternal damnation because they aren’t Christian? Besides, mine is a federally funded program, and the separation of church and state is taken pretty seriously around here. If you want to preach about the god you adore, go join a church group, but stay away from my clients.

There’s a big difference between preaching and promoting your religion compared to trying to convince people they need to drop what they believe and join you. The whole issue of “my religion is right and yours is blasphemy” makes my stomach clench. We all have the right to what we believe, and why can’t it just be left at that?

I got into this tizzy because of a woman at the training. She sent me an email telling me why she does not wish to volunteer in my program. Apparently, I am a squisher and squasher of Constitutional rights, with a particular preference for stomping the First Amendment. Irony again. I am a staunch believer in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but when I’m sending you out to help someone with language and acculturation, you just do not get to use that opportunity as a wholesale excuse to convert heathen souls. Those souls have a constitutionally protected right to the pursuit of their own happiness.

Here is a copy of the message that was sent to me. I haven’t changed anything except the font. (I’m the one who has a supposed mental illness, but I run stability circles around this woman even on my worst day.) I later realized that this woman has about 20 Websites of her very own where she only writes about religion or abortion. She's on disability, so apparently, this is what she does all day.

Mrs Voirrey, I appreciated you allowing me to learn outreach as a volunteer. I have considered carefully your statement that "proselytizing for religion" is not allowed. I thought about how important the US Constitution and the First Amendment is that gives U.S. citizens the freedom of religion, speech, press, and worship of GOD. I thought even more about my committment to the Living LORD JESUS that is first and foremost in my life. I do not think it is wise for anybody to "waive" their Constutional liberties in order to keep the peace of a volunteer agency or for that matter, for any reason. I cannot agree to the terms that you implied i.e. that forsaking the Commandment of JESUS to teach all nations [Matthew 28:19-20] is a requirement for the "privilege" of volunteering! I am certain that I know myself very well and I would talk about GOD and as I watched the movies of the refugees that you showed there, I noted immediately that they referred to either GOD directly or to a "faith" in the understood GOD they referred too. I had an interest in that but don't need more problems in my life. I don't want to give time to a project that attempts to deny the existence of GOD or that violates mine or anyone else's Constitutional and First Amendment liberties on a regularly planned and constructed methodology. Citizens of this country, which Refugees intend to be obviously or they would not endure what they endure to get to this country, should be taught that they are able to talk about and write about GOD anywhere and they don't have to fear being arrested or subjected to persecution in this country for that reason. That is the supposed intent of the First Amendment and if you don't know it I ask you to google it! Of course there are people in this nation persecuted on a daily basis in the public schools for being Christian and being bold to say so. I thought on this all week before replying and decided I cannot and will not forsake GOD to please you or anyone else! signed gp[RN]

Heartless

Why is empathy something people expect to see manifested in a very specific, prescribed way? Is it possible to empathize in a way that, although unorthodox, is still genuine?

The person I work for is wracked with worry. A man she knows professionally--someone I know peripherally--has been severely depressed for quite some time. He's in financial trouble, he cheated on his wife, she left him, and he started to fall apart when his wife got into a serious relationship with someone else. At that point, he ended the relationship with the woman he had been seeing while he was still married. Although he had no real problem cheating on his wife, he could not tolerate the thought of her being happy with someone else.

The guy has been in a downward spiral for a year. He was on medication but it didn't work and he didn't follow up with his doctor. He refused to go into therapy. His behavior has been erratic for months, and he has what I can only describe as an agitated depression.

He's been sending out clear suicide signals for weeks. My boss has repeatedly told me how worried everyone is. I haven't heard anything about what anyone was doing to actually help this man. But they're all very worried, very worried.

At some point in the middle of this week, he quit his job. Nobody has seen him, although he called at least two people and told them he needed to see them--just for 15 minutes--but he never showed. His wife had the police go over to his house, but although he wasn't there, nothing seemed amiss. I'm not sure what that means, exactly.

My boss was teary-eyed when she told me all of this yesterday. I kept a poker face. She implied I didn't care. I wasn't sure what to say. I have well-defined beliefs on this subject, and they tend to be unconventional. Finally I said, "People will do what they want to do. If he is going to kill himself, it has nothing at all to do with anyone except himself. He's in pain and he wants it to stop. Do you understand that?" She said she did, but I suspect she was still processing that. I went on, "Suicide isn't really something you do to other people; it's something you do for yourself. If he has refused help at every turn and made himself unavailable for intervention, then there's nothing to be done. He has made a decision, the decision that he doesn't want a future. As an adult, he has the right to do that. I would say that given the length and severity of his current emotional state, this is not an impulsive or unreasonable decision on his part. He has the right to decide when he's had enough, as do any of us."

My boss looked at me with a mix of distress and possible confusion. She started to say something and then she stopped. She thought my answer was detached and somewhat clinical. I assured her that, in fact, my empathy was very much intact and functioning. I reminded her that my perspective came from very personal experience. I thought about the difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is when you see the situation by imagining yourself in the other person's place. Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone because they are in that situation.

Do I feel sorry for him? No, not really. I feel sad that he found himself in terrible pain but without the kind of support he needed. That's a completely new pain on top of one's suffering. I believe that's the root of my empathy. I understand how it feels to know that dying is a far more palatable option than any of the others before you. Nobody should be able to decide the outcome for you, although they will try--not necessarily out of love, but just on principle.

I guess we'll find out what happened on Monday.

Schooling the seminarians

Last night, I spent almost four hours teaching a class to graduate students from a local theological school (not Catholic), Some will go into traditional ministry, some will go into counseling, some will go into social work. All are approaching their work with a decidedly Christian spin.

I teach this class three times a year, and actually, I like it a lot. It's just really intense. This group tends to have challenging questions and they see things from a perspective I don't usually visit myself.

One of the things I particularly enjoy about teaching this class is that the students really grapple with issues related to faith. They don't just swallow doctrine undigested. They look at the realities of faith in practical application. They ask good questions. I suppose this is in part fueled by the fact that these are graduate students and that they are also theologians, not a Bible study group. In fact, in the years I've been doing this, I've heard them quote authors, philosophers, social historians, and great theologians, but I have never heard them quote even one line of scripture. It's comforting to me that they are always encouraged to keep asking questions.

My class focuses on refugee resettlement and how the incredibly complex issues inherent to this population are likely to present in the students' professional practice. Last night, I brought six adult refugees with me. All arrived in the U.S. within the last six months. They told their stories in a room that went still and silent. As I made the critical points in my presentation, I asked each newcomer to expand on my thoughts based on his or her own experience. Frankly, the presentation kicked ass, if I do say so myself.

And that brings me back to the issue of God. One of the students asked me if refugees continue to practice their faith in this country. I explained that, in fact, the refugees are encouraged to do so. They are told in orientation that every religion is represented in the U.S. and therefore, there is place for everyone. Just as their religion will be respected, they need to respect the other religions practiced here. I also explained that one thing we know from research is that when the displaced and resettled were asked what helped them survive the ordeal, almost universally, the answer was, "my God and my faith."

At the end of the evening, the professor asked that one his students lead the group in a prayer. I should know this is coming, but it always takes me by surprise. I wasn't sure how my group would react. Four are Muslim, one is Buddhist, and the other is Catholic. I scanned the room and saw that all of them had bowed their heads respectfully and were humbly engaged in prayer themselves. Although I no longer pray, I am gracious enough to bow my head and be patient and still during that moment.

The student who led the prayer thanked the good Lord for bringing such a valuable and insightful class to the group. He prayed that our newcomers would continue to embrace the hope and strength that helped them survive thus far, and that they would still be supported in the second part of their challenging new life. Then he prayed for me. He thanked God that I had found the work I do and that He had infused me with the wisdom and skill of a talented teacher. He prayed that I would continue to receive God's guidance and support to keep doing this important work. He asked God to always give me the strength and compassion it must take to do my job. The prayer ended with an enthusiastic "Amen."

I stood there for a second, shuffling my leftover handouts. I didn't know how to react. I'm not sure what to make of this kind of thing, and I'm really not used to hearing someone pray for me. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in the power of energy, good and bad, especially in the collective. If 24 people can gather their positive energy and channel it toward me, then I do think that I will be infused with...something. Something benevolent that requires no commitment to any deity. That works.

What is God?

I am an atheist. It's a belief set I acquired later in life, but I don't know why I didn't get there sooner.

My parents tried to raise me Catholic. I went to Catholic school starting with kindergarten. There was First Friday Mass, Holy Days and Mass, May Procession and Mass, confession, sacraments, uniforms, knee socks, and guilt about things I couldn't even understand.

Boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. Boys in one line, girls in the other. Boys on one half of the playground, girls on the other, with some invisible force field keeping the two groups apart. Line up, line up, line up. Shortest in front, everyone in order by height. I was first in line throughout elementary school.

Every school day started with a prayer. Homework was stamped with an inked angel, either lauding "Jesus is happy," or "You can do better." Sometimes my work was only worthy of a big "C" scrawled at the top of the paper, indicating that my work was merely "correct."

Despite years of nun exposure, Catholicism just didn't stick. I was unable to cozy up to a belief system that constantly reiterated that I was and always would be less valuable than a man. I refused to embrace that idea. It seemed to me that in the Catholic world, I was always being berated, told to feel humble, or paying to pray.

During Catholic Mass, the collection basket comes through twice. I suppose that after the sermon, we were supposed to feel so infused with the holy spirit that we would only be able to express it by parting with our hard-earned allowance. One of the things I liked about church was the abundance of candles. They were everywhere and they were usually lit. It wasn't the presence of God's spirit that attracted me to the candles; it was the beautiful, twinkling flames and warm glow of the wax. I was particularly taken with the votives at the front of the church. Rows of little candles in red glass jars were lined up in an ornamental ironwork rack, kneeler in front. Of course, it was the Catholic church, so there was a coin box on the front of the metal rack. If you wanted to light a candle and say a prayer, you were supposed to put some coins in the box as an offering to God. It wasn't until I was much older that I figured out that you didn't actually have to pay to talk to God, and that the candles were supposed to represent a soul lost to this world that we were encouraging to move on into heaven with the help of five cents and a sincere prayer to God or the Virgin Mary. Take your pick.

Throughout my life, I've seen good and bad, wonderful and horrific events. I have suffered and watched others suffer. When I began to question my faith in an all-knowing, all-seeing, all punishing and disdaining God, I was told that believing was critical to my future comfort in this world and the next. When I questioned how God could allow the horrible suffering in our world, I was told that man was given free will. It didn't make sense to me. Nobody I knew would ever choose to suffer, starve, be raped, murdered, or blasted out of their house by a bomb. Where's the free will in that?

Ah, in the Catholic religion, this was God's way of proving that those who just weren't faithful enough could not count on his support. Eventually, I had to discard the willing suspension of disbelief. It wasn't working and my sense of logic far overpowered my desire to feel a connection to a fatherly figure who, if he was overseeing my life, had obviously fallen asleep at the controls.

Around the time I turned 40, my life started to unravel. My mind started to unravel. My finances went to shit, and it seemed as though nothing could go my way. I prayed a lot. I got sicker. I prayed more. My life became even more complicated. My father started dying a slow, agonizing and very undignified death. I prayed for a cure, the right treatment, or his swift death, but was granted none of them. My mind snapped, my brain went to Jello, and God was nowhere to be found. Prayer wasn't worth crap. Maybe I had stopped putting money in the coin slot too soon, but I'd been buying my own candles for so long, the ones at church seemed unnecessary.

Ditching God felt dangerous at first, but eventually, I felt liberated. My life didn't change much post-God, although I suppose the possibility of eternal damnation still awaits me in my as-yet-unproven-to-exist after-life.

I find it interesting that people are always happy to tell you about their religion, or at least to mention which faith they ascribe to, yet any atheist I've ever met has only admitted to their lack of faith in hushed tones or with requests not to divulge the fact. Is there shame in being an atheist? There's no shame in other ideologies, so what's the issue with this one? I am not ashamed. I am proud to know that I can think for myself, draw my own conclusions, and get through life without manufactured guilt.

What do I believe?

• I believe in science, proof, or at the very least, plausible explanations.
• I believe it is more important to walk the walk than to pay lip service to something you're supposed to believe.
• Be fair.
• Be kind.
• Help when you can.
• Try.
• Be generous.
• Try to like whomever you can, but just accept that you can't like everyone.
• Do the right thing.
• Ethics count.
• Keep an open mind.
• Listen
• I believe that what I believe is nobody's business.

Looking for the positive spin

Last year I resolved to try to find something positive in situations that irritate me. The issue with the parking garage at work is very much on my mind, so here are three things I've come up with.

• The view from the roof is lovely, just lovely.
• Parking is close to the post office, so it will be more convenient than ever to mail stuff.
• All of the parking spaces are close to the elevator.

People are a complex mystery

In the course of my day, I am in the constant company of a broad cross-section of humanity. I work with people in an intense and emotional field. Actually, I have three related jobs that are all quite different. What ties them together is that they are all based in compassion and a desire to help make the world a kinder, gentler place.

We live in a world rife with cruelty and suffering. People who could do the right thing make a conscious choice to embrace the darkest and most heinous behavior. Nature may wreak havoc in our world, but more often than not, the worst moments are man-made.

My work surrounds me with two distinct populations: People who have suffered beyond comprehension, and people who wish to facilitate the healing process. The paradox of human behavior is woven throughout my day, leaving me at once discouraged and encouraged. No sooner do I find myself filled with despair and mourning the lack of human decency when I witness the true depths of human caring.

This morning I was asked to explain, in simple English, what was happening in California with the fires. I told the story, recited the numbers, and explained the conditions that had made the fires so incredibly volatile. Twenty-one people looked at me. Twenty-one people who had been on the receiving end of those man-made horrors. Twenty-one people who had lost everything, absolutely everything, yet survived and were starting over a continent or two away. One voice spoke for all of the concerned faces. “Are the people in California in a safe place?”

“Yes,” I said, “they’re in shelters or with family. They’re safe.” There was a moment of silence, just a breath in duration, and the next question was almost a whisper. “How can we help? What can we do? Do they need anything?”

The room was so still, I felt as if the Earth had stopped spinning. Equilibrium. Grace. Compassion. What kind of spirit must a person harbor to be battered, broken, and bereft of life’s comforts, and yet upon hearing of another’s misfortune, feel fortunate and in a position to help someone else survive?

People are beautiful sometimes. And then I’m reminded that they aren’t.

Later in the day, I was sitting in the bland, circa-1980s apartment of an ethnic Hazara family from Afghanistan. Surrounded by five siblings and their parents, I gathered bits and pieces of educational and family history. Abdul, the father/husband, explained to me that his body was broken down at just 42 years of age. He told me that the Russians, followed by the Taliban, had devastated the part of Afghanistan where he lived, and the constant stress of war, the lack of heating fuel for his home, the gas from the bombs—all of it—had taken its toll on him and his family. Abdul fled Afghanistan in a split-second, life-or-death decision and wasn’t able to have any contact with his family for the next nine years.

Abdul’s oldest daughter, a gorgeous 18-year old with a sculpted face and slanted, almond-shaped eyes, had developed a seizure disorder as a result of the chemical warfare. She also had obvious symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including nightmares that made her scream in the middle of the night. She was unable to attend school, and she now believes herself to be too damaged to participate in life’s opportunities. Abdul has the nightmares, too, and is prone to repeating his trauma stories again and again with rushed speech and short breaths, as if talking faster will keep him one step ahead of being caught by the bad memories. Abdul understands the disorienting break in the most basic rules of trust. He has been tortured.

Driving home, I tried to reconcile the conundrum that we humans are. We are capable of almost unimaginable cruelty, and yet we can also dig deep for compassion to try and heal people we’ve never even met. We are beautiful. We are frightening. We are able to choose. I wish more people could see the value of choosing compassion.

Too much irony for one life to hold

I work in the heart of the city, right smack downtown amidst the people, the traffic, and the noise. There is no place to park. It never bothered me because I was lucky to have parking provided by my employer—for free. It was a bit of a walk from the parking lot to our building, but as long as I was organized and didn’t leave anything behind coming or going, it was manageable.

Two years ago, we got kicked out of our parking lot. The city needed it as part of the building site for a huge public works project. The city couldn’t take the land outright, so they found us an alternate location that they swore was just as good. Except, now it took more than twice as long to walk from our building, and entering and exiting the garage required nerves of steel and superior driving skills because the only way in and out was via a tight, corkscrew ramp. The walls of the ramp were scarred and smeared with the evidence of lesser drivers who had not been up to the task of negotiating five levels of continuous spirals.
I hated the garage, I hated the walk, I hated the amount of time I had to plan into my day to get to and from there, and I really hated the maze of closely spaced intersections I had to get through, especially when they were backed up all the way to the garage.

The city finally agreed to include space for us in a new parking structure, since it was getting expensive to pay rent in our first alternate space. Today was our first day in the new parking location. You know it’s time to get suspicious when management says, “You’re lucky to have free parking downtown. Don’t forget that…”

It is a 20-minute walk from the roof of the parking garage—the really swell area of the garage reserved just for us—to my office. This includes a treacherous path through a huge construction site and ends with having to cross a major, insane intersection where there’s, like, an accident a week. When I crossed this morning—with a group—not one of the ten cars turning right stopped for us, the pedestrians in the crosswalk. We couldn’t make it to the other side until the light had actually turned red and the turning cars could no longer enter the intersection. So now I not only have to factor in an additional 40 minutes of commuting time a day (an extra four hours per week), but I must also risk my life crossing one of the busiest streets in the city.

Finally, the ironic part. I am petrified of police. Can’t stand ‘em, don’t think most of them want anything more from their job than to exhibit testosterone-induced displays of power and if I’m involved, intimidation. Have yet to meet a cop who took the job to help instead of say, just to show who’s in charge. Maybe others believe differently, but I can only draw my conclusions from my own experience. I have anxiety attacks if I am in close proximity to cops anywhere, including on the road.

Imagine my delight at finding out that our new parking structure is actually part of the police station. Just fuckin’ shoot me. It may be time to consider public transportation.

See, that's what I've been saying about Zzzzzz's

This article is from Live Science. You can see it in its original context by clicking here.

Emotions Run Amok in Sleep-Deprived Brains
By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
posted: 22 October 2007 12:02 pm ET

Without sleep, the emotional centers of our brains dramatically overreact to bad experiences, research now reveals.

"When we're sleep deprived, it's really as if the brain is reverting to more primitive behavior, regressing in terms of the control humans normally have over their emotions," researcher Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

Anyone who has ever gone without a good night's sleep is aware that doing so can make a person emotionally irrational. While past studies have revealed that sleep loss can impair the immune system and brain processes such as learning and memory, there has been surprisingly little research into why sleep deprivation affects emotions, Walker said.

Walker and his colleagues had 26 healthy volunteers either get normal sleep or get sleep deprived, making them stay awake for roughly 35 hours. On the following day, the researchers scanned brain activity in volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed 100 images. These started off as emotionally neutral, such as photos of spoons or baskets, but they became increasingly negative in tone over time—for instance, pictures of attacking sharks or vipers.

"While we predicted that the emotional centers of the brain would overreact after sleep deprivation, we didn't predict they'd overreact as much as they did," Walker said. "They became more than 60 percent more reactive to negative emotional stimuli. That's a whopping increase—the emotional parts of the brain just seem to run amok."

The researchers pinpointed this hyperactive response to a shutdown of the prefrontal lobe, a brain region that normally keeps emotions under control. This structure is relatively new in human evolution, "and so it may not yet have adapted ways to cope with certain biological extremes," Walker speculated. "Human beings are one of the few species that really deprive themselves of sleep. It's a real oddity in nature."

In modern life, people often deprive themselves of sleep "almost on a daily basis," Walker said. "Alarm bells should be ringing about that behavior—no pun intended."

Future research can focus on which components of sleep help restore emotional stability—"whether it's dreaming REM sleep or slow-wave, non-dreaming forms of sleep," Walker said.
Many psychiatric disorders, "particularly ones involving emotions, seem to be linked with abnormal sleep," he added. "Traditionally people mostly thought the psychiatric disorders were contributing to the sleep abnormalities, but of course it could be the other way around. If we can find out which parts of sleep are most key to emotional stability, we already have a good range of drugs that can push and pull at these kinds of sleep and maybe help treat certain kinds of psychiatric conditions."

The findings are detailed in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Current Biology.

Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Night's Sleep
Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind

May I please be excused?

I cannot go to the meeting. Now that I see the agenda, I know that it's best if I just use the meeting time for something else.

My heart damn near stopped when I saw that they would be there--and for a 45-minute presentation. The time is too long, the room is too small, and there's no easy way for me to run if panic overwhelms me. I'm sorry, but I just can't do it. As it is, I cannot even look at them, let alone be in the same room. I will hyperventilate. My heart will beat through my chest. I could stroke out. I cannot guarantee I won't have a meltdown or start sobbing uncontrollably.

Please don't make me go. I would have to take handfuls of Xanax, but then I wouldn't be able to drive home. I think it's better if you just let me skip this one. There is only so much I can be expected to handle with grace. This is beyond my scope of possible composure. There is just no way. Not yet.

A blast from the past

I've been organizing files on my computer, with particular care being given to my journal entries. Although I may struggle with my imperfections, and although I don't feel like the poster girl for self-love, I have managed to make some progress from the frustrating, dark days of a year ago. In fact, just to put things into perspective, here is my journal entry from one year ago today, exactly.

I feel like crap, and I don't think it's a meds thing. I am functioning just fine, top form, productive as ever, dependable me. Keep that in mind as you read.

But I feel like crap. I am overwhelmed by the realities of Bipolar Disorder. The godawful expense, the reality of knowing it's never going to go away, the burden I know that I am for my husband, the fatigue of trying to never let it show, the huge feelings of failure because I'm not as good as I used to be at accomplishing things, the doctor visits, the insurance battles, the blood work, the betrayal of abandonment by almost everybody I know who knows, the side effects of meds (I'm now breaking out in itchy hives that look like bug bites. To quote my dh: What the hell is that??), the weird dreams, all of the goddamn sleep issues, the weight gain, the loneliness, the unpredictability of the moods and the meds, the humiliation of having to borrow money, maybe declare bankruptcy, and beg for medication, and all of it.

I feel like there's a lot I'm not articulating here. I don't even feel depressed, necessarily, but I am just overwhelmed, disgusted, and exhausted from trying to put on a good face and lots of effort.

I refuse to see anyone, and I mean anyone, in a social context. I can't tolerate people being close to me anymore, not that anyone seems interested in doing so. I refuse, just refuse, to tell anyone anything that isn't superficial or work-related. I can't trust anybody with anything personal. That's pretty recent but very powerful. I'm sick of being the good friend and getting nothing back when I'm most in need. People, be gone. I never thought I would see the day that I had to pay somebody to sit down and talk with me, and all the other people who had any interest were virtual.

I want to be done with my financial troubles one way or another, sell my car, quit my job, go to sleep and never deal with another thing. I know the saying that what I'm thinking is a "permanent solution to a temporary problem," but I see nothing temporary here. The struggle never stops, does it? The BP doesn't go away, does it? Does the toll lessen? The answer is no, no, and no.

At first diagnosis, I was really unstable and muddled, and I felt like I just needed to be dead. Now, I'm very clear headed, and all I see is a life of trouble for me and anyone associated with me. There's not enough good here to make this worth the struggle. I do not love myself in a way that makes it worth my while to keep on dealing with this situation. I'm a problem solver, and I detest having a problem I can't solve, let alone learn to live with in harmony.

I'm not going to do anything imminently, but the day is coming, the day is coming. I'm unsalvageable, I think. I function but I don't work. I'm not looking for sympathy at all--just a place to say what I feel so that when the day comes, I'll know that I articulately explained my motives.

I expected to feel this way when I was depressed, not when the clarity came.