Oops.

OK, May, repeat after me:
I will not ignore the urge. I will not ignore the urge. I will not ignore the urge.

It's definitely going to be Poise with a big "P." No pun intended.

sigh

I have a headache.

It was a hard day. One of the refugees, a 26-year-old man from Bhutan, committed suicide last night. He lived in an apartment building that is 95% occupied by refugees. The chance for secondary trauma or even contagion is pretty high. The community is reeling.

Padam left behind a 24-year-old wife who is seven months pregnant.

It was just a really tough day.

The headache set in at 8:30 this morning. I still have it.

Sometimes you need to focus on yourself when a crisis has passed.

I have red hair now. It isn't helping.

There is really no shortage of media coverage about good people doing extraordinary things. I make a point of watching the last five minutes of the national news every Friday night--any broadcast network will do--because those few minutes of the week highlight the contributions of normal people making a remarkable difference in the world.

CNN devotes a whole year of stories to this concept, culminating in distinguishing honors for a group of ten people every year. Not all are from the U.S., but some are. These honorees have found ways to make the world a better place, starting with the world in their immediate vicinity. I mention it because I am often approached by people who want to know if I can steer them toward work with refugees or other at-risk groups--overseas. "Do you have volunteer positions overseas?" "No? Oh. So, you only help people who are here?"

My colleagues and I are quick to point out that a refugee arriving on American shores has just begun a whole new struggle. There are plenty of ways to contribute to world peace and international relations right in the town where you live. Many people are surprised to find out refugees are here at all. If you aren't aware of their presence, it's because they're often all but invisible...Except to those of us who devote our waking hours to this particular cause.

Even those who are familiar with the refugee resettlement program are often unaware of just how truly grassroots most of the programs are. Our programs cannot exist without community support, church partnerships, devoted teachers, tutors for adults and kids, mentors, first friends, a small army of volunteers, plus all of the people who donate money, furniture, household goods, and time setting up apartments and taking refugees to their many appointments. Refugee resettlement works because it takes a community to welcome a newcomer to the mix, and communities have a way of knowing what to do.

One of CNN's 2009 Heroes is Carolyn Manning of Phoenix, Arizona. I'll say this for CNN: The network has consistently shown a commitment to telling the story of refugees and the resettlement process. That Ms. Manning was chosen to be honored by CNN this year is one more example of CNN's understanding that this work matters.

Carolyn Manning started an organization called The Welcome to America Project. Her program assists newly arrived refugees by furnishing apartments and providing support and guidance in the time immediately after arrival. To find out more about The Welcome to America Project and Carolyn Manning, click here to visit CNN's Website. This link takes you to an entire web page with videos dedicated to this topic.

Congratulations to Carolyn Manning and her team of volunteers. They do the same work as many other people assisting refugees throughout the U.S., so as a 2009 CNN Hero, Ms. Manning carries the torch for all who volunteer their time and open their hearts to refugee newcomers every day. To the volunteers in refugee resettlment programs around the world, congratulations to you, too, for your fine work! You are all my heroes every day.

The QVC MME

In 2003, scientists in Germany published a study that suggests women literally lose their minds when they do what?

Having a chronic illness (or three) has taught me a few things about being a good patient. It's not only about being compliant; it's about being empowered. I learned a long time ago that if you want to be given lots of leeway to manage your illness in your own way, you have to prove you're capable of understanding what does and doesn't warrant attention. You need to have proof of what's happening (or what isn't). Show that you're paying attention and you earn your independence.

Data. It's all about data. The psychiatrist wants to see that I am not only medication compliant, but that I also stay on the prescribed dosing schedule and that I keep a record of how the medications are affecting me. Are my symptoms improving? How do I know? Side effects? When? How? Sleep? How much? When? Quality? Bedtime? I keep charts of this stuff.

The therapist wanted me to keep mood charts, along with a journal so I could look back and see if my thinking had gone off on some irrational emotions safari. It was also to determine if I had any emotions at all. The absence of emotions would be referred back to the prescribing M.D. for further medication adjustment.

The allergist wants daily lung function metering and logging. This is a particular pain in the ass that I prefer to measure by "breathing," "not breathing much," or "turning blue."

The urologist wants to know about frequency, quantity, pain quality and intensity, and the effects of activity. Documented and annotated, please.

The physical therapist wants to know which exercises I did, how often, how many, etc. How are my nerves responding to TENS and pressure-point therapy? Are the buzzing and tingling sensations getting better? Worse? Changing? Moving? Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten... She also wants to know how many attempts I made at deep breathing and meditation. Ha!

May Voirrey has her own well being litmus test and its name is shopping. Having never been flat-out manic, I don't know what it means to blow the family fortune on a herd of alpacas or a grand piano. Instead, hypomania means stocking up on lots of shit I just don't need, or really wonderful indulgences that I can't afford. I have a particular affinity for sterling silver jewelry. Clothes used to wow me, but now that clothes shopping just depresses me, that's not a big problem.

Shopping--no, buying--is what I have always done to not cope with life. Sad? Shop. Frustrated? Shop. Avoiding something? Shop. Hypomanic? Shop a lot and then some more. I know my medications are working their pharmaceutical magic when I lose the desire to shop. Actually, that's not true. I lose the desire to buy. I've been known to shop for hours, try on clothes, carry things around the store with me, but walk out without spending a cent. Buying things doesn't make me feel happy or excited. I am indifferent, and that means I've had the shopping version of a lobotomy.

It's nearly 2:00 in the morning. I fell asleep on the couch earlier tonight, so now I'm wide awake. There's nothing on TV except for that place where there's always something on TV: QVC and HSN. Lovely people talk and talk and show me pretty things. I go to the Website, fill my cart, and then empty it, buying nothing. This is a big change. At the height of my Bipolar misery and erratic behavior, I went on the QVC Website and ordered six or seven Diamonique rings, among other weird things. I don't even like Diamonique.

Still, here it is late at night and QVC is on. I can watch TV on home shopping like other people watch CNN. I have to mute the TV when people call in, though. I have my lonely moments, but if I get to the point of calling a QVC host, I'll know that I have truly lost my mind and my dignity along with it.

Which makes me realize that QVC is selling jewelry right now--silver, my flat-out favorite--and they did a bunch of Suspicion Marcasite without the usual pitch person, Margot Potter. The QVC host who is on right now is perky and cute and I think she's been on with Margot before. When you're deep in the throes of insomnia, there's nothing like a fun QVC host who may not be taking herself seriously to make wide-eyed late nights a bit more interesting. And tolerable.

Oh, dear god, what does it mean that I am starting to have favorites among the QVC and HSN hosts?

If ever I were to call in, I'd do it when Margot is on just to see if she could not act surprised on air--or if she'd even recognize who the hell I am. I know her (but long distance and via email), and I think she's one of the funniest, smartest, most opinionated people I know. How I know her is a long story, but she has helped me with something big and important that I don't write about here. As far as I know, she doesn't think I'm a dork, but she hasn't met me in person. Maybe she does think I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but so far she's been polite enough not to let on. You can watch Margot online. She's the redhead in the video. When you open the link, click on the video tab just above that massive ring picture. Lalala...wait a few seconds, and just below the picture of the ring, click "on air presentation." Here's the link.

The drugs are kicking in. For a brief moment there, I was lucid and thinking fully formed thoughts. Alas, the sedation has once again begun in earnest, so I will go to sleep in my brand-new bed and dream about my new credit-card-free life that doesn't distress me since I don't want to buy anything anyway.

Zzzzzzzz.

In 2003, scientists in Germany published a study that suggests women literally lose their minds when they do what?
Go shopping. The scientists claim that activity in the areas of the brain that govern common sense and rational thought is almost nil during shopping trips, while electrical activity in the emotional and pleasure centers go into overdrive. Study leader Michael Deppe warns, "The more expensive the product, the crazier the shoppers get." --Heard on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR

What did we learn?

What did we learn this week?

• Don't wear socks on the hardwood floor.
• At a certain serum saturation, Lyrica + Elmiron = widespread, ugly, dusky bruises that make people gasp in horror. And possibly concern.
• Frank really does worry more about the dog, even if he won't admit it.
• My urologist and physical therapist are brilliant.
• They had coffee together this week and concluded that I am brilliant.
• Shift + enter forces a single line space in Word.
• My nerve damage cannot be cured, but it can be diminished.
• Get out of bed, head straight to the bathroom. Do not deviate from this plan.

I talk to myself anyway

The other day I was doing a Google image search for things like "puppet therapy" "puppets culture training" and "puppet learning," when I came across, well, a lot of pictures of the same damn puppets over and over. I had forgotten about the Fandango bag puppets. Funny.

I scrolled through screens and screens of images when all of a sudden, I howled with laughter. And then it wasn't funny so much as something that I felt I had to find. OK, it's still funny, but only because Frank and I are really into being the owners of a Border Collie. Not a dog--a Border Collie. Maybe we can buy extra sheep and Frank can play along.

I must have these puppets. The BC has a blue eye and a brown eye, just like Sparkle.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been me

Kegelcize. Pelvic floor muscle retraining. Bladder intuition (seriously).
I am learning the language of urology and how to connect it to my situation.

The last time I saw the urologist, I mentioned that I can't Kegel anymore. She assured me I shouldn't be concerned since this isn't a good time for me to be tightening those muscles. First we need to get them unclenched, and then we'll train them to relax or contract on command. "Besides," she said, "You've got vaginal valium going on and Baclofen and another muscle relaxer--it would be unusual if you could Kegel right now."

So good in theory.

Mornings are never my best time. I'm groggy and grouchy and I move with the grace and speed of a lurching cow. The only way I can survive the experience day in and day out is to have a structured routine. Any deviation from the plan inevitably ends up in chaos. I know this, but why do I have memory lapses? They just tilt me off balance and make me feel all in a tizzy even more than the resulting chaos. Managing BP has taught me to respect structure. It's a coping mechanism, not a lack of spontaneity. So they say.

I haven't slept well the last few nights, and it's making me less than happy to be awake in the morning. My house has hardwood floors that have a slick finish. The dog has developed arthritis, and she keeps spinning out as she tries to navigate the gorgeous and slippery red oak floors in the hallway, especially in the middle of the night when it's dark. Several times a night, I'm startled awake by the skattle-skattle-skattle of dog toenails desperately trying to get a foothold on the hardwood. Truth be told, Frank's enormous, evil cat is so fat now, that he also spins out if he goes down the hallway too fast--his balance isn't all it should be, either.

Last night was a long, jolting, dog-in-hallway night. I didn't sleep much, and I woke up late. Frank reminded me that I had left my laptop on all night and I mumbled that it was intentional, I was running a defrag on the hard drive. Frank started chattering from the kitchen that he never has to defrag his hard drive because XP is so stable, blah, blah, I shouldn't leave the computer on, vampire energy drain, blah, blah...

I walked into the dining room to check on the computer and make sure it was still alive so I could shut it down. Windows had also done an update, so there were open dialog boxes, and jee-zus, I had to pee. Just a second. This will only take a second. I actually crossed my legs like a dramatic six-year-old. I was shaking my sock-clad foot in an attempt to distract my brain from the messages being transmitted by my bladder. Just one more second...

I slid my foot back and forth on the floor. The socks are really cushy, and it feels intersting to slide my feet on the floor. Sometimes I do that Risky Business thing.

Finally, OK, computer's done. And the...I coughed. I coughed just as I've coughed thousands of times in the past few weeks. Except I leaked. My initial reaction was one of annoyance, but it was short-lived since I continued to leak. A lot. I was horrified. I crossed my legs hard at the thigh and sort of bent over, praying that Frank wouldn't walk in the room and witness my contortion.

It didn't stop and was getting worse. I needed to get to the bathroom immediately. It's at the opposite end of the house. I tried to sort of slide-shuffle toward the bathroom, still clamping my legs at the thigh, desperately trying to Kegel, to no avail.

I picked up the pace and could tell that in no uncertain terms, I was peeing my pants. I felt a warm trickle down my left leg. Having cleared the entrance to the kitchen where Frank was at the sink, I saw this as my opportunity to bolt down the hall to the bathroom, unseen. Peeing was now very much in progress. This is what I get for not going to the bathroom first. Stick to the damn routine, May. You know better.

I tried to run-hop with my legs slightly crossed and my thighs kind of wrapped around each other. I was so close, so close. I prayed I wasn't leaking onto the floor because I didn't want to explain, and I also didn't want Frank to think that Sparkle had another urinary tract infection. He would call the vet, and then I would have to make a surreptitious call later and explain it all to her.

My lurching, thudding pants-peeing, wet-pajamas-clad self barreling down the hall scared the enormous cat. He cowered and instead of running into the bedroom, panicked and ran toward me. That was the catastrophic moment. The cat got tangled in my feet, my stocking feet slid out behind me as I lunged for the bathroom door, causing me to fall, splayed flat out like a large May Voirrey trophy rug hallway runner.

The sound of my collapse was profound and the entire 1200 square feet of ranch house shuddered. The cat tore off to quieter corners, but Sparkle ran to me. She knows it's her job to help a distressed sheep. She couldn't figure out the next step, though, so she just stood there at my shoulder, panting...hhh. Hhh.Hhh.Hhh.

Frank bellowed from the kitchen. "What happened? Is the dog OK? Did the cat make her lose her footing in the hallway?" Is the dog OK? That was his first concern?

I called back that the dog was fine and the cat had actually tripped me. "Oh. Are you OK?" He still hadn't poked his head out of the kitchen, and at least I had some shred of dignity intact knowing that once assured the dog was OK, he wouldn't be checking up on the thunderous boom that had just come from the hallway.

I suppose that since the front of me was very wet, I had just, in fact, created my very own, self-contained Slip-N-Slide.

My knees hurt. I got up and hobbled into the bathroom to finish what my bladder had started. Was this going to be my future then? No ability to contract my pelvic muscles and prevent abject humiliation? Could I handle that with poise or would I have to handle it with Poise from now on? Had I just joined the ranks of middle-aged female incontinence, the stuff of daytime TV commercials?

After I showered, I discreetly rolled up my wet PJ's and put them in the wash. Trust me when I say, this is not a good way to start the morning.

I saw the urologist later today, and she explained what happened. She was very sympathetic and she told me that this probably wouldn't happen again, as long as I never let my bladder get very full. Then she jabbed me with very large needles full of nerve-numbing medication.

As soon as I got home, I headed for the bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I went. With a big sigh, I peed happily until I realized that being so numb, I couldn't tell if I had finished or not. I didn't hear anything, but had the urge passed? There was no way to tell. It was akin to getting novocain at the dentist and worrying for the next four hours if you're drooling but unaware of it.

I fear gravity now and I am afraid to drink anything or stand up. I will die of dehydration and sedentary behavior, fossilized in one dry spot on the sofa.

The intial humiliation has passed. I keep going over it in my head, and the visual of literally flying down the hallway while peeing my pants is just...funny. So I shall laugh, at least, until next time when I will weep and hide indefinitely.

Random thoughts, little wishes

I wish I had curly hair. Big, soft curls without frizz. I've wanted this most of my life. My grandmother had a talent for twisting my hair up with strips of old cotton sheets, a careful process done just before bedtime. In the morning, I had my Shirley Temple curls, if only for a day.

My hair has a natural wave, but now that I live in a high-altitude, semi-arid plain, a climate so dry parts of my body have been known to crack, curls are just out of the question. Most people with naturally curly hair just have frizz when they live here. If the dry air doesn't inhibit curl formation, the wind will whip the curl into frenzy of frizz in no time.

Deep, glossy red hair. My hair is no particular color. It changes according to the light. It's mostly a mousy ash brown that has flecks of gray in it. Given enough sun exposure, my hair gets natural highlights of blonde and red. I like red. I like red best of all, so for about 15 years, I colored my hair many different shades of red. And I permed. Alas, hair color and perms are not compatible. The color relaxes the perm and the perm strips the color. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship that has such promise on paper.

I stopped coloring my hair a few years ago. I was wildly bipolar and anything hair related was definitely not on my agenda of things to care about. My natural color hadn't changed much in all those years. There is more gray, more ash, and darker brown. In L'Oreal terms, I went from a 7.5 to a 4.0. At the depths of my bipolar suicidal despair, I dyed my hair 2.5. I looked pale and haggard and it was perfect.

It would be so wonderful to wake up with soft, auburn curls brushing my shoulders. I'm too lazy to deal with color and for quite awhile now, I've abandoned any pretense of using product, a blowdryer, rollers, flat iron, curling iron, and some days, a comb. I don't even like to wash my hair. How ironic, then, that I own enough hair styling tools and products--from mainstream to obscure--to outfit a salon. My dog's wavy auburn coat gets more style time than my head does.

Taller. Oddly, people who know me by phone are often taken aback to find out that I am short and fat in person. Countless people have said, "I pictured you as being tall with long, dark hair." Hmm. It must be something about my voice.

I wish I could turn off the anxiety generator that churns relentlessly deep in my core. It seems to me I'll never understand how to feel happy, how to embrace bliss or feel joy at all as long as that undercurrent of anxiety is always nibbling away at my confidence. It makes me driven to excel and I overachieve as a habit. No matter how real my successes, though, there is always the nagging worry that I didn't do quite as well as I could have. Surely, something had been overlooked, something hadn't been all it could have been.

A real vacation. That would be, well, I can't even think of an adjective.

Neat and tidy. What is it like to live clutter free? My father was a hoarder and I'm nowhere near that bad, but I am easily flummoxed by clutter, especially paper. I find it's easiest just to walk away until some later date. I have been steadily purging clutter for about three years, but I haven't come close to winning any battle, let alone the war.

365 sunny days a year with steady temperatures of about 83 degrees.

To know I am loved. I mean, I know Frank loves me, but that's not what I mean. Apart from him and Jolie, not even my family is very convincing on this point. Actually, they might be the least convincing.

To go through life never again saying another dorky thing.

An attention span would be really swell. I miss reading. Frank and I didn't see one movie in the past year, except for on TV. I got up, walked around, flipped through magazines, surfed the 'Net. We didn't bother to watch the Academy Awards. It seemed irrelevant, considering. It's true, though. I can't sit in a movie theater for two hours and pay attention to a movie. Me. The woman who would watch almost any movie that flickered my way. We even canceled our Netflix subscription this week. I haven't read an entire book since, well, I can't say. Years, probably.

I don't feel so bad about the Discover Card thing. Frank has been getting letters about all of his credit limits being drastically lowered. His FICO score is like, 800 something, so if he's getting these stupid letters, then I know they're being sent to everyone. I haven't been singled out.

Will reality TV ever die?

I wonder what my brain would do if I just stopped taking all eight medications abruptly and permanently. Watch for the weightloss and cue theme from Incredible Hulk.

I have every side-effect mentioned in the Lyrica TV ads.

Style note

Why do idiot fashion designers think that it is in any way appropriate to put button-down flaps on the back pockets of size 16W jeans? Are they really that clueless about what is and is not flattering--let alone what is and isn't just plain thoughtless??? Have they never seen an actual plus-size woman--from the back?

It's time

Just when I need it most: The amaryllis is in bloom. There's a second one close behind.

Sadness analyzed

I've been sad lately. Some of it is pharmaceutically induced, but most of it isn't. Usually if I make a list of what's troubling me, I can find a logical path back to normal mood management. Sometimes it doesn't work.

So, things that make me sad generally or lately:

• Loss. The trade-off of having things that matter to me, things I enjoy, taken away from my life in order to accomodate my health or behavior. This kind of compromise is no compromise at all. It's just watching pieces of my life slide away in the name of getting "better."
  
• Having Bipolar Disorder.
  
• Never getting ahead financially.
  
• Spending what money I do have on medical bills or car repairs.
  
• Winter.
  
• stories about dolphins suffering in frozen waters
  
• Animals being hurt
  
• The human cost of war
  
• My husband having no interest in the things that are most important to me
  
• My inability to connect with people
  
• Police officers who arrest--handcuffs, booking, fingerprints and all--a frightened 15-year-old African girl for shoplifting a lipstick at the supermarket.
  
• Nobody to talk to, nothing to talk about
  
• My body, my weight
  
• chronic pain
  
• Feeling so totally unloved, irrelevant, and insignificant to all but maybe two people out of 6.7 billion.
  
• My growing lack of enthusiasm for my job and the people connected to it.

Breaking up is really hard to do

Before I worked with refugees, I made my living in the corporate world. I had many job titles, but ultimately, I did one thing different ways: I was a project manager.

Project management is the perfect arrangement for people like me. I'm a little ADD. I'm easily--very easily--bored. I'm a big-picture person, the one who can truly see the vision and the outcome and then work a plan to make it all come to fruition. And then I need to move on. My passion does not thrive in long-term relationships.

Over the course of the past two months, I've been extricating myself from the nonprofit I helped to found 18 months ago. The decision breaks my heart every day, even though I feel a certain relief with each step that leads me toward the door. I am not a control freak--I'm thorough. I make lists and I love that about myself. I can convince other people to believe and to get on board. My enthusiasm is highly contagious.

I didn't think it would be so hard for me to walk away from this project. I can't even begin to think about how I will feel when I see the project going along quite well without me. It's going to be like breaking up with the love of my life and knowing that not only has he moved on, but that someone else is cooking for him now and she's using the dishes and kitchen items that I picked out.

This is a matter of health. In the long run, I risk doing permanent damage if I continue to work 80 hours a week. My body can't take it,no matter how much I try to will it to be otherwise. Letting go, on the other hand, is taking my mental health by the back of the head and repeatedly bashing it into the wall. It hurts. The loss hurts in a way I cannot articulate very well. I started the project out of love at a time when I was on very shaky ground immediately following The Big Melt. My stability was still in question, but with something tangible to grab onto, my mental health began to collect itself like spilled drops of mercury that always pull back together as long as they haven't been allowed to get too far away from the most intact piece.

My brain rerouted the scrambled neurotransmitter traffic and created something profound. It has changed lives and made a difference. It has brought communities together. I certainly didn't see that coming, but once it started happening, I did my part to keep the momentum going in its own organic way. But it's been killing me.

I understand what I need to do; that's intellectual. What I feel, though, is a loss that leaves me vacillating between sadness and resentment.

Because so much of the day-to-day management happens inside my head, and because the other members of our team have been so reluctant to take a leadership role, I hired a consultant to facilitate the transition. She's competent. She's amazing. We've worked together before, so she understands how I think, what the refugees need, the challenges of working with both, and how to structure a nascent nonprofit.

Today I participated in the second of four scheduled transition meetings. Throughout the meeting, I watched Kat work through the agenda and slowly guide the team members into articulating their vision, their worries, and the level of responsibility they are willing to accept. Kat is skilled in calming people while also helping them see what strengths and skills, exactly, they bring to the endeavor. I was there only to dump my brain and explain what I've been doing for the last year and a half.

Near the end of the meeting, the director of our partner agency poked his head in the door. He spoke with Kat directly and brought her a contract, articles of incorporation, and a request for proposal for a huge national-level grant that is coming specifically to fund this project for the next three to five years. The proposal was based almost entirely on the work I've done for the past 18 months. Still, the work goes on without me and I was not part of the grant conversation. Although it was appropriate, it was a lonely, lonely moment. Is this how parents feel when their kids move out?

Jamie and Kat have already been meeting without me--something I didn't know until today. It felt strange to learn that. Kat and I discussed weeks ago that the only way the group would move on would be if I just stopped working on the project. It's a concept that makes sense but feels more than a little uncomfortable in practice.

As I was leaving the agency's offices, I saw Kat, Jamie, and the director at the end of the hall. They were deep in conversation about future plans, potential funding streams, and a contract. Nobody noticed I was headed out the door, both physically and metaphorically.

For now, I need to get well, catch my breath, pay attention to my husband, and learn to meditate. Yeah, that's a totally thrilling replacement.

The project is in good hands, but I'm not sure I am. Once my role is over, where shall I go? What shall I do? Sigh. I'll worry about it tomorrow.