Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

 

 

My last mania was nearly a year ago. That time i felt it coming and was able to fight it off.

This time it had me firmly in its grip before i figured it out. What can i do but cope? Well yes, i could let it have its way with me, which always holds a certain romantic attraction. However, that sort of dark fascination is fading, and as i weather this mental/emotional tornado, i expect the next time its clouds gather on my horizon, i shall be even less inclined to go storm-chasing. I’m far too old to play Dorothy, and the truth is i do bring my loved ones with me when i travel over the rainbow. But while i’m skipping along the yellow brick road in pretty shoes, they’re facing flying monkeys and a forever-nap in a field of red.  The gift that a lot of hard work and striving for self-awareness brings me today, is the certainty that i absolutely can do better, and as long as i continue to try my best, i’m not likely to drag myself or my family into that kind of swirling madness again.

I’ve been channelling my current obsessive tendencies into cooking. The other day i made vegetarian lasagne. The red sauce was made with my own herbs and tomatoes, and i made my own noodles too. It was my first time using durum semolina with the eggs in the well on the counter method. An Italian friend told me to boil the sheets briefly in salted water and let them dry a bit on a towel before using them. I used mushrooms and TVP (textured vegetable protein) for the sauce, and i had layers of ricotta/parm, plus chopped and wilted chard/onions. It was good, and the guys agreed that the TVP gives the sauce the meaty texture they’re looking for. The next day it was even better – i think it needed more time to set than a regular lasagne, so i’ll remember that for next time. The best part of it was that it took up my entire afternoon, from gathering sun-warmed tomatoes and fragrant herbs from the garden, to washing the last of the dishes and leaving them to dry in the drainer, until evening telly with the man-thingy. It used up nervous energy, and it gave me the opportunity to obsess over small details or run amok as i wished, it gave me a creative outlet, and brought me lots of positive attention when it was finished.

What i’m trying to say in a roundabout way, is labour intensive cooking is giving me a healthy, productive place to spend my manic energies.

Gardening is helping too, which is unexpected. I can work pretty hard if i want to, but it still has a calming effect on me, no matter how sweaty i get. It appeals to that part of my mania that is all tied up in romance:

Behold, for i am one with Mother Earth! I hold her in my hands as she does me
I till and i toil, plucking out danger and feeding her crushed eggshells and Tums antacid tablets.
<cue orchestral swell here>

I have had to temporarily suspend my walks, which has been tough. Mania is a state of being that seems particularly conducive to switching, and unfortunately walking down the road in past manias has resulted in me being in very dangerous situations in the past. There are some in my brain who “just wanna to go home”, and some who want desperately to get away, and they all attempt to accomplish this by getting to the highway and hitching a ride. I’ve been lost for hours and days, and more than once the cost has been almost higher than i could pay. It seems wise to avoid this potential trigger until i’m a little more in control.

There have been some hallucinations. Yeah, it can be deeply unsettling, but it’s not quite terrifying like you might think. My senses get a little screwed up, and i catch things out of the corner of my eye, but instead of a glimpse, i get a very intense and detailed image. I know that doesn’t quite make sense, but it’s what i’ve got. I’m seeing people from my past mostly, and knowing for a fact that some a lot of them are dead is actually helpful. No, really. The auditory ones are honestly worse. I’ve learned to acknowledge them immediately, and think/talk through it, because paranoia is a real danger for me while in a manic state.

So yeah, no walks until that shit settles down a bit.

Getting back into my other exercise stuff though, and i’ve cut out the unmonitored eating. I let it slip very consciously; too many things to manage, and i needed something to use, y’know? So i’ve been eating between meals, and at whatever time of the day or night i feel like it, but 2wks of that is quite enough. I can tell i’ve gained a pound or two, and that’s enough to sober me right the heck up, so to speak.

The hardest thing is not to see myself as a failure because i’m in a mania. I know that it’s just part and parcel of how my brain works. Unlike my multiplicity, if there were a “cure” out there i might want it, and while i don’t consider other people living inside my head with me to be a disorder, i’m comfortable using it to describe being bipolar (your mileage may vary, and that’s cool).
I just remind myself that i’ve come farther than i would have thought possible, so why not bigger, better, faster, more?
Ah… One small, measured and intentional step at a time, of course.

Heh.

When are you gonna come down

When are you going to land

I should have stayed on the farm

~Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream… Or Not

My mania brings a particularly frantic kind of insomnia. If you struggle with sleeplessness, you know how it goes. You wake up either too early, or shocked awake by your alarm after only having slept a few hours. Worry about the coming night’s sleep begins whenever, and builds. You try to avoid obsession level, because you know it only works against you, but bedtime still finds you with varying intensities of dread and frustration. You try all the suggestions, you create a regimen and try to maintain good sleep hygiene, but it can be tremendously difficult and good results are elusive.

Mania complicates this by a factor of ghosts and lollipops.

I already have serious sleep issues due to fibromyalgia, but dealing with that for over 20yrs has brought me some hard-won success. I know what to do and have learned how to tailor it to my own quirks in order to maximise restful, restorative sleep. Mania, however, wraps me in a delicious gigglefit and confidently assures me that everything’ll be fine. I’ve done this before and i’ve learned from my mistakes and i won’t make them again. I’ve got this handled, i won’t let things get outta control, and besides, i feel fiiiiiiiine…

If you follow along with my blog, you know that i’ve known something was up since April. I thought it was just my approaching birthday, which was always a tough time for me growing up, coupled with some religious triggers. I tried to ride with the bumps. I lost some momentum regarding my progress towards becoming more like regular folks, but i would diligently pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. /lalala
Back to the basics. If all i can do is have a clean house, a clean person, and get supper on the table, then that’s a good day. I managed to do even better than that most days – even keeping up with regular exercise, both personal and dog walkies. But i was still having weekly emotional meltdowns; a lot of tears. I don’t actually cry very often, and when i do they’re spent for someone else. Not these last few months, though. It’s all been for me, which again, i explained away with an intense personal issue i’ve been dealing with that is quickly coming to a head. It explained everything, i thought.

Then why did i feel like it didn’t?
I kept feeling like i was missing something, i had that niggling doubt, that feeling of unease that something was wrong and i wasn’t seeing it. I kept on doing what i’ve learned to do to manage my life to the best of my ability, and i knew i was doing relatively well, but i couldn’t shake a building suspicion that i just wasn’t quite right.

Sinead O’Connor provided me with an answer.
I’ve been listening to her a fair bit lately, and one night while chasing musical rabbit holes on YouTube, it pointed me to a recent video she’d posted. I could tell by looking at it that she was in a rough place. I’ve always loved her music and was both drawn to and repulsed by her manner outside of her art. When i found out she’s bipolar, i already had my own diagnosis, and it immediately explained both her behaviour, and my reaction to it. I felt immediate kinship with her, and from then on i always paid attention to any news about her.

So i watched the video.
I watched it again, plus a commentary on it by Russell Brand.
I went to bed, tossed and turned as had recently become the way of things, and when morning came i found myself listening to her music again.
And i watched that video again.
Holy shit, she’s clearly manic as fuck.
She’s talking a mile a minute, nakedly sharing hope and hopelessness in the same ragged breath.
And then it hits me like in a hospital drama when the brash young intern bashes their fist on some unconscious schmuck’s chest and they magically (because that mostly doesn’t happen in real life hospitals, and when it does, it doesn’t have that effect) open their eyes, sit up, and suck in a massive gulp of air all at the same time.
Sinead just punched me in the chest to tell me You’re manic, you bloody blind eejit!

And suddenly, as they say, everything made sense.
The way my emotions seemed to be ramping up. I’m switching with a frequency and lack of control that i’ve not experienced in a couple of years. I’m having regular emotional outbursts, which are often followed by angry walks. I’m setting up meetings with people and then obsessing over them and backing out. I really, like REALLY wanna party. My Nighthawk has come home to roost, and my sleep, when i get any, is for shit. I’m plagued with racing thoughts and neuroses, various and sundry. My dreams are upsetting, with plenty of family, both dead and estranged making unwelcome appearances. No lucid dreaming to set me free, so i awake many times with words and screams caught in my aching throat. I’m sleepwalking for the first time in years. Mania. Of course it is.

Unfortunately, this realisation didn’t just rib-smash me, it also smacked me hard across my horse’s ass and sent me at a full gallop downhill.
Picture Jim Craig in the climactic scene in The Man From Snowy River.
Yep.
I’m currently on the snow-covered steppe, bullwhip in hand, and we’ll see if i can bring the Brumbies down from the mountain.

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Promises Shmomises


Friday night, I’d just got back
I had my eyes shut and dreaming about the past
I thought about you while the radio played
I should have got loaded, some reason I stayed
I started drifting to a different place
I realized I was falling off the face of the world
And there was nothing left to bring me back
~A Million Miles Away, The Plimsouls 

So, i’m having a conversation about my current mental and emotional status yesterday. She wants to know why i’m not writing. I quizzically remind her that she knows why, seeing how she’s living with my mania every day. I’m like a comic geek on Wednesday, every day, all day. A puppy let loose in a field filled with gopher holes.
Ooh, what’s that?
Wags.
What’s down there?
Pounces.
What is that smell?
Sniffs.
Did you hear that over there?
Trots.She reminds me of my son’s words a few days prior. How he said if i was born for anything i was born for this. He asked me if i’d figured that out yet, or if i needed some more time.
To look unflinchingly at it all and talk about it with endless and wild abandon.
Oh, the inglorious vainglory and the constant sucking of the sand at my feet planted firmly in the shallow end. The sun cooks my body from the knees up and the sparkling top of the water beckons me, promising nothing.

Maybe some more time, yes.
Then she reminds me that i promised, and she points a sassy finger at this place. I built this place, this little space in the ether filled with my cartoonish thought bubbles; perhaps the only thing i will ever be able to give to my fellow humans besides my progeny. My only intentional contribution, and one of only a small handful of seriously made commitments while in my right mind. The others are tethers, but this one can fill me, fly me, burst and disperse me. Anywhere. Everywhere.

I sense/feel/hear the smugness in her tone as i sense/feel/see the cocking of her head. I know there is a hand on a jutting hip, just as she knows she’s won, demonstrating her victory with a hair toss and an arrogant saunter back to her room. She begins blasting “A Million Miles Away” at full volume.

I may hate teenage girls sometimes, but her taste in music makes up for it today. Her somewhat cheeky choice makes me proud of her. She’s got chutzpah. It got us both in and out of trouble, back in the day.

This is me. This is how my brain works, and it is all i have to give you.

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Spire Comics and Chick Tracts

I was born-agained when i was 11 or 12yrs old. It was religious Archie comics and Chick tracts.

I was born into the United Church of Canada, i suppose. My mother’s parents were Episcopalians from Wisconsin and Oregon, so it was natural. Even in the 40s it was known amongst other denominations as the “country club” of Christian denominations – Xtianity Lite, if you will. It might have even been a decent church to be raised in, had their families not chosen to settle in the Canadian bosom of Mormonism, Cardston, Alberta. My grandfather’s  brother married a nice LDS girl, and they promptly set about their sacred duty, having 2 boys and 2 girls (i think, i’m estranged from all my relatives on my mother’s side), making Grandpa and his unfortunate family the odd ones out.

Mom had it tough going to school, no doubt about it. The girls were focused on getting married, pretty much from the jump, and to convert a non-Mormon boy by bringing him in through marriage was was both desired and admired. At her first school dance, she had no shortage of partners. The nice LDS girls quickly put a stop to that by telling the boys she’d be their only partner if they ever danced with her again. Still, she managed to get herself pregnant at 15, but Grandma sent her to a home for unwed mothers back in her home state, where she give her baby girl up for adoption. When that was over, she was sent to a private boarding school in a city hours away, where she promptly had nothing to do with Mormons or any church at all until i came along. She went back to Portland to give me up, but defied her parents by moving out and keeping me. When she came back to Canada she needed help, and i think that part of my grandparents agreeing to give it involved her putting on the mantle of contrition and returning to the United Church, which she did, off and on, until i was around 13. To the best of my knowledge, she never (seriously, regularly) picked it up again until the final year or so of her life, when she was attending catechism classes to become a Roman Catholic.
My grandmother would have had a conniption – she genuinely believed that RCs were of the devil. She even told Mom that nuns ate babies.

Back to me and my religious career, though. I never really gave up on church. I joined anything that could get me out of the house and away from my parents and the atmosphere at home. I was in various clubs and organisations for my entire school career, and church provided me with many opportunities to get away. I did Sunday school, choir, bible studies, and any charity work they did, they could always count on me. We moved regularly, but it wouldn’t be long before some kid would invite me to their church, and i’d always say Yes, and get involved from the first day i attended. Although there was some intense religious abuse in my younger years, it was over by the time i was 8 or so, and my Bits N’ Pieces kept all the nastiness locked up tight, and memories of what i now call “Nighttime Church” only leaked out in my dreams. I just thought those were due to my lifelong fascination with horror novels and movies, so my church attendance was genuine and sincere, and my participation was innocent and enthusiastic. My belief in the god they preached was all of those things too, but when i was around 11 or 12yrs old, a family member noticed my love of all things comic book, and gave me access to his supply of religious Archie comics, and eventually, Chick tracts.

If you aren’t familiar, let me give you a bit of history: Al Hartley was an illustrator for the Archie comics series, and managed to finagle permission to write and illustrate an evangelical version of Archie for Spire Comics. It was my first encounter with heavy-handed evangelism. I think he had most, if not all of the Spire comics from the 70s, and i read them all, the Archies ones, The Cross and the Switchblade, On the Road with Andrae Crouch, the one with Johnny Cash, Time To Run, and even Hansi: The Girl Who Loved The Swastika… At the end of all of these, there was always a call to be born again. I understood that it was calling me to recite it on a personal level, but all i was doing was reading them in my head, in the same way i was reading the dialogue.
Then he started giving me the tracts.

Jack Chick was a religious cartoonist who published pamphlets exhorting you to accept Jesus as your Saviour or be tortured in a lake of fire forever. No pressure, though. He preached a punishing, invasive god, assuring me that i was so much worse than the generic Christian assertion that i was born a sinner. He made it clear that i was filthy and rotten and utterly doomed. His tracts tapped into my mother’s training, accessing the foundation of self-loathing she’d laid. Further, he terrified me with the promise that, when meeting god for final judgment, a movie would be played of my life, from birth to death. All the things that i’d done in secret would be shown on some celestial screen, for everyone else that had ever lived to see.
Jack Chick emotionally blackmailed me into reciting The Sinner’s Prayer. I sobbed wretchedly, before, during, and after. Not only did i not feel lighter or filled with joy and gratitude and praise, but ever after that, Jack Chick’s implied personality of god became tied in with some of the more voyeuristic sexual predators that i had known when i was younger. I felt constantly watched, in an invasive and forcible way. It didn’t stop me from doing things i wouldn’t want anyone to know about, it just multiplied my feelings of shame and guilt, and reinforced my inherent unworthiness and evil nature. Decades passed before i realised he’d done it… And more decades still, before i saw the same sort of behaviour in his god, and left religion behind.

Happy Saturday,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dark Dreams

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
~Edgar Allan Poe

I’m not sleeping well. Not at all. There’s so much going on up there in my brain that it’s spilling into my sleep. I figure i’m getting enough restorative sleep, otherwise i don’t think i’d be accomplishing as much as i am, but still, the constant interruption is wearing on me. I’m getting crotchety in the mornings, and i’m not like that. Even when i lived the life of a nighthawk or had a blistering hangover, i was merely silent, not cranky or truculent. I had a feeling it was coming though, and had the sense to warn my husband and son. I asked them to try to cut me some slack if i seemed a bit testy, and assured them i’d be working hard on handling it.

There has always been a lot of conversation in my head, and i thought that was how it was for everyone until i was well into my 20s. I didn’t know that most other people didn’t have a constant running commentary going on in their head. I’d hear them say things like, “That’s my mother talking,” or “I can hear what they’re gonna say already,” or “I could hear their criticisms,” and it sounded like what was happening for me, so i didn’t question it. It wasn’t until i started getting the MPD/DID diagnosis that i began to realise that the voices in my head weren’t all exactly mine, nor were they some imagined comment from someone else based on relationship or personal issues, i.e. a random thought.
The talk in my head has meat to it. Personality. There’s a quality to it like i’m eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation. I don’t think i can communicate this very well, but there’s almost volume in the voices. I know it’s in my head but i don’t think them, i hear them.

My dreams are more intense than they’ve been in many, many years, and i’m taking notice. Something’s going on, and it’s important. Important to them, so i’ve been bringing a notebook and pen to bed with me. I wake from a dream and i turn on a small light (hubby works and needs sleep), sit up and immediately jot it down. Well, maybe not jot. I’ve been recording my dreams for 3 nights now and i have a lot of full pages. I’ll do it a couple more nights yet before i take a good, hard look at them.

I’m waiting because i’m seeing a pattern.
I think they’re telling me something, i think i’ve already got an idea what’s coming, and i just need to let it percolate up there a bit. Prepare myself emotionally, because what’s coming is details.

There came a day when i decided to entertain the notion that i might be multiple. It was after years of flat, terse denial. That should have been my first clue, as my affect is neither flat nor terse. At that time i was either very big, or very small – there wasn’t much in between. I was either right THERE! inches from your face, or nowhere to be seen.
I considered it because my counsellor at the time was a person i trusted. I started seeing her through my fundamentalist, charismatic church, but even though she worked for them, it wasn’t hard for me to see she wasn’t one of them. We both wanted very badly to belong, but (fortunately, says i) neither of us did.
I trusted her enough to let her suggest, gently and kindly, smiling and cocking her head sideways at me, that even though she knew how i felt about it, she had consulted with a psychologist friend of hers who specialised, who agreed with her diagnosis of multiplicity. And because she had built relationship with me, for the first time i actually listened, rather than left immediately or just never came back.

It was maybe a week or so later that i was thinking about my dreams. They’d been firing off in my trying-to-sleep brain much more often than usual. I was walking every hour or 2, and needing 5 or 10mins to get myself together enough to even attempt sleep again. My nerves were frazzled and my emotions in tumult already, and the disturbing dreams, coupled with lack of sleep, had me at a near fever pitch. I was rolling all the dreams around in my head, considering what they meant, when a voice i had only heard once before, said something that, like it had before, changed my life wholly, fully, and instantaneously.

When my oldest son was still a baby, and it was just he and i living in a cheap 2-bedroom apartment, i heard a voice. It wasn’t in my head – it came from the other room. It wasn’t male or female, and although not robotic, it lacked any emotion. It told me something my mother used to do to me when i was still in diapers. A terrible thing. I had never thought her capable of such evil, but as soon as the voice spoke it, i knew it was true. Years of certain fears and behaviours suddenly made perfect sense. I promptly ignored the voice and pretended it didn’t happen, but as i confronted my childhood abuse, i acknowledged that voice once again and the terrible truth it had told me.

That voice spoke to me again as i was considering my counsellor’s diagnosis. I was contemplating my dreams with this tentative new context. I heard it coming from another room, and it simply said, “Those are not dreams.”
I felt cold and hot at the same time. I started sweating, i was both nauseous and nauseated. I was dizzy, and my head felt split open by a sudden, thumping headache. My eyes were hot in their sockets, and my knees were suddenly weak and my hands were numb.

…And i dissociated quite quickly afterwards and tried valiantly, but in the end vainly, to keep that information in some part of my brain where i now knew i kept stuff like that. Just as it had happened before with that voice in the apartment as i changed my baby son.

So, i know i just did 2 flashbacks and those can be confusing. I even did a flashback within a flashback, but we’re back at present day now, okay?

The reason i think that details are coming is because these dreams i’ve been having remind me of some of those dreams that voice told me were true. They’re not quite memories, but they’re much more detailed and make more sense than my regular dreams. Plus, my regular dreams almost always fall into well-known categories. These don’t. And today, i’ll give you one more reason than i had yesterday.

I’ve taken a number of days to write this post, and since i wrote about how i think maybe my Peanut Gallery is trying to communicate through dreams, i’ve not been able to remember a single one. I know i’ve dreamed, as i tend to wake up after them.

Brief Aside: It’s a skill i learned very young. I suffered terrible nightmares all through my childhood, and i would just drift from one nightmare into another – trapped and unable to escape. Without any instruction, i taught myself lucid dreaming. I think it was a matter of survival, as my sleep was constantly disturbed, i slept walked regularly, and my epilepsy was becoming more of an issue because of it. Over the years i have become quite adept at waking myself from any dream i don’t want to have.

So yeah, i’m waking up a couple of times a night still, and i have that feeling that i was dreaming something, but when i try to focus on details it’s like my fingers trying to grab hold of smoke. I think what that means is i received the message, and so now they can return me to my regularly scheduled sleep program.
Thank goodness, because i’ve been a bit weirder than usual. Strange thoughts emerging as odd sentences that even make my family arch a brow and ask, “Say what, now?”

I’ll take a look at that dream log soon. I need a bit more time and sleep yet.
The last 2 nights have been fairly restful, so i came back to this blog post this morning and proofread from the beginning. I think it may not be the easiest post to follow, but i made a couple of revisions and moved some things around and hopefully it’s not completely nonsensical. It can be difficult to know if i’m making myself understood, as my brain sometimes works quite differently than other folks’ do, but i try my best.

It is a big part of why i began blogging, after all.
Y’all have a good Saturday, or whatever day, if you can.

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
~Charlotte Bronte

Love and Peace,

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Organising The Clutter

A little more functional today, and a little less afraid, which is good. I’ve got a small list of things that are important to me to accomplish, and i’ve implemented a couple of tweaks that i can already tell are very good ones.
I’ve moved up my exercise to the first thing i do once my husband leaves for work. I have some personal cardio that i do, and then i take the doggies for a long, brisk walk. I also don’t eat breakfast until i come back, thereby burning calories from my fat stores, especially since i don’t take in any nutrition after 8pm, i need some fat burning done for energy. YAY!
I used to shower every other day, because i don’t get sweaty/smelly working around my Little Crooked House all day, but i’ve decided to make it a daily thing. It’s good for mindfullness for me, and it’s positive, caretaking touch that reminds me how well i’m doing and how far i’ve come. Also, as my exercise regimen increases, i actually am starting to sweat, so i probably need it now anyway.

I like lists and i like a schedule and i like ticking things off as done. This is keeping my current fear of falling back into old behaviours at bay quite handily. I am dealing with worry regarding how far i’ll ever get socially. I do so much better alone, or just with my husband and kids and their families; i’m still really struggling with being around other people. I’m grateful that i have this life where i can live that way most of the time, but what if i’m never able to be a particularly social person ever again? And even if i want to, i don’t really have any friends to return to. The friendships i’ve had over the last 10yrs have been superficial at best, with the exception of 1 or 2. And that’s not a commentary on the people i’ve been friendly with, either. I kept people at arm’s length. I had friends i could go drinking with, mostly. It was the easiest way for me to have friends.

I liked drinking to be part of any social event. One, because it was part of my mania/depression, two, because other parts of me would take over, i.e. party girls and the like, and three, because alcohol keeps a nice, safe barrier between me and anyone getting to know me. Meaning, you can’t get to know anyone very well when you’re both under the influence – and that’s how i wanted it. I wanted the illusion of friendship, but none of the meaty, visceral reality of it.

And the thing that worries me is i like being alone and i think it’s mostly who i am.
But what if it’s not? Maybe i’m lying to myself, saying i like it this way because the ugly truth is that i just suck at social situations and i’m not very likeable. I mean, i can be fairly likeable online, but you have to be at an asshole level over 9,000 to not have any friends on social media. And even then you’ll probably have quite a few, so i’m thinking that’s not a terribly good indicator.

Yeah, overthinking. I haz it.
That’s why i’m going to at least try to blog more often. As my Peanut Gallery has become more vocal and active, my brain is even more full than usual, and that makes me feel like a buncha crazy is gonna come bursting out of me at any second… So i’m gonna try to cut back on the clutter, y’know? There’s a lot of stuff strewn about in here that i could trip over and hurt somethin’ – maybe me, maybe them, maybe someone else. This will be like putting things in boxes and sticking them in a storage facility. I may still be a hoarder, but at least my house’ll be too clean for rats n’ roaches.

Heh.

Love and Peace and Hope For Us All,

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Knowing Me Knowing You*

As i continue to know myself better, so do i know others. What i’m learning is that i know so little as to be laughable, yet the pittance that i’ve gathered is worth more than anything else that could be considered mine.

I thought i was so tragically unique.
I’m not like most people. I’m odd. No, but i am. I’m so very different.
I took the tests they gave me growing up, and they confirmed it.
Various teachers and helpers of every ilk and stripe echoed it.
When i was grown, i formed deep and lasting love relationships of my own choosing and my uniqueness became less tragic, and more romantic. As i had my unconditional love reflected back to me by non-abusive people, i began to accept, and even like myself a little. I began to see myself as the muse of all the poems and love songs where the subject is a mass of contradictions and is loved/desired in spite of/because of them. She is mysterious, enigmatic, deep, ethereal, unknowable, beyond you.

So dramatic. Such art. Much longing.

As i mature and deepen as a human, i see more beauty in truth. In flesh, bone, blood, breath. Enduring mystery has lost it’s appeal, and i’m not as interested in things that are, at least historically, unknowable. I’ve become far more curious, however. And that curiosity is naturally extending itself beyond my own borders of skin and brainspace. I reach out into the spaces outside of me and i want to know more about it, and them, and you.

And i can see something.

I see that you are like me, and i see that you are not like me.
I can define you, but i also know that i can never quite define you – just like me.
I see that i can sometimes be something, and sometimes not. Take patience, for instance. When i’m happy and well-rested, i can be very patient.
Where my boys are concerned, my patience could be my mutant power.
Sometimes though, no amount of happiness or sleep is gonna stop me from losing my shit, and sometimes, no one can cause me to lose it so easily as my husband and my children.

I know you get it.
I know, because i see you are the same. Maybe not exactly, but enough that you understand. For you, perhaps you had a great example of parental patience at home and so you just easily model what you grew up with. Or maybe your parents were terrible at it, and you made and have kept a vow to never be like that with your own kids.
You have your own story and your own reasons and some subtly or even wildly different motivations… But it is enough that you get it.

I see that you are multifaceted and contradictory and conflicted and ambivalently ambiguous and weird, just like i am. I also see that you aren’t like me at all. You cannot be. You were not born to the same parents or under the same circumstances or at the same moment as i was. You did not live through the same situations as i. You may have lived through similar things, but you did not process them the same way i did, nor did you react to them in the same way. But you may have reacted in a comparable, or otherwise homologous, fashion. Even if you didn’t -even if our reactions were miles apart- perhaps you can relate anyway. You may have felt emotions on par with mine and given consideration to expressing them as i did. Or maybe, as was so often the case with me growing up, you just reacted, as there was neither the opportunity or inclination to consider anything; the reflexes of a child that follow many of us well into adulthood. They most assuredly have in my case.

You may have zigged while i zagged, but i get why you did it that way. Or maybe i don’t. Sometimes i don’t get you at all, or some particular facet of you is too much like me that it hurts too much or i am too afraid to look at it and see. Maybe as i grow i’ll be able to or maybe i never will. I don’t know, but i do know that i can quickly and easily find many more things that i have in common with you, and that is what i want to do and what i will do. It’s who i want to be. I like me this way. I like you this way. And hey, even if i don’t like you, i find you ever so much more tolerable. And you being relatable makes it easier to like you – even if it may only be parts of you.

The better i know myself, the more like me and relatable i find you. I experience on a deeper and deeper level how we are all alike and yet not.

All of this may sound strange coming out of my agnosticism, but i don’t think so. These observances may be somewhat metaphysical, but they’re not spiritual for me in any way.
I’m learning who i am, and making decisions about who i want to be and what i want to bring to the earth’s table.

To help. To unite. To teach. To share. To love.

Happy Sunday,
Love and Peace to All,
~H~

*This was a Facebook post of mine from Friday that i suppose could do well here, too.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Tubthumping

Youda thunk ida gone done and learned by now.
And yet… NOPE.
I’m a big Nopey McNoperson in this regard, every. single. year.
I get blindsided by Easter/Birthday season.
I forget how hard it is for me. I forget how the way my brain works is going to kick into high gear and my Bits N’ Pieces are gonna need a lot of care and attention.

Birthdays are much less a big deal now that i’ve hit 50. It’s been that way since i hit 40, really. I’ve never much cared about the number insofar as how OLD i am or how old i look, or how much time i have left. None of that. As i stated in my blog entry right before this one, it’s the lack of accomplishment and the low level of functionality that trips me up. However, that’s only been since i’ve been functional enough to critically assess my levels of anything. Heh.

Birthdays, however, have always been an issue.
We were so poor at times, that there was no money to celebrate.
My mother was often incredibly stressed out on any holiday or for any celebrations, the brunt of which i often bore.
More than once i was sick on my birthday. I was mostly left to fend for myself whenever i was ill. To be fair, if she didn’t work we didn’t eat, and her parenting “style” left me incredibly independent anyway. At 4yrs old, for instance, she would often leave me on weekends. I’d wake on Saturday morning and she wouldn’t be home, so i’d watch cartoons until noon or so, longer if there was a Stooges or Abbott and Costello movie after, and then i’d go outside to play for a couple of hours, making sure to come back inside in time to put the roast in the oven and peel the potatoes for supper, as per the instructions she’d left on a note for me. Yes, FOUR.
So if i was sick, i’d just watch telly and occasionally vomit in a bowl. Or if Mom was watching telly i’d be in my room reading, and occasionally vomit in a bowl.

More than a couple of times i would be sick on my birthday. Stress made me vulnerable i think. There were some family members who could swoop in and make birthdays wonderful, but that wasn’t every time. One year, 2 Auntie type women that i adored were coming to celebrate. I think it was my 6th, and i got the Mumps. Not only was i severely sick and feverish, i endured my mother’s fury because the party had to be cancelled. She beat me more than once before i recovered.
Then there were the birthdays where i was put in my best dress and she’d do my hair like for a picture. A man i didn’t know or already knew i didn’t like would be invited… And that is all i’ll say about that.

I won’t say much about the Easter season things, either. Just that there was conflicting indoctrination going on. During that time i was under constant stress to act one way at Mommy’s church, and another way at Daddy’s. I was almost constantly switching from one part of me to another, depending on what was being required. Everyone had one face at one church and a completely different one at another. Everyone close to me was volatile and mercurial. The rituals, the purported inescapable supernaturalism, the drama, the surrealism, the abuse, both subtle and overt, the sick and hungry practitioners, the fakery, the fucking circus… It twisted my brain into so many knots so tight they frayed, and some split entirely, requiring new knots to keep them together.
Do you see?

Every year since i began seriously dealing with my past and trying my hardestfreakingbest to manage the way my brain works and enjoy a better quality of life i have been 2X4’d in the head by this bloody season. (There was no punctuation in that sentence because i said it all in one breath.)
So yeah, i got coldcocked – again.

This is the part where i do what i have been practising to do when i get into a mental jam like i am. Where i assess the damage, look for the positives, and make any changes or alterations necessary to handling it better next time.
I’m happy to tell you it hasn’t been that bad.
The voices in my head rose from their characteristic background mumble to a constant, reverberating rumble – but there was no roar.
I lost the face more than a few times, and i even found myself walking on the road a couple of times – but none of my people did anything damaging or even particularly inappropriate, and i didn’t hitchhike into the city and lose myself for hours or days to high-risk behaviours.
I drank a bit too much – but not enough to make myself shake, puke, or wish i was dead. And it wasn’t every day, all day.
I’ve been wicked-depressed – but not suicidal. No ideations, no plans.
I haven’t picked any fights with my husband and there has been no drama of any kind with any other person.

I guess i kinda knew it was coming. Not consciously enough to avoid gettin’ bonked on the head, but once i got back on my feet, i wasn’t utterly gobsmacked that it had happened. I’ve been able to look around and get my bearings and say, Yeah, it makes sense for me to be here.
I’ve been able to communicate to my Peanut Gallery that it’s okay, but some things were less okay than others and let’s work on those things… I’ve been able to negotiate some internal deals that i think will really pay off in the future.

There was no drama.
There is no debt.
No rides in police cars and no trips to the hospital.
No crushing booze/drug hangovers.
Communication amongst me and my people has actually improved.
My husband and son are impressed and proud of me.

I didn’t even turn to food.
Yesterday i tried on the jeans i use to track my weight loss progress.
They fit fine and i wore them out to supper.

Don’t get me wrong, this has not been an easy couple of weeks. The way my brain works has been incredibly difficult to manage lately, but this is my life, and this may always be my life to some extent or another. I have found a way that works for me – a way to manifest long-term changes that have lasting positive effects, and contribute to a happier and more functional life.

Tubthumping is defined as expressing opinions in a loud or dramatic way:
I will not stop, no matter what.
Every time i fall and get back up, that statement becomes more true.I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
~Tubthumping, Chumbawumba

Have a happy day if you’re able. If not, try again tomorrow and know that i’m cheering for you and i want that for you.

Love and Peace to All,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

50.

I don’t know how many people actually feel 50yrs old when they get there, but i’m gonna guess a lot do not. Count me amongst their lot. I only barely feel grown up, and even that, not completely. The nature of the way my brain works makes my experience of any age a nebulous thing. I can feel many ages, occasionally at the same time.

Today i should feel awesome, i guess. I don’t.
I’m looking at my life, and i’m in mourning.
I’ve been looking at the positive and ignoring the negative, because really, what’s done is done and now let’s get on with it… Y’know?

Later on today i’m going to be surrounded by the people in the world that matter to me more than anyone. More than myself. That will be good and i’ll be happy.
But right now i feel sad and heavy.
It’s the wreckage.
There’s so much loss in my wake.
It’s the people.
I’ve had to find ways to let them go. To make it okay so that i could move on. So i could get better. I’ve had to examine why i had certain people in my life and let go of the ones that were dragging me down. I’ve taken an unflinching look at the ones who’ve left me, and asked the hard questions about why.

The truth is i didn’t want to let go of any of them, and even more so, i didn’t want any of them to let go of me.
My mother and father had me for purely selfish purposes. They didn’t really want me.
I’ve felt unwanted or rejected or tolerated or graciously accepted for my entire life. Fear of rejection is my core issue.
When my mother’s reasons for having me didn’t work out, she kept me around because she had no one else. It wasn’t because i was her daughter, or because i was an awesome person, it was because i was there and utterly dependent on her and therefore her best option. I think my father probably let me go because he had a number of better options. Options that didn’t involve a lifetime of forced association with my mother.

I was the ugly stepchild after that. Mom added to her number, but i was never one of them. A great many of them made sure that i knew that. They were being charitable in accordance with their beliefs, the idea being that i clearly required charity. I have one family member in my life, but she’s good to everyone.
The kids that were nice to me at school were nice to me because their parents had taught them to be nice to the kids that needed other kids to be nice to them. None of them are my friends now, because they don’t have to be. I have one friend from my school years, and she was my teacher.
Then there are the friends that i made along the way. I’ve lost them all save one that i purposely left behind, and i question that decision almost daily now. I no longer have any of my friends from the past, save one, maybe two. I’m afraid to get too close to them, because i’m afraid that i’ll scare them away again.
Finally, there are the friends i’ve made in the last 10yrs. Since i’ve been here in my Little Crooked House. I’ve pulled away from all of them and no one really noticed. Or minded.

The only friendships i’ve been able to maintain over the last 10+yrs are online. They’re good people. They’ve been kind and supportive. But it’s ONLINE. It’s not intimate. It’s not real life interaction. I think a great number of them would stick with me IRL, but it’s not currently an option, and if it was, i fear it would be because they are who they are, and nothing to do with me being the kind of person that inspires long term friendship.

So…
I guess what i’m saying is i’m sad and alone and feeling sorry for myself and not a little scared.
Based on results, i must continue to consider that i am the common denominator in all of my lost relationships.
More than that though, i need to acknowledge and deal with the fact that every single loss has hurt me a great deal. There has been no friendship that has ended that hasn’t hurt me, that i don’t occasionally obsess over, that i have not grieved, and will continue to grieve.

I wasn’t supposed to make it to 50, but i did. That’s good.
I wasn’t supposed to be the person that i am, and i think that is also good.

But here i sit, in my Little Crooked House, and all i have are my husband and my children and my children’s families and my dogs. And while these are super-wonderful-off-the-charts-excellently-beautiful… It is ALL that i have. And as much as it hurts, i must consider that i’m the reason why. I mean, of course i’m the reason why, but i’m referring to the deep down scary level where the question is,
“Am i a shitty person and a shitty friend?”

I have tried to live with the answer being THEY were shitty, i had shitty taste in people, it’s normal for people to come and go in your life, blahblahblah…

I am very committed to the path that i’m on, and i want to know the truth about everything -especially myself- and so if that means i’ve been a shitty human then that’s what it means. If i am, i can change that. I will change that. I hope i have been, already.

Huzzah. 50.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Hunger

Hunger is the best sauce in the world.
~Miguel de Cervantes

This next diet tweak is hard. I may stumble quite a bit, but i am 100% committed, if not terrified.

No more eating, unless i’m hungry.
Really hungry. Like, approaching hangry, if not already there.
No more, “I could eat.”
No more, that looks good so i’m gonna have some.
No more eating just because that’s the regular time i eat, or i’m eating now because i won’t have time later.
No more eating just because everyone else is.

There will be the odd exception, as there is with any of my prior tweaks, like No Eating While Standing, and Must Eat At The Table, No Media Distractions, etc.
I taste test for seasoning when i’m cooking, and i’ll eat sitting on the couch if my husband is really tired after work and wants to watch a show and then go to bed.

I eat relatively well, and it won’t kill me to miss a meal if i’m not hungry at family suppertime, or if i’m out and about and don’t have time, money, or great choices for something to eat.

I had a gastric bypass in 2005, lost over 250lbs, and then gained around 80lbs back. Sure, it was initially due to being put on bipolar medication, but that’s no longer an issue, and i still find myself wrestling with the first 30lbs… I’ll take it off and put it back on, take it off and immediately put it back on. Over and over, ever since i regained it. I can’t seem to get to that second batch of about 50lbs.

As my mental health has improved, i have been, as some of you know, making small, manageable changes to the way i eat. Nothing magical, just sound alterations to my diet. Not so much what i eat, as HOW i eat.
What i eat is not so much of a problem for me. I don’t struggle with junk food or sweets. Maybe potatoes, bread, rice, and pasta, but dealing with my childhood and the myriad, complicated reasons behind my struggle with those particular foods have reduced that to almost a non-issue.

Here’s the thing: you can out-eat your weight loss surgery, and it’s not that hard. I’ve struggled with taking off this weight that came back on, and it has nothing to do with medication anymore.
Due to my personal health problems, my stomach has been scoped a number of times, and it is, thankfully, still the size of a lemon. I’m not bingeing. I’m not consuming vast quantities of food at a sitting.

So i’ve had to get unflinchingly honest and take a hard look at what my real issues are with eating and food.
I’ve tackled them one by one.
The first thing is i’m no longer a heavy, compulsive drinker. The booze weight is gone. I didn’t quit drinking for weight loss, i quit it because it’s a sick behaviour that will result in my premature death.
The second issue was simple to identify, but required management in a number of areas – a multipronged attack, if you will.

One way to out-eat a weight loss surgery is by snacking and grazing, and that’s what i’ve been doing. I haven’t taken it too far, but it’s been enough that i cannot lose the pounds i gained when i went off the rails with Bipolar Disorder.
That must change.

Over the years i’ve tried to deal with it through diet, but i went about it in the old way. You know, the way that hadn’t worked in the first place and caused me to seek the surgery solution?
Yeah, that way.
<you may roll your eyes here>

It failed, just as it had always done. It wasn’t until i began managing my brain’s diet, that i was finally able to tackle these accursed eighty-or-so extra pounds. I approximate numbers, because one of the things that i’ve learned is unhealthy for me is the scale. My doctor knows my number and she knows my mental status, and i trust her with both. I can make a fairly educated guess based on how i look naked and how my clothes are fitting, and if things go wrong i can go see my MD, or talk with an RD.

Learning to control what my brain takes in and puts out not only gave me the clarity of mind to address my weight problem, but it gave me some strong indications of how i might manage it as well.

I feed my brain mostly healthy stuff, with only the occasional treat.
If garbage is coming out of my face, the first thing i do is check my brain-diet. Am i watching crap telly while consuming nothing but junk like anger, bitterness,or hopelessness? If i feed my brain information, what i get is knowledge, THE vital nutrient required to keep my brain running in peak condition. Writing is the exercise necessary to rid my body of those unnecessary emotional pounds that feeling trapped and helpless and alone had slowly packed on.

So i have devised a way to eat that i can live with, and live happily, for the rest of my life. I have created it with my years of experience, my intense, hard work to know myself, and the knowledge and input of those who are experts in the field of nutrition (your friendly, neighbourhood Registered Dietitian), all under the care of my personal physician.

I have progressed very slowly, giving these small alterations to my lifestyle a chance to take root.
There is one big thing left (there may be other small things, for sure), with respect to what and how i eat, that must be adapted, and that is my caloric intake.
And so, with that firmly in the forefront of my mind, i do perhaps the hardest thing: put an end to grazing and between-meal snacking.

It is clearly the solution to my overconsumption of calories. I won’t be discussing my activity level in this post, just suffice it to say that it is currently evolving along with my eating, but is sufficient.
If i only eat three squares a day with nothing in between, it will reduce my calorie intake to weight loss levels. No matter how hungry i am, i simply cannot eat a large amount of food; i’m restricted by my small stomach pouch.
Being hungry is normal. One is supposed to feel hunger. I am dreadfully uncomfortable with the feeling, due to childhood abuse and neglect, and my avoidance of the feeling for the vast majority of my adulthood.

The modifications i’ve made have brought me to the edge of the thirty pound boundary. I am determined to cross it and never look back.

This may very well not be the way for you and i am in no way suggesting it should be. Excess weight and unhealthy eating habits are an incredibly complex and personal issue. I have no advice to give you. This blog post is what almost all my blog posts are, and that is a journal that i share with anyone who wants to know about me, how my brain works, and how i am slowly-but-ever-so-surely, creating the life i want to live and the happiness that i have always sought.

Your kind attention to my process is helpful beyond measure.
Thank you.
Love and Peace to You All,
~H~