Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

When Christmas and Gridiron Collide

 

The decision to continue my non-celebration of Christmas has already proven to be a wise one. I am struggling a little.

Because i’ve developed the habit of both preparing for the coming weeks and reviewing them after, i’ve been noticing a few things lately. I think about what goals i already have in place, and how other activities, including appointments and the day-to-days, may affect their furthering or accomplishment. For instance, while getting ready for the holidays, i thought about how i wanted to get through them without any crutches, including addictive behaviours and switching. I thought to myself, “It’s gonna be hard,”
And that’s it. That’s all i thought. I just glossed right over it and didn’t go any deeper. I mean, why would i need to, right? I’ve done all this work and i know myself pretty well. I know it’s going to be difficult.

It’s like running my fingers over the books on my shelves. As they run over the spines i remember each one’s content in my mind, and the general vibe briefly washes over me, like the breath of a lover between kisses. I’ve read it before and i know what it’s about, so why read it again? But it’s not like that with some books. Some i return to over and over, so many times that the spine is hopelessly cracked and flecks of laminate are missing from its paperboard cover. Some words are so beautifully, so importantly put together, that i must experience them many times; it’s simply not enough to know that they exist or to have visited them before. I cannot be satisfied with a fingertip-touch or a warm glance. And i should not be – some of the depth and the nuance and delicate intricacy is lost without at least an hour or two lost in its embrace.

Well, that was an interesting digression that i’m not sure fits entirely, but it is an insight into my mood most assuredly, so it stands.
I’m trying to relate it to my playbook for living with mental illness. I have a list of strategies and plays i’ve developed for handling what life throws my way. I don’t think sportsball teams simply commit the plays to memory and then just show up at gametime, ready to play. The players practise. They practise a LOT. They look to the coach for direction, for instruction, for guidance.
It’s a very good analogy because i’m multiple. I’m the coach, the quarterback, and the hungry rookie going slightly mad sitting on the bench, aching to get in the game. I’m the fans, both for and against, the colour commentator on the sidelines and the beloved announcer in the booth above it all. The opposing team is made up of people, places, and things, and the game is LIFE, of course.

Those players haven’t just memorised those plays. They’ve practised them so many times they’ve built muscle-memory reactions that work like breathing, so reflexive it’s like the OOF! that explodes out of them when they’re tackled.

Would a team that wanted to win against a tough competitor show up without practising plays designed specifically to deal with what that other team is known for being particularly good at? Hell NO.

I ran my fingers over the book on the shelf and remembered what was inside it, when i should have taken it down from the shelf, cracked it open, and read it again.
My players needed a coach to call them to practise, to scrawl the plays out on the board in class and to run them through on the field.
I wasn’t well-prepared so they weren’t, either.
This has been a rough game against a tough opponent.

I’m dealing with the depression part of living with Bipolar Disorder, which means i don’t have much energy or enthusiasm and i’m tired most of the time. Being depressed when most of the people, places, and things around me are happy and excited (or at least wanting and trying to be) saps what little reserves i have stored. And that makes me vulnerable. My patience is thin and my skin is thinner. My vision is blurry and my voice is a whisper.

What i mean is
**i can be easily hurt and i’m not great at interpreting what’s going on around me, and i’m shit at communicating what i’m thinking or how i feel**
That’s better. Sorry for all the attempts at various literary devices, as anyone reading this has certainly grasped more quickly than i have said – i’m still in the grips of all this.

So i let some things get to me that needn’t have, and i shut down a bit because of it.
Rejection is one of, if not the, primary issues/triggers i have. So i was worried and anxious and hurt and scared and it seeped into everything.

But here is where things get better, so don’t worry. There is no need to feel badly for me beyond this point. If you’re empathetic, you probably feel some sadness and anxiety for me, and thank you for that, but you can stop now, because i’ve developed coping skills and routines to help me live a reasonably happy and functional life.

While i do need to work on game preparation, i am already the queen of post-game analysis.

I’m a bit too emotional and that caused exhaustion, but i didn’t overindulge in anything and i didn’t switch. I slid around in the face from time to time, but i was able to tell my family that i wasn’t all there, and they know what that means. Looking back, even though i wasn’t fully aware of what was going on, my self-talk was quite gentle, and that is excellent progress. I didn’t tell myself i was being stupid or wrong for the feelings i was having or the actions i was taking – i just didn’t delve deep enough for full clarity. There were times i was irritated to the point where i could have spoken snappishly, but i didn’t. I had enough awareness that i knew the feelings were bigger than the situation, meaning something else was probably going on inside me at a deeper level.
I realised that whatever was happening inside of me wasn’t about what was occurring outside of me, and responded in a relatively reasonable fashion. I will take that, and any congratulations to be had go to the players.

I need to watch more games, both ours and theirs. I’ve got some great plays and some smart strategies, but we need better preparation and more practise. I’ve got this playbook, and i’m going to use it during practise, and the way my brain works (i.e. my Peanut Gallery) is the home team. They can split up and practise against each other. (Trust me – they already do, heh.) Upcoming situations will be the next visiting team and we’ll get together on practise days and watch footage of how those guys play before we show up, so we’ll be as ready as we can be to compete.

And we’ll still play for fun. It’ll be more like weekend flag football and all the players on the other side of the scrimmage line are my family and friends – it won’t be like the Grey Cup or anything.

This is a very weird way of saying that i wasn’t as prepared as i could have been for the Christmas season this year, but i will be next year.
I think. Heh.

 

Love and Peace,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Cycles, Seasons, and the Fine Art of Gardening

I live with Bipolar Disorder. It’s a cycle of mania and depression. For medical purposes i’m classified as Bipolar I, for the reason that my manias are severe and long-lasting.  This means that sometimes my manias and depressions can be so intense as to require immediate hospitalisation, and sometimes i can cycle between less intense versions incredibly quickly (days), or interminably slowly (years). It is, for me, a cycle though; one invariably follows the other. On and on, round and round. Circular. Perhaps relatively infinite.

It is both poetic and not. When i’m not currently depressed or manic, i can look at what’s past and describe it with clever metaphors and colourful analogies, which is fine – even good. It’s an indication that i’m ready to clean up any messes, take inventory, and restock my shelves in preparation for the next (potential) disaster. When i’m currently experiencing a depression or a mania however, if i’m seeing my situation within a poetic framework, it’s not usually good – it’s often dangerous. Getting all romantic about either feeling 10ft tall and bulletproof or suicidal while i’m in it, can be a red flag that i’m dissociating, and am or will soon be unable to control what happens next.

This last mania was prosaically endured. That is a bonafide victory. I was in it hip-deep before i figured it out, yet still markedly better than last time i was hit this hard, when i had to almost slip beneath the water before i realised how far i was from shore.
I figured out i was manic.
I did the things i’ve learned to do that can help:

  • minimise social interactions;
  • practise mindfulness throughout the day;
  • avoid people, places, and things that provoke intense feelings;
  • be gentle and forgiving when i’m not doing things correctly, (or at least as well as i do them when i’m not manic);
  • process thoughts and feelings with a safe person, often.

It turned out pretty well, i think. No hospitalisation, no police involvement, no massive drama. I didn’t have any terrible fights with anyone — not even my husband, who is usually the target. I don’t have access to credit or cash when i’m manic, and my husband even keeps my ID with him for safekeeping (because i lose stuff when i’m on a tear — sometimes very important and/or expensive stuff), and to discourage me from going anywhere. I didn’t go on a bender, either. I drank a little, but not falling down drunk, picking fights, or crying jags. No drugging. This is all good.

There were things that could have gone better, of course. It was still gruelling. It was sometimes ugly and painful, and it was consistently scary to varying degrees. I lost my ability to write coherently – and i couldn’t find a fuck to give about it. My carefully crafted daily routines fell away, one by one. The paranoia and hallucinations (both visual and auditory) that often come with an intense mania, meant that my daily walks had to be put on hold. I can see people in my peripheral vision that i’m certain are coming to get me, and that can easily trigger my multiplicity; a complication to be avoided if at all possible. My brain got very busy, and it also got very scattered. Often, when my husband would text me he was heading home for supper, i hadn’t yet gotten dressed or washed my face. I started watching crap telly again, too. At those times i gravitate towards reality shows that highlight other people’s misery. I think that subconsciously i’m telling myself i’m not too far gone because i’m not bedridden by my weight, or hiding in a house filled with garbage. I don’t need an intervention, and you are NOT the father, so… It could be worse, eh?

When it was over i cruised for a while. I was exhausted, and it was the right thing to do. I also wanted to take some time to examine where i was at emotionally, to see if i could anticipate the timing of the depression that would surely come, and maybe even gauge its severity. I don’t know how realistic that was, but i did need the rest. I think that i may have quietly crossed the line into the next phase already, but i’m not sure, because it doesn’t feel as intense as the mania did. My downs are usually inversely proportional to my ups, and if i’m presently in a clinical depression, it’s a very mild one.
I’m tired and my desire to sleep more has returned (although i never have much luck getting more).
I feel a bit inept, and everything looks a bit greyer and somewhat ominous.
And i am definitely, definitely irritable. Ornery, even. I find those closest to me to be rather exasperating right now, which feels the most intense of all my symptoms.

Once again though, i’ve worked hard to find and develop ways of coping with this disorder:

  • try to say Yes to one social engagement per week;
  • practise mindfulness throughout the day (it’s always with this one);
  • avoid sad stories/movies/tv shows, etc., i.e. no wallowing allowed;
  • be gentle and forgiving when i’m low energy;
  • acknowledge every accomplishment and small adherence to routine;
  • process thoughts and feelings with a safe person, often.

So, as i have mentioned many (MANY!) times before, i just pick myself up, dust myself off, and resume my slow, steady movement forward. Mania means reining myself in, because going too fast can cause a stupendous crash, whereas depression means dragging myself just a few steps before i collapse, overwhelmed and tired for no particular reason.
But as i have also said before – it gets easier every time i do it, and this time was no exception. It was still easier than last time.
Even though this mania was far more intense and longer than the one that preceded it.
And despite wrestling with dissociation and losing time, sometimes days.
In spite of 2 or 3 or 4 angry walks, which have not occurred in probably a year or 2.

There just came a point where i knew the mania had waned to where i had the power to stop it. And i did. I decided i was done, i informed the Peanut Gallery that the shenanigans were over, that i’d be taking a little time off to recover, and then i was gonna get back at it. Their full cooperation was expected.
So there was a couple of weeks of no expectations, save arrested manic behaviours.
Then i started back to my routine. I went back to one thing, and that was to only eat between the hours of 8am and 8pm. Because i’ve had gastric bypass, i have a very small stomach pouch – but i can still gain weight by just grazing all day long. I did gain some back, probably somewhere around 10lbs, but that’s all right. The changes i’ve made to what, when, how, and why i eat are sound and healthy and meant to be lifelong, so a blip is okay. I have no doubt i will get back down to where i was before i started gaining a month or so ago, and then some. This is a process, all of it, the pace is necessary, and it doesn’t bother me.

I started with my 12hr window to eat, and then i just started adding bits of my routine back as i felt able. It didn’t take the months of dogged dedication that it took to make them habits. I didn’t even need to give myself a week before i added on something else. It’s all back except the exercise, the caloric restriction designed for weight loss, and the 1 home improvement chore per week. I’m back to my sleep schedule, my morning and night hygiene routine, my reading, writing, baking (which i never completely gave up anyway). The rest will come in the next week or so. I don’t know exactly when, but so far i’ve seemed to have decent judgment regarding timing, so i’m just gonna keep trusting myself to know when. For now. If i fuck it up, say, if i’ve taken too much back on too quickly -oh well- that’ll become obvious at some point, and then i’ll reassess and tweak my lifestyle where i think i need to, and then just keep on truckin’.

**********

Just a reminder: I’m not trying to fix anyone’s life but my own. I’m looking for my own answers, my own solutions. I am not, and have no desire to be anyone’s life coach or guru. I share how my brain works, and the way i’m learning to live with it because i’m 50yrs old and still pretty fucked up. I’m not highly functional, but i want so badly, as i’ve wanted all my life, to contribute something to my fellow humans. To be of some use, some help, to do something good.
I’m working with what i’ve got, and what i have is what you see here on these pages. I’ve kept plugging along no matter what, trying to figure my shit out, banging on all the doors and crying at all the windows. I did all the diets and i’ve seen all the headshrinkers, attended all the groups, whispered/screamed/wailed all the prayers, and made all the sacrifices.

And it’s working. It has all played a part in who i am and where i’m at today. Some words, some wisdom, therapy, information… All embedded inside me like seeds.
ALL the kindnesses, the mercies, the graces, the forgiveness, the handouts, ALL the love… It all watered and sunned and fed my garden until it now produces enough to feed and shelter me, to nurture my thoughts and feelings, my dreams and desires. Now >>I<< till and water and fertilise this soil. My soil. I can protect the tender shoot from the invading weed, and i pluck that sonofabitch from the ground without hesitation and free of misgivings.

I share it all in the hope that you might believe that you can do as i have done, because i believe you can. Take anything you like from here and use it to seed your own garden, but do not feel obligated to plant any of it. Feel free to just look upon it, whether it’s to drink in its beauty or to see in it only what you don’t want to grow in your own.

You are welcome, regardless.

Enjoy your weekend, if you can.
I’ll do the same.
Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: Markus Spiske

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

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~
Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Ping Ponging and Peach Cobbler

I didn’t go back to bed this morning. So yeah, yay.
Having an epiphany and getting back to blogging and sharing it yesterday did not make the depression i seem to be fighting magically disappear. So yeah, boo.

I know this is part of it, though. This is what real life looks like for a lot of people. I don’t mean that no one but me has problems of course. I just mean that there are a lot of people out there that manage to live a productive and functional life despite their problems, and that is what i’m working towards.

So i get the husband off to work and the Kiddo off to school and i busy myself with breakfast. I really want to go back to bed though, so i remind myself that the last time i tried that (ah, does yesterday ring a bell, H?) it made me feel worse. Then i thought to myself rather pointedly, How do you think you’re gonna feel if you go back to bed after what you thought and felt and wrote yesterday?
It worked.
I treated myself to some extra computer time after i completed my morning routine of making the bed, tidying the kitchen, doing my morning toilette, and getting dressed.

It didn’t take too long before i felt like i was wasting time and needed to be doing something. This is progress. Most of my life i’ve been kinda faking the functional thing. I’d watch what other people did in their regular day-to-days, and then i’d try to do that, with varying levels of success for inconsistent periods of time. Ten years ago though, when i made the decision to let myself fall apart, i could not even manage the bare minimum, and frankly i didn’t trouble myself much about it. It’s hard to let yourself fall when there are still things to hold on to like, Look how great a housewife i still am!

Speaking of which… My 10yrs of abject brokenness, i mean. I’ve recently begun to wonder if that’s no small part of why i’m pinging back and forth so quickly between feelings of oncoming depression and then mania. Before i gave in to it all utterly, i fought it. I fought it all the time. Mostly i didn’t realise i was fighting, because that was all i’d ever known and i lacked the insight to move beyond that, but i was always resisting very powerful feelings and urges. Things i knew weren’t right or were too much or even dangerous; i knew i had an impulse control problem. So i kept myself very tightly bound with the help of my Peanut Gallery, which i was largely unaware of, and massive quantities of food.

When i had a gastric bypass over 10yrs ago, the fat was the cage that had contained my bipolar disorder, and as i lost weight, i also lost control. Deciding to fully acknowledge my past of abuse and my multiplicity and finally deal with it all head-on did nothing to ease my symptoms of mania or depression. I was tossed about on an emotional tidal wave like an old ship that should have sailed her last a while ago. But in this analogy i’m not only the ship. I’m also the map to buried treasure being fought over by a bunch of pirates driven mad by too much time at sea without sight of land, and whoever holds the map is captain of the ship. (If the map song from Dora the Explorer popped into your head then friend, i like the cut of your jib.)
And here’s the really fun part – i’m a slow cycler.
I started out in a mania that lasted over two years.
Then i got slammed by a 2yr depression.
And then whizz bang! another mania took hold for a bit longer than the last one, which was very kindly and predictably followed by another agonisingly long depression.

So if you’re following along, i’ve been fairly steady for the last two years. No hospitals for either long term visits or forced commitments. The thing is though, i can feel them coming on and have worked assiduously to keep them at bay, and although i’ve been successful, it seems that i’ve only staved off the one to be quickly confronted by the looming possibility of the other.

And frankly, i have wondered WTF?!

The best i can come up with is that parts of my brain have become very accustomed to having their way with other parts of my brain, and now they’ve become like the neighbourhood brat that no one will play with anymore. They knock on everyone’s door and ask if so-and-so can come out to play, and sometimes the father fills up the doorway with his scowl and his shoulders, and his basso profundo voice bellows out a No, now go home! And other times the mother comes and looks very sorry as she sends him away with a sad smile and a warm cookie.
And well, sure he’s a brat, but he has crappy parents so it’s not really his fault and he’s so lonely…

So i didn’t go back to bed.
I did a lot of normal housewifey stuffs.
I bashed out some self-reflection in a blog entry.
Tonight there will be peach cobbler for dessert.
Right now, i’m going for a walk in the snow with my dog.
Today has been a good day.
I don’t know what i’ll bash out tomorrow, but maybe you’ll come and see?

Love and Peace to You Regardless,
~H~

If there is a place you got to go
I am the one you need to know
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!

If there is a place you got to get
I can get you there I bet
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Unique Up On It*

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine made a comment on a blog post regarding my willingness to know myself, and all the hard work i’ve put in to doing so. It relates to some stuff that’s been sloshing around in my brain, so i thought i’d write a bit about it.

My mother was intensely interested in psychology. I think she may have genuinely been seeking help for herself in the beginning, but by the time i was ready to attend school, it was more of a weapon than anything else. She jumped on every bandwagon, embraced every fad, and swallowed every line of pop psychology she could find. There were therapists i saw for individual and family counselling during the day, that would be involved in our nighttime activities, and then there was the odd social worker who would come to school to speak with me. The former were criminals, and the latter merely useless, but they both cemented a distrust of all involved in psychology – a science so soft one could call it “mushy”.

I knew something was wrong with me but i never knew what. My religion taught me that i was a hopeless sinner in need of salvation, which i pursued generally, sometimes even tirelessly. (I was gonna say single-mindedly, but that doesn’t quite fit. Heh.) My family either reinforced religion, ignored the problem, or contributed to it. This left mental health professionals, from whom i regularly sought answers, despite my wariness and stunning lack of success with them.

It wasn’t all for naught. As i have with many things, i took what i liked and left the rest – like the religions from which i took that advice. Over decades i’ve amassed a decent amount of knowledge on the subject of the functions of my mind with respect to my behaviour within a given context. You’re not going to hear a bunch of current buzz words coming from me. I’m not a spiritual person, but neither am i only about that which is tangible and provable. Every day my understanding that i am a truly unique individual, deepens. I think you are too, although that understanding is more exoteric. What i know about myself is more abstruse.

There endeth my grandiloquence.

I draw from this font of knowledge every day. The more i know myself the better able i am to make good decisions and enjoy positive outcomes.
Take for instance, my lifelong, contentious relationship with food. From chubby at 8, to super-morbidly obese at 35, to thin at 38, to Bipolar Disorder packing 80lbs back on… I’ve been through it all with food. Abuse and neglect warped my mental and physical connection with food. Being intermittently starved, and frequently lured, rewarded, and placated with food, has done an incredible amount of damage in my life.

You’ve heard the stories before. Some of those stories may be like your own.
Yeah, i eventually tried all the diets. It was in later years though, not really ever as a child. Regularly not having food in the house made the thought of dieting anathema.
School was excruciating. The children were unrelentingly vicious until the latter half of grade nine, when i switched to a half decent school where only about half of the boys and a few of the girls were truly heinous. I cried myself to sleep as so many of us fat kids have done. I sobbed out desperate prayers to the god i was raised with, begging him to make me thin. I mostly thought my school troubles were due to my weight, i only came to realise through years of the kind of self-study that i’m right now referring to, that it was sosoSO much deeper than that. I look back now and i see a chubby girl who was quiet, another who had money, one may have been wide, but she was very, very short, and one or more of them came from families whose names everyone knew and respected. None of them got it as bad as i did.
I’m telling you, i’m a very nice person, but there are some people from those last 2 schools i attended that i would be hard-pressed not to punch right in their smug faces and gouge out those glittering eyes filled with cruel glee. I may be odd, honey, but you’re still a shitty human being.

Sorry for the digression – i don’t know if that school stuff will ever go away.
So, back to food and fat then.
And diets.
Oh my eff-you-see-kay, did i ever try ’em. All of ’em. The late-night infomercial scammers, the impossibly petite and perfect, smiley Buffybots, and the anti-science pitchers of expensive woo solutions… All of ’em.
Exercise is the answer.
Eliminating the sugarcarbglutenfat is the answer.
Eating like a caveman. Or a coeliac. Or a diabetic. Or a fat man on the fasttrack to a massive heart attack. Or a runway model. Or a toot widdow bunny wabbit.
I’ve done most of it, and had similar results to those of you who’ve also done it.
PFFT.

You know how i said i take what i like and leave the rest? Well, here’s something i picked up from one of those places and put right back on the shelf for someone else.
“Terminal uniqueness”.
See now, that just doesn’t work for me. The implication is that the answer is already out there, you’re just not working the solution correctly. Or hard enough. Or long enough. Or honestly enough. Or… Eff you in the eh with a dee.

It’s not to say that that concept is never helpful for anyone.
I’m saying it was not helpful for me in this particular aspect of my life. (Honestly, it wasn’t particularly helpful for me in any area, but i’m trying not to do that digressing thingy i did a while back there.)

I AM unique, and if one bears in mind that i will one day die – terminally so.
I wasted a tremendous amount of time trying to be like other people when i wasn’t. To fit in when i couldn’t. To belong to groups i didn’t want to be a part of, and be liked by people i didn’t care for.
For years i ran away from a diagnosis that would change my life, forever and for the better, because i thought being different was bad and being alone was bad. Neither of those things is either always the truth, or always a lie.
Not for any of us.

And so none of those diets worked. For all the reasons that anyone who struggles already knows, but also for this reason that i am now telling you – because i AM terminally unique.
The only “diet” that will ever have a healthy and long term affect/effect on me is one that is tailored specifically for me. It will only fit me. It will not fit you or anyone else.

I now understand that i’m the only one that can craft the perfect solution. And between all the knowledge i have acquired over the years about dieting and myself -you throw in a registered dietician (the ONLY people i think should be trusted regarding the science of nutrition)- and i am set. I am set for life! (That’s the title of some diet book i read once, i think. HEH.)

I will give you one example of how this works for me, and then i shall stop jabbering at you for the day.
I read a very popular diet book once. Well, actually i bought it and all the stuff that came along with the book, and i read the book itself several times. The first thing this doctor, author, diet guru did was tell me that i must go through my entire house and remove foods that he deemed not healthy, or dangerous to my eating plan, or however he put it. (That book is no longer in my house, so i can’t/won’t refer to it for accuracy.)

Removing foods from my house is a bad idea for me. Removing foods that some call treats or junk is an exceedingly bad idea for me.
I was starved growing up. There was regularly not enough food in my house. And worse.
My mother ate while i starved. She would hide sweet and salty treats from me, and often cook for herself after she’d sent me to bed. She kept money aside to support her junk food habit, that should have been spent on clothing for me, or school supplies and fun activities. She would serve me spoiled food. I’d be starving and i’d scrounge food from the garbage, from other people’s homes. I stole other kid’s lunches or dug them out of the trash.

To this day, when i get low on something, or my fridge doesn’t look full or my cupboards are emptying out, i get nervous and anxious. I will leave a smidgen or a dollop of something in a box or a jar until i can get to the store to buy more – because being completely out of something can cause an anxiety attack.
And here’s the other thing, the barer my larder, the hungrier i get. When my kitchen is full of food, i don’t graze as much, and i snack less frequently. And when the sweet and salty snack foods are around i don’t experience an overpowering craving for them. Those things don’t call to me when they’re on my shelf, but when they’re not there, the 7-Eleven is a siren song.

So that extremely successful dude that’s sold millions of diet advice books starts out with a bad idea for me, and goes downhill from there.
Factor in all that science can and has debunked as far as diet fads and crazes, and i can toss out almost all the other books and videos and videotapes and CDs and equipment that i’ve bought over the years (decades).
Factor in that i’ve had weight loss surgery.
Factor in my Peanut Gallery.

I know how to eat now, to be healthy, and to lose some weight. I’m on my way down, very slowly and mostly surely, and i’m fairly certain that, barring mental/physical issues i may face in the future and the resultant medications – it’s staying off for good. I’m not even excited. I just know it’s a pretty safe bet.

So yeah, to clumsily bring it all back around to my friend’s comment on my blog from the other day.
I’ve been thinking about how none of what i now currently enjoy along the lines of daily functionality and enjoyment of life might just not be possible at this level if i didn’t know myself as well as i do today. (That’s a helluva sentence; i hope it made sense.)

To know myself, to know who i am, what i think, and why i think it, is without question, the best thing that i have ever done, or will continue to do. It makes me better, happier, and more productive in every way.

Have as good a day as you’re able. I’ll do the same.

Love and Peace,
~H~

*From a favourite old joke:
Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit?

A: Unique up on it.

Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit?

A: Tame way.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Inside Outside Upside Down*


Manic episode symptoms: The symptoms of mania include: elevated mood, inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, racing thoughts, difficulty maintaining attention, increase in goal-directed activity, and excessive involvement in pleasurable activities. These manic symptoms significantly impact a person’s daily living.
Source: Steve Bressert, Ph.D., PsychCentral

“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long… ”
~Tyrell

This will not be a tell-all of my escapades while in the grips of mania. Suffice to say they were not at all epic, in fact i’d say they bordered on the pathetic.
But of course that’s only in hindsight.

To me, the world had suddenly become more exciting, more enticing, and much, much more accessible. I was pretty and i was crazy and i was fun and i was hungry for experiences. I’d shut myself off from being very social for most of my life. It was difficult, and i knew i wasn’t very good at it, although i tried hard and with sincerity. Being shunted to the bottom of the social pile in nearly every school i attended taught me that i would never be cool. I didn’t have the family standing, i didn’t have the clothes or the toys, and i was never able to talk like they talked or act like they acted. I had nothing going for me and zero chance of getting any of it.

As i’ve mentioned before, once i got away from the judgmental hell of school, i did find some acceptance and favour in certain social circles. I could have more friends if i wanted, but i discovered a lot of life situations still foster an atmosphere that’s no more emotionally developed than high school. It was less acute, but there were still pecking orders and hierarchies in places like work and church. I still flopped and floundered around like the proverbial fish out of water a lot of the time, but it wasn’t the intense microcosm of human social behaviour that school can be.

Weight loss provided me with a little more attractive packaging, and mania dished me up a heaping helping of thoughtlessness masquerading as confidence, like eating a bowl of chili that you never know was actually made with TVP.** I went where i wanted and did what i pleased with whomever i wished. I overindulged in everything except food. I was -yeah, you guessed it- the life of the party, the centre of attention, the belle of the ball.
I was wanted.
I was liked.
I was accepted.
I was popular.

Of course it was all an illusion, brought about by the grandiose thinking and fearlessness i feel when i’m manic. Oh and if dissociation dulls self-awareness – mania makes the blade utterly useless.
It’s mania that almost cost me my children.
Not depression and suicide attempts, not anxiety or panic attacks, not PTSD, and not borderline agoraphobia. Because mania made me selfish, and it blinded me to the effects my behaviour was having on anyone around me – even, and especially, my husband and my children. I repeatedly put myself in high risk situations, doing harmful things to myself with dangerous people.

When the mania finally wore off i’d paid a terrible price. I’d lost loved ones and things that were precious. I was empty and beyond mortified and fully penitent. My thinking still wasn’t terribly coherent, but i knew i needed to stop and start over.

Sometimes a change in geography can help facilitate a cure of sorts.
A new town provided the emotional cytotoxins.
The depression irradiated every thought in my head.

I spent months hiding under my mother-in-law’s gentle and protective wing, and longer still in my brand new Little Crooked House, but my brain was percolating. I had no defenses left to protect me from either the truth of my upbringing, or what my brain had done in order to keep me alive. My brain got very full. Very LOUD. I call it “bursty”. I’ll tell you why. Because one day, my head got too full and i exploded.

I’d been drinking too much for weeks, months, trying to shut my head up. Trying to find peace and quiet. Trying to sleep. Trying to avoid the hangover the next day. Trying to laugh instead of cry. Well one day it all came crashing down around me and i wrecked one house, smashed in another, terrified my loved ones, attempted suicide, and got put away for a couple of months in a special mental hospital. Not a ward, not a floor, but an entire hospital dedicated to VERY crazy people.
I was in the big leagues.

I got help… kinda. I got more diagnoses and conflicting diagnoses and shrinks who would tell me the last one was wrong and take me off all the old medications and put me on new ones. I got thrown out of a couple of programs that the p-docs at the hospital signed me up for, and that’s when i started seeing the “You again?” look on the nurses’ faces.

I’ve been in and out of The Bin for the better part of 20yrs, but after this last big blow out that happened in front of my family, something happened inside me. I decided i’d had enough of running away from who i am and what i’d been through. So i made a 180 and instead, i ran right into it. I threw myself head first into whatever the hell was gonna happen. I’d had enough of trying so hard not to be fucked up and being fucked up anyway.

I slid around inside my head – not gone, but not totally there. I was so tired. Two and a half years of pedal to the metal mania will do that to a person. I was used up inside, emotionally and physically.

Then i lucked out and got a really good social worker. (It’s happened a couple of times – they’re out there.) She accepted my diagnosis and actually knew a lot about it. She treated me like a person and not a case. She helped me make a plan and set goals. Most of all she helped me feel good about who i was as a human and especially as a mother. She helped me get my feet underneath me and take more than a few steps in the right direction. I even had a little momentum going.

Eventually my husband convinced me to go out and meet people.
I don’t actually have much to tell you about that time.
I know we met people, but i don’t know who, or how. I think some of it happened through going to the bar and singing karaoke, but beyond that, i have no idea. I don’t remember very much. The problem was, i could feel another explosion building inside my head, and i was so afraid and still so very tired from the last one that i was dissociating to avoid… everything. Relationships, feelings, my past, my mental issues. All of it.

I already knew what i had to do in order to avoid yet another major meltdown. I knew that i had to disclose and i knew to whom. I sat my husband down and told him that i had to purge it all, that it would likely take a couple of weeks, that i would be a slobbering, jibbering mess throughout, and i was pretty sure that afterwards i would be useless at best and dangerous to myself and others at worst.
He said Okay, let ‘er fly. I’ve got this.
I was right and he was almost wrong.

Let me see the dark sides as well as the bright
I’m gonna love you inside out
I’m gonna love you inside out
Let me…
~Inside Out, The Chainsmokers

* The title is a reference to a children’s book by the great Stan and Jan Berenstain
** Textured vegetable protein. It’s actually great, and i use it in place of hamburger often.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Under My Dome

This is one of those days where i really, really wish i was normal.

I’m not having that glib toss off comment that people often make about no one being normal, or what the heck is normal anyway. I understand where it comes from, and i know people don’t mean any harm or offense when they make it. And it doesn’t harm me or offend me when it’s made, either. I’m just saying that for today, if one were to make such a comment regarding this post – that might be considered by me to be a little insensitive.

I’m not referring to everyone’s little quirks and oddities. Yes, we all have those. I’m talking about living every single day of your life with a brain that works -in some very significant ways- much differently than most people’s. In ways that slow me down in my daily life, and have even held me back from achieving some things that i’ve wanted to do.

I’ve always had a terribly short attention span. I’ve struggled with concentration. In recent years, with the addition of bipolar disorder, i’ve had an awful time reading. Reading was one of the biggest things that saved my life growing up, and it’s been a slow and exasperating process trying to retrain my brain to read for pleasure again.

My thoughts either race so fast with mania, or process words so slowly with depression and dissociation, that i stopped reading novels. I forced myself to deal with the issue starting with non-fiction. As a person who’d finally broken free of my childhood programming that had taught me not to think for myself or question authority, i was hungry for information. So i started reading a lot of news articles, science articles, political pieces, and learning about philosophy. I’m not entirely sure why it’s been so much easier to read non-fiction, but i suspect it has something to do with fiction triggering my dissociative behaviours because it stimulates my imagination.

I’m trying though. I’ve had to, because i’m currently on a news/social media fast. The last year’s worth of campaigning, leading to the most frightening and disappointing election result in the US in my lifetime, necessitated a break. I’ve got too much going on in my personal life to even begin to process that event. Even typing this little bit about it in my blog is ramping up my anxiety level. And the Peanut Gallery in my head is on hypervigilant alert, meaning social media isn’t a good idea, either. I’m at a high risk for switching, and i can’t ask my online friends to go through that with me. It’s confusing enough for my husband and my children, i can’t imagine how much harder it would be when you don’t live with me, and don’t even have experience with me outside of the internet. (I was gonna say, “in the flesh”, but that sounded a bit dirty. Heh.)

Anyway, i’m trying to read a book i’ve been trying to get through for 2yrs. I’ve read other novels over the last few years, but King novels are especially hard for me, i think because he’s my favourite. I didn’t understand until a few years ago that my experience of imagination is different than most people. My therapist says that i am a superhero, and my mutant power is imagination. I was able to create people and worlds inside my brain in order to escape some of the awful things that happened to me as a child. My brain is a whole different level of creative. Not better than you, but very intense. Like, for those of you around my age, think in Technicolor, with Sensurround! If you’re a more recent arrival on the planet, think over 9,000!

When i found Stephen King novels it changed my life. It was more than just giving me an escape, the fact that they were based in horror helped me stay alive and be more sane. No, really. There were things that happened to me that i never spoke about. As years went by, they became like dreams i had, and as i grew i eventually “forgot” that they were real events and believed instead that they were only dreams. When other young people would talk about their dreams, i would wonder why mine were so strange and terrifying compared to theirs. I think King’s stories made it easier for me to, in due time, accept that there had been true evil in my life, as there is in the world, and that it can be overcome. As if reading about it in well-told stories made what i had lived through a bit more palatable. It was art. Dark, terrible art. It was maybe more romantic/poetic to me, seen through a writer’s eyes. That may not make sense to anyone else, but it does to me. Stephen King helped soften the blow in a way. His stories helped me to acknowledge and accept that my life was a story that he could have written.

For a week i have sat with this massive book in my lap. Forcing myself to read half an hour of this novel every day. It’s laborious and sluggish work. I have echobrain right now, meaning that i hear the sentence i just read bounce around inside my skull over and over, until it gradually fades. This forces me to say the sentence silently in my head as i’m reading it in order to cut down on the echo. Unfortunately, it also sloooows me doooown. I find it demeaning. I know i shouldn’t, but my reading speed and comprehension was something i was always so proud of, and here i am slogging away at a snail’s pace. And when i get frustrated i can always count on a voice or 2 to pipe up in there, which makes concentrating even more difficult.

So this is why i’m whining and wishing i was normal. It goes much deeper and darker than that though. It starts with the once-star-reader-turned-plodding-toiler and ends with oh-for-pity’s-sake-i’m-almost-50-and-i’m-barely-functional.

You thought this was gonna be a bombastic tirade on how you non-crazies have it so good, didn’tcha?

Nah. I’m just PO’ed because all i want is to read my dang story. *sigh*

Who you lookin’ for
What was his name
you can prob’ly find him
at the football game
it’s a small town
you know what i mean
it’s a small town, son
and we all support the team
~James McMurtry

Y’all have yourself as good a day as you can.

Love and Peace,
~H~