Monthly Archives: April 2012

My Farewell Post

Posted on by
14

Notice first that I used the word “farewell”, not “goodbye”.  Probably because years of watching classic films has beaten into me the idea that farewell is a temporary goodbye, while goodbye is a permanent you-will-never-hear-from-me-again word (take a minute to re-read that sentence and enjoy all of the sense it doesn’t make).

This post is a farewell for many, many reasons.  The most pressing and definite is my biannual pilgrimage to the Holy Shit Land this week.  I love going back to the city that gave you me (as well as Fred Rogers, Andy Warhol, and the Steeler Nation – you’re especially welcome for that last one), but the trips inevitably bring a level of stress that can only be alleviated by a cocktail of Valium and vodka, heavy on the Valium (as always, my lovelies, do as Ruby says, not as Ruby says she does).

I hadn’t planned on taking my laptop back for the trip, and I still don’t, and I have no idea how anyone can write a post from a phone (I have enough trouble pecking out the keys when they are real and big enough to fit my fingertips, give me a touch screen and “keys” no bigger than the nail on my pinky and everything falls spectacularly to pieces).  I can’t even do comment responses, just ask the very few people who have gotten them from me via my Fancy Fone (and they know who they are, because I have had to apologize for the screwed-up-ness of my response in a subsequent, usually equally screwed-up comment).

I also gypped myself out of a much-needed blogging break I had intended to take a few weeks ago, so that’s another reason I am shutting up for a while.

Most importantly, though, my writing is suffering.  Here, and offline.  I don’t frequently mention any offline projects, and that’s in part because in the time I have been blogging, I haven’t really had any.  There are multifarious reasons for that, but one which I actually feel I can control is the fact that I have become very distilled through writing in many places.  Not good distilled, like way they use French wheat to make the alcohol in Grey Goose, but bad distilled, like taking the alcoholic version of me and adding bloody mary mix, orange juice, tonic water, or even cranberry juice.

(Not all at once, that’s a Hurricane gone all kinds of wrong.  And if you don’t know what a Hurricane is, it’s the name for a drink you make when you are young and stupid and take a little from each bottle in your parents’ liquor cabinet and mix it, or what we called it when I was younger, anyway.  I don’t know what kids today call it.  In theory it lessens the chance that you will get caught, slightly; in reality it increases the chance that you will get violently ill, exponentially.  Don’t do that kind of shit, kiddies.)

In theory, the Badly Distilled Ruby is a good thing.  It is much more palatable than Ruby straight, comes in colors and tastes to suit many people, and can perk up your party when it hits an unfortunate lag.  In reality, the Badly Distilled Ruby is a lesser version of me, and even if no one else notices, I do and I have come to loathe it.

I think I may actually be making plans to abandon all of you.  At least temporarily.  I’m not sure.  I am confusing myself with all of my alcohol references.  For the seeming drunkery in my mind, I would like to give a huge thanks to Jen from Sips of Jen and Tonic, and Sara from Laments and Lullabies (of course these two lovely ladies are actually from lots of places, but I’m lazy and their blogs are good starting places for you, if you need some), as they helped me to get going on a binge-themed day. . .  I mean post.  Also deserving of an honorable mention is the clothing I am no longer wearing that reeks of Heineken.  All I will say on that one is that it wasn’t my fault.  I was attacked.  I don’t even drink beer.

So.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  This is it, in as few words as I can manage.

I need to sit inside of myself and age and swirl and maybe even turn slightly (because unlike wine, words can be worth a lot when they’ve gone “off”), until I can’t stand it any longer and it either comes bursting forth in a rush or. . .  Hmm.  I think that’s really the only option my mind will accept, no ors, ifs, buts, qualifiers, modifiers, or alternate solutions of any kind are allowed on this one.

I have no idea how long this will take.  I’ll still read your words, after I’ve dried out some (give me a week to two months, or whatever period of time I eventually arrive at).  I won’t be making any comments, as comments do fall under the heading of Writing.  But I guess I can make use of the Like button on posts without compromising my position.  So, there’s that.

I still love all of you so much, you just need to love me enough to trust that part of my experiment includes prohibiting myself from all writing that is not of a very strict, functional nature.  I have some material prepared to post in the foreseeable future for Canvas, and as (almost) always, I won’t be abandoning anything related to that, because that project is a commitment on a different level.  Odds are I will answer emails - mywonderfulabnormalmind@gmail.com - just not in what is considered a “timely manner”; but ask anyone who has ever contacted me via email, I never have.

Oh, and if you really miss me terribly (because I know better than anyone how very missable I am), my facebook page is not a fan page for my blog, it’s my personal, really me, my life, stuff I never would make into a blog post anyway page.  Click on this link, Ruby Tuesday, make me your friend.  Just write a message, too, so I know who the hell you are.  You can also find me on Goodreads (since you have my email), which may not be as exciting for lots of you, but I plan on ingesting a lot of the printed word while I’m gone, and I keep that shit pretty accurate and up-to-date.

Alright, and now I’m getting nice and melancholy and I know if I don’t do it now, I won’t do it.

Push the button, Frank.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

ECT, Catharsis, And Terror

Posted on by
19

(Warning:  Talk of ECT and swearing ahead.  But if this topic doesn’t warrant the latter, I don’t know what does.  And if you love me you’ll read this, unless it will induce fear in panic in you, in which case, run.)

Pride in Madness recently wrote a post on electroconvulsive therapy (you can find it here:  ECT).  It is not the first one I have run across, and I know it will not be the last.  She gave the topic an excellent treatment, and so I actually responded.  That isn’t especially normal for me, as my reaction to anything written on the subject is to flee.  To run far away, take some Xanax, and pretend I never saw it.

For those of you who don’t know, I underwent 16 rounds of ECT about two years ago.  I developed PTSD that manifested in all sorts of really fucked up ways (incidentally, I wanted to say thank you to the wonderful woman who writes Raison d’être; she introduced me to the concept of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which I never even knew existed distinctly, and it made a lot of things easier for me to understand).

I started. . .  I was going to tell you a little bit. . .  But I can’t.  Not yet.

I have come a long way, baby.  I no longer get hysterical when an IV line is placed in my arm.  The psychogenic non-epileptic seizures have remitted.  I even drove up to the hospital where I had it done (outpatient) a few months ago, and was able to look at it without emotion.

But I still am left with this ball of icy hot terror deep inside of me whenever the topic is mentioned.  I am fighting fighting fighting the tears, willing them back into my eyes (and winning – mostly).  I feel paralyzed, only my fingers seem to move, and I am forcing them with everything in me to pound this out.

I have made my peace with the experience and the trauma that resulted.  I have forgiven completely the doctor who manipulated and flat out lied to me to get me to undergo this “last resort” treatment that I had been against with every fiber of myself.  I have even forgiven myself for getting to the point where I could be manipulated into it.

In reading blogs, I come across so many posts with “Trigger Warnings”.  This is a wonderful thing for bloggers to post, I think it’s excellent, but nothing in those posts ever triggers me, and I know the myriad reasons why.

The only thing that triggers me – I guess it doesn’t even trigger, because that word implies action, while I am reduced to a state of shaking, dry-mouthed, terrifying inaction - is discussion of electroconvulsive therapy.  And if you have written on it and I have read or responded, don’t for a minute feel badly or like you should have put any kind of warning up.  These posts all clearly state ECT as their subject, and I know what reading about it does to me, and I am the one who makes the choice on what I can handle.

I want to get a post out.  I need to get a post out, for the sake of an attempted catharsis, if nothing else.  But it won’t come.  I’m too fucked up on this topic to say what I need to.

When, goddamnit, when will I be able to at least read about this without becoming a victim of terror and paralysis?  I’m so fucking done with this shit messing with me.  It has dictated my life for too goddamned long, and I fucking want it gone.  Out, out!  Damned spot. . .

You know I’m all kinds of fucked up when I resort to misquoting Shakespeare.

I think I may go throw up that Xanax I just took.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

On Being A Bitch

Posted on by
24

(I really wanted to first write a post on all the sweet comments and commiserations and sympathy I got from the lovelies who responded to my most recent post, but I guess this needs must come out now.) 

My mother and I were heading upstairs a few minutes ago, her to go to sleep, me, apparently to write this post (though at the time I had no thought nor intention, the fact that I am now hitting the keys with a formed idea tells me it was a forgone conclusion).

Mom said to me, “You’re so sweet.”

I thought about it, and struggled for half a moment, before responding, truthfully, “Sometimes.  Sometimes I’m just a bitch.”

My lovely mother responded with something like incredulity (on my behalf).  ”What, like I’m not ever a bitch?”

You would have to know my mom and me and have been privy to years of us in our most intimate moments to follow the rest of the conversation.  But the gist was about how when my mom is a bitch, it’s in an ‘I’m tired, I’ve had a long day/week/month, I need some space, I’ll snap at you’ way.  Every man, woman, and child had been a bitch like that.  And yes, through the years, she has sometimes upped her game and been a real bitch, but it has been rare.

Even at her worst, though, her most intense, out-of-control-bitch-ness, I don’t think she has ever come close to me (and she agrees, though she loves me much too much to outright say so).  My level of bitch cannot even be explained away as mood disorder related, though on some occasions that has added fuel to the fire.  I am something that there isn’t even properly a word for, when I am a “bitch.”

Because when I am a bitch, I am intense, intelligent, persuasive, subversive, focused, relentless, forceful, and ten million kinds of dangerous.  I could probably do more damage than an H-bomb.  Seriously.  Ask anyone who has known me intimately and at length. Actually, don’t.

I don’t bring out the bitch very much any more.  I keep her in check, because I know well the harm she can do.  She can destroy nations (though her work typically runs on a slightly smaller scale), because she has a pretty spotless history.  All of her crusades have been honest, informed, and honorable.  How powerful is that?  A bitch who only ever fights for causes that are noble and worthy of her faith, and who can stand up to everything that is dished out at her and still walk away without a spot or a stain.  Gives me chills.

Liberty Leading The People ~ Eugene Delacroix

So yes, I have reined in the wrath, and I have learned to wield my power responsibly.  And I have gone from Liberty Leading The People to La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Which has actually brought me full circle in a way that is not worth my words to explain.  

I present, instead, a visual for all of you. I’m not sure whether to be proud of myself or frightened. Probably both.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci ~ Frank Cadogan Cowper


© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Through Pain Comes Growth

Posted on by
17

I’ve heard that, you know.  I remember it most specifically from an episode of The Nanny, of all sources.  But I have no idea what has come from my latest pain save meals of hydrocodone and promethazine, and a renewed terror of the Migraine Monster.

I’ve had severe headaches since I was quite young, so young, in fact, that my mother remembers them more vividly than I do.  What I remember is a diagnosis of common migraine (a migraine lacking aura – all the weird, usually visual changes that precede the pain by roughly 20-30 minutes in a complex migraine) more than half a lifetime ago.  There was one emergency room visit with CT scan (normal), injections and prescriptions of every drug developed for migraine ever (please don’t make me reiterate them all), prophylactic meds in failed attempts to prevent them, or at least lessen their frequency, about a half-dozen specialists who all confirmed that my brain wasn’t doing anything underlying to cause this pain, and from all of that we have arrived where we were more than a decade-and-a-half ago.

The only thing for the pain is Vicodin (unless someone wants to hospitalize me and give me a nice shot of Demerol in the butt, makes me throw up every time, but oh! how it obliterates that pain!), and thank God I have a doctor who trusts me and is willing to write me for it. And now I’m drinking promethazine for the nausea, because last November, for the first time in all of my life, the nausea progressed to actual vomiting. It was traumatic, having never happened before, so I now work to avoid it.

All of that being said, this time was entirely different.  Trying to even remember. . .

About two-and-a-half weeks ago, I started getting horribly irritable, reactive, anxious, emotional.  These were no mood symptoms, at the time I had no thought of what could be causing them.

Then, last Tuesday into Wednesday, the dam broke and there was pain.  Oh, was there ever pain.

But there were pain-free periods interspersed, and they were sometimes worse.  Because I experienced in them such confusion, the first night was nearly an emergency room visit because my blood pressure jumped and I felt as though I was dying.  The problem is that after my ER experience for a dystonic reaction, I realized that sometimes that little voice is there for a reason, and that it’s better to err on the side of a little hypochondriasis than to, well, die.

I basically lived through some psychosis that was entirely unrelated to mania or depression.  My mood has been completely stable throughout this.  Really stable.  Almost frighteningly stable, if that can be said.

So the pain alternately remits and returns through this past Monday, with less intensity each time.  But it wasn’t until late afternoon on Monday, when I finally passed out in the middle of a text conversation, and slept for nearly 24 hours that I felt like I was on the mend.  I always need to follow my migraines with a good, long sleep (I’m told this is not uncommon).

I still expect another few days of being “out of it”, convalescing, recovering.  My writing alone should indicate that my brain is not yet back to where I want it to be.  This is decidedly not my best effort, but I don’t know how really to share a migraine with you.  When it’s intense, there is no looking at any light, so I cannot type something up.  During the brief periods of remission, I have been able to type short emails, comment responses, etc., but no long trains of thought.

I guess I want to post this because my brain is still so addled.  It will give you some sense. It is not brilliant work, but it meets Ruby’s standards for valuable because it is honest work.

Incidentally, I have never in all of my days experienced a three-week-long migraine.  I have an inkling of what may have caused it, but if I’m right, well. . .  It’s going to be ugly for a while.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Be Your Own Advocate

Posted on by

Reblogged from A Canvas Of The Minds:

Click to visit the original post
  • Click to visit the original post

A Note From Ruby:  This post was written by Always and originally published 22 September 2011.  She has given me leave to post it again, now that our family (authors and readers both) has grown in size.  I think it's a wonderful piece that absolutely everyone can learn from.

The title of this post doesn't refer to joining groups whose purpose is to reduce the stigma of a mental health diagnosis, although that's certainly a wonderful thing to do.  

Read more… 870 more words

I was going to write a nice little post for you, but I put this up, and the sun began to rise, and I decided I wanted to do something else. So go read this instead! Kisses, Ruby

Breathless

Posted on by
8

When you walk in

The noise disappears

Where you begin

Is perfectly clear

All this time

I felt so confused

Then came you

And I just knew

~

(‘I Just Knew’ by Better Than Ezra, written by Kevin Griffin)

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

An Interruption To My Irregularly Scheduled Silence. . .

Posted on by
29

Regular readers, new readers, lovelies in general, please, please do take note that the following is NOT in any way directed towards you.  I actually read all comments flagged as spam, and I have a very precise, as yet infallible system for distinguishing the real people comments from the idiot-generated comments.  Your comments I treasure, lovelies.  That’s a lot of the reason I am posting this. . .  Trust me!  

Forty-six spam comments in one day on this blog?  Game on, assholes.  I’ve been through this one already, and will not quietly ignore this.

You’ve been warned.

Kisses,
Ruby

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

“Tisn’t Right, But It’s True”

Posted on by

I’ve been putting off writing this post, because I have a couple of posts I wanted to write first.  And maybe, later on, I will.

But right now I’m going to take a break from blogging and get my life sorted out.  Don’t fret, it isn’t a mood thing, I’m still fine there.  It’s a plain old too much conflict with too many people upsetting me intensely thing.

I’ll of course be keeping up with A Canvas Of The Minds, responding to emails sent to mywonderfulabnormalmind@gmail.com, and you can find me on facebook by clicking this link: Ruby Tuesday | Facebook.

Don’t fret, lovelies, Ruby will be fine.  She always is.

Be well, and be lovely.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Ruby’s Dilemma

Posted on by
22

“Wish I was a Kellogg’s Corn Flake, Floatin’ in my bowl takin’ movies. . .  Wish I was an English muffin, ‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster . . .”

Wait.  That’s Punky’s Dilemma.  That ain’t right.

So what is my dilemma, lovelies?  Well, it’s all of you.

No.  That’s not true either.  And it isn’t even late 60s-child-of-hippies confusion, either.  It’s blatantly false, it’s a passing of the buck.

Because, in truth, I am my dilemma.

I spent 12 solid hours this weekend reading blogs, commenting, etc., etc.  Seriously.  I know this because I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and by the time I finally quit, it was mid-afternoon.

I could, of course, have stopped myself at any time.  But I didn’t.  Because I have become emotionally entangled in your lives, and I want to be able to be present for everyone (even often silently) while still being present for myself (which sounds pretentious as fuck in the re-reading, but I promise I don’t mean it to be so).  One would think that would be impossible even as far as the time commitment goes.  Maybe it is, but I’m somehow making that work right now.  Usually.

I’m even balancing the emotional some.  Enough.  For the moment.

I spent yesterday “out and about”, as they say.  I had a doctor’s appointment, treated myself to some strawberry margaritas for lunch. . .  Wait.  I mean with lunch.  I sipped and kept company with Thomas Hardy and Egdon Heath, then went and had my hair done.  After which I got myself a chai tea (and had a fun flirt along with it, I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it, but I am an incorrigible flirt – in the best sense of the word, of course!), then went home and had an afternoon snack of aspirin and lots of water, remembering why I don’t drink lots of tequila at 11 o’clock a.m., and marveling on the phone to my very good friend (Hi!) at how I got through my early 20s pretty much sans hangover.  There’s a legitimate methodology to why, but I digress (like that’s ever stopped me before).

After my phone conversation I popped in a movie (Rita Hayworth as Gilda), followed it by soaking in the tub, whiled away the time with some music, and eventually fell asleep.

What is my dilemma again?

Well. . .  Shit.

Oh, well.  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Moral of the story:  Don’t forget the plot of the damned thing!

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.