Category Archives: Fear

Teach Your Children. . . Well

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I am getting so damned sick of having to bandage shaving wounds I inflict upon myself with gauze and medical tape to stop the bleeding, then having to go back to clean up scenes reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in my shower.  This is what I get for having epiphanies while holding a razor so near to my ankle.

But this time, it’s worth it.  I haven’t had words for a very long time, they had literally gone, but thanks to a friend of mine (whom shall be henceforth known simply as The Muse, she has inspired so much that matters in what I write) and a conversation we had, I have something important to say, and I know how to say it.

So sit down and listen, because when Mama Ruby talks like this, those who fail to pay attention do so at their own peril.

Now I am going to say one word, and I’ll only say it once, so you will not turn away because you are over-saturated-sick-to-death of reading and hearing about it:  Steubenville.

SIT.  BACK.  DOWN.

That’s not what I’m going to talk about, not directly.  A lot of people have already done a much better job than I ever could, and I’ll provide some links at the bottom for those who are interested.

But, as it would turn out, I have something to say related to this that hasn’t yet shown up on my radar as having been discussed.  And if it has, it bears repeating.  Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, anyone who is raising children, this matters.

I’m going to tell you how to talk your children about sex, and how not to.  I don’t mean I’m going to give you my value system, so you in the back there, getting up?  Yes, I see you.  Sit.

I had a conversation some time ago with a child of mine.*  I’m going to withhold all details of which one out of respect to her.  She’s old enough to be talking about sex (I think nowadays kids start doing that at preschool, right?), but what popped out of her mouth that day floored me.  It was a remark that came from some of her friends about rape, and if it hadn’t gotten me so livid, the subject matter probably would have taken me a bit by surprise.

The comment was how “such-and-such” behavior meant boys were going to rape her, if she didn’t do it differently.  Again, not mine to share, also not the point.  I got so whipped into a frenzy by this, I gave her the “doesn’t matter what you wear, do, if you’re drunk, etc.” and moved on and on, performing my denouement somewhere around, “I don’t care if you are lying naked on a bed, with a man you have had sex with hundreds of times before, I don’t care if he’s your husband, if you say no, he has no right.“

She got a little quiet by the end of my soliloquy — and I mean in demeanor, she never breaks in on me when I “get like that”, which isn’t very often.  In fact, she smiled a little inside.  Being able to read her, I can tell you it is exactly why she mentioned it, consciously or not.  She knew, but she needed the kind of fiery hot rage of reassurance that only Mama Ruby can provide.

She has good parents.  Wonderful parents.  And I guarantee that they have talked to her about sex.  Rape?

Here’s the thing, my loves.  I don’t believe in an abstinence only approach.  I also don’t believe that every child should be given condoms at a certain age.  I believe that if you are raising a child, you should absolutely do your best to instill your values into them (unless your values are really messed up, in which case you shouldn’t be raising a child and God help them).

But.

Your children are going to grow up, and they’re probably going to do some things you don’t agree with.  And even if they don’t, the odds are extremely high that they’ll have something done to them.  Every parent has that worst nightmare, and so do I, and every parent says, “not my child”.  That second thing I hope and I pray with everything in me, but I don’t say it blindly.  In the United States, one out of every six women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.**

Here is where the conversation parents have with their children needs undergo a seismic shift.  Because we live in a rape culture, that is a fact.  It’s an ugly one, and one that needs to change, but I’m not dealing in what “should be” right now, I’m dealing in the ugly reality of what is.

Parents, when you talk with your daughters (and sons) about sex, if you tell them to wait for marriage, if that is fundamental to your beliefs, I support you wholeheartedly.  With two caveats.  And to clarify, the second caveat applies to whatever stance you take when you talk with your kids, so those of you who have no problem with pre-marital sex, back in your seats.

The first is that you do not ever use the words “wrong”, “bad”, “immoral” or even “sin” when you do it.  That isn’t going to change the mind of a child/young adult/teenager/adult when they have decided to explore sex outside of the bonds of marriage.  I know, I’m sorry, it hurts to hear that, but it just isn’t.  What it is going to do is plant a deep seed of shame within them.  Such that if they are ever molested, raped, or sexually assaulted in any way, they’re going to be that much more hesitant to come forward and talk to you.  After all, if sex outside of marriage is so bad and wrong and sinful, then they must be bad and sinful, too.  Think what that does to someone who has just been horribly traumatized.

Don’t tell me it doesn’t work like that, either.  You expect them to listen when you say don’t have sex before marriage, but not remember all the other things you said when someone forces sex upon them against their will, their want, the very beliefs you have instilled?  Uh-uh.  No way.  You can’t have both.

Which brings us to caveat number two.  When you talk to your daughters and sons about sex, talk to them about sexual assault and rape, too.  I know.  Really big and really scary and my guts are churning just thinking of how to broach it.  But bite the damned bullet and do it.  Make sure that whether or not you think sex should only occur in marriage, when you teach your child about sex, you also teach them that if they are raped, if they are attacked in any way, it is never their fault.  That even if they have broken every rule you have ever made for them, if they have had sex before, if they were out drunk partying, I don’t care, doesn’t matter, they can come back and tell you what happened and you will support them with all of your heart.  And follow through on that.

If, God forbid, your daughter should come stumbling in at three a.m., clothes a mess, sobbing, and tell you she was assaulted, don’t ask what she was doing out, don’t ask her where she got that dress that’s so short.  Sit down with her and tell her that you love her and will do anything she needs you to.  I can’t tell you what that may be.  Maybe the foundation you laid will be enough to help her want to call 911 and report it.  Maybe she won’t be able to do that, and it won’t be anyone’s fault but the scum who put her in such a state.  But at least she’ll know that you have her back 110%, that you don’t think she’s “bad” or “sinful”, and that you want to do whatever you can to help her.

And, sadly, even that won’t make her magically feel better, like when you used to be able to kiss a bump and make it go away.  But it may make it easier for her to see herself as a worthwhile, valuable, beautiful human being once again.

*For those who don’t know, I have no children of my own.  I do have several “daughters of my heart” that I used to care for and still consider “mine”.

**Source:  RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

Relevant Reads:
I’m angry | Meizac
The Wrong Message | The Bad Luck Detective (trigger warning)

And if you read nothing else, please read this piece:
Steubenville’s Jane Doe asked people to do something…

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. 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.

Dear Depression, Fuck You

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You are not me.  You are not a part of who I am.  You may have the power to dictate what I can and cannot do, but you are not something I accept, you are not part and parcel of my life and living with mental illness.

You have robbed me of so much joy, you have stolen years of my life.  I won’t take it anymore.  Yes, even as I sit up here sobbing because downstairs my mother and father are celebrating; it’s his birthday and I spent fifteen minutes with him before I was driven upstairs by you, you piece of shit.

I don’t want you.  I didn’t ask for you.  It’s not my fault that there is no medication on this earth that can drive you from my life.

But I want you gone anyway.  You are not part of me, you are not welcome, stop taking and taking and taking all that I love from me.

I’m scared of my friends, I’m scared of my family, of my life, of my thoughts, of my words.

I was happy today.  I was driving, and the windows were down, and I had the music full blast, and I should have just stayed on the highway, I could have been on the coast by Friday morning.

But I came home, and then came you.

So I say fuck you, I say go to hell, I say leave me be.  One week, one day where I can live without being crippled by your death-grasp.

I can’t do this anymore.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. 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.

The Midnight Ravings Of A Madwoman

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I’ve had some shit going on in me lately, I haven’t been quite myself.  Or rather I have been, I’ve just been a self I don’t particularly care for, and usually have properly under wraps.

Paranoia.  It’s an ugly word, a much uglier feeling.  What am I so afraid of?  Better to ask what I’m not.  I’m afraid of leaving my room.  I’m afraid of speaking to anyone.  Two years ago it was so bad that I had a little device rigged up to cover the lens for the camera in my laptop.  Never mind if it was turned on or not.  And there has been more.  A lot more.

You can’t explain paranoia, nor can you really do much to treat it.  I carry diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Of all of these, I say paranoia is the worst.

In any case, GAD, PD, OCD, PTSD, these are all things that came along for the ride when my bipolar got bad — latent traits, recessive genes activated by my wildly dominant bipolar.  Or, in the case of PTSD, a trauma that was a result of a “treatment” for my bipolar depression (electroconvulsive therapy), and a trust violated.

Paranoia has been with me, in milder but truer form, since birth (to keep things straight, I do not believe that bipolar has, but that I have yet to discuss).  I have what a lifelong friend calls “a paranoid personality” (minus the disorder part, it makes an enormous difference).  And it’s true.  I read the big books young, cutting my teeth on gems like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and (of course) George Orwell’s 1984.  I even understood the evils of totalitarian societies when I read Richard Adams’ Watership Down for the first time when I was ten.  Oh yes, a book about bunnies and evil.

These books didn’t make me paranoid. I was drawn to them because they spoke to something I knew, something which was already a part of me.

Lately there have been so many people and things that have me scared. I’ll stick to the latter.  This thing, this internet, this “information superhighway” — it scares the fuck out of me.  Do you know how your information is being collated and collected and used and stored?  I think most of you know the bare bones of facebook.  But do you know that The Library of Congress is saving all of your tweets?  Do you know how tailored Google’s algorithms and tracking of pretty much everything you do online is? Do you know that the privacy laws (in the United States, at least) protecting information like your private, personal email correspondence are so incredibly loose as to be a joke?

(Do you know I am terrified to have ventured down to The Dungeon right now to post this? My wi-fi is out, so I have to connect to the modem in the basement directly and I feel utterly exposed.)

Do I know I sound like I’m raving like a madwoman right now?  Yep.  That’s what paranoia does.  I’m terrified to watch and read and learn more, but I’m much more frightened to look away, because someone has to be paying attention, goddamnit.

I don’t know.  I don’t know what I’m meant to do with this, what I mean with this post.  I have this magic brain — and not in the crazy, “magical thinking way”, in the unusual, really fucking amazing way.  It got me through years of horror and saw me out the other side.  It’s like there are two of me, living simultaneously.  And one of them would be hallucinating, and the other one would be telling that one, ‘This is a hallucination.  Those noises, that smell, those things you see and feel on your skin, they aren’t real.  It’s okay, don’t worry, all you have to do is to just wait it out.’

And I did.  That part of me saved me, it talked me through highs and lows and fears and crazies and got me to where I could be the happy, healthy, more-or-less sane woman I am now (maybe not right now).  Most people don’t have that, believe me, I’ve done my research here.  But my point is, that part of me is now wondering how to talk the other part down.  Or at least keep a lid on things until this episode passes.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. 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.

A Start

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I had my first lucid realization of just how convoluted and contorted I had become a few months back.  I had been sitting on my bed, probably the safest and most secure place that exists for me.

The long, opaque, rich, velvet purple drapes were drawn over the sheers and their butterflies.  The trees in front of my house afforded another layer of privacy, and even had I stripped the windows of everything, they faced only into the very innocuous cul-de-sac I had lived on for more than two decades.

I can honestly say I like very much all of my neighbors; some have lived here longer than I have, others have only moved in within the last decade, but most of them I know well and feel comfortable enough with that were I in the throes of an acute psychiatric emergency, and really in need of help, I know I could go running to their doorsteps, despite the fact that they have no knowledge as to why I am my age and living still with my parents, why for years I didn’t leave the house very often, why for months I left only with one of my parents driving me. . .  You get the picture.  These neighbors may wonder, but they are all extremely kind souls whom I would trust with my life.

That day. . .  I really don’t remember any specifics of what I was doing or why I had to get up or what the plan had been.

What I do remember is this.  I was getting up to go to the bathroom and shower, but in my depression, my radical, all-encompassing, consuming depression, things didn’t go quite as planned.  I slid my feet to the floor next to my bed, but instead of standing up, I let the rest of my body pool onto a blanket that had fallen there.  I was so tired, weary in every cell in my body, weary in my mind, weary in my spirit, and a little rest was in order before I dragged myself to the bathroom and under the unrelenting spray of the hot water.

This is when it happened.  The minute I settled to the floor, I relaxed, I let out a breath I hadn’t the slightest idea I had been holding.  Between me and the windows now stood my bed and a bookcase, two sturdy, totally solid objects – a nice little wall that blocked even more entirely any view from the outside.  And I finally felt safe from the eyes of the world.

It didn’t take more than a second or two of sinking into the floor when the full magnitude of what had just occurred came to the forefront of my mind.

‘What the – I just – why in hell – there is something incredibly not right going on in my head.’

Allow me to translate that a bit.  I realized that the involuntary sense of calm that washed over me as I finally found myself a place to hide completely was not normal.  Even for me, it was an utterly foreign experience.  Because in order for that peace and safety and, ultimately, relaxation to hit me in that moment, in those circumstances, it meant that I must have been scared as hell, in a more subtle and deeply ingrained way than I had ever realized.

Paranoia.

I’d known that there was something deeply amiss in my fears and beliefs about people, the world at large, and my personal thoughts and reactions to all of it for some time.  I spoke at length to my good friend Em months before, trying to suss out whether what I had been experiencing was just a healthy (if unusual) mistrust, or something more.  She told me she thought I had a ‘paranoid personality’; more aware and concerned and distrustful of the world at large than most.  I guarded myself and my secrets rigidly, always questioned motives, and never took anything at face value.  Unusual, but just part of who I was.  No reason for alarm.

I couldn’t communicate to her then the changes that had begun more than a year prior.  I couldn’t communicate to her how much more this was, how deeply in the thrall of this monster in my mind I in fact was, because I didn’t know.

It wasn’t until that morning, cocooned on my floor, months later, that something snapped into place in my brain and I started to understand how severely and seriously delusional I had become.

That was it, that was the moment when I began to look at how incredibly distorted my mind had become.  It wasn’t only paranoia and delusions, there was more.  There was much, much more.

But that was the moment that changed everything for me.  That was the beginning of the end, though I didn’t know it at the time.

That was when I started to take myself back.

© 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.

If You Ever Come And Find Me Crying. . .

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. . . now you know why.

(This song and video are solely the property of their respective owners and artists. Absolutely no copyright infringement is intended.)

Moral of the story: I don’t know. I haven’t gotten to the end of mine yet.

© 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.

Soul Shocked

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I confess that I have been feeling this way lately.  It’s that special time of year again, the time the creeps up on me, not without my knowledge, but at least this time without my preparedness.  The post-traumatic demons caught me, in spite of my best efforts.

You see, it was about this time two years ago that I started my course of what would ultimately be 16 shocks to my brain.  Forget what you have heard or been told by your doctors or read about the safety and efficacy of ECT for a moment and just think about it.  Think about allowing yourself to be anesthetized, given a muscle-paralyzing agent, and having someone administer an electrical shock to your brain.  Think of that, not in terms of what science says is appropriate or therapeutic, but as the actual, terrifying, barbaric procedure that electroconvulsive therapy is.

I know that ECT has helped people, and I am happy for anyone who has achieved a better quality of life, but it destroyed so much of mine.  It obliterated great pieces of my mind and of my soul, pieces I have to fight to reclaim again every single day.

You may not have a sense of it from the posts that make up this blog, but I have always lived my life as a very independent woman.  Even when my manic-depression and anxiety were at their zenith, I still fought on my own two feet.  I don’t yet know what happened inside, what caused me to “consent” to undergo a procedure I had researched thoroughly and had been vehemently against for years.  But it changed me in ways I am still trying to wrap my mind around.

The Thursday before last, I called my psychiatrist and my mom called off from work.  My father was at home as well, but I was simply too distraught to be left.  I spent the greater part of that day curled up in my parents’ bed, alternating between crying, sleeping, and taking my next dose of alprazolam.  My mother watched over me, sometimes just sitting and talking or holding me, other times peeking through the gap in the doorway at me as I slept.

I had come to a crossroads of sheer terror that morning.  It was An Unspeakable Dilemma all over again, minus the seizures.  I knew I couldn’t continue to live the way that I had been, but I also knew I wasn’t ready to confront and work through the trauma that was holding me hostage.  I had no direction in which to flee, monsters surrounded me at every turn.

But somehow, between my mother’s love, my doctor’s care, the soporific effects of the Xanax, and the oblivion of sleep, I passed the time.  I saw my psychiatrist the next day, and we discussed the issue very generally.  He doesn’t know all of the gory details of the situation, he hasn’t been treating me for very long.  But he is a kind and extremely knowledgeable man. He prescribed more alprazolam, 2 mg t.i.d (three times a day), and we discussed a more comprehensive plan.

He wants me to see a psychologist and be treated with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (you might read the article EMDR-Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety,Stress,Trauma & Self-Sabotage for an explanation of this technique).  Generally, I don’t do well in therapy, but I underwent EMDR years ago for a different issue and found it tremendously effective.  I also found the process itself incredibly distressing.  You have to relinquish control (which I am terrible at), trust your therapist completely (which I am equally bad at), and be prepared to be hit by memories, feelings, and thoughts that you had no idea were even disturbing you (I’m no good at that one, either).

But.  Something’s got to give.  I really feel that with all of my Alphabet Soup diagnoses, post-traumatic stress disorder is the most horrible and virtually impossible to deal with.  Right now I have fallen back into patterns of insomnia (I haven’t slept since Friday night), I am reactive and irritable, I am scared and anxious, and I am in danger of becoming the ugly, hurtful, hateful person I found when I reread much of this blog.  The woman who lashes out at those who love and support her, the woman who dissociates and creates different identities just to get through the day, the one who suffers from strange forms of paranoia.

So I am taking steps.  I have finally worked up the nerve to begin to read an excellent book I have on the subject of PTSD, and I also just purchased a text on EMDR, written by Dr. Francine Shapiro (who “originated and developed” the therapy).  I even had a really brave moment and made an appointment with my psychologist for later this week.  I can’t say with any certainty that I am ready to start this therapy, but as least she is someone I trust (mostly) whom I can discuss my options with.  And I have another appointment in a day or so with my psychiatrist.  He’s keeping a close eye on me.

And, oddly enough, I’m not really doing so terribly.  I am keeping my mind occupied and surrounding myself with supportive people.  I’m journaling and doing a great deal of housecleaning, both literally and figuratively.

Moral of the story:  

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” ~ Marcel Proust


© 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.

Written All Over My Face

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It seems that the PTSD has found a new, surprising, and extra-fun way to screw with my head: agoraphobia.

For those of you who don’t know (or those of you who think you know but are wrong), agoraphobia has its roots in both Greek and Latin (which nobody cares about save me).  It more or less translates literally to “fear of the marketplace.”  More exactly, in modern days, it means fear of open spaces.  However the popular, understood meaning has become fear of going out anywhere (particularly anywhere with people) throughout the years.

I woke up a little while ago to my alarm (anyone remember when you didn’t wake to an ‘alarm,’ but an ‘alarm clock?’) because I have a doctor’s appointment today.  It was scheduled as a follow-up after the ER thing, but I thought, okay, I need to kick his ass into gear about the referral to the seizure clinic for my pseudoseizures.

When I became conscious a bit ago, and thought about getting out of bed and going out, I was absolutely stricken.  Frozen, could not move, no way I could go anywhere, utterly horrified at the thought.

This is a completely new sensation for me.  I’ve avoided going out before, but because I was depressed or tired or didn’t want to deal with people, and yes, there may have been an anxiety component, but not like this.  Not a completely rigid, paralyzing panic at the idea of going just to see my doctor, my doctor of half my life in an office I’ve been to a million and one times.

So I lay in my bed thinking (with this almost dissociative feeling), Oh, lovely.  So now my post-traumatic stress disorder has decided to manifest itself with agoraphobia.  And I thought and thought and thought, debating whether I should call and cancel the appointment, whether I should just hide under the covers from the world and not do anything, whether I should take this one head on and not only go to the doctor’s, but run as many other errands in as many public places as I could.  There is no middle ground in my life.

So I got out of bed and went downstairs to get something to drink, which in itself was difficult.  I leaned outside the back door where my father was to ask him a question.  I was in the process of closing the door and he called out to me.

“Ruby?”

“Yes,” I answered him.

“Do you want me to drive you?”

I was a little confused by this, but I figured I knew why, so I answered with my own question, “Because of the pseudoseizures?”

He responded with something very out of character, especially for my father.  ”Because of that,” he paused, “or anything.”  I thought this was kind of odd, but told him thanks, I could do it, and went back upstairs.

And then it occurred to me.  I must have been standing there looking like I was frightened out of my mind.  It must have been really apparent.  Not to disparage my dad (you all know I do that openly and don’t hold back if I’m going to), but he doesn’t pick up on subtleties.  Or even the obvious things, often times.  So for him to have noticed that there was something very, very, wrong about my affect. . .  Well it must have been vivid in everything about me.  Posture, face, tone of voice, etc., everything.  And I won’t omit the fact that I am grateful that he would do that for me.

So, we shall see.  I’m getting ready to go get ready, and I’ll take it from there.  My very beautiful friend has offered to help me through, via telephone (I couldn’t describe to you what she means to me).  I’m going to try to conquer the world, let’s see if I make it past the car.

Moral of the story:  I don’t know what it is yet, but I do know that I’m beyond grateful for people who love and support me.

Addendum:  I wrote this in its entirety before I left the house, but I didn’t have time to do all the behind the scenes editing, tagging, etc. crap.  When I was out conquering the world, two random people said things to me about driving carefully (although not in such a grammatically correct way).  I asked someone else with whom I was talking if I had some weird frightening look about me that screamed, “Unfocused, dangerous driver,” or something, and she said no.  WTF?

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. 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.

The Good, The Bad, The Conpuzzling, And The Fun

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I feel as though I have been through every single form of me in a little more than a week.  I feel that way, but I’m sure I have many more surprise versions of myself who just haven’t shown themselves recently.

I’m stronger.  I’ve gotten more positive.  I’ve stood myself back up and put up a fight, kicking and biting and scratching and saying, ‘Fuck you,’ to what is thought to be polite, acceptable, and appropriate.  I’ve found myself again.

I’ve gotten frustrated.  I’ve broken and screamed and cried and yelled and lashed out and been honest.  I’ve become so exhausted with everyone and everything and the rampant hypocrisy of people who are totally in denial or unaware.  Actually, none of that is bad in any way, now that I think on it.

Conpuzzling is one of my favorite word fusions.  I’m pretty sure this one is actually mine, or if nothing else, I’m the one I’ve heard it from.  I can’t especially explain the representations of it in the recent past.  If I could, they would cease to fall under the category at all.

As far as fun, that I’ve had lots of.  It’s amazing what you can enjoy doing immensely while taking back you.  Maybe it will have been worth it just for that.

I’ll probably have all sorts of pent-up rage and be a bitch again in no time.  But if you can’t handle me at my worst. . .

Right now I’m good with just being me.  And as a good friend reminded me, right now is what matters.

Mm, sleepy.  I’m going to go iCarly it.  See you on the flip.

Moral of the story:  Bravery can be found in many forms and manifestations.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. 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.

To Hospitalize Or Not To Hospitalize

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That seems to be the question.

I have spent all of my life saying, “No, no, no, under no circumstances, absolutely not, I never want to be put (or put myself) in a psych ward.”  I have a friend who has been hospitalized on several occasions, and she said it made her feel safe and taken care of.  Me, I can only imagine feeling trapped and regimented and told what to do, when to do it, what to eat, which meds to take and when. . .  Well, if I weren’t crazy upon checking in, I certainly would be after a day or so.

I have to be in control, you see.  I have to decide what I want to eat, and whether I want to eat it at three in the afternoon or three in the morning.  I need to be able to run to Starbucks when the urge hits me.  I need to be able to lay in bed on days when I just cannot face the world, not made to get up and “interact.”

But twice lately I have been seriously thinking about the unimaginable, about “committing myself.”  I am not a danger to myself or anyone else.  But the first instance was close to a month ago, when I was very out-of-control manic.  I felt like I hadn’t any other options, and that if nothing else I would be in an environment where I could get the kind of close scrutiny and observation that I needed, and hopefully something helpful for the mania.

Thank God the drugs I did have kicked in that day, because I don’t want to be scrutinized and observed.  I’m not a research project or experiment.

Today, the catalyst for these thoughts was a great deal simpler.  I woke up.  That’s all, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.  And I thought about having to face the world, and the day, and talking to people, and having responsibilities, and even just not being able to shut out the things dancing around and around in my brain.  And it got me thinking about the hospital.  After the last time, I even went so far as to ask my doctor if I were to do it, which would be the best hospitals in the area.

I want somewhere to hide.  From myself as well as everyone else.  I don’t really think that hospitalization could provide that, from what I have heard.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a private room, and that alone would push me over the edge.  The nurses and doctors coming in to give me medications, to check on me, to encourage me to/make me go participate in group and individual therapy sessions. . .

But I don’t know what to do.  Will someone please help me figure out what to do?

How the hell could a hospital help me, anyway?  I’ve been on every drug, no exaggeration.  Would you like to talk with my psychiatrist, because he’ll confirm that for you.  I’ve had 16 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, which only made me worse.  I’ve tried IPSRT and CBT and EMDR (which are all common types of therapy for bipolar disorder), and I didn’t find relief from any of them.  What could the psych ward of a hospital do that hasn’t already been done?

There’s just this one thing.  The fact that after a lifetime of saying, “Absolutely not,” to the idea of inpatient treatment, I have now thought seriously about it twice within the span of a month.  And on my own, without suggestion or coercion or manipulation.

The thing that made me so angry about the ECT, in retrospect, is that no one asked me why I had suddenly changed my mind on something I had been so violently against.  So I guess the best way to end this would be to ask that question myself:  Why am I seriously considering changing my mind on in-patient treatment, when for all of my life I have been against it?  

The best answer I can think of is that I’m scared, and I’m lost, and I don’t know what else to do.  Does that count?  Is it enough for me to do it?  It’s most certainly a far better and more legitimate answer than, “Because my doctor told me I have no other options.”

Maybe since I have had these thoughts so frequently, it’s a sign that I’m headed toward an inevitable action.  And certainly if that’s the case, then it’s much better to bow to it now – when I can do it myself, instead of being forced into it, when I can ask the questions and get the answers that I need, and when I am still coherent and competent enough to be an active force in my treatment, and get the hell out if need be.

Moral of the story:  Sorry, no moral today.  It’s just all way too much right now.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. 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.