Category Archives: Instinct

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.

Dust Off Your Highest Hopes

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Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution.  Now raise your hand if you have ever completely failed on one — or most.

Yeah, me too.  Actually, I think I got wise to the whole resolution game before I was nine.  That was how old I was the last time I made a New Year’s resolution.  And no, I don’t remember what it was.

The thing is, failing at a New Year’s resolution isn’t really a very painful experience, like failing at a goal you set for yourself some other time of the year.  Why not?  Because you know that countless other people are failing at theirs as well.  You aren’t alone.  It’s a time of year when we can actually all have a bit of a laugh and understanding for our failures.  It’s almost expected.  We do it together.

Well, I have a better idea for something we can all do together to begin this year.  I say we hope for ourselves.

In 2012, I got the thing in my life that mattered most, the thing I thought I had given up hoping for on any real, fundamental level.  After half my life dealing with raging mental illness, and the last six years (give or take) causing such acute suffering that I didn’t even know who I was anymore, I had given up ever seeing myself again.  I never gave up believing that something would help glue together the pieces into a semblance of myself, but that wonderful, beautiful, bright, happy, intelligent, crazy, head-in-the-clouds-and-hands-in-the-stars me. . . she wasn’t coming back.

Only she did.  She’s here.

Last March, one Sunday I woke up and I was the girl I’d been ten years ago.  And I knew that she would never go again.  I have to keep taking medication, yes, and I’ve had some hiccups, true enough.  But I knew that Sunday I had somehow fought through all of those years to get me back.  I believed it that first day, and I believe it all these months later.

So let’s do something else this New Year’s Eve, and let’s do it together.  Let’s hope.

I may not be the most interactive blogger when I write, but this post is designed differently (and take advantage of that, as it may be the only one!).  I’m going to share with all of you, my loves, the things I am hoping for in the year to come.  Things for me, in my life.  Yes, I hope for a kinder, more peaceful world, and I hope that my girls will continue to find the happiness in growing up and be spared as much as possible from the pain.  Of course I hope for those things.  Everyone hopes for things such as those.

I hope to do more things like this, with this lady (who has not signed a photo release) if possible

I hope to do more things like this, with this lady (who has not signed a photo release) if possible

 
 
In this post, though, the hopes I will share with you will be my hopes, for my life.  Things upon which I have some direct effect, and things upon which I may have none.  And I would love so very much for you to share yours with me in the comments.  As many as you would like.  You may find this a little scary, when you really get down to it.  I certainly do.  Because hope touches the most intimate and secret places in our hearts, and it is often something we don’t share with anyone.

 
 
But here I go:

  • I hope to be good and properly swept off my feet this year.  I’ve been in love, and I have even let my heart and senses get ahead of my brain (but not since I was 16).  I don’t care if it’s love, and I don’t care if it lasts for a year or a week.  I just want to lose all sense of “should I?” and go for it.
  • I hope to be able to get out and live on my own.  My parents are lovely to have taken me this far, but I need my own space in which I can properly enjoy being me again.  I don’t care if it’s a one-room studio, or if it’s drafty, or if I have to walk a million stairs.  As long as it has a proper kitchen, washer and dryer hookups, and a bathtub!
  • I hope I can have regular dates with my Babygirl once again (lunch on Sundays, perhaps).  She is at a place where I feel like she needs me more, and I have always needed her.  The difference is that now I can be there for her in a tangible way.
  • I hope to get back to kickboxing (I had a nice start pre-mono) and rebuild my strength, my endurance, my confidence, and my body, too.  Kickboxing does wonders for me as a mood stabilizer as well, so there really is no downside.
  • I hope to do a lot more traveling, both domestically and (kicking in some major hopes) internationally.  Rome, Venice, get ready for Ruby!
  • I hope all the necessaries can align for me to get that tattoo I’ve been planning for some time.  Artist, money, me. . .  It matters.
  • I hope to learn film development.  And yes, I mean color as well.  Every time someone tells me how incredibly difficult color is, it makes me want it more and more.  Again, there are many things that must align in this equation.
  • I hope I can spend more and more time reading.  I’ve said previously that I was grateful to just be able to read again at all, and so I was, and so I’ll always be.  But that doesn’t have to be the end of it, and I believe that if I work on it, and never say enough, I may be able to get back to reading the way that I used to.  To devouring.
  • I hope to get back to writing more.  Blogging, yes, but more writing for myself.  Journaling, writing fiction, sending letters and emails, even.  I intend to feed my imagination so much that it has no choice but to bleed through my fingers onto the page.
  • I hope to actually do something with my recently discovered love of oil pastels.  It may turn out beautifully, it may turn out like the scribblings of a two-year-old, it will most likely turn out somewhere in the middle, but I want it to turn out.  I want to lose The Fear.
  • I hope, in addition to the general travel wish, to spend a great deal of time at the beach.  Or, more precisely, in the ocean!

There you are.  From my heart to yours.  Now share with me what you have in your heart.  What do you hope for in the year to come?

I hope you all have a wonderful year, full of hope, and I send you my love.

Addendum: Hopes have no expiration dates, and this post is not just a New Year’s Eve thing. Keep sharing the things you want for this year (nothing as ugly as “must dos”, but the beautiful “I hopes” — see below for the things others have contributed, if you’re confused), because if you accomplish nothing else, in doing so you spread a little more joy into the world. Also, if you decide to share your hopes on your own blog, let me know with a link!

Oooh, Meizac wrote a post, Meizac wrote a post! Go forth and read: My hopes for the year to come

© 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.

My Farewell Post

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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.

On Being A Bitch

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(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.

Sometimes You Have To Stop With The Commenting. . .

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. . . and just write a damned post of your own, already.  This is something that often keeps my comments on other bloggers’ posts to a minimum, honestly.  A post will get me thinking more and more and I will try to respond in a comment and it will turn into such a long and involved soliloquy that I have to interrupt myself and say, ‘Ruby!  Five hundred words does not a comment make!  Write it up as a damned post, already!’

And so I will.

This post is brought to you by DeeDee, author of Disorderly Chickadee.  She has recently added her fiery and indomitable voice to A Canvas Of The Minds (if you don’t know what that is, then click!), and a question posed in her very first post, Where Do I Begin?, got me all excited to write.  The question in question was, “Where does my condition end, and I begin?”

I have a much more well-defined – yet still extremely nebulous – answer for this one than the majority of people carrying mental illness diagnoses, I suspect.  To the anxiety components, I have mentioned before (y’know, somewhere in the annals of this blog) that I come from a long line of bona fide worriers.  From my great-grandmother, to my grandfather, and on to my mother has passed this trembling torch.  None of them would ever be classed as having an anxiety disorder (I can speak with total certainty about my mother and my grandfather, to be fair I did not know my great-grandmother, but my mom did).  My mother has to take some Valium before flying, but that hardly counts.  At its very worst it would be a mild phobia, specifically pteromerhanophobia (good lord, now there’s a word).

For whatever reason, that torch exploded into an inferno in me.  But that isn’t something I want to focus on here.  I don’t embrace it.  Anxiety, in any form, I am learning to solidly kick the ass of.  Anxiety, even worry is never useful or productive.  Concern is something we should all have, but once it goes beyond that stage – pfft.

Let’s talk about bipolar disorder in the context of where it ends and I begin.

The first thing I will tell you is that I was here first.  BD came later, after I had myself quite well-established, thank you very much.  This is probably what has saved me time and again, by the way.  Having such an incredibly well-defined sense of myself since. . . I don’t know what age.  To hear my mom talk, and to rely on memories and other internal evidence, I was probably born with that.  Yes, I was so fortunate as to grow up in a house with a loving family who encouraged this sensibility in me, but there is something else, something inside of me that would still be there had I grown up otherwise.

In any case, manic-depression was an uninvited guest to the party that is me.

But maybe it thought it was invited.  Maybe it got confused.  Because the other thing that’s highly pertinent is that I have what is informally called “a bipolar-type personality.”  I don’t know how common this is in others who carry this diagnosis (or, for that matter, in those who don’t).  It certainly isn’t often heard of, or if it is, only in the context of confusion and what is me, wait, is this the disorder, I don’t know!  But I know.  And the people who have known me longest know.  And even my darling PCP knows that when I am not in an episode, when I am completely and utterly symptom-free (ahem, now), I am still wild and unpredictable and madly passionate by temperament.  Always have been, always will be.  That’s just Ruby.

Which is not to say I cannot differentiate between symptom and personality trait. Actually, it is meant to say the exact opposite.  I certainly can, and with rare precision.  But having this temperament inherently made it much more difficult for me to do so, and made my disordered ups and downs infinitely easier for me to disguise.

It did something else.  It fractured relationships after I chose to seek treatment.  Not so many, but some very important ones.  It fractured them because people who loved me, people who wanted most desperately and tried so very, very hard to understand it all – through years, exhausting years of me trying to ‘get well’ – simply couldn’t.  Because now, things that I was putting forth as symptoms. . .  Well those aren’t symptoms, they’re just Ruby being Ruby.  She’s always been like that.

When in fact I hadn’t, I had just hidden the transition, the massive tectonic shift inside of me so beautifully, and not sought for help until more than a decade-and-a-half after the fact.

Oh well, right?  It’s no one’s fault.  These people didn’t want to lose me in their lives any more than I wanted to lose them.  It took me a while, but I did come to understand that.

And I wouldn’t choose to be any other way, or to walk any other path than the one I have.

Moral of the story:  ”And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” ~ John Donne

© 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.

A Change Of Pace And Momentary Lightening Of The Load

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Sometime during last week, I honestly cannot figure out when, I came out of my stupor and made an attempt at writing a new about me page.  The one that had previously been up, The Alleged Blogger (which can still be located in the drop-down menus), I had literally written nearly a year ago when I started this blog.

Well, I certainly wrote a bio.  On the surface, it’s about my family and how they have shaped me and the way that they view me.  But really, it is truly a piece about my own views of me.

It’s also just over 2,000 words, which is why I won’t make it my official About.  But I will give it its own drop-down, and present it to you (in its very lengthy entirety) here.

A Free Spirit

I hate wearing anything on my shoulders, my neck, or my back. Most especially my shoulders (strapless dresses in the middle of winter, yes, please!). I honestly cannot think of the reason for this. In the summer, when it’s very hot, I lay in my bed at night (or whenever I sleep) and pull the sheet down so that my front is covered but my back is exposed, and I can feel the air from the fan on it and on my shoulders and the back of my neck. I don’t have any aversion or dislike to the breeze on the front of me, there’s just something about feeling it only on my back that makes it especially delicious.

Now that I’ve cleared that up. . .

I titled this page A Free Spirit for many reasons. I have been called a free spirit for as long as I can remember, by people who know me well, by people who know me in passing, and by people whose knowledge of me lies somewhere on the middle of the spectrum. It isn’t such a bad thing to be called, actually I think that it’s wonderful, especially because I have truly felt like a very free spirit for as long as I can remember.

I begin by giving my parents due credit for that.

There was my wonderful mother (she isn’t dead, I just say was because I’m referring to the way she raised me when I was young), and my incredible father. They gave me gifts that defy description. The most important things they gave me are the things that make me me. . .

They immersed me in creativity and culture while I was still inside my mother’s womb. My father is a truly gifted musician – he could have gone on and done some really incredible things, professionally, had he not fallen in love with my mom and decided that raising a family meant so much more (for the record, he made the right choice for himself and he knows it). He’s in his 60s now, and still plays incredible, amazing, mind-boggling electric bass and acoustic guitar. He plays in the basement, and I listen, completely enthralled. He also plays live, with no less than four different bands.

My mother’s creativity manifests itself a bit differently. She reads, reads, reads (she passed that trait along), and she becomes so completely immersed in literature, in such a way I think writers merely dream about a reader possibly falling into the fantastical world that they have created with their meager allotment of 26 letters. Accordingly, I grew up with a passionate love for printed words and pages in any genre, variety, diversity, or assortment (yes, I was that girl, the one who read every word on the cereal boxes at breakfast). Still, I know I haven’t yet attained those alternate literary realities with the utter profundity of my mother. One day.

She also used to write wonderful poetry, and I sometimes wonder why she stopped, but then our lives often take us down unforeseen avenues. I truly believe she has found her peace in the choices she made, but it matters not in this particular milieu, as I have absolutely no desire to awaken such a sensitive component, now resting (I hope) peacefully in her soul.

For all my creativity, I am also extremely analytical. That’s the catch. I used to demand a reason or an answer for everything, though I am now learning not to be quite so contentious and quarrelsome as I once was. When all of the other children relentlessly pestered their parents with Why?, I wanted to know What if?

But I am once again learning to let go and trust the author. If you cannot do that, then the book is nothing but paper, ink, and a dust jacket.

(There is a story behind that ‘once again’ thing, but this is neither the time nor the place for telling it.)

The things my parents gave me that matter most, they gave me without much in the way of pre-meditated consciousness. They taught me well, and they taught me by their example. They gave me love for all mankind (and all animal-kind, as well) by living and showing it to me every day.

They gave me the ability and liberty to run free, and try my very best to figure out on my own (much as I was able) this enormous THING that was the world; then run back to the safety of their presence and ask question after question about the things I couldn’t make sense of in my mind. Mom and Dad knew that the way to really understand something was to figure it out on your own, as much as you could, then ask for some help.

Most importantly, they gave me respect and understanding, and difficult though (I know) it was at times, they gave me the confidence to become my own person, and allowed me the freedom to trust in my own judgment and instincts.

And then I crashed and burned, and they picked me up, and loved me, and took care of me like never before.

Alright, I know that I have a propensity to meander through my writings and wander from what many would consider as the subject or the point. At times even I wonder where the hell I’m going.

So, most particularly for those of you skimming this page who much prefer a sort of quick, minimalist “novice’s guide” to my very deeply felt passions, comforts, beliefs, delights, and loves, you will find some fascinating facts directly below this next sentence.

For those of you who have stuck with me for the long haul and actually read all of this, I am wildly appreciative – not to put too fine a point on it – and I hope you enjoy the way the whole of the story ends as much as I do.

Fascinating Facts

  • I love to read any- and everything I can get my hands on, though it is not as easy for me to breathlessly devour a book as it once was. I need to focus on deeper breaths and smaller bites. Or so it would seem.
  • I adore music. On a good day it is a basic, fundamental necessity for me. When I’m not doing so well, it is cathartic, tranquilizing (yes, it actually can be both), and a consummate form of therapy for me. But being, y’know, me, I am compelled to pass along an unhappy and disheartening truth about the current state of most – not all, but far too much – music. From the song ‘Last Man Standing,’ by Bon Jovi, whether it means anything at all to you, my lovelies, I iterate, “So keep your pseudo-punk-hip-hop-pop-rock-junk and your digital downloads.”  Urgh. I think my age is showing a bit. It’s either that or my love of good music (probably both). ;)
  • I do not subscribe to the idea or concept of coincidence. Just doesn’t fly with me. I do believe with all of my heart, my soul, and my being in serendipity, though. It’s one of my favorite things in all of the Universe.
  • Very few things fill me with wonder and joy the way a surprise glimpse of a shooting star does. And yes. Of course I always make a wish. :P
  • My babies unequivocally fall into that just-mentioned category of “very few things,” filling me with more wonder, joy, and elation than a million shooting stars ever would.

And finally, we are at the place in this extremely long, and yet somehow still strangely cohesive piece of writing, signifying that we have made it to the part which means so much more to me than anything else. It isn’t a prize, nor an award, nor is it what most everyone would think of when they imagine an honor. No medal, no plaque, no ribbon. It’s “merely” an endearment. An endearment that my wonderful grandfather doesn’t even know I’m writing about. Which is a lot the point.

I love both of my grandfathers very, very much. But my mom’s dad, he has always seen something else in me. Something more, something different, something that no one else in my entire life can see except in glimpses and shadows. And it goes both ways. There is just something about him that I know and see and understand. Sometimes I feel like he knows me better than anyone in all of my life. And he watched me, from when I was a baby, all through my years at school, during these last terrible years of struggle. Struggle I would shield him from if I could – though that would really be dishonesty and an insult to the man – struggle I know my family, especially mother has tried. . . not to hide, but to downplay so he wouldn’t worry so much.

Maybe were it another family member instead of me, maybe it would work. But he takes one good look into my face (no matter how much I’m smiling and delighted to see him) and he knows. He knows it all, and he doesn’t need diagnoses or labels to understand the pain that I’m in, and how hard I fight it every moment.

My grandfather is the most wonderful human ever to grace this earth. He will be 93 soon, and he is sharp and independent and pretty content with his life, overall. We don’t have long, deep conversations about the meaning of life and the challenges unique to me or my disorders. Mostly we talk about his dog, a sweetheart of a pug. But in so very many ways he knows me better than anyone on this earth. He lives in Pittsburgh, and I live Here (which is much, much too far from him). But each time we visit him, every time he sees me, he always gives me a hug filled with a strength that belies his frail frame, kisses me, and says, “God bless ya, Ruby.”

So, back to the endearment he has placed upon me we come. I am a free spirit.

You can look and search and hunt and peck through real live dictionaries, online dictionaries, forums and physical places for “free spirits” to come together (one I may call the police about, actually). Most “reference sources” (and I use that term very lightly) don’t know a free spirit from a cult member.

Of interest to me, after checking out some more legit resources, The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provided me with the first known usage as 1970 (of course even their sources could be mistaken). Here is why this interests me, though. If the first known usage was in 1970, my grandfather would have already reached the ripe old age of 51.  His children were hippies, and in some instances, counterculturists.

In any case, in the 42 years that have passed since 1970, he has seen free spirits, he has seen word permutations and form misrepresentations, and I know he has absorbed and understood all the connotations and nuances and come away with the purest sense of the term.

And here is me.  His granddaughter beloved, most saddled and strapped with weakening, debilitating, terrifying, horrific psychiatric illnesses and psychological ailments that I struggle with and fight every single moment of every single day.  But the man who knows me best in the world, the one who truly sees my soul, calls me strong and free.  Maybe I should believe him.

Don’t you think so?

My mother says that when she and my grandfather talk about me on the telephone, he always says to her about me, “She’s a free spirit, ~.” And if he says it, then it is 100%, absolute, inarguable truth.

© 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.

Unconditional Positive Regard

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Think about that one.  It’s a powerful phrase.  I heard it from my very dear friend and soul sister, Em.  And she used it to describe, of all things, me.

She told me that she always felt she could tell me everything, she never had to hide the things in her life, because no matter what she disclosed, she knew that I would hold her in unconditional positive regard.

I would like to say that it stopped me in my tracks then and there and really made me think.  I’d like to say that, but it wouldn’t be true.  It was more one of those things that simmered in the back of my mind and then one day I really started thinking about it consciously.

I love it because it is pretty much the best thing anyone has ever said about me, and I love it because, you know what, it’s true.  That second thing was also something it took me some time to wrap my head around.

I’m going to tell you a secret.  While I am a fairly secure, confident, positive human being, and I generally feel like I always try to do right by everyone and be the most kind and loving presence I can be, there is a big old bitch that lives in my head that is always niggling me.  She tells me I didn’t do enough, I should have tried harder, I could be so much more. . .

Back to the whole unconditional positive regard thing.  That bitch in my head has not for a moment questioned or contradicted or caused me to doubt that one.  I took some time – okay, about 30 seconds – to think about what it meant and if I felt it was accurate, and guess what?  It is!

I don’t judge people.  It is not in me to do it.  It used to be, and I’m not for a minute denying that I do the superficial snap judgments about people and their too short shorts or their inconsiderate behavior.  I’m not proud that I do it, but I’m working on doing it less.

But when it comes to someone’s actions and behaviors and choices, I honestly do not make judgments.  Neither do I assume I know about things.  Instead, I try really hard to think about the person, the circumstances, human nature, societal pressure, all the factors that might lead a person to do something.

I realize that I am being annoyingly vague.  I’m going to try to fix that.

But here’s my deal.  I have done a lot of things in my life, good, bad, and somewhere in between on the spectrum.  A great many of them fall into the category of things others just can’t understand the reasons for.  I have been criticized, I have been judged, I have hurt people and been hurt by people, and I have lost more than one very close relationship due to a basic factor of misunderstanding.

William S. Burroughs was once quoted as saying, “You don’t need a reason to become an addict.  You need a reason not to become an addict.”  I think about this when I hear people criticizing drug users and others who are classed as scourges of our society.  Because I get it.  I get it all too well.  The only explanation I have for never falling into the classic, textbook behaviors of self-medicating with alcohol, illicit or prescription drugs, or anything that I could get my hands on is that I have too many reasons not to.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been to That Place, the one where you will do or take or try anything just to escape the torture inside for five goddamned minutes, where you aren’t thinking about the long-term consequences of your behavior or what the risk is or the damage it will do to those you love. You are incapable of thinking about all that.  All you are thinking about is how you can make it through the next hour.

Which brings me back to the whole unconditional positive regard thing.  I know and love people who have pretty much done it all.  Drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and a host of other things I will not even put in to words, because they could really destroy some lives.  And I can look at these people and I can love them and I can be there waiting, with my unconditional positive regard, when they need help or someone to confide in.

The people in my life, the ones whom I love more than life can do no wrong, as far as I am concerned.  That doesn’t mean I put on my rose-colored glasses and condone destructive behavior.  But I can always separate the action from the person.  That was something that was so critical to me when I had my girls, to make sure that when they misbehaved I made it very clear that it was the behavior that was bad, not them.

(My proudest parenting moment ever – which I probably wrote about already – was when my eldest little girl recounted to me how her father had told her she was bad, not at all maliciously, mind you, and she had told him back, “NO!  My Ruby says I’m NOT bad!!!”  I’m sure it didn’t create the best father/daughter dynamic in the moment, but when I heard about it I knew she had a good sense of herself and was going to be alright in life.  I think she was all of about three at the time.)

Anyway, I try to be a true friend and talk through the situation, or just listen if that’s what’s needed.  I know that my Em and all of the many others in my life are extraordinary people.  And it feels so amazing to know that Em is right, that she or anyone else I love can confide in me without hesitation, because I do and always will hold them in unconditional positive regard.

Moral of the story:  There, but for the grace of God, go I.

© 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.

“Psychotic Drugs”

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a.k.a. “My Extreme Dystonic Reaction And How I Wound Up In The Emergency Room For The Fourth Time In Less Than Nine Months”

It was my intention to write a post about another night, another ER visit.  It was also my intention to get a little rest first.  The latter was not to be.  About the former, I guess we’ll see.

(If you think I ever actually know and plan and decide upon what I’m going to write here, you’ve lost the thread somewhere along the way.)

I watched the movie Serendipity instead.  Everyone reading this should know by now how I love the concept (why haven’t I made a category for it, I need to do so, post-haste. . . okay, done).  I don’t just love it, I hold a very strong belief in it.  The movie is cute as can be, at any rate.  It also features a wonderful score, with a particular song running through it that was also in another movie released I think around the same time, also wonderful and with a not dissimilar concept, Practical Magic.

I don’t know why I stopped liking movies, but if anyone could, please tell me in the comments, what has John Cusak done lately?  Or Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, even Kate Beckinsale?  I’m terribly out of my element with modern-day movies, I’m forced to admit.

So.  I’ve put it off long enough.

What happened was this.  I had an extreme and acute (I promise you I am not overstating the situation by deliberately using two absolute declarative adjectives to describe it) dystonic reaction to perphenazine, also known by the name Trilafon.  It’s a conventional antipsychotic, and thus much more prone to cause this (and other neuroleptic symptoms and syndromes).

Which forces me to explain dystonia, a task I don’t much relish, particularly after experiencing it so severely.  Here goes (I’ll also throw in a couple of links for a more clinical picture).

It started with my voice, actually.  It had this funny affect, and it was hard to get my tongue to make the sounds I needed it to.  But I got that under control and didn’t worry too much (that would have been. . . Monday night).  Last night (Tuesday) I noticed it again a little, but everyone went to sleep and so I did no more talking.  But as I lay on the couch, and later in bed, trying to fall asleep, I noticed some rigidity and tension in my face, my tongue especially.  I couldn’t fall asleep, and it spread through my body, little by little.

I kept talking myself down from thinking it was anything, except something in me must have known better.  I got out of bed and went and got my mother, at my age and at three a.m.  And then we sat on the couch and I cried, because I was terrified.

I settled down some, and even tried a few odd moments of humor, which were lost in translation because I basically couldn’t speak.  Long rest of the story short, I got worse, my mom got more concerned, we both put on our shoes and coats and got in the car to go to the emergency room.  I remember when she was backing out of the driveway, I just about told her to call 911 instead, but I lost my direction at that point.

It was worse on my left side, my toes were curled tightly, my head tilted, my abdomen locked.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  I described it to my mom as like a very long, drawn out, slow motion seizure, and she said she had thought the exact same thing.

Apparently I was as gone as I think I was, because she also said everyone in the ER seemed freaked, and I couldn’t even sign my name to consent for treatment, I had to do a “verbal consent” (policies).

My blood pressure and my pulse were high enough to set all of the machines beeping, and then after a minimum of discussion and the magic word “perphenazine,” a wonderful young doctor had a dose of Benadryl shot into my IV that knocked me silly.  Seriously.  I kept going, “Oh wow.  Oh, wow.”  My poor mother sitting there, eyes filled with tears from her terror over my state, and I had to reassure her that they were good “oh wows,” because I was feeling completely back to myself within a minute or two.  Well, kind of floaty, but otherwise very much myself.

So with some discussion, an injection of diazepam (Valium) for good measure, a prescription and instructions, I was sent merrily on my way, better than before.  Better, because now I know to say “fuck all” if a doctor tries to put me on a conventional again.

Add those to the growing list of drug allergies.

Moral of the story:  “Don’t ever hit your mother with a shovel, it leaves a dull impression on her mind.” ~ Paul Newman, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I decided this one needed a light moral, because it’s been a heavy post for me.

And, oh, the links:  Dystonic Reaction (one link, I’m tired)

Whoops, a last note:  The title of this post, my mom was trying to find the word ‘psychotropic’ in reference to my meds, but came up with ‘psychotic’ instead.  Based on recent experience, I’m coming to agree with her Freudian assessment.

© 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.

And Suddenly Something Occurred To Me

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I have been feeling so incredibly overwhelmed and distressed by reality lately, my own as well as that of the world at large.  Nothing fits, nothing makes sense, so many things upset me profoundly.

And into my mind popped this quote:

“Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.  When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better.”  ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, “The Nobel Lecture”

I have lived all of my life reading (or being read to, or reading to others).  I have also lived almost all of my life immersed more deeply in the world and its pain and strife and suffering and conflict than the average person I encounter.  It’s just one of those things.  I always fought for the underprivileged and disregarded, for those without voices, anywhere I could throw my energy I threw it.  And I did some pretty cool shit.

Lately I have a difficult time interacting with even my closest friends and family, and I try to hide from the news without allowing myself to be completely ignorant.

Also, lately I have struggled and fought and been tested and tried to figure out every which way why I have such difficulties with reading (still working on it).  I was your classic book every day or two gal.  But now I can’t seem to run to the soothing, familiar embraces of Kerouac and Dickens and Austen and Thompson and Wharton and Vonnegut and Homer and Garcia Marquez and the endless list of the comforts of my best friends.

I can’t live in their world, so I am forced to live pretty constantly in my own.  I wonder if that’s something that makes the mass of humanity so unhappy, not having a proper escape from reality, not realizing that “. . . life does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute. . .”

I guess that’s something we all have to assess on our own, but I know for me that the days during which I am able to dive into literature and find something else, something more – even for a very short time – are better than they days that I am not.

Moral of the story:  Don’t look at outside events for continuous inner turmoil.  You are the only place a solution can ultimately be found.

© 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.

Ruby And Lulu – At Long Last We Meet!

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So I know we aren’t exactly 80-year-old long-lost identical twins separated at birth, but as far as I’m concerned the title seems fitting.

Let me catch any of you up who may be at sea with this.  Ruby would be me, and Lulu would be my friend, fellow blogger (she writes As the Pendulum Swings), and the creative spark that began, a.k.a the co-founder of, A Canvas Of The Minds.  I may have gotten the technical part implemented, but without her, Canvas would not exist in anyone’s mind.

Lulu lives in Pittsburgh.  That’s not a secret, that’s public domain information.  ;)  I am from and happen to be visiting that same city right now.  Also public domain.  So of course it made perfect sense that we should finally meet up while I was in town, right?

Well, yes and no.  Yes, it does make sense, but me and my “paranoid personality” (as one dear friend puts it) – meeting someone I know strictly from the internet is like a huge leap for me.  To understate things greatly.  But I felt like I knew Lulu, I trusted her. . . um, mostly (no offense!), I was incredibly curious, mostly it just seemed right.

So we made a date for lunch, and next thing I knew I was waiting outside of a little Italian restaurant in a neighborhood that was convenient for the both of us.  Up she walked, and there she was!  Sweet as could be, and one of those people you are instantly comfortable with.  Comfortable in the sort of way that you don’t even notice how comfortable you are until some time later when you realize you started your conversation somewhere in the middle, and not with introductions and pleasantries.

We really didn’t even talk much about Canvas, I think I brought up one or two things I wanted to mention on my end, and then of course later we had the “Well are we or aren’t we?” conversation about whether we should tell all of you lovelies about our up-till-now clandestine meeting.

She showed me some pictures of her son, who is so super-cute, and. . .  Well this is more difficult to write than I had imagined, because we just talked, like girlfriends do, about all manner of things.  And, well, as I’m not in the habit of disclosing conversations I have with my girlfriends via my blog (or, y’know, at all. . .).

I can tell you these things:  She gave me a sweet little white petunia she picked from a pot next to a bench we sat on because I admired it.  I fell on my butt coming out of the restaurant because – well I could lie and say I caught my heel in the pavement, but in reality I just lost my balance and fell over (and no, I hadn’t had anything to drink).  So she got to see me as I truly am, I suppose: the woman in the pretty dress and heels who spends a great deal of her time on her ass.  ;)

I feel like the couple of hours we got to spend together were not nearly enough, I could have talked with her all afternoon and well into the evening.  But she has a job and I have family.  I did walk around and take some pictures before returning to my room (I didn’t take any of Lulu, and even if I had I wouldn’t be posting them here – you all know me better).  I got some late-blooming flowers and beautiful trees.  I also took some pictures of a very sweet older gentleman and his grandson, and some of the grandson with his dad, which I promised I would mail back to them.  The grandfather saw me with the camera and asked if I would take the photos, I only wish now that I had gotten one of all three of them together!

The things you think of after the fact.  Oh well.

In any case, it was a lovely afternoon with the lovely Ms. Lulu Sunshine, and I am really happy that I let go of my paranoia and met her.  To a lifelong, wonderful friendship!

Moral of the story:  Talk to strangers.  Just make sure you pick the right ones.  ;D

© 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.