Category Archives: Self-Awareness

Because I Can

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I’m finally letting myself show anger, even rage, call people on the bullshit they hand me, their lies, singular or repeated, all of it.

Because I can.

I purged an old, dead email account of its contents the other day.  What (at the time) I felt was a stupid move was reading a bunch of those emails first.

I was aghast.  I saw myself being emotionally and psychologically abused to a horrifying degree.  Had there been a physical analogue, I would have been the woman in the ED who “fell down the stairs”, “walked into a door”, or was “just the clumsiest woman ever, you won’t believe what I did to myself. . .”  And I would have ended up there daily, until eventually I landed in the ICU, on life support.

Reading those emails was something that needed to happen, though, because it wasn’t just one relationship, and it hadn’t been just with guys I was “involved” with.  I took a long, hard, painful look at the woman I have become, and I’m angry.

I’m angry at myself, but I’m also angry at all of the people who had a big hand in turning me into this woman.  Because I never used to be this way.  You swung at me, I ducked and hit back twice as hard.  You lied to me, I called you on it straight out and gave you the option of being honest henceforth or getting the fuck out of my life.  You treated me badly, or took advantage in any way, I walked and never looked back.

I entered treatment for my bipolar, and slowly, but slowly, I began to wear down, and people took advantage of that.  Even though I knew I was doing everything possible to be well, and that I had never taken my illness out on others — except for a few, a very few, bursts of shouting and tears — I felt like I was a burden just being in people’s lives, and I had to do everything I could to compensate and please others.  This belief was reinforced when friends I’d known for years started backing away; the mother of one of the children I nannied for started distancing herself and telling me how disappointed her child was when I didn’t show up for something because I was curled up in my bed, sobbing, unable to even move (yet I always at least gave her notice that I wouldn’t be there); and finally, my sister, with whom I had always been very close, and my best friend of 20 years both decided to cut off all contact with me, basically telling me that they couldn’t handle “my drama”, and other behavior that was completely beyond my control — even though I was still working my soul to the core trying to prevent them or anyone else from being negatively affected.

Clearly, there was something wrong with me beyond my illness, as a person, and I was lucky to have anyone still in my life at all, so I had to (and did) do anything and everything to keep them.

FUCK THAT.

A sister who walks out on you when you are at your lowest is not a sister.  For a long time I have been compassionate, because she genuinely didn’t get it.  She couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting well.  But you know what, it doesn’t matter if you understand or not; you love someone, you support them.  You do not call them “a black hole”.

A friend who uses her children to hold you hostage — consciously or not — because you know they are little and they love and need you, and that if you call Mommy on her lies and bullshit and manipulation she will cut off the contact you have with them, I don’t even have a word for that.

Friends who back away because you are as contagious as a leper, and even if they know that statement is true, who don’t want to deal with the fact that you have to fight constantly to keep your head above the swells while they can get up and live their lives every day are not friends at all.

And new people in your life whom you will put up with, excuse even, all manner of garbage from, all while hiding or making light of how bad things have really gotten, because you’re desperate for someone, anyone, to “support” you and show you kindness. . .  Well, that one is on me, but I never would have gotten there without the concerted efforts of the people above.  Yes, they had every right to make a choice to remove themselves from my life, but they were cruel and weak and cowardly to have blamed me, instead of having the guts to admit that they couldn’t deal with being spectators to the struggle I was living and the constant pain I was in.  Because, had they done so, they would have had to admit to themselves that what I lived every day was an enormous struggle, and so unspeakably painful, and they were cutting and running, abandoning me when I needed them more than I ever had.

For years I have searched for the reason I let my former psychiatrist lie and manipulate and force me into electroconvulsive therapy — I can finally use the word FORCE, for the very first time, and you don’t know what a triumph that is — and at last, I have found it.  It was the result of a long line of abandonments and betrayals and manipulations and lies by those I loved and trusted most.  I had been made to feel like less than nothing for so long that I had come to believe it as gospel truth, and who cared that the old me, the real me, had been firmly and unwaveringly against ECT with all of her being for three-and-a-half years?  She wasn’t standing guard any more, and my opinion didn’t count.  How could it, when I didn’t count as a person myself?

That’s something I get to carry with me always.  The permanent brain damage, and the post-traumatic stress I have from being anesthetized, having electrodes hooked up to my head, having a current, a shock pass through my brain to induce a seizure in me — sixteen times over.  I blamed myself for that, too.  Up until about an hour ago.

And still, I put up with bullshit and manipulation and being treated as less than a person by people I love, because it is all I know anymore.  Almost three years to the day of my first shock and seizure.

Now, three years and fifteen days after that first blast of electricity, arguably the lowest point of my life, it ends.  I’m done.  I’m worth more than that, a hell of a lot more.  I am often a hard person to have in your life, and that has always been so, it has very little to do with mental illness.  But I am the best friend you will ever have, if you are willing to accept me, all of me, and give back.

I am smart.

I am compassionate.

I am intelligent.

I am strong.

I am creative.

I am resilient.

I am supportive.

I am loving.

I am beautiful.

I am selfless.

I have a strong moral compass.

I am patient.

I am understanding.

I am honest.

I am accepting.

I am forgiving.

I am idealistic.

I am open-hearted.

I live my beliefs.

And I once again believe that I am worth it, that I am worth more, much more than I have been given in the past six years of my life.  From friends, from lovers, from family.

So I will live my life accordingly from this day on.

Because I can.

“I ain’t a soldier, but I’m here to take a stand. . .”

~ Jon Bon Jovi/Richie Sambora/Billy Falcon


© 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.

Implications Speak More Loudly Than Words

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So.  That jerk behind the blog A Clown On Fire just made me do two things I need to be doing less of: think and cry.

Let me explain.  He actually did something very sweet (don’t tell him I told you, it’ll ruin his image of himself).  I was involved in a conversation on Twitter with his lovely wife, Sara (of Laments and Lullabies), and another dear friend of ours, DeeDee (of Disorderly Chickadee) about. . . well there were many things, but it led up to smoothies and alcohol.  I informed them that I was “on the wagon”, as it is put, and Eric immediately chimed in with praise, tweeting, “Good for you, Ruby.”

In about 30 seconds, things got a little muddy in my mind.  Because my reason for choosing to never again drink is a good one.  It’s a very important one.  It’s a mentally healthy one.  And it isn’t an easy choice.  Actually, it’s really fucking hard.  I’m not an alcoholic, I can honestly say that there has only been one time in all of my 32 years that I have used alcohol in any way that crossed the line between “acceptable” and “not”.  Ideas, by the way, that are completely individual and as unique as each person who has ever imbibed.  Point being, while I didn’t drink often or much, I really loved occasionally to have a  few bloody marys, a couple of glasses of champagne, a really yummy cosmo, or my favorite strawberry margaritas.

Except.

Except I began to notice something.  I have been stable and healthy and happy for eight-and-a-half months now.  And in that time, I’ve discovered a few major things that were lost in the confusion of bipolar and its sidekicks.  One of the things I discovered is that when I drink, the three or four days following I am very, very. . .  There needs to be a word for this, but I can’t find one (and not for lack of a thesaurus).  If I hadn’t been where I’ve been, I might say depressed.  But it isn’t like that.  Certainly it’s a much stronger, different state than sad.  Heartsick comes close, but soulsick captures it better.  That’s about how I feel.  And it’s strong enough, and it affects me enough that I did the math and decided it was a really bad idea for me to drink.  At all.  Ever again.

I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends and family members about this.  And reactions have varied from ‘Oh, I feel that way, too’ — no, you don’t, if you did you would either have stopped drinking or be drunk all the time, trust me on this — to ‘Well, that’s smart.  Good for you.’  Only the ‘good for yous’ I have gotten are about on par with what I would get if I told someone I was exercising more.  Kind of a ‘That’s nice, it’s healthy, but it isn’t really much of a thing.’

Why is that?

Everyone acts as if me quitting drinking isn’t really very important.  As I said, I’ve never had any problems with alcohol, I’ve never even drunk-dialed an ex, therefore my consumption/lack of consumption really only affected one person.  So I guess, in the end, I shouldn’t expect any kind of ticker tape parade.  Alcohol is such a staple in most people’s lives that it really has to be fucking you up before they are willing to admit that making a decision to rid your own life of it forever is something difficult for you and worth recognition.*

Which is why those three little words, “Good for you”, catching me completely off my guard (and clearly in a vulnerable spot), reduced me to tears.

So thank you for your words of support, Eric.  They mean more to me than I ever want anyone to know.

*To be inescapably clear, I am not dismissing, criticizing, or trying to minimize how amazing it is for an alcoholic, or someone abusing alcohol in any way, to make the decision to become sober.  I actually don’t have the words to express how incredible and courageous that is.

© 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.

“Difficult”

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Difficult.  Overwhelming.  Exhausting.  All words that have been used to describe me for most of my life, in and out of episodes of illness, bipolar notwithstanding.

And they aren’t inaccurate.  I am passionate about almost all matters, and positively hellacious about the remainder of them.  I have mellowed in my old age, but I still pour my heart and my soul and my everything into anything I believe in.  It’s why you’ll see me disappear from here for days to weeks, because I haven’t anything to say that pulls at me and begs to be put down into words.  When I was in school, I wrote every single paper the night before — they refused to come out any sooner.  Some I even turned in late, because they weren’t done cooking in my mind; and while I could have written a good piece and turned it in on time, if I waited a day or two longer, out came something truly excellent.  And though at times I would fake it in many subjects, I never, never would when it came to writing.  Not only was it a mortal sin, the possibility just absolutely did not exist in my mind.

Oh yes, many of my teachers found me “difficult” in school. I spoke my mind without restraint, I corrected them when they were wrong, and worst of all, I didn’t show them the respect they automatically deserved simply because they had decided to become teachers. I expected them to earn it, just like everyone else; my parents raised me to treat everyone this way — teacher, janitor, classmate, doctor — everyone began on an equal footing. Those teachers who appreciated me and didn’t label me in any way as “difficult” were the wonderful individuals who got it.  They saw the differences in me for what they were: self-possession, creativity, intelligence, sensitivity, passion, and an incredibly strong moral compass.  And they encouraged and supported me far beyond what their job description required.  The result was more than them gaining my respect in equal measure; from my third grade teacher to my Anatomy and Physiology professor (and quite a number in the intervening years), I remember them all vividly. They each gave me something special, and they left upon me an indelible mark so uniquely their own. I was sometimes still a smartass — that’s something rarely ever suppressed in me — but I was a polite, kind smartass (you know what I mean).

Over the years, I’ve lost more friends than I have kept because I am “difficult”.  In some cases it was my choice, but more often it was due to friends’ inability to understand me. I view the world with a very different perspective than most people, and I live my life accordingly. When I was younger, I was free-spirited and so absolutely sure of myself. But as we grew older, many friends came to be uncomfortable with the same wild eccentricities and unshakable character I have possessed all of my life. I have a wall that surrounds me, that has always surrounded me. I imagine I was born with it, and it has always kept me very independent and secure in myself. (“They got a wall in China/It’s a thousand miles long/To keep out the foreigners/They made it strong/And I’ve got a wall around me/That you can’t even see/It took a little time/To get next to me” ~ Paul Simon)  I can and do let those who are very strong and brave inside, because it is not a place for the faint of heart. And those dear souls who understand what it takes have been in — and even out — of my life for years, but I am blessed that they see that I am worth it.  I may be temperamental, moody, distant, emotional, overwhelming, exuberant, and at times just a bowl of crazy flakes, but I love them, I love their kids and their families, and I would do absolutely anything for them.  And they have loved me, not in spite of all that, but because of it.

Not surprisingly, the only people in my life who don’t find me difficult, overwhelming, and exhausting are my girls.  I am full of the kind of joie de vivre that most people either lose or have beaten out of them on their journey to adulthood.  I cheered them on with unabashed delight when they were learning to feed themselves (Babygirl gave me some funny looks for that one, but she loved it). I’ll climb a tree (in a skirt) with my girls, though I haven’t been up one in 20 years.  I encourage them and permit no room for self-doubt or restrictions when they paint (getting messy is part of the fun!) or do anything creative, and more often than not, I join in.  I get on Skype or the telephone to do reading homework with them, and I buy them books for absolutely no reason except that they love them and so do I.

I have bipolar disorder, this is true, and when I was so profoundly ill for so many years, I lost a couple of people from my life that I would wish back into it in an instant — except that things would never be anything like what they used to be between us.  It’s the nature of the beast, and I have made my peace with it.  I can’t say that was me (or anyone) being “difficult”; I won’t accept that word to describe me during a period of time that was so painful and so protracted that much of it I don’t remember, and what I do scares me even now, when I know I will never go back there.  I did what I could even then to try to save the last threads of these relationships, but sometimes things are just too far gone between people.

And now that I am well?  Now that I deal with sadness and heartache instead of depression, and joy and exuberance instead of mania?  Well, the sadness and the heartache are definitely far from on par with what most people experience, as are the joy and the exuberance.  My life is unusual and crazy and full of passion and love and heartbreak, because I am unusual and crazy and full of passion and love and heartbreak.

I am difficult.  I am overwhelming.  I am exhausting.  That’s something most people can’t deal with in their lives, not really, and I understand that.  But after 32 years of being this way, and never doubting that this is exactly who and how I am meant to be, you’ll see no changes in my nature.  This is me, and I’m not going to become someone else for anyone in this world, no matter how much I love them.  That’s not to say that I am in all ways rigid and invariable; like the tree I climbed with my girls, I have branches that are strong, flexible, and accommodating to embrace those closest to my heart.  But my trunk only grows stronger and more solid with each passing year.

Proof of my exploits as Rima, the (backyard) jungle girl. Though my girls told me to go inside and put on pants, I wasn’t wasting time with such silliness when it looked like so much fun!
P.S.  It was.  :P

Addendum: It seems this was my 300th post. I think that means something.

© 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.

I’ve Finally Been Let In On The Joke

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If you are a friend of mine on facebook*, you have likely heard me growl at how fast you type your messages or comments.  If you’re a friend of mine with whom I exchange text messages, you might have noticed that by the time you’ve fired off four to me, I’m just responding to your first.  And if you know me just through blogging, you might think that I’m not reading, or worse, that I don’t care, because you will see very little commenting from me, more often a pushing of the like button, depending.

You’d think this one would have been a pretty obvious realization for me, but let me give you a bit of insight into why I’ve only recently figured things out.

All of my life, since I was quite young, I was incredibly fast with reading.  You know how (at least in the States, I imagine most countries have some version of this) you had to do the standardized testing in school, starting pretty much in the first grade?  And you know how with each segment, you would be given a time limit, and there was that really annoying kid who finished the 45 minute test in 15, then sat twiddling her thumbs, or reading a book when the teachers allowed it?  Yeah, she was me.  All through my life, I read quickly, and I read voraciously.  And I read anything I could get my hands on.

And there was once a time where I could type reasonably quickly on a typewriter or computer (though I have no idea how many words per minute), my texting speed was sufficient (though never for what I see nowadays, yeesh), and as far as blog reading and commenting. . .  Well, I’ll get to that in time.

As a lot of you know, it’s been a pretty rough couple of years for me.  Actually, the past six or so really weren’t so hot, but the last two to three were definitely the worst of it.  I was dealing with severe, treatment resistant bipolar disorder.  I was contending with every kind of anxiety disorder under the sun.  Things weren’t good.  And then the worst happened: the electroconvulsive therapy and the fallout.

All the havoc with emergency room visits and post-traumatic stress disorder, huge memory deficits, cognitive decline, confusion generally (I’m giving you the super-abbreviated version here, God knows I’ve written about it in detail enough) – and one of the most unthinkable things of all, something it took me a year or more to even realize, because I was that screwed up – my inability to read.

Yup.  The girl who up until her late 20s continuously had her nose stuck in a book, who read them so quickly they couldn’t print them fast enough. . .  Well, I could see the words alright, I could read them one by one, but by the time I reached the end of I sentence I couldn’t remember how it had begun.  And I’m not even talking about the “hard stuff” that I was used to, authors who had made up the bulk of my diet: Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, D. H. Lawrence, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Hardy. . .  I’m getting carried away and I’m getting sad.  I don’t let myself think this way anymore for a reason.  Point is, I was having trouble reading from the beginning to end of a paragraph in an article in Cosmopolitan magazine.

I couldn’t read.  I couldn’t read.  I couldn’t read.

I went through a whole battery of neuro-cognitive testing, and the basic findings were that I had “slow processing speed”, which the doctor said was very common in people with anxiety disorders.  But he didn’t tell me anything that could help me pick up a book again.

I went two very long years without reading more than three books.  No exaggeration.  And honestly I think this had a profound effect on the state I was in.  It wasn’t just the fact that I couldn’t read, because I was so gone I didn’t even realize that for a while.  It was the fact that I couldn’t escape to those beautiful worlds that lived in those books.  I was stuck here in reality, and I just couldn’t handle spending so much of my time here without relief.

And then when I did finally realize how bad things were, and I looked around at the stacks of books that crowded my bedroom. . .  I had never stopped buying them, but one day I began to look upon them as places I would never be able to visit.  People I would never get to know.  Stories that would never touch my soul.  That hurt a whole lot.  I won’t begin to put into words how bad that time was for me.

But at the end of last year, after a suggestion from my mom, I was able to pick up some of the lighter stuff, and I tore through it like my life depended on it.  And then earlier in this year, after I Wakened Out Of A Nightmare and somehow found my way back to me, I started picking up some denser, more satisfying stuff.  And now, once again, I have learned how to read.  And I am so grateful every single moment of every single day for that.

But.  I have discovered that I read very slowly.  I went from being the fastest girl in the room to now taking about three times as long as most every one of you reading these words to get through the same material.  And while I miss being able to do what I did, I will take this, I will take it so thankfully and joyfully because I can read again.  Even if it takes me a year to read The Return of the Native, I am so happy because I am loving every word of it.

And yup, for a long time I used to yell at everyone for typing so quickly.  And then one day I began to realize that I just type much, much more slowly than most people.  On a computer keyboard, and, dear Lord, on a phone?  I watch friends of mine sending texts and it looks like a movie where the film has been sped up, or some special effect has been used, their fingers fly so unbelievably quickly.

As for keeping up with blog posts. . .  I can read them, and I do.  And for a time at the end of last year, I did a stellar job at keeping up and commenting on nearly everything I read.  Very thoughtful, emotional, in-depth comments.  And it made my mind even worse, because that’s all I was doing, day in and day out, sitting and reading blogs and writing comments all day long.

I’ve come to a healthier place for me.  I read a lot of blogs, I comment on a few.  I still look at the lot of you who can keep up with all you do online and still work and apparently have a life offline and suspect you exist in a parallel dimension, where time works entirely differently, but I’m happy enough in my own.  I have plenty of time away from the internet monster, and those of you who know me well know that I’m still paying attention.  And those of you who don’t, who perhaps are just getting to know me, will either have to take me at my word, or miss out on a pretty amazing woman.

By the way, I very rarely have anxiety anymore. But obviously my processing speed hasn’t improved. There isn’t any way to actually isolate a cause; it could be all the trauma my brain suffered through illness, it could be years of medications taking their toll, it could be the ECT, it could be aging, it could be all of the above (but you have to know my money is on the ECT). And ultimately, the cause doesn’t matter, because knowing it won’t change the fact that I will live the rest of my life with the effect. And that’s okay.

*And if you aren’t a friend of mine on facebook, why the hell not?  I’m all kinds of fun. Follow this link and send me a friend request!  Just make sure and send a message, too, so I know who in the world you are (because it’s my personal fb page, it isn’t a page for this blog).

© 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.

The Addiction Thing

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Do you know, it’s been so long for me, I’m kind of having some difficulty figuring out how to start talking about what I dealt with when I was fighting my mental illness dragons?  I’m only about seven months out, and I don’t pretend that what I live with will not have to be accounted for and managed for the rest of my days.  There’s this enormous disconnect, though.  Because I know I’ve won.  I spent about six years solid in a terrible war, one I had given up hope of ever winning fully, toward the end.  And here I am now. . .  This life is so different from that one, it’s difficult for me to bring back the sense of it.

But it’s still there, in its strange, separate space.  I haven’t forgotten.  Maybe it’s my mind’s gift to itself that I don’t have the sense of those dragons tearing at me.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how they did.

And to think, this wasn’t even meant to be so terribly heavy as all that.  But even I don’t know what my fingers are going to say until they get down to it.

One thing I was always grateful for was the absence of what I would come to call “the addiction gene” in me.  I never smoked cigarettes. When I was young I played around with pot for maybe a year, but it never did anything for me, so I just stopped bothering, and I never got into anything “harder”.

I have taken Vicodin for my migraines for more than 16 years.  Pretty much always as prescribed, though I’m not going to say that in all those years I never doubled up a dose because I was in so much pain.

Alcohol was fun in my early 20s, but I never drank like most people I knew.  I was always the designated driver, and while occasionally I would get good and tight at home or at my sister’s, it was very much a rarity.  Recently I decided I needed to stop consuming any alcohol, because even just having a drink or two makes me severely maudlin for three or four days after.  I’m sad that I can’t have my strawberry margs anymore, but the havoc drink wrought in my mind – and to some degree, my life – it just isn’t worth the trade.

And last year, last year I was on Valium for my mania, because we had run out of ideas.  Valium is not meant to be a long-term, three-times-a-day solution to anything, because the incidence of addiction is so high.  My current psychiatrist doesn’t like to prescribe it at all; I had to fight for a dozen pills earlier in the summer when I was dealing with anxiety that nothing I’d tried would alleviate (it turned out to be from the premenstrual dysphoria, and those Valium I fought for helped very much indeed).  I’m actually getting ready to go to the mat with him over it again, but that’s a different story.  Coming down off of months on that particular drug was probably the most hellish substance withdrawal I ever dealt with in my life, but I did it and I did it twice over.  There was never any question in my mind that I could.

When the Let’s Talk About section on A Canvas Of The Minds was launched a year ago with the topic of Self-Medicating, our authors discussed things like self-injury, shoplifting, drugs, drinking, sex, eating disorders, and more.  The closest I came to having something to say on that subject was to discuss my shopping habits, the over-spending and credit card use that got me to the point of needing to file for bankruptcy.  And as it turns out, I’m not really sure that falls into the category of self-medication, especially not in the broader context of addiction.

Thing is, I know how incredibly lucky I am.  I’ve always known.  Addiction runs through both sides of my family.  Some have been spared, some have beaten it, some are managing it, and one beautiful soul died because of it.  My Uncle Jimmy, my dad’s baby brother, he died about ten years ago after struggling for years with addiction to, primarily, Vicodin.  Of all things.  The same crap I’ve been prescribed for migraines since my teens, and never had any issues with.  The hydrocodone wasn’t what got him, it was the acetaminophen that it’s typically cut with.  And when I say “cut”, I mean the way prescription Vicodin from your local pharmacy is prepared.  Most states won’t sell straight hydrocodone, you either get it in Vicodin or Vicoprofen (ibuprofen replacing acetaminophen in that).  So eventually, his liver couldn’t handle it.  He didn’t overdose in one sad event.  Over years, my dear sweet uncle was taken out by the likes of Tylenol.  And heavier and heavier this post gets.

But he is my guardian angel, that I know, though I only met him a very few times.  Maybe that’s why I’ve never had issues with addiction, which is so commonly concurrent with bipolar disorder.  I don’t know all the finer points, but I do know he’s been looking out for me for a long time.  Even when I was 11 and he was in his late 30s, we were kindred spirits.  Death sure as hell didn’t keep him from watching over and taking care of me.

Do you want to know, finally, what I set out to write this post about?  What has become my one addiction in life, one that I recognized this morning had actually become a problem for me?  I officially give you permission to laugh, because after all of that build-up, I kind of have to.

Chai tea lattes from Starbucks.  I know, right?

It started out as a drink I just really liked.  At some point I discovered that the combination of the heat, whatever blend of spices is in the chai syrup, plus the caffeine helped with my migraines.  Okay, that is to me still a legitimate reason for drinking them.  I also found that sitting and sipping these hot drinks was a comfort for me, a way to soothe anxiety (in spite of the caffeine), depression, mania, a whole host of symptoms and manifestations of the various things that made up my personal Alphabet Soup.  And that was fine, too; I could happily rationalize the hell out of that, anything that was so innocuous and helped quieten the dragons in my mind was (and is) okay by me.

And really, in the grand scheme of things, there isn’t anything terrible about me drinking chai.  Yes, right now where I am financially, it’s not such an easy habit to sustain. And yes, I have to be careful to watch my blood pressure when combining any amount of caffeine with the Carbatrol I take (or so says my doctor – more or less).  But what really got me this morning was, well, me.

I’d fallen asleep on the couch watching a movie.  I woke up this morning, and my first clear, conscious thought was, ‘What time is it?  Is Starbucks open?’  I proceeded to grab my tumbler, a five dollar bill, and my keys.  I was in my pajamas, which is no big deal, I go places in my pajamas frequently (especially Starbucks).  But my hair was sticking up funny on one side, I looked genuinely strung out, and for the first time since I’ve been well, I didn’t even attempt to make myself slightly less horrifying.  I just went for it.

And I thought, as I drove to get my “fix”, ‘Something ain’t right here, girly.’  The sunrise was gorgeous (oh wow, was it ever!), the temperature was just perfect, I had Simon and Garfunkel’s America playing, and things fell into place in my head and I realized the jig was up.

There’s nothing wrong with me enjoying my chai.  The baristas at my local Starbucks are lovely to start my day chatting to.  But right now, this shit owns me.  And yes, I know there are much worse things to be owned by.  And yes, I feel a taste of the absurd given all that I wrote leading up to this.  But what it comes down to is that nothing owns me, nothing ever has, nothing ever will, and I have to find a way to walk away from something that has become so much more than a “guilty pleasure”.  Everything in moderation, if I can manage the moderation.  If I can’t. . .  Bye-bye, sweet spices and milk and steamy goodness.  Not even for you will I let go of one tiny bit of my self-containment.

I don’t blame this tumbler.  It’s merely a pawn.


© 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.

Premenstrual Dysphoria, Mood Disorder, And All The Joy That Comes Along With It

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It started during the first round of the NHL playoffs, I know that for certain.  Well, that’s the first time I noticed something, anyway.  I remember sitting in my family room, overwrought and having murderous thoughts about my father every time he would flip to another channel during period breaks.  It got me timing them on my phone, 17 minutes to the second, and after that he had better watch out.  I didn’t really think too much on it, after all, hockey is the closest thing I have to an organized religion, and I’ve been pretty intense through playoff seasons in the past.

Except a few days later, it progressed to me watching the games on the television in the basement.  I was very upset and reactive, and not just about hockey.  My father became the target for my anger, and my mother for my not-quite-hysterical crying jags.  I thought it was hypersensitivity and anxiety, and in many ways, it was.  Just not quite the ways that I thought.

Then my head started pounding with migraines.  I became exhausted.  I already knew my emotions were all kinds of erratic.  And I was spacey and generally unfocused.  I would stop in the middle of sentences and just stare off at nothing, losing thoughts – or even the ability to generate them – completely for a minute or so.  I knew by then things were not at all right.

The migraine tied it up into one neat little cluster of symptoms for me.  It was all related to my headaches, a seed my psychiatrist had planted with complete innocence at one of our early visits.  He had discussed my migraines, my mood, and done some very casual speculating about temporal lobe epilepsy.  I brushed it off entirely in the moment.  When I was having psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) from the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that manifested due to the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I was sent to see a neurologist specializing in seizure disorders, the Man, every doctor in the land knew of him and how good he was (and I had to wait six months for an appointment).  He cleared me absolutely of epilepsy, or any kind of pathological seizure disorder apart from the one induced by the trauma.  And yes, it was fun to stick all of those unpleasant acronyms into one sentence, thank you.

But with my bipolar disorder stabilized, there was this strange cluster of symptoms that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt were not bipolar-related, and the migraine was seemingly the pivotal item upon which they all rested.  There had to be more to explain it.  Especially because shortly after the migraine episode passed, my symptoms remitted.  After a second episode when I was back home to visit my family in Pittsburgh, I began to poke into information on partial seizures, and even made an appointment with Dr. the Man.  But while, in theory, things were coming together, something about this explanation didn’t feel right to me.  I canceled the appointment and just kind of left things alone to simmer.

Then last month, a light bulb went off.  The light started in my uterus, but quickly made its way to my brain.  I was holed up in my room, I had been for days.  I wanted to smash someone or something, I was gobbling up Xanax and weeping, everything around me was irritating and stupid, I was exhausted and my head hurt. . .  And then I had a cramp.  Just a small one, but it pulled everything together in my mind.  I looked up the symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and voila!  My mom had it, too, which I knew somewhere in my brain.  They gave her a couple of medications to try back in the day, but apparently the cure was worse than what ailed her, and she just had to ride it out. Cooped up in a house all day.  With two small children.  Good Lord, that woman really is a saint.

So between me, my OB/GYN, and my psychiatrist (except mostly it was me), we’ve got it all set to where I up my mood stabilizers (Carbatrol and gabapentin) at a certain point in my cycle, and I’m a normal (well, my version of normal), mostly functioning human being again.  I’m still a little more anxious, irritable, and weepy, but I have been getting by pretty well on the balance. Especially since I started kickboxing again. Such joy, such release, endorphins, everything that is good.

So since things are going so well, let’s throw something into the mix to fuck things up.  It’s the way things work for me, I think I would be caught more off of my guard if things just went to plan.  And honestly, there is no bitterness in that statement.  I am completely used to it by now.

The IUD.  Oh God, the saga of the IUD!  Everything about it has been great, except the excruciating pain after insertion and the unholy cramping of my last period.  I don’t think I gave quite an exact idea of that, and even if I did, I’m going to again.  Keep in mind, ladies, that this is super-atypical.  There is usually increased cramping during your first couple of periods, but not, not, not anything like this.

Last period, I spent the majority of time basically bed-bound.  I had a heating pad cranked up to very high, I was taking Vicodin, alternating every three hours with mega-doses of ibuprofen, and I added in some old, expired muscle relaxers that belonged to my dad (he was happy to contribute what was left in the bottle as long as I shut up after I said the word “cramps” – and by the way, don’t be stupid and ever try this at home), and I had worked out a technique to keep myself immobile from the chest down by the end of the first day.  It was a simple thing, I moved, I wanted to die.  Pain really is a fantastic learning tool.

And still, and still, all of these measures only made my pain just bearable.  I swear to you that I am not playing up the intensity of this.  It started in my back, wrapped around my abdomen, and actually went shooting all the way down through every nerve in my left leg, out through my foot.  My OB/GYN said that it sounded as bad as labor pain to her.  I have no frame of reference, but I did feel totally legitimized and not like I was being a whiny bitch about things.  So that was nice.

And now I’m counting down to go time again.  I’ve got my shiny new bottles of (doctor prescribed) medication in my nightstand.  I’ve got my heating pad next to my bed.  I am all prepared.  Only I’m stressed as fuck about it, of course.  And ladies, you should know what stress can do.  It can delay your period!  Which for me means a longer time on an increased dose of mood stabilizers.  Which at this point is honestly making me a little dopey.  Time is passing oh-so-incredibly slowly, I’m walking around in a bit of a fog, and I just feel like there is something like a medication buildup clogging my brain.  But I can’t knock my doses down, because even now I’m still edgy.

Of course, there is somewhat of a light.  The good doctor and I agreed that we’ll (we’ll? what, is she going to go through the pain, too?) try two more cycles, and if the pain doesn’t get any better, the IUD comes out.  Which is a bridge I shall cross if and when I can see it in front of me.  Right now it’s a pretty long way off.

© 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.

Why It Matters

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Today, one of my favorite baristas at the Starbucks near my house asked me what I do for work.  Which is not such an unusual question for one person to ask another, but it’s one that has been trending in my life lately.  And I finally realized I want to share my answer with everyone.  There is a reason for me wanting to share it today, but I’ll get to that.

Some of you know, maybe some of you who will read this don’t.  Right now, I don’t do any kind of “work”, not in the conventional go to a job and get paid for it kind of way.  I am on government disability (SSI) for bipolar disorder.  I live with my parents, because I can’t afford to live on my own.  And for a period of long years, not so far back, I needed to live with my parents, because I was so profoundly ill.

Five months ago, I finally reached a state where I can say that I am well.  Not just “okay”, or “doing better”, I have come to an amazing place as far as my mental health is concerned.  I am somewhere I had stopped dreaming I could ever possibly reach.  The last six years of my life have been a hell of medication roulette, therapy, and even the evil electroconvulsive therapy.

Before that there was a period of steep decline, I can’t tell you how long it took before I finally came to a place where I said, “I need help.”  But it didn’t happen in the blink of an eye.

I can’t distill for you what life was like for the six years plus I have just lived through.  My brain has a difficult time conceptualizing it, and I lived it, so I know I couldn’t possibly explain.  Some of you saw me through some of it, and some of you I talked to, or you heard about my life from friends and family.  But the only two people outside of myself who come close to having a grasp on what things were like for me are my mom and dad, because they lived in the same house with me.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into all of that now.  The point is that now that I am doing well, I have gotten inquiries on what I am going to do next, am I going back to school, am I looking for a job, etc. (and not just from baristas).  And let me assure anyone who may have asked that I take no exception to questions like that.  I don’t think you’re pushing and you don’t hurt my feelings.  In fact, I can’t even remember who has asked me these questions, that’s how much they don’t matter.

As far as formal, common society’s definition of “working”, I can tell you that it’s probably going to be a little while before I do that (unless any of my friends Where I Live needs a nanny, that I could totally be on board with).  Yes, I am doing very well now.  But after six years, I’m not exactly going to push myself into something that will be a huge stressor, even a positive one, after just five months.  The way I look at it, I’m convalescing, just as I would if my illness were 100% physical.  I need to build my strength back up and get to fully understand my limitations.

My psychiatrist and I talked about this last week, and one of the things we discussed was volunteer work.  And I expressed to him that I’m not even quite there yet, because you have to be available specific hours, etc.

But that brought us around to what I wanted to write about, and what the title is referring to (yes, all of that was just a preamble).

A year ago today, a very good friend and fellow blogger and I co-founded a site, A Canvas Of The Minds.  The easiest way to explain it to people is as a “community mental health blog.”  Basically, we have gathered together a group of individuals who blog about mental health, and they all contribute pieces to the site.

Some of you have heard me talk about Canvas until you’re sick to death of the topic.  That is, if anyone whom I know outside of blogging reads this, which is what I’m hoping will happen.  And unless you are involved in the blogging community (and especially the mental health sector), you cannot possibly know the degree of support and the many true friendships that are a product of it.  It isn’t “real” or “important” to a lot of people, which I completely get.

Only, here’s the thing.  I pour my heart and soul into Canvas.  No, I can’t “work” right now.  And I’m not ashamed of that fact.  But Canvas allows me so many things that are denied to people who have basically had to retreat from society for one reason or another.  It gives me a way to spend my hours.  It is a creative outlet.  I have formed friendships because of it, both with co-authors and readers (with people all around the world, no less).  Real friendships.  Just because the bulk of our interaction is online, doesn’t take away from the truth of it.

But there’s more.  I am the admin of the site, so that means I am responsible for implementing all the behind-the-scenes stuff.  Ideas come from everyone, but I have to actually do anything major with the site.  Which gives me a sense of responsibility to everyone involved.  It gives me a reason to focus, to meet deadlines, and to think beyond myself.  And it also gives me a sense of pride and worth when someone compliments something I have written or done.

It can also be frustrating to no end.  I started out with practically zero technical know-how.  And even though we have a facebook page and even, recently, a Twitter account, I still am facing a steep learning curve.

But when I think about all we have accomplished in the space of a year, and the important part I played in that, my heart swells.  Because I am doing something that I not only love, but that is benefiting countless people.

So if I seem to go on, or am posting to facebook things from the Canvas page, or telling you something that happened with it when we talk, or asking for you to show your support in some way, stop for a minute and think.  Do you keep what you do all day to yourself?  Would you pass up an opportunity to promote a cause you are passionate about, one that affects you at the most personal level, because you think that it might bore or bother people?  Would you keep to yourself a project you are working on that has been your lifeline, or not talk about all of those who help to make it a reality?

That is why it matters.

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

An Open Bar Can Open Your Mind

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I’ve learned a lot of things recently.  And I’ve come to some realizations in the last month or so.  And I am going to lay them out here for my enjoyment, in spite of the tremor that makes typing a task and that no amount of food or rest seems to want to cure.  That sentence was better in my head.  So. . .

It turns out that getting a mild sunburn is not really the horrible thing I had come to fear.  Actually, it’s evidence of me being happy and utterly relaxed.

A good, full, belly laugh is better than two strawberry margs plus a 2mg Xanax for making me stress free and happy.

I should never leave the house without pen and paper, otherwise I resort to writing things down in the back of a book with a pen borrowed off of a very nice waitress with an infectious smile (I knew this one, but it happened anyway).

There ain’t nothing better in this world than friends and family, except maybe for friends who treat me like family.  Because maybe I pretty much am, even after all of the years spent apart.

When seemingly everything reminds me of someone, it’s because we made so many wonderful memories together.

Girlfriends are pretty much the best thing ever in the whole entire world.  And how I miss mine.  And. . .

I am so glad my oldest and very best is coming back to visit for a week.  Because she will make everything clearer and calmer, just by her presence (also because I have so many good memories of time spent in her parents’ home).

I may not be a strong swimmer, but I make a very good mermaid, nonetheless.

Spontaneous, unexpected expressions of love from kids are probably the best experiences of my life.

I can, in fact, be organized.  But it is contrary to my nature, and I am pretty much happier not making much of an effort.

Some people I will always miss, but that doesn’t preclude me moving forward.

Usually I have to completely destroy myself so I can build back up into something better.  I have gotten pretty quick on the turnaround, too.

If I can’t figure something out, maybe it doesn’t matter so much to me.  And if it does matter, I’ll figure it out soon enough.

If I listen to enough Van Morrison, I can do anything.  ;)


© 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.

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