Category Archives: Uniquity

A Dream

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I had a dream, a wonderful dream.  So wonderful that I didn’t mind having it.  I actually liked having it.

But then I woke up.  I woke up because I was so excited from the dream I thought that it was truth.  And I wanted to live it, with my swollen heart.

But.

It was just a dream after all.  Now it is reality, and I must somehow go back to my broken sleep.

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” ~ Saul Bellow

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Antidote

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just perfect

original art (which you will recognize from Canvas) by The Artist formerly known as Babygirl 


© 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.

“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.

These Boots Were Made For Many Things

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After remembrance of things past in Before There Ever Was A Tuesday. . ., and subsequent discussions with Suzie Ivy and PAZ, I thought it might be fun to take photos of my boots for yinz to see.  Now this isn’t as easy as it sounds, with a camera phone and a tremor, but I think you’ll get the general idea.

So, without further ado. . .

The Docs of my youth.

 

My Undergrounds, which I prefer to call my shit-kickers.

 

My practical, but still sassy, brown boots.

 

My gorgeous cowgirl boots.

 

My drop-dead black boots, which don’t look like so much from the front. . .

 

But from the back. . . well, I really couldn’t get a clear shot (you try bending over backwards and trying to take a good picture some time).  But they lace up and they are sex on heels.

Kisses from my closet ~

© 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.

My New About Page, Not Very Creatively Named “The Blog”

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I have a great deal of tweaking to do on this site.  I don’t really intend any major structural renovations, mostly I want to clean up and clarify and rearrange, a little bit at a time.  But tonight I rewrote my About page, and it honestly knocked me out, emotionally.

So I am going to paste it below as my post for the day.  I think it was worth all of the effort I put into it, I hope that you who are reading it do, too.

And incidentally, since it is an actual page and not technically intended as a post, I have forgiven myself the effort of adding a moral.  I hope you lovelies will show me the same degree of understanding. Also, know that I will keep you updated via posts when I make any changes to the site’s content.

The Blog
(That’s the actual link to the page, but what it will take you to can be read in its entirety, directly below.)

This page is tricky, and this page is so very simple.

The tagline of this site reads:  Here is the place where I say whatever happens to nag at my mind.  And that is the absolute, honest-to-God, straightforward truth.  Alright, I admit that a little filtering goes on, but it should be obvious by the posts I have written thus far that it is a very little filtering.

I realized while exploring other blogs that this page is really the first impression, how d’you do, this is me section of the site.  When I come across a new blog, the About page is generally where I go first, so, well, I know what it is I’m going to be reading about.  I usually even check it out before the Author page, which I hope my lovely readers, and obviously other blog authors, will not consider to be rudeness on my part.

So.  The complicated part is distilling for you, my lovelies, what exactly is it that does nag at my mind most frequently throughout these posts?  I came to understand that wasn’t a question I could answer objectively in my own mind.  So I looked at my tags (keywords and subjects you add to sort of direct people to the content of your post, for all of you non-bloggers) and I also looked at my categories (I imagine those don’t need explanation).

Here is what I came up with:

Words that were most often present as both tags and categories: bipolar disorder/manic-depression, family, writing, mental differences (my pet name for mental illness/health), blogs/blogging.  

Other terms that made frequent recurrences as tags or categories: support, love, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), friends, gratitude, honesty, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), children, trust, coping, lifestyle choices, my brain, relationships, uniquity, and the all-encompassing other things.

So I guess that tells both you and me what the major confluences are that direct my thoughts.  But I honestly don’t know that it gives you an accurate and fair picture of this blog.  Not really.

The posts are filled with emotion and anger and fear and happiness and reactivity.  I honestly can tell you that I went full and completely mad last year, and that’s saying something.  I usually refer to myself as “crazy” in a very flippant manner, though I know it to be true.  It just doesn’t happen to bother me much, not the fact of it.

But I took some time off at the end of last year.  Before I started blogging again, I reread many of the posts I had written, and with some time and distance I felt like I got a much more accurate idea of it all. . .  I will be honest, I had a long internal debate about wiping the slate clean, getting rid of all the reminders of the me I was now so afraid of.

Ultimately, I chose not to.  Those feelings were genuine, those thoughts and reactions were valid parts of my reality as it existed then.  And while there is so much that I am not proud of, I would be lying to all of you and invalidating a big part of me and my own life were I to destroy those writings.

I want to go forward and be positive.  I want to heal and be strong and happy and loving.  And I guess if you want me to sum it up neatly, that is what this blog is truly about.

© 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’m Completely Uncertain About Everything Right Now

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It isn’t from the possibility of a mild concussion, either (although I’m confused about that as well).  It started before that.

This state I’ve been in and out of, and looking through things I’ve honestly probably been in and out of it for at least five months, the more I think back, the more that seems right.  That was the time I felt the mania starting to creep and build, and finally copped to the fact that I couldn’t handle it without pharmaceutical intervention.  Pensacola, and whenever exactly it was my mixed state started – more than a month ago – came at me seemingly out of nowhere.  And that isn’t how I work.  Not after all of these years of awareness and hyper-vigilance.

But if I think about never really being properly medicated from the start, it’s no wonder the other things came (seemingly) out of nowhere, building to what I wish I could say was the apogee of my frenzy.  But I can’t.  Because I still don’t have a psychiatrist, right now I’m not even sure if I have a primary.  And even if I had both, for me there is not such thing as “properly medicated,” or even just “properly treated,” at least not by society’s or the medical community’s standards.

I have a friend who always tells me to not make the mistake of thinking I’m “terminally unique.”  I have news for her and anyone else reading this.  I am.  I’ve been through all of the meds in all of their dosages and combinations, I’ve been through behavioral therapies and electroconvulsive therapy and naturalistic therapy and anything I’ve not been through is because I was evaluated and found not to be a suitable candidate.

I may be in misery right now, I’m not even sure, things change so rapidly within.  But if I am in misery?  So?  This is me.  For better or for worse, I was made this way by whatever or whomever, and I don’t just mean the manic-depression and related disorders.  I mean the intolerance and non-responsiveness to medication, I mean the fact that I spend more time (and do a better job of) analyzing psychotherapists than they do me, I mean the whole she-bang.

People with mental disorders so often get the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or “just snap out of it” approach by ignorant assholes who are unable or unwilling to recognize that these are legitimate medical issues, and those statements are tantamount to telling someone with cancer to wish it away.  I get that, believe me I get that, if anyone in the world does.  Bear that in mind.

I’m out of options.  I’ll keep looking for another shrink, but he won’t be able to “fix” me any more than the others could.  If I’m lucky I’ll find one who will help me to manage myself on my terms.  Because I do need to pull myself up by my bootstraps.  Not because I haven’t been trying hard enough thus far – dear Jesus, no – but because life has left me with no other option.  There just literally isn’t anything else for me to do.

Manic-depression won the last round.  It does sometimes, you know.  The dragons.  But I learned some things.  I learned a lot of things which I’m still sorting through, things which will help me fight smarter in rounds to come.

So I guess that is the one thing I am certain about.  I haven’t come away from this round bloodied, beaten, and bruised to no purpose.

I just pray I have time to get cleaned up and gather myself before I hear the bell that tells me I have to come out of my corner and back into the ring.

Moral of the story:  The proof is in the pudding, if you have a sensitive and well-trained palate.

© 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.

I’ll Be Alright, Just Not Tonight. . .

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Why do smart women do stupid things?  That is the (eternal) question.  Or am I really not very smart and everyone throughout my entire life has just planned a big conspiracy to humor me and make me feel like I am?  Going back to the Greeks, when Plato and Aristotle wrote things (what are now books) which you weren’t “supposed” to be able to understand in school without the help of your Philosophy teacher, but I read in my teens, on my own, and understood perfectly well.

And this isn’t even me being stupid over a guy.  Not in the traditional sense, anyway.

I had my day of neurocognitive testing at the beginning of September.  I have a follow-up scheduled for next week, to discuss the results I got in the mail today and just went over.  I knew, I knew when it was taking the doctor a month-and-a-half to send out a report to me, instead of four weeks, that he was having trouble with my results.  I thought he was just trying to be thorough, and perhaps he was.  But what he sent out to me was instead thoroughly unhelpful and upsetting.

In eight specific areas of testing, I was noted to be “mildly,” or more often “mildly to moderately impaired” twelve separate times.  I knew it would be bad, but this is what they deal with, so obviously they have some kind of reasoning for a causal agent and a direction for improving my functioning, right?  That was the whole point of me doing this.  I already knew I was having problems, or I wouldn’t have undergone the testing.  I wanted to know why and how we could improve it.  Expectations not met, not even marginally.

I quote, “The etiology of the patient’s current pattern of neurocognitive deficits is somewhat unclear at this time and may be multifactorial in nature.”  The rest of the summary says that my “complaints seem to be out of proportion” to what the tests came back with.  Does it never occur to this man (the doctor) that perhaps that has something to do with the fact that two years ago, before the ECT my brain was much more highly functioning than it is now, and I have that as a frame of reference, whereas he just met me?  I’m not upset about the way my brain is functioning compared with the average person’s, I don’t have any idea how the average person’s brain functions, as I don’t live in it and depend upon it daily.  My complaint is that my brain is not functioning in any way like it used to.

He goes on to surmise that my issues arise from “. . . a variety of potential etiologies, including psychiatric symptoms, medication side effects, chronic pain (including migraine pain), and sleep difficulties.”  Nowhere does he account for the fact that I lived for years with all of this without experiencing any issues with cognition.  He then makes the cogent and always greatly appreciated observation that I need psychiatric care.

Apparently his cognitive functioning, memory, and recall are more than a little impaired, as I told him that I was in the process of transitioning between psychiatrists, not that I had ceased to see one.  I would have to fall into the category of severely impaired not to realize that I need continuing psychiatric care, and will for the rest of my life.

I don’t know, I suppose I’m just extremely upset because I’m still trying to negotiate my way out of this minefield of a mixed episode, and after our initial meeting, I had a favorable impression of the doctor.  I was dumb enough to believe he had a good grasp on my specific situation, and further I thought he would actually try to take the time to figure out what was wrong and provide constructive solutions – and maybe he did initially, but when he hit the wall the doctor/God complex kicked in and instead of simply saying “I don’t know,” he had to write it off as a laundry list of other things that didn’t undermine him and his “expertise” in any way.

But you had better believe that I will go in next week with a million questions and demands for explanations such that he’ll wish he had copped to not being able to figure it out to begin with.  I won’t do it out of vengeance or pettiness, I’ll do it because I need to know all of the finer points of the situation.  I’m on my own as far as how to proceed with this, which was a conclusion I had reached once the time stretched and I realized there was no way they were going to be able to classify me, nor stick me in their comfortable little boxes.  And being on my own, I will pick every morsel of information I can from that doctor’s brain, so that I can figure out what best to do with it and where I go with myself next.

And if I can get him to admit that he really doesn’t know, more’s the better.  I would have so much more respect for doctors, and dislike them so much less if they could just man (or woman) up and confess to it when they don’t have the answers.  I never in all of my life believed that doctors were super-human or gods, not even as a small child.  To me saying, “I don’t have an answer for this,” doesn’t hurt my opinion of them, actually it usually improves it considerably.  So few are willing to admit it when that is the case.  My PCP will, which is a major reason why I’ve stuck with him all of these years.

But I guess we’ll see next Friday how impaired this doctor thinks I am.  Generally when I go in prepared, both guns blazing, doctors quickly realize that not just giving me a straight answer in the first place was a big, big mistake.  Ain’t no one knows how to get a person to admit they screwed up like I do.

Moral of the story:  We live in a world where doctors are automatically accorded certain privileges and respects simply because they made it through medical school.  A great paradigm shift needs to take place here, and if I have to dedicate my life to being the impetus for it, don’t think for a minute that I won’t.

© 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.