Tag Archives: perspective

Knock It Off

Posted on by
26

Or don’t.  But whatever you do, expect no more from me right now.  I’ve loused things up enough for the moment.

I was right in thinking I never should have published that last post, you see.  Because that post has caused exponential worry.  It has caused the people who read it to worry.  It has caused the people who read its mothers to worry, because the people who read it worried so.

Now please, know that when I am in a marginally better place, I am grateful for all of the love and support and the hands reaching out for me.  But when I am here, when I am so goddamned exhausted that even typing these few hundred words is a Herculean effort on my part, well right now. . .

Here’s how it goes.  When people worry about me, I feel badly and try to make them worry less.  I make sure to keep phone dates and return texts and reply to emails.  But this depression, the one I am in right now, I just can’t do it.  Which, of course, only makes people worry more.

So here are the facts.  I am profoundly depressed, I am physically exhausted in a way I can scarcely ever remember being, I am severely anxious, and I have been psychotic recently.  I have seen my doctor, I am trying a different medication combo, I will keep in close contact with him.  I live in my home with my two extremely vigilant parents, one of whom sees or talks to me at least once a day.  I have never seriously harmed myself, nor have I ever attempted to take my own life.  This is not my first depressed state, nor will it be my last.  And that’s a good thing, because I know enough to know that I just have to take my pills and wait this shit out.  I’ve lived this long with it, I imagine I can slug through some considerable time longer.

My friend Suzie Ivy taught me a very, very important lesson, though I didn’t tell her at the time.  She made a comment on a post I wrote many months ago, to the effect that she is a mother, and a grandmother, and it is her right to worry if she wants to.  Suzie is an incredible friend, and a wise, wise lady, for so many more reasons than just that comment. But she’s one hundred percent correct.  It is her right to worry if she wants to.

Just as it is the right of everyone who loves and cares about me to worry.  If you want to.  It’s not going to make me any better, but go right ahead.  And this might sound awfully callous of me, but I here and now wash my hands of it and permit myself to go forward without guilt.  I shouldn’t have written that last post, and I have confessed my sin and God has given me my penance and it has been paid (and I mean every bit of that seriously, with all of the Catholic I have still in me).

So go right ahead and worry about me, if that’s your choice.  Just remember that there is a difference between caring and worrying, and unlike caring, worrying is exactly that: your choice.

(And as I reread this, yes, I find it a bit of a harsh missive to a great many kind people, and I wish I could get my message through without seeming such a bitch. But that’s the point, don’t you see?)

© 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.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Posted on by
Reply

Okay, so not completely.  I’ve done this kind of thing before, I’ve just done it sparingly and never devoted and entire post to it.

This is what Ruby needs to do when she gets so off kilter that she starts referring to herself in the third person and making people who love her worry.  Hi, I’m back living in my own head, in my own life, first person again.

Incidentally, I think the third person thing is a protective measure.  I just get too shell-shocked or depressed or severely upset and I can’t live in my head and process all of it, so I talk about myself in regard to it almost as an other.  It isn’t some odd, mild form of DID, I know exactly what I am doing when I am doing it, and it’s only specific to the stressor I’m trying to process.  I don’t go around saying things like, “Ruby is hungry.  Ruby cannot find anything in the fridge, so she has to go to the store now.”  Y’know.

This came about in a very odd, roundabout sort of way, as many pretty much all of my blog posts do.  This evening my mama and I finally went to see the last Harry Potter movie.  We both love the books, and have enjoyed the the movies as well.  I took my girls to some of the book release parties at Barnes and Noble, even though they were mostly too young to have any idea what all of the fuss was about.  My oldest especially enjoyed all of the hoopla involved (thanks to their parents for dragging their small children out w-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y past bed time and keeping them up, by the way).

In any case, Mom and I meant to see the movie right when it came out, then life happened and we were just happy we had a chance to see it while it was still playing in the theater.  I won’t give you my two on the movie (yet – quite possibly ever), but in discussing it with my mother, I realized something interesting about the way I watch movies based off of books – especially really incredible books – that even four years and sixteen shocks to the brain didn’t alter in the least.

I watch these movies as a writer, a perspective which is – or was, until tonight – completely unconscious and to a degree involuntary.  The only way I can go see such a movie is to put time and distance between reading the book and watching the movie, but in this particular case I found so often I would say to myself as something happened on the screen, That’s not right.  That’s not how it happened.  That wasn’t in the book.  They put that in the wrong order.  And I know I’m right, because – well first of all because I just do, but also – certain scenes I described from the book to my mother afterwards and she said things like, “Oh, I remember that now.”

Now I read this particular volume once, maybe twice, and most recently four years ago – when it was released.  And I’m getting to the point of this post.

When I am in that place, the third person place, the best thing to get me out of it, even temporarily, is to list the good things in my life and especially about me.  So here goes.

I see things differently.  I see everything differently.  I recall the minute differences between the book and the movie, and much as I hate some things (because my medium of choice is the written form), I also see why they did what they did in the movie, why some things had to be changed, why some could have and should have been done differently or better to fulfill the same necessity, and why a book and a movie cannot be arranged identically.  It must be done that way, because the elements that make a successful book do not always a successful movie make.

Which of course is why the book is always better.  ;P

Wow, I’m suddenly very exhausted (mentally and emotionally).  In a good way.  I have no more need to list my good traits right now, that one will do nicely for tonight.

Moral of the story:  Ask and ye shall receive.  Sometimes in an instant.

A last note for all of you lovelies.  In the days, weeks, months, years to come (never can say with me), I’m going to be doing some revamping of this blog.  Adding, subtracting, rewriting, redesigning – all because I have some better notion (after six months) of it and of me and of how I can best and most honestly share myself with you.  So I’ll be keeping you posted on all of that as well.

Kisses,
Ruby

© 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.

Righteous Is A Good Color On Me

Posted on by
2

This post was meant to be written entirely differently.  I was working on it, being thorough and meticulous, sticking to the point.  And then something came along and lit a fire under my ass.  I began re-reading what I had written, which was almost half of a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g post, decided it was boring and ultimately worthless for my intent and purpose, and trashed the whole thing.  Never in my life have I destroyed anything I have written.  I may look back on it now and roll my eyes at my juvenile plots or ideas, I may dislike the subject matter, it may even be viscerally painful to read, but not because of the writing itself.  So that move was completely unprecedented.

I wanted to post on the four most important things I have learned from having mental differences.  Oh, FYI, don’t ever tell me I’m “mentally ill.”  I’m not.  I’m wired differently, and not just in clinically diagnostic, Axis I, “bad” ways that need “curing” or “treating” or even “managing.”  I’m wired differently in every way, and that is what makes me so goddamned special.  It’s what makes me who I am, and I wouldn’t trade that for the ability to choose for myself the qualities I like, treasure, and value most from all of the everyones in the world.  I’ve already got ‘em all.  Stick that up your DSM and smoke it.

The four most important things I have learned are both simple and impossible to explain to anyone who is not me: perspective, priorities, acceptance, and fighting back (original title of the post, by the way).  That’s not to say that most people can’t learn them, it’s to say that they are very individualistic concepts.  And while I would be willing to help anyone in teasing them out for themselves, they will be different in subtle but crucial ways for you than they are for me.  And while people can help guide and direct you to certain realizations, the ones that you don’t ultimately come to on your own will never stick.  And if they don’t stick, you’re going to be back in the same situation again, sooner or later (and also even I will throw out my most sacred rules of style and grammar when I want to).

I lived close to three decades standing on my principles and giving a voice to those who couldn’t speak.  Who remembers the button I wore pinned to every garment I owned, every day in middle school, that professed something along the lines of, “People who wear fur are assholes and fuck you if you try to contradict me?”  Of course it was shorter, less explicit, and made no mention of that last part – that part you just learned if you said anything disparaging about it or me wearing it.  And even the most ignorant of my fellow students only had to learn that lesson once (I still have the button, by the way).  God bless PETA.  :)

At any rate, the one time in my life I caved to external pressure, I had the rug ripped from under me and I have taken nearly two years to learn to be able to balance again.  But lately I feel like I could easily walk barefooted on a barbed wire tightrope.  I’d like to be able to credit people and call them out by name for helping me get here.  And I won’t dismiss my incredible cheering section and all the help and support and guidance they have shown me.  But unless you haven’t bothered reading this post or aren’t paying attention, only one person gets the credit for me being here right now: me.

Because of my unique perspective and ability to assimilate experiences into it, my true understanding of priorities and what actually matters, my personal acceptance of certain things about my life and life in general, and my ability to fight back with all of the dirtiest and most effective tools that exist when necessary, I got myself back here.  I had a great deal of help, and I hope that I always will, but I also know that people fall and walk out of your life, people wind up in their own mishigas and cannot offer you their continued focus, people promise to stand by your side until death and then leave you, people die.  You’re the one you’re born with, you’re the one who’s with you always, you’re the one who is with you until you die, without fail.  You can undermine and sabotage yourself much more deeply than anyone else, but you also hold the power to support and build yourself up in such a way that nothing can ever put you off of your balance for more than a brief interlude.

Moral of the story:  Hooray, for me, hooray, for you, “. . .hip-hip-hooray for Winnie the Pooh!  And Piglet too!”*  Also, when it really matters, never trust anything on the internet or any other reference material.  Go directly to the source.

Now pop open some ridiculously expensive champagne and toast me!  Post number 100 and I find it perfect.  :D  I’d drink a whole bottle, but benzos and booze mix very poorly.  They have the nasty little side effect of death, frequently.

*from the Disney film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, song by Sherman and Sherman

© 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.

Fighting Dragons

Posted on by
2

So I am officially making a post for everyone in my life who has struggled (and no one hasn’t), supported me, and helped prop me up and regain perspective.  Whether I have known you forever or just a short time, I really appreciate the support you have shown me.  Thanks especially to the beautiful woman I spoke with at great length today on the phone.  Oh, yeah, and you, Always.  Bitch.  Also, I’ve missed you.

I don’t feel like I know what tomorrow will bring.  I don’t even know what the rest of tonight will bring.  But right now that’s something I can deal with.  Right now.  The only certainty that exists for me is uncertainty.  That’s the crux of PTSD.  It’s forever, and you never know when it’s going to come fuck you up.

Now I don’t claim to be okay with this, not by a long way.  I have to figure it out and figure out why and conquer it, goddamnit.  You would think I would have learned with the bipolar that it doesn’t always work out that way.  Well, I did, but only specific to the bipolar.  Also it took me six years.

But focusing on the positives right now.  A major step in my life this past week has been reaching a point where I’m even beginning to consider that accepting the uncertainty is the key to it all.  Yes, I still want to work on what in particular triggered me at this moment and to this degree.  However, I also need to take this one in bits, and be vigilant for warning signs.  These need to be noticed for two important reasons.  First, those little things that start causing me to react in any way need to be noted, if I’m going to have any chance of wading through this.  Second, post-traumatic stress disorder is the absolute antithesis of anything I have ever dealt with.  The worst thing I can do is to fight it, head-to-head, refusing to back down, completely unarmed.  I need a great deal more insight before I can confront anything.

The other part, which is a killer for me, is working on accepting that I may not be able to figure it out.  And that even if I do, that’s this time.  The very beautiful woman I referenced above reminded me that sometimes you have no idea what triggers reactions.  That will be my biggest challenge, I suspect.

But at this moment I can take it on.  Lately, when I have lost myself, someone (often multiple someones) has seemingly popped out of nowhere to help me to find that woman whom I have mislaid (which also reminds me that she is not lost, just temporarily missing).  Ultimately, I know this is something I have to do alone.  But it makes an amazing difference when I have people reminding me of the fact that I can and will.

Love and kisses to you all.  And please actually click on and watch the video.  I had to make a concession to the wobbly camera, but you have no idea how hard I worked to find the best version possible.  Well, one of you does.  ;)

And “May these memories break our fall.”


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

Moral of the story:  OCD can be a good thing at times.  But people who truly care are always far better.

© 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.

Someday I’ll Be Big Enough So You Can’t Hit Me

Posted on by
6

I keep trying to tell my depression that, but it doesn’t listen.  It just rolls its eyes and mocks me with a, “Yeah, someday, sure.”  Then it knocks me flat again.  Fucker.

But that isn’t what this post is about, in spite of the title.  At least I don’t think it is.  Of course I often don’t know what my posts are about until after they’re written.

Actually, I had it in my head to write about my experiences driving yesterday, for whatever reason.  Oh, wait, now I remember why it all relates.  We’ll see if I can convey it or not.

So I’m not going to sit here and spout off about what a good driver I am.  Pretty much everyone I know thinks that they’re a good driver, and this idea frequently has no basis in reality.  That being the case, I’m not going to discuss my driving abilities one way or another.

However, I try very hard to be a safe, cautious, aware driver.  I think this is a product of having regularly driven with other people’s children in my car.  I try never to talk on my cell while driving, and on the rare occasions when I do, I either use an earpiece or put the phone on speaker (even though this is not compulsory where I live).  I try very hard to be focused on the road, other drivers, any potential construction or other anomalies, things of that nature.  I do allow myself to blast loud music and sing along while I drive.  But I pretty much take the view that every other driver on the road is unaware, incompetent, and basically out to kill me.

But yesterday. . .  I was driving like a flipping idiot.  I wasn’t focusing, I was paying attention, but not enough.  I didn’t do anything extremely stupid, but I still feel lucky that I got everything done and made it home without getting into an accident.

Shall we talk about distracted driving?  Distracted driving frequently occurs for me when I’m in a mixed state, and the thoughts are hitting into my brain at the speed of light, and they all seem so important that I have to somehow remember them, which in general I straight up cannot do (thank you, ECT).

And while I’m being bombarded, I’m already in a place where I’m thinking about three to five really upsetting, fairly major things that are going on in my life.  Simultaneously, because that’s just how my mind works.

I was very much aware of the fact that I was not as mindful of the road as usual, having been alerted to this by stupid things like speeding and not noticing cars in my blind spot until they had passed me.  But no matter how hard I tried to re-focus my head and compensate, I kept regressing to the chaos in my mind.

Maybe I should have parked somewhere and called someone to pick me up, but that seemed a bit extreme.  I don’t know.  As I said, I didn’t do anything overtly stupid, I just don’t like not being 100% there when performing any kind of task that could potentially kill myself or others.

Today I plan on staying in.  And sleeping a lot.  I’m not overly tired, I just feel like all of this is a way that my brain is signaling me that it needs some extra time to process and dial down.

On the positive side, I am starting a gratitude journal.  I was reminded of it by something the other day. . .  In any case, many years ago I kept one for quite some time, and I think it did me more good than I realized.

It’s very simple, and I recommend this for everyone.  All you need is a journal (even a notebook works, I just love my lovely journals), a pen, and a little bit of perspective.  Every night before bed – well, you don’t have to do it before bed, I just find this the best time for me, because I can reflect on the day, and if it’s been a bad one I force myself to change my mindset a little and thus I sleep with a bit more peace - you write the date, and at least one thing that you’re grateful for.  It can be a person, it can be an experience, it can be something small like a new eye shadow that you love, or something big like the birth of your best friend’s baby.  It doesn’t matter what it is, that’s actually the only rule.  You are not permitted to look at what you’ve chosen and decide that it isn’t significant enough.  If your day was such that you’re grateful that the milk wasn’t sour, that counts.  It isn’t so much what you choose as the way it alters your perspective and mindset.

Here I go.

Moral of the story:  Drive safely and be grateful.  

© 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.

Better Or Worse?

Posted on by
Reply

Okay, fed, new lingerie, exhausted.

WTF?  I think that my muscles have officially begun to atrophy.  I’ve lost so much weight lately, and these last couple of days have been my first actual test of what my body can do.  It seems like it can’t.

Hang on.

Okay, I am now officially blogging from the bathtub because my mother and aunt are talking downstairs and I can’t focus.  I’m freezing, but I can concentrate.

Can you grow past your early 20s?  I always thought the upper limit for getting taller was like 22, max.  A few months ago the doctor measured me and I was up a half of an inch.  And I’ve been walking around in low-to-no heels these past two days and everyone seems so. . .  Well, short.  Like incredibly short.  I’m going to have them measure me at my next doctor’s appointment and see if we can add to the list of freakish things my body does.

It is really great to be home.  This place is like my fountain of youth (despite how old my muscles and bones currently feel).  I come back and just the city itself renews me.  The smells, the sights, and the fact that everyone is so nice.  Seriously.  All the waitresses call you ‘hon,’ people chat with you about everything, they help you without you having to chase them down and make them do their jobs, I don’t know what the hell it is.

I want to come back here so badly.  To live.  But I’ve got kids out west, my parents aren’t getting any younger, and let’s not even mention the financial impossibility of me moving right now.

I swear to God, though, if I lived back here, so much of the internal dissonance would dissipate (like the alliteration?  I like the alliteration).  I just want to be here.  Sitting in an empty bathtub in the hotel, spine digging into the – what the hell is this tub made from?  Anyway, sitting here in the hotel in unpleasant circumstances and I feel so calm.  It’s amazing.  I can’t remember having felt this calm.  Maybe when I was out visiting my sister, lying on her squishy love seat with my niece asleep on my chest. . .

It’s that kind of really deep, intense, complete sense of internal relaxation.  I almost want to cry because it feels so right.  But I’m too calm!

I think this may turn out to be a week of self-renewal and self-(re)discovery.  A shift of perspective.  Instead of focusing on all of the reasons why it’s impractical and difficult and I can’t, maybe I need to figure out how I can.  I mean, if it could get me back my mental health, that’s it.  Everything else is secondary to that.  Everything else has to come secondary to that.  It’s big and it’s terrifying to contemplate, but if it made me this calm and grounded, on a long-term basis, I could handle all of the scary and complicated.

We’ll see what I say in a week.  ;)

Moral of the story:  Who says you can’t go home?

Much, much better.

© 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.