Daily Archives: March 1, 2015

(This was written in increments over the last two days, sorry if it’s disjointed but I think doing it this way makes me stay more on point.)

So… a friend sends a text asking if I can get a sitter so they can come over for a bit later and catch up, watch a movie. In my never ending quest to “better myself” by following the advice of professionals rather than deferring to my own self knowledge…
I reply, cool, when. So it’s set for three and I have my kid at my mom’s house and rather than thinking, oooh, this is gonna be fun me time being a normal person interacting with another person…
My anxiety has skyrocketed to the point of stomach issues and crawling itchy skin.
I am just that ill at ease around people. Though it’s much worse when I am in the depressive phase. People actually like manic episodes. Depression…Most people find it too oppressive to endure or get mad when their efforts to cheer you up fail.
It’s too much pressure and stress.
I despise it.
Because even at my best, while it’s not this bad, it’s still there and it still makes life a living hell.
I went so far as undergoing hypnosis to “fix” this anxiety thing, since the consensus seems to be it’s just a personality type as opposed to a genuine problem. (Bullshit.)
I have a serious case of pretzel gut. Everything is twisted and churning and knotted. This is the less sexy aspect of anxiety, when it ceases to be a matter of deep breathing and self pep talks “I will not die, this is just a panic attack”…One cannot ignore the sudden urgent need for a bathroom, repeatedly. It’s humiliating. It’s one thing to have an actual medical condition that causes such issues. But to undergo all the embarrassing tests and scans and exams I did over the years only to be told I am making myself sick with my own anxiety…
And this is for something GOOD.
Half hour before social time.
Rather than dying down, the anxiety has risen. The thing about anxiety and panic are, they don’t care about logic. You can self pep talk til kingdom come and it doesn’t dull it a bit most times. I am a big self bully, I like kicking myself in the ass and telling myself to suck it up. So to try so hard and not be able to kick anxiety’s ass…It’s humiliating.

I had this epiphany when I was driving home from dropping Spook off at mom’s. I wanted to stop somewhere and instead, almost as if hypnotized, I went right past the turn and kept on the route we take from school to home every day. I think sometimes life is but a waking sleepwalk for me. I do what is mental muscle memory as far as routine. It’s automated, like breathing.
So this notion that going through the motions makes one high functioning is a crock.
I guess since every other aspect of my brain is off the rails, that lizard part makes sure I at least maintain the basics. Though that too hinges on my mood cycle. Mania makes you so high functioning, you’re ten feet tall and bulletproof and could sprout wings and fly if you wanted. (In your own mind.)
Depression saps you of every ounce of energy, motivation, and clarity so even zombie esque shambling is suspect.

Ever get stranded somewhere (in our case, major snow and bad roads) and find yourself so ill at ease at another’s home, you can barely sleep?
It was a friend’s place, we’ve stayed there before, but for some reason…I felt like I was stranded at sea. I was up every ten minutes because they keep the place silent as a tomb and I am so used to falling asleep to rain sounds or TV shows. Every step I took made the floor creak, and I got nervous about waking my friend. I was sharing an unfamiliar bed with my kid who at one point got so twisted her foot landed in my mouth. Literally. My stomach was in knots. My anxiety was off the charts. The silence was the worst part. Oh I have come to crave soft background noise, it seems to ease the noise in my head with the racing thoughts.
Silence…leaves me and my mental noise alone together. Ugh.
In spite of four inches of snow, we were up and back home by 8 a.m. I trudged through the snow, scooped the car out, and once ensconced in my safe bubble again…
Order was restored. As much order as can be established with my screwed up mind.

On a weird but possibly cool note…I ran into a guy I used to work with, haven’t seen him in 14 years. He accosted me in a parking lot and hugged me, remembered my name. I remembered him. He has pretty eyes, I always remember the eyes. That and we used to talk heavy metal on our smoke breaks. He’s like ten years younger than me, but he was always so cool to me, I thought he was a nice kid. (Did I mention the pretty eyes?)
Anyway, he told me has a daughter who’s a year older than mine, indicated he was single and interested in me, and maybe we should arrange a playdate for our kids. I gave him my number, not really expecting follow through. He wanted a ride and well, I’m not evil enough to make anyone (aside from the donor) walk home in deep blowing snow.
But when we got back this morning, there was an unfamiliar number on my caller ID. I actually blew it off, trashed it. Then went back and listened to it. He actually called to give me his number.
Yeah, I’m not sure what to do with that.
I always did like him, though. I struggled with that job a lot and he was always willing to help me out, even if I just needed to walk away for a minute to sort my head out.
I remember kind acts like that.
So who knows.
If nothing else., my kid gets a new playmate and I get a friend to talk metal and chainsmoke with.
Provided I can keep the crazy hidden.
With the current depression and anxiety and the whole nil desire to socialize…
It doesn’t look good.
But at least I am trying.

Today…I am doing fuck all but housework. Brain reboot. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks, so maybe I will finally drain out completely and recuperate with much needed rest. In my own bed, in my cold trailer, but able to breathe an with my beloved background noise.
And yes, I am aware how bizarre this all makes me seem.
Back in the day it was called eccentricty.
Now it’s called being mental.
Odd that.
I think my quirks are my best qualities.
I can do without the mental imbalances though.
Who knows….maybe I will bundle us up and go outside, let her build a snowman.
Or a snow penis, as my nephew and his friends made. They live by a school and a church. I guess complaints were immediate.
Funny as hell.
Somehow I wonder if they had been snow breasts if that would have been less offensive. Society has a bug up its ass about showing a penis on tv and such. But tits…are everywhere.

I wish I had artistic ability.
I’d totally build a snow Dalek.
Ice -Terminate.

The big story last week for those of us with mental disorders was this one:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/truly-barbaric-florida-deputy-drags-mentally-ill-woman-through-courthouse-by-shackled-feet/#.VOyTNKh2Gbc.facebook

For those of you who haven’t read it or seen the video, here’s the gist. A woman, Ms. Rios, was declared mentally incompetent at a hearing for a minor offense and not allowed to say goodbye to her mother. She wanted to sit on a bench and cry for a bit. When she did not go promptly with the officer, he dragged her through the courthouse by her shackled feet. A video was taken on a cellphone camera by a lawyer who happened to be present, but had nothing t do with Ms. Rios’s case. If you watch the video clip you can see and hear her distress.

As the headline says, this was barbaric.

But there’s lots neither the headline nor the story says. I have questions.

What is the woman’s mental illness? Or why is she mentally incompetent? The stories vary, usually calling her “mentally ill,” which is shorter for the headline writers, but so far I have seen nothing more specific. One could get the impression that in the mind of the media – and therefore their readers – that the two terms mean the same thing. Was she medicated or unmedicated or off her prescribed meds? Does she have a developmental disability? An autism spectrum disorder? An emotional or behavioral disorder? We don’t know. But does the label make her automatically suspected of potential violence? The woman did not behave like an animal even when she was treated like one.

I think we all know people who have mental disorders but are still mentally competent to conduct their own affairs, up to and including court proceedings. In fact, I know you know one – me. But who among us, or among the sanest and most stable of the general public, wouldn’t have needed to sit on a bench and cry before going to wherever the officer thought we should go? Who wouldn’t yell and protest and try to hold on to a table if we were dragged anywhere by our shackled feet?

Why is the officer’s action called “barbaric”? I’m not saying it wasn’t barbaric. But how was it more barbaric than other things routinely done to the incarcerated mentally ill (or incompetent)? Could it be because the officer’s actions were caught on tape? How many everyday barbaric actions aren’t? And putting aside simple human compassion (which he did), didn’t the officer’s actions create a larger, potentially more dangerous disturbance?

Why did the other officers present do nothing? You can see them on the video. They are spectators. No one says, “Hey, do you have to do that?” or “Give her a minute to calm down” or “Here, let me take care of this” or “You know, there are other ways to handle this” or even “Are you sure you want to do that with the camera rolling?” Nothing. Nada. Zippety. Doo-dah.

Why weren’t the officers and other courthouse personnel trained to handle situations like that? They obviously happen occasionally. Officers are (supposedly) trained to handle situations involving violent felons (which Ms. Rios wasn’t), domestic violence, and how to restrain suspects properly. Some even get sensitivity training on race, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. Where’s the training for interacting with the mentally ill (or mentally incompetent)? For de-escalating a situation instead of throwing gas on the fire? How about anger management before incidents like this one instead of after? Shouldn’t every law enforcement official be able to control or channel his or her anger and not take it out on the public?

Why the hell aren’t police officers required to wear body cameras – and have someone whose job it is to, oh, I don’t know, review them occasionally? Certainly when there’s been a complaint, but spot checks might also do some good. Why are civilians subject to increasing surveillance, while law enforcement personnel – who are also civilians, by the way – perform their jobs with minimal oversight.

And why is the Golden Rule suspended when the “others” have a mental disturbance? I’d really like to know.

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I am cross-posting a slightly altered version of this essay to Et Cetera, etc., my general purpose blog (janetcobur.wordpress.com).