Daily Archives: May 3, 2015

Dating with Bipolar Disorder

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment
When my bipolar disorder manifested, or rather, I should say, when I was diagnosed, I was 23 and in graduate school. I had recently begun dating a guy I went to high school with. So we had known each other for about ten years. When I was hospitalized for mania, he came to visit me. When I was discharged, he supported me and stayed with me. We would break up a few months later. Not because of the bipolar disorder, but for other reasons.

I did not realize that what I experienced with this guy was such a huge feat.

For the next six years I would be stable - no episodes, no hospitalizations. My next serious relationship happened because of Match.com. I met a fellow teacher and we bonded instantly. The attraction was immediate. We dated for a few months, close to a year. We too broke up, but remained loosely attached in that weird limbo of do-I-don't-I-want-you land. Then, my second hospitalization happened. He did not come visit me in the hospital. He did not call my mother to check on me. When I was discharged I did not call him out on this behavior, but I was saddened by it. A few months later he completely cut me off. With no warning or any explanation. A year would go by before we spoke again. But when we did, I asked him why the disappearing act. His honest response was that my hospitalization scared him. I do not blame him for walking away. Not everyone can handle dating a person with a mental illness/mood disorder. But what was not acceptable was how he handled it.

After this, which occurred two years ago, I became worried that no one would want to date me because of my diagnosis. I was depressed June 2013 to May 2014 so I wasn't worried about dating during that year. But when the depression ended, and the mania started, I grew interested in a relationship again. Summer 2014 I dated casually and seriously. The guy I was dating seriously would eventually become my current boyfriend.

He read and researched the topic of dating someone with bipolar disorder. He attended a Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) meeting with me in August 2014. And when I was hospitalized a month ago for 13 days, he visited me twice (commuting from NYC to NJ to see me) and we spoke every day.

Since I've been blogging, I've been reading articles about mental health and I follow a bunch of mental health organizations on social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). Some of these articles discuss being in relationships with people who have mental illnesses and I must confess, people's views on dating people with mental illness scare me sometimes. There were so many horror stories in the comments section. So many people cautioning non-diagnosed people away from dating people with diagnoses. Stories of anger issues, money mismanagement, mood swings, violence, and overall low-functioning life abilities (i.e. the inability to hold down a job or pay bills on time or to seek help whether in the form of psychotherapy or medication). It all sounded so bleak.

So when my current boyfriend decided that he was ready to turn our casual/serious dating into a full-fledged relationship I was nervous and skeptical. Given all the reading he'd done, and given that my last boyfriend fled, why would he chance dating me?

Despite the dating and marriage horror stories and despite my chronic illness (I've been hospitalized every spring for the last three years), he still chose me. I chose him, too. But I just feel like I come with a lot of baggage. And the thing is, I never thought any of this until the teacher boyfriend from two years ago left. The guy I dated from high school was cool with the bipolar just like my current boyfriend is. So I guess two out of three isn't so bad after all.

If you too have a mental illness and are worried about dating, don't worry too much. I honestly believe there is someone for everyone. Just keep looking. And do not be discouraged by the articles and the horror stories. Remember: we are the masters of our own fates, the captains of our own souls. We choose how our relationship stories go. It does not have to be a horror story.

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged

Dating with Bipolar Disorder

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment
When my bipolar disorder manifested, or rather, I should say, when I was diagnosed, I was 23 and in graduate school. I had recently begun dating a guy I went to high school with. So we had known each other for about ten years. When I was hospitalized for mania, he came to visit me. When I was discharged, he supported me and stayed with me. We would break up a few months later. Not because of the bipolar disorder, but for other reasons.

I did not realize that what I experienced with this guy was such a huge feat.

For the next six years I would be stable - no episodes, no hospitalizations. My next serious relationship happened because of Match.com. I met a fellow teacher and we bonded instantly. The attraction was immediate. We dated for a few months, close to a year. We too broke up, but remained loosely attached in that weird limbo of do-I-don't-I-want-you land. Then, my second hospitalization happened. He did not come visit me in the hospital. He did not call my mother to check on me. When I was discharged I did not call him out on this behavior, but I was saddened by it. A few months later he completely cut me off. With no warning or any explanation. A year would go by before we spoke again. But when we did, I asked him why the disappearing act. His honest response was that my hospitalization scared him. I do not blame him for walking away. Not everyone can handle dating a person with a mental illness/mood disorder. But what was not acceptable was how he handled it.

After this, which occurred two years ago, I became worried that no one would want to date me because of my diagnosis. I was depressed June 2013 to May 2014 so I wasn't worried about dating during that year. But when the depression ended, and the mania started, I grew interested in a relationship again. Summer 2014 I dated casually and seriously. The guy I was dating seriously would eventually become my current boyfriend.

He read and researched the topic of dating someone with bipolar disorder. He attended a Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) meeting with me in August 2014. And when I was hospitalized a month ago for 13 days, he visited me twice (commuting from NYC to NJ to see me) and we spoke every day.

Since I've been blogging, I've been reading articles about mental health and I follow a bunch of mental health organizations on social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). Some of these articles discuss being in relationships with people who have mental illnesses and I must confess, people's views on dating people with mental illness scare me sometimes. There were so many horror stories in the comments section. So many people cautioning non-diagnosed people away from dating people with diagnoses. Stories of anger issues, money mismanagement, mood swings, violence, and overall low-functioning life abilities (i.e. the inability to hold down a job or pay bills on time or to seek help whether in the form of psychotherapy or medication). It all sounded so bleak.

So when my current boyfriend decided that he was ready to turn our casual/serious dating into a full-fledged relationship I was nervous and skeptical. Given all the reading he'd done, and given that my last boyfriend fled, why would he chance dating me?

Despite the dating and marriage horror stories and despite my chronic illness (I've been hospitalized every spring for the last three years), he still chose me. I chose him, too. But I just feel like I come with a lot of baggage. And the thing is, I never thought any of this until the teacher boyfriend from two years ago left. The guy I dated from high school was cool with the bipolar just like my current boyfriend is. So I guess two out of three isn't so bad after all.

If you too have a mental illness and are worried about dating, don't worry too much. I honestly believe there is someone for everyone. Just keep looking. And do not be discouraged by the articles and the horror stories. Remember: we are the masters of our own fates, the captains of our own souls. We choose how our relationship stories go. It does not have to be a horror story.

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged

May is Mental Health Awareness Month #B4Stage4 #MHMonth2015

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Filed under: About Mental Health, Mental Illness, MHA Tagged: #B4Stage4, #MHMonth2015, May, Mental Health Awareness Month

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Thoughts Intrude

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Thoughts intrude Throw plate in sink Let it shatter loudly I see myself doing it The image, the impulse is there There – in my mind No! I respond Turn left NOW in front of oncoming traffic No! No! No! Don’t…

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Buried Alive

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

I don’t know how else to put it. I feel buried alive today. Like I am covered in six feet of dirt,clawing my way up, gasping for air and I am getting tired and terrified that I will never reach the surface. Every little thing is too hard, too anxiety ridden, it’s overwhelming to the  nth. Just the tiny act of spraying cheese onto some crackers for my kid’s snack seemed terrifying and exhausting. I don’t even know what the fuck this is or what precipitated it. Such is my life.

I was muddling through and now today…I’m not. I’m back in panxiety land and the depression is crushing me like a boa constrictor wrapped around my throat. I’m sweaty, shaky, paranoid, scared of everything. Just waiting for my kid to get back from Sunday school was harrowing. I sit with the door open so I see them pull up because, well, freak that I am I don’t want them actually coming to the door and seeing my stained hall carpet which I vacuumed yesterday and yet it still looks like six cats went ultimate fighting with the world’s biggest ball of straw. I don’t want people invading my bubble, and I especially don’t want the judging my atrocious housekeeping. I’m going under and I can’t breathe and…This just sucks. Hell, the day was sucking out of the gate. My kid put on one skirt, spilled chocolate cereal on it, grabbed another skirt but it had marker stain on it, Five minutes before her ride to church arrives, I have to find her some pants and she has a screaming fit because it HAS to be a skirt. So there she is hurriedly getting dressed, accusing me of screaming at her (which is impossible considering I have very little voice left and sound like  a heavy smoker Kermit the Frog) and she’s bawling and I can just envision her telling the church people some drama queen story about her horrible mother whose only crime was not wanting to send her kid to school in stained clothes…

It’s all so much suckage and I am not coping well. The housework has spiraled out of control and I don’t know where to start and I right back to that panxiety place where it feels if I move out of my chair, I am going to implode or something. I try to use logic, bully myself into action and it’s just not happening. I actually feel scared. Of what? There’s nothing to be scared of and yet there it is.

I’d looove to blame Latuda but the truth is…After reading the whole nipple leakage thing, I’ve shunned it. I know I gotta give it a whirl or I am no better than the naysayers claiming I don’t want to get better…But it scares me. I’m used to the usual side effects, bug sensation on my skin, somnolence, insomnia, constipation, appetite changes blah fucking blah.. The terror inducing thing is that it *could* impact my hormones. I have had a six year hell ride of hormonal imbalance courtesy of pregnancy and childbirth then depo provera followed by early onset menopause. I cannot get my hormones any more out of whack, I will go insane. I was plotting my suicide when I was pregnant, convinced I couldn’t keep living and once the spawn was out, I was just gonna die. Except she came out and the hormone surges were gone and I was sane-ish again. Only to be knocked back down for almost two years by a single dose of depo provera. And now the hormone hell ride is starting back up as my body decides to enter into the decrepit years of my parts drying up. Which I have no problem with cos I am done with having kids and frankly, I’m just repulsed by the notion of relationships or even mindless sex. But the notion of the whacked out hormones making me more insane…

It’s harrowing. And I am being ridiculous and I know it but the terror is there like some sort of post traumatic stress reaction. Spending four years in a crying screaming I wanna die state and it finally starts to level out and…FUCK! Throw in a med that could make it worse (and seems to make things worse even without hormonal issues)…WTF is this doctor trying to do to me? Make me commit suicide? I need to calm the fuck down. The scumbag brain doesn’t give a fuck.

My kid just informed me she told her Sunday school teacher “Mommy is never happy.” Lovely. She makes a lousy PR agent. Maybe happiness eludes me but ffs, depression is the very definition of lack of happiness. One more thing to make me feel absolutely shitty about myself, thank you Spook. And today is just my crash crash burn day from being in the dish all week but…I wanna primal scream and rip out clumps of my hair. I am not handling today with any grace.

So I am just going to go back to binge watching Weeds and let the housework fester some more and try to ride out this bucket of debilitating crazy I am feeling today. And I promise tonight I will take the stupid Latuda, side effect risks be damned. One month. And I am still taking half the dose to start with then bumping up. I have to be careful and regulate things since the doctors and their one size fits all mentality won’t take individual reactions into consideration. I worry my trepidation will impact it working, which is absolutely ridiculous because my mind cannot control my body chemistry.

Dammit. Now pretzel gut is acting up. It just gets worse. This is what dish dwelling costs me, pretending I can handle the fast pace. It’s not lack of desire, it’s lack of skillset. If my mind is sending out crazy ass messages like today, there is no way to be prepared to cope. And random  attacks of crazy aren’t included in society’s “list of things that are acceptable”…

I think I’m gonna throw up. And I am sweating buckets. The anxious sweating, not the too warm sweat. More than a pegacorn, I really want a housekeeper. I can’t keep up and I am very very bad at it and it makes me feel so inept on a daily basis…

I can’t keep up.


Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged ,

I Have This Friend . . .

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

To have a friend, be a friend.

That’s how the saying goes, and it goes double for friends with mental disorders.

But.

There are limits. Boundaries. You may call them self-serving or self-saving, but there they are.

When you are depressed, you neglect friends, and I have certainly done that. I permanently lost one friend over it. But another kept reaching out to me and I eventually responded. (We then had a good game of “I’m a bad friend.” “No, I’m a bad friend.” She thought she hadn’t reached out often enough. I was glad she put up with my silence as long as she did, until I was able to reach back.)

But I have this friend. We used to be tight. When we were both depressed, we shared our misery and so lessened it. But now that the Pit of Despair is no longer my permanent abode…I have to limit my contact.

Why? My social skills have never been terrific, but now I frequently find myself walking that invisible line between Bad Friend and burnout.

Why is it so hard to be a Good Friend?

First, there is the Disaster Report. Whenever I talk to her, I hear a litany of all that is going wrong in her life. Almost never anything else. I’m no fan of relentless positivity, but its opposite is sometimes hard to bear too, even though I’ve been guilty of the same.

Then there is the fact that any suggestions are pushed away, denied as impossible, dismissed as unworkable. Granted, we have completely different styles of coping, but I feel discounted, unheard. Eventually I gave up sharing anything but a few of my own tribulations, some awful jokes, and commiseration.

Then I get off the phone or off Facebook, usually after half an hour or so. That’s about my limit.

I still keep reaching out. I don’t want to be a Bad Friend. I know I can’t fix her, or even her day-to-day difficulties, the kind even non-depressed people have. But I sure wish there were a way I could help, short of climbing down into the Pit with her. I hope that listening, even half an hour at a time, does some good.

And when I talk to other friends of mine, I try to remember to ask how their day was and what’s new in their life and have they seen any good movies and what is a mutual friend doing. I try to listen if they have something to share, good or bad, and I try not to overwhelm them or play whose-life-sucks-the-most. I try to be a Not-Bad Friend, even if I do have to lean on my friends, at times pretty heavily.

And they do likewise, when they can.


Filed under: Mental Health Tagged: being overwhelmed, coping mechanisms, depression, friends, mental health, mutual support, my experiences, social skills, support systems

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged , ,

Brains are Stupid. Triggers are Stupid.

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

Man so, my brain was being especially stupid yesterday.

One of my dearest friends is very active on Tumblr. His account is the only one of more than 1-10 posts a day I follow… not on Tumblr itself because it would give me a nervous breakdown because he’s post-heavy, but via a reader. Like, I have friends who call their Tumblr a blog but I refuse to follow it because I’m sorry, a blog is words, not a million flashing gifs with a couple of words spattered across it. Just like, the entire structure of the site is stupid and makes me grumpy, which is why I barely use it.

Anyways, because this world of 7 billion+ people is disturbingly small, a person I knew on G+ followed him on Tumblr. The person on G+ never friended me back in spite of the fact I (felt that I) made it clear we had a mutual in someone who was part of me, and I ended up using too much spoons attempting to socialise with that imbalance. If I’m honest, it’s one of the reasons I quit using G+ on the regular — it was too spoon-nabbing to have my limited energy being poured down that drain.

To my bemusement, I’m apparently bitter about it some time later. Like, seeing pictures of the person triggers me bitter/stressed/anxious/etc. I had to ask my friend to quit reposting this person’s pictures because it was triggering me.k And the logical part of me is jumping up and down screaming what the hell brain, what the hell. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m logical enough that I spend an inordinate amount of time doing that. It’s also a part of why I just sort of grumble about people who think that CBT is a magic cure-all — I have applied the principles for years, but broken brains will do what broken brains will even if you emphatically know better.

This all went down last night, and left me feeling like the most selfish asshole in the entire world. I know it’s stupid. I should not have to ask a friend to stop doing something that is absolutely harmless and sweet because my brain is being stupid about it. But even after a few days of trying to ‘tough’ it out, I found myself getting more and more upset (which is a self-perpetuating cycle: see above ‘what the hell brain’). So I was bemused to wake up from a dream this morning wherein the person who ‘offended’ me and I had run into each other at a drive-in movie and chatted it out. I’d love for my brain to quit being stupid about it because I know this lady is a total sweetheart, and I am totally happy that she’s friends with my friend. How could I not celebrate a friend’s friendships, you know?

So yeah, sort of hoping my subconscious trying to suss it out last night means the conscious can handle it and celebrate their adorably sweet relationship… but we’ll see. For the moment, I’m going to be quietly headdesking because what else can I do with my brain being this level of Teh Dumb.

Hope everyone else out there is doing well, and that your assorted brains aren’t being tricksy assholes right now.

<3

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged , , , , , ,

Guest Post: Mental Health Awareness Month- Interesting Information

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

mhamonthHappy May Day!!! It is officially the first day of May and that means it is mental heath awareness month. Unfortunately, many people are unaware that May is mental health awareness month.

It saddens me that the media (as whole) does not make it a major deal like they (the media) do in October when it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Don’t get me wrong we need education on Breast Cancer as well as other cancers however mental health deserves just as much attention as other health issues, such as cancer.

People like myself fight the stigma of mental illness on the daily basis. Discrimination is a major issue for those of who struggle with a mental illness and it is also something our loved ones have to deal with as well. No one and I mean no one deserves to be discriminated against because of an illness they struggle with or loved one struggles with.

Here are some facts I got from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website:

PREVALENCE OF MENTAL ILLNESS

  • Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.7 million, or 18.6%—experiences mental illness in a given year.1 
  • Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—13.6 million, or 4.1%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.2
  • Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder in a given year. For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%.3
  • 1.1% of adults in the U.S. live with schizophrenia.4
  • 2.6% of adults in the U.S. live with bipolar disorder.5
  • 6.9% of adults in the U.S.—16 million—had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.6
  • 18.1% of adults in the U.S. experienced an anxiety disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias.7
  • Among the 20.7 million adults in the U.S. who experienced a substance use disorder, 40.7%—8.4 million adults—had a co-occurring mental illness.8

SOCIAL STATS

  • An estimated 26% of homeless adults staying in shelters live with serious mental illness and an estimated 46% live with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders.9
  • Approximately 20% of state prisoners and 21% of local jail prisoners have “a recent history” of a mental health condition.10
  • 70% of youth in juvenile justice systems have at least one mental health condition and at least 20% live with a serious mental illness.11
  • Only 41% of adults in the U.S. with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year. Among adults with a serious mental illness, 62.9% received mental health services in the past year.8
  • Just over half (50.6%) of children aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year.12
  • African Americans and Hispanic Americans used mental health services at about one-half the rate of Caucasian Americans in the past year and Asian Americans at about one-third the rate.13
  • Half of all chronic mental illness begins by age 14; three-quarters by age 24. Despite effective treatment, there are long delays—sometimes decades—between the first appearance of symptoms and when people get help.14

CONSEQUENCES OF LACK OF TREATMENT

  • Serious mental illness costs America $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.15
  • Mood disorders, including major depression, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder, are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults aged 18–44.16
  • Individuals living with serious mental illness face an increased risk of having chronic medical conditions.17 Adults in the U.S. living with serious mental illness die on average 25 years earlier than others, largely due to treatable medical conditions.18
  • Over one-third (37%) of students with a mental health condition age 14­–21 and older who are served by special education drop out—the highest dropout rate of any disability group.19
  • Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.,20 the 3rd leading cause of death for people aged 10–2421 and the 2nd leading cause of death for people aged 15–24.22
  • More than 90% of children who die by suicide have a mental health condition.23
  • Each day an estimated 18-22 veterans die by suicide.

I hope that I will be able to continue to educate people on mental illness for the rest of May and beyond. I hope to share more of my personal story to give hope to those who a struggling with mental illness and show them that recovery is possible. Recovery is not easy but it is possible.

I also hope to discuss current laws in regards to mental health and pending bills that are being discussed in the House as well as the senate. One of which is Murphy’s Bill. All of what I hope to discuss is dependent on how busy life gets. Life being busy is partly why I haven’t  been able to blog the last month and half. I love blogging and sharing my recovery with others as well as educating others. I hope to blog again at some point this weekend with more educational material if not more of my personal recovery story.

Please do not forget to educate people on mental illness and make people aware that May is mental health awareness month. Peace Out!!

Contributor:  Gertie’s Journey


Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Guest Post: Mental Health Awareness Month- Interesting Information

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

mhamonthHappy May Day!!! It is officially the first day of May and that means it is mental heath awareness month. Unfortunately, many people are unaware that May is mental health awareness month.

It saddens me that the media (as whole) does not make it a major deal like they (the media) do in October when it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Don’t get me wrong we need education on Breast Cancer as well as other cancers however mental health deserves just as much attention as other health issues, such as cancer.

People like myself fight the stigma of mental illness on the daily basis. Discrimination is a major issue for those of who struggle with a mental illness and it is also something our loved ones have to deal with as well. No one and I mean no one deserves to be discriminated against because of an illness they struggle with or loved one struggles with.

Here are some facts I got from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website:

PREVALENCE OF MENTAL ILLNESS

  • Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.7 million, or 18.6%—experiences mental illness in a given year.1 
  • Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—13.6 million, or 4.1%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.2
  • Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder in a given year. For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%.3
  • 1.1% of adults in the U.S. live with schizophrenia.4
  • 2.6% of adults in the U.S. live with bipolar disorder.5
  • 6.9% of adults in the U.S.—16 million—had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.6
  • 18.1% of adults in the U.S. experienced an anxiety disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias.7
  • Among the 20.7 million adults in the U.S. who experienced a substance use disorder, 40.7%—8.4 million adults—had a co-occurring mental illness.8

SOCIAL STATS

  • An estimated 26% of homeless adults staying in shelters live with serious mental illness and an estimated 46% live with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorders.9
  • Approximately 20% of state prisoners and 21% of local jail prisoners have “a recent history” of a mental health condition.10
  • 70% of youth in juvenile justice systems have at least one mental health condition and at least 20% live with a serious mental illness.11
  • Only 41% of adults in the U.S. with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year. Among adults with a serious mental illness, 62.9% received mental health services in the past year.8
  • Just over half (50.6%) of children aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year.12
  • African Americans and Hispanic Americans used mental health services at about one-half the rate of Caucasian Americans in the past year and Asian Americans at about one-third the rate.13
  • Half of all chronic mental illness begins by age 14; three-quarters by age 24. Despite effective treatment, there are long delays—sometimes decades—between the first appearance of symptoms and when people get help.14

CONSEQUENCES OF LACK OF TREATMENT

  • Serious mental illness costs America $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.15
  • Mood disorders, including major depression, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder, are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults aged 18–44.16
  • Individuals living with serious mental illness face an increased risk of having chronic medical conditions.17 Adults in the U.S. living with serious mental illness die on average 25 years earlier than others, largely due to treatable medical conditions.18
  • Over one-third (37%) of students with a mental health condition age 14­–21 and older who are served by special education drop out—the highest dropout rate of any disability group.19
  • Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.,20 the 3rd leading cause of death for people aged 10–2421 and the 2nd leading cause of death for people aged 15–24.22
  • More than 90% of children who die by suicide have a mental health condition.23
  • Each day an estimated 18-22 veterans die by suicide.

I hope that I will be able to continue to educate people on mental illness for the rest of May and beyond. I hope to share more of my personal story to give hope to those who a struggling with mental illness and show them that recovery is possible. Recovery is not easy but it is possible.

I also hope to discuss current laws in regards to mental health and pending bills that are being discussed in the House as well as the senate. One of which is Murphy’s Bill. All of what I hope to discuss is dependent on how busy life gets. Life being busy is partly why I haven’t  been able to blog the last month and half. I love blogging and sharing my recovery with others as well as educating others. I hope to blog again at some point this weekend with more educational material if not more of my personal recovery story.

Please do not forget to educate people on mental illness and make people aware that May is mental health awareness month. Peace Out!!

Contributor:  Gertie’s Journey


Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

good morning good mourning

Posted on May 3, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Trigger warnings for whining, whingeing, bitching, moaning, groaning and griping.

I had to log out of wp on this app and stupidly left my 4 or 5 drafts as local ones… logged back in and naturally and as surely as a magician wafts a silk handkerchief over a top hat, they were all gone. RIP little post foetuses. On the upside, I shall now refer to them repeatedly and wistfully as ‘the posts that got away’ and claim that they were brilliant etc.

{Wtf blah stop typing shit now.}

Yesterday was a little weird. It started well, with a sunset walk, followed by a surprising amount of housework, but when I was washing dishes, tears appeared – the hot kind that seem to leak down your face in sheets. I could probably generate more words for tears than penguins can for snow. The phrase ‘kitchen sink drama’ slithered across my mindscape and I grinned inwardly at it all. I’d already done a bit of embroidery that morning, vacuumed, fixed an outlet pipe, fetched water from the rainwater tank… Chop wood, carry water much?

ttt_homepage

After that, my day was fairly fucked. I think I cried my way through doing the laundry and hanging it out. I know I sat on the floor and cried for a bit, and that my dog retreated rapidly and stared from a safe distance. I was sitting at the top of my steps, weeping gently, when my neighbour walked in. She asked me what was wrong, I told her a sanitised version, she rubbed my back sympathetically. She said she had to go and have breakfast with the bf, and asked if I needed anything. I said I’d run out of fruit and she replied, “sorry, that’s the only thing I can’t help you with.” A bit later, before I walked to the shop, I stuck my head through her (open) front door to see if she needed anything. She took a naartjie off the top of a very large and full fruit bowl and said, “well at least I can give you that”.

1430049865-1The Internet had been down the night before and was still down until late afternoon yesterday. I’ve probably mentioned before, that my WiFi comes from a mast on a dune; the solar panels and so forth had been stolen from it. It’s the second time it’s happened and it takes a while for them to get new parts, then climb the dune to fix it. I hope they don’t decide it’s not worth their while having a mast here. Their security is stupidly crappy.

By then, the raincloud over my head had shifted to ear level. I messaged nextofkin and here’s how that went…

Me: how are things?
NoK: same old, same old.
Me: I don’t actually have anything to say, I’m just touching base.
NoK: me too really.

Nextofkin is a truly lovely person and would have listened and understood. There’s not a lot they can do from 6,000 miles away though, and so by the time I’d reached the second sentence of that chat, I felt distant and muted. Sometimes the skin hunger feels like an open wound. Sometimes I’m desperate for a real hug. My closest friend here is kind, but not cuddly. I read some fluffy existentialism instead; the tl;dr of which, is basically that knowing that life has no meaning is freedom, because you are free to find or forge your own. I can’t even face the drive to the nearest town.

The butterfly that stamps and causes tidal waves needs to stop tap dancing on my fucking head.

existential-phone
… well I wrote the preceding babble at around five this morning. I was extremely surprised to see that it made sense and wasn’t full of errors. I went back to sleep afterwards and when I woke, I felt OK. Brought in yesterday’s laundry and put another lot in, filled the sink with dirty dishes and hot soapy water; I think the soak cycle is very important don’t you? It’s not procrastination at all… I was making my bed and putting away stuff, when I found something (it doesn’t matter what) that kneed me violently right in the memories. It happened yesterday too, with something else. Tears welled up and pooled in my lower eyelids and I glared at the sink, wondering if I shouldn’t just embrace the kitchen sink melodrama and go and wash the fucking dishes with saltwater again.

But then the phrase ‘kneed me violently in the memories’ sauntered into my thoughts and so I sat down to write that paragraph instead. Blah ‘I brake for words’ polar, at your service. Don’t get excited, I said that in the manner of Balin upon meeting Bilbo. The book, not the 15 year mega epic saga films, orcdammit.

…

1430080389-1I managed to do the dishes and scrub the microwave without weeping into either. Then I sat down, told my friend about the things I found and the fecking tears welled up again. Where do they go, when they do that without spilling, then stop? I have some wise crone domestic god advice to give you. Putting hot chocolate powder into your dog’s bowl is not the best way to make it. Reaching into the fridge and grabbing a bottle of tomato sauce to drink is just stupid. Please note that the water is in a five litre bottle, while the sauce occupies a whole 750ml. I graduated from putting the butter in the bin and rubbish into the fridge a long time ago. Soon the washing machine will make a noise like tinnitus and I will obey its call; I am at the mercy of household appliances this weekend, it seems. If the vacuum cleaner looks at me funny, I’m just going to leg it.

Did I already tell you I cleared the dogshit from the garden? The heights of glitz and glamour in my life know no limit.

you!!!

Anyfeckingway, the tears were banished, a cigarette was rolled and here I am, lolling indolently on the couch, watching the clouds go by and emptying my head here. I hope you took note of the fact that a butch woman can be in touch with her feminine side… That’s the societal conditioning edition of feminity™, which isn’t even remotely related to feminism® by marriage. I can turn anything into a monologue on identity politics, have you noticed? *flexes* I can embroider your name and beat up your boyfriend. I cut my embroidery thread with a hunting knife that I call the zebra peeler. Rawr etc etc.

I wouldn’t, but I could.

Too busy today though, a housebutch’s work is never done.

I wrote you guys a limerick, I hope you like it. If you do, help yourself and do whatever you want with it.

20150502013456187

Leave a comment

Posted in Read Along

Tagged