Well, I just completed the MANDATORY Canadian Census questionnaire. I am not here to gripe about being forced to do the census by law and given eight days to do it. I am also not upset with it being online … Continue reading 
I have realized that people are much more open to accepting me being bipolar than I would have thought. I have had several people seek me out to ask questions and to get advice. The truth is (and I know some don’t feel this way) you don’t have bipolar you are bipolar. It is just as much a part of me as my hair color or how smart I am. You almost can’t know me without knowing bipolar. Some aspects are so so hard and draining. As with most things there are benefits, maybe not many but they are still there. Why would anyone want to separate themselves? I understand wanting not to have these issues but there are things you would lose if bipolar is taken away. I truly believe I am more empathetic and open minded because of my illness. I have lived first hand what’s it’s like for someone to have a really good childhood and still make bad choices. Obviously, those bad choices were mine and mine alone. But I know now that bipolar played a part in the vast majority of them. It seems simple, you think that reason should work, or that if you are logical the other person should understand. That’s kind of the idea, it’s not that we can’t see it. It’s that we either don’t care or we don’t know how to feel any other way. I have found its so much easier for people to be empathetic and try to understand if I am up front with them. Obviously I don’t tell everyone in the first conversation but most of the people I work with know and ALL my Facebook family knows because I am very vocal. I’m sure that I am not an easy person to deal with and live with. But that’s been the case since as long as I can remember. My Mom said I was 5 when she have me Benedryl hoping it would knock me out. She also said she never did it again because it had the opposite effect. Lol
The same is still true for me today. I can take one pill and it does nothing. I have to take 3 to even begin to get tired. If that doesn’t show there is a biological component to these illnesses I don’t know what does.
I have heard people say that asking the people closest to you about how you have been isn’t something that you should do because the people we live with are most effected by our illness. Anyway, I don’t believe that without question my Mom and my husband are the people I trust the most to let me know if I am acting crazy. My daughter and a few friends are pretty good at seeing it as well but it’s he’s to trust people with such a delicate issues that encompasses so much of your life.
I’m sure that it will never be easy. I’m grateful to have the people in my life that I do. I’m glad they can laugh with me and treat me as if my emotional state isn’t the end all of everything. I am thankful that when it’s quiet I know that this is me, that I am beautiful and amazing, and that I am without a doubt bipolar. Love me or hate me not to many people will tell you I don’t have a heart of gold and spend most of my time looking out for those around me. Sometimes to a fault.
I hope you can learn to accept the pieces of you that don’t work right or are broken. That you can learn to laugh and go about your life in a way that impacts the people around you. After all we are all just looking for love and acceptance. Try giving that to someone today.
Not only am I published short story writer, I’m a published poet as well! The Gordian Review out of Sam Houston State picked up one of my “Bipolar Poems” the one called :”Crazy Days”. They will publish it in their inaugural issue soon to be out online. So I got that news yesterday and that made me feel good. I’m starting to see some results finally from what I’ve sent out, and that is encouraging.
The next one I should hear from is The Masters Anthology, which is supposed to put out a shortlist tomorrow of forty works it will send to the final judge. I sent them an old piece I did on my trip to New York City and hope they will see some merit to it.
My back has been bothering me lately. I’m taking a painkiller for my knee and my back has hurt so much it breaks through that. I’ve been super careful this afternoon and hope that it will stop for good if I am careful.
Hope everyone has a good Friday and a great weekend!’
Posted in Read Along
I’m Rapid Cycling, But I Don’t Own a Bike Today’s Throwback Thursday on rapid cycling was first published in April, 2008. I’m still riding rapid I’m special. Not only that, I’m special amongst the special. To top that I’m actually special amongst those who are special amongst the special. What the hell am I talking […]
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Posted in Read Along
I am not feeling very coherent this morning. The weather is playing mind fuck games where we are having March in fucking May so I can’t get warm to save my life. When I am not warm, I am barely functional. Which is odd because when it is too hot, I become lethargic. Now psychiatry may be an inexact “science” but these fuckers will NEVER convince me that our circadian rhythms don’t play a part in depression and bipolar.
Tuesday was high functioning day. I paid all my monthly bills, even the ones not due for two weeks. Since my functionality has been low I wanted it all done while my brain wasn’t forgetting dates and doing its agoraphobia bit. I went to six different stores for supplies. I even took R some lunch to make up for taking a double melatonin the night before and blowing off his texts in favor of sleep. (The lithium made me throw up so bad that evening dose, I was curled up in the shower praying for death, so sleep seemed my best option.)
I even mowed my entire lawn Tuesday and put down mulch by the rose bush. It’s got its first blooms of the season and has grown to gargantuan size courtesy of all the stray cat piss fertilizing it.
I’m no green thumb, I just mention this because the rose bush was a mother’s day gift my stepmonster planted for me a few years ago and me, the chick who killed a cactus, has managed to cultivate that monster size rose bush. I don’t even remember to water it. Thankfully the cats keep it alive😉
Yesterday I did fuck all. Stayed in all day aside from taking and picking up my kid. Then came my insanity of letting her have a friend over to play. It was the new girl Bella, who is younger than Spook and pretty well behaved aside from asking for food constantly…Then came her big sister, then came the boy down by them, followed by the devil girls. And I kept telling them to play outside but they kept coming in and gawking at me and getting into shit. Asking for food. One of them stood in the kitchen watching me cook supper and commenting it smelled good, which made me feel bad for not having enough to offer but at the same time, who the fuck raises these kids who come over constantly demanding food? My mom, crazy bitch beast she is, always taught us to come home for food and never ask anyone else, always wait until offered.
Of course, back in my day if I had broken a friend’s hundred dollar karoake machine, my parents would have been expected to pay for it. Now it’s just…these fuckers don’t care.
What is even worse is that for all of my kid’s bossiness…She’s a total follower. I hate submissive follower types. Literally, it makes me feel like throwing up a little. It’s that whole “if your friends jump off a bridge, are you going to do it too?” And with my kid, she says, “Well, yeah, or they won’t be my friend anymore.”
She sure as hell didn’t learn that from me. Far as I am concerned if you ditch me for having a mind of my own and not following along…you can fuck yourself with a barbwire dildo. My life may have been easier had I been a subby follower but then again…I don’t do things the easy way. I do things my way because I have to live with myself. Being one of the sheeple heard…Nah, I couldn’t live like that. Ever.
And yes, I know, she’s only six and a half, lots of time for her to figure it out. I think all my forcefed therapy and thus my research has turned me into an overly analytical alarmist. I once read the basic personality fundamentals are formed by age 6. If this is true…Ugh, I will reserve my right to eat my young once she becomes a teenager. Seriously, I can’t stand followers. I don’t expect everyone to be an outspoken rebel like me but damn, if I do something to hurt your feelings and you can’t even speak up and tell me so…Yeah, that’s too submissive. Oh, wait, the donor calls it “laid back”.
Nope. Fucking submissive. And passive aggressive when you bite your tongue for so long to keep the peace then blow up and start spewing venom like a volcano spewing lava. NOPE. Does. Not. Want. Speak up to me. I may be pissy for a bit but I will respect you.
How I want to instill this fire in my child so life doesn’t chew her up and spit her out. Alas, I worry that perhaps the 50% Canadian in her is just passive or maybe it’s genetic from the donor’s side. (See, overly analytical, fuck you “therapy will help with your disorder”, you made me more neurotic!)
I digress…So yeah, almost four hours, five kids plus my own, and by the time the church bus swept them up…I was ready to climb in the closet and hide. But I was not reduced to drinking at least. (I was at the gas station the other day and Spook was telling them all how I bought her six water guns and I commented that “on any given day I may have five kids in my yard, wanted to have enough for all of you” and the other lady at the register said, “If I had five kids in my yard, I’d be drunk.” IKR?)
When she got home, I put her to bed and she kept yapping and by then my nerve endings were about to snap so I said, “Nope. I am tapping out, love you, good night.”
Took melatonin and fell face down in my bed before 10p.m.
I so wanted to write on my story but…life took all my damned sporks again.
So I am gonna do nothing again today to recover from the anxiety of last night. Maybe later I will work my way up to dishes (my god, there’s only two of us, I did dishes Monday, how can I have to do those fuckers again???). I still haven’t touched the folding laundry thing, like seven baskets of it. I just keep washing more and piling it up. It’s like laundry jenga.
In an effort to educate…May is zombie awareness month.
If your cat looks like that…Get yourself a Z whacker and take it OUT. Yes, I watched all two seasons of Z Nation and am still on my zombie kick. Actually, one episode took place in my state capitol and seeing a familiar backdrop decimated by zombies and occupied by zombies dressed as Abe Lincoln…DELIGHTED ME. I want that apocalypse so bad, damn it. I wanna get myself a Z whacker and go off my meds and just fuck some shit up.
It’s called a fantasy for a reason.
Now if you’re kitteh looks like this…pet her, hug her, and call her George!
P.S.
FUCK depression, I want to feel alive again already. If I can’t feel alive, bring on the fucking zombies and take this world OUT.
(l to r) Me, Mom, & Dad, early 1980s. Alex the cat is on the sofa
“Oh very young / what we leave at this time / we’re only dancing on this earth for a short while ...” – Cat Stevens, “Oh Very Young”
Hi, Mom. It’s nearly Mother’s Day. This year’s song is by Cat Stevens. An odd choice, perhaps, since you weren’t young when you died. Plus, the only Cat Stevens song which I ever heard you sing was “Morning has Broken”, at church.
You loved to sing hymns. Your favourite was “Fairest Lord Jesus”. You had a distinctive, natural vibrato. I’ve inherited a bit of the vibrato, as well as looking more and more like you as the years pass, and I age.
I wish I could talk with you about ageing, and grief.
About loss.
“There is no love without loss” is perhaps the best thing I’ve ever written. It’s certainly the truest.
I loved you, I lost you. Part of the price of aging is that the number of people we lose – and the number of funerals we attend – increases. Cyndi died years ago, just before the millenium. I lost my beloved father-in-law in the early 2000s, whilst my friend Betsy died late last year.
Youtube, which I searched for “Oh Very Young,” has moved on to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”. Apt, indeed. I’m back in the 70s, in my friend Kathy’s basement, listening to our mutual friend Jill sing this very song. She had a beautiful voice.
My self pity over my early stage breast cancer has been put into perspective, as I think of friends who recently lost a child. Oh so very, very young.
The sky reaches as high as you like
I’ll try and make the best of the years ahead, Mom. I like to think you would have been amused by the short stories in my collection, “Koi Carpe Diem”, and would be urging me to finish the sequel, “A Yorkshireman in Ohio”. A part of me is pleased that you died before they told me I have cancer. I know you would have worried yourself sick.
Love you, Mum. I’ll see you again. I’m sure of it, more sure than I’ve ever been.
I’ll try not to let it be too soon.
Tagged: A Yorkshireman in Ohio, bereavement, children, death, hymns, Koi Carpe Diem, Mother’s Day, music, self pity, short story collection, writing 
Posted in Read Along
Originally posted on Dream Big, Dream Often:
This opportunity is perfect for the blogger looking to gain extra exposure. We all need a little help every now and again. If you need a little help, then take a few moments…
Posted in Read Along
So here I am writing, journaling, trying to get burden off my back, out of my chest. Too heavy. Too painful. Not exceedingly so, but like a long keen. Yes, I am keening, mourning the loss of my parents. They are alive, but I mourn their loss of cognition. Nick [my husband] has brought up a couple of times that we are 25 years away from where our parents are now. Not so far. We must take care of ourselves. I’ve been neglectful. Have been eating too much sugar and not exercising enough. Nick has been good about walking the dogs. Matthew [our son] needs to increase his physical activity, as do I.
I just cocoon. Sit on the couch, licking my wounds, my psychic, emotional wounds.
I have to pee…
***
A week has gone by since I last wrote, since I last journaled. Tracey [my sister] visited Sunday. We had lunch with our parents.
Last night we [my sister & I] decided to sell the house [our parents’ house]. Huge relief. Have interested parties already.
***
My body is simply exhausted from the stress and responsibilities I’ve taken on since my mother had her stroke. I still haven’t allowed myself to feel the grief in my heart at her losses. Her sudden plummet into vascular dementia and loss of speech and language comprehension due to her stroke are absolutely devastating, more so than my father’s alcohol-related dementia which has progressed over time.
***
[paragraph structure added later]
So, this is not exactly a journal. Meant to bring one of mine. Look in spa gift shop and considered buying a gratitude journal. Decided not to. Not sure exactly why aside from the fact that it simply was not what I wanted. So, here I am writing with my illegible handwriting on the few pages of notepaper in my room.
Moved outside onto the lanai. Patio. Rearranged furniture. Turned down champagne in lobby. Instead accepted a bottle of water, which sits beside me ready to be opened and consumed. Cracked it open. Had a few swigs. Not able to totally succumb to relaxation. Not yet anyway. After mani-pedi, in opposite order, I ate lunch, checked into my room, which turned out to be a bungalow – near the spa. Nice.
Then made dinner reservations. Hope dinner is fun, that Sarah [Fader] & Allie [Burke] actually do make it here. After making the reservations, I took a walk along the coast. Got my feet a bit dirty, as I was wearing free spa flip flops…
And, there it is – a sigh, a deep inhalation, breathing in sea air and scent of scrub from mani-pedi. I can hear birds all around me, along with the hum of what I guess in an A/C or perhaps pool heater. Not sure what in front of me, behind the wall, behind the pool/spa building. The building where perhaps or probably I’ll be getting my massage.
Sheriff helicopter just flew by really close. Getting the running narration out of my head and onto the paper. Not especially interesting. Rather mundane. But must start somewhere. And, feel I must write. Cannot believe I didn’t bring journal. Meant to. Or at least to bring laptop. Typing on iPad, even with Anker keyboard, is frustrating. I type too fast. Crap – my handwriting is illegible!
So here I am writing, journaling, trying to get burden off my back, out of my chest. Too heavy. Too painful. Not exceedingly so, but like a long keen. Yes, I am keening, mourning the loss of my parents. They are alive, but I mourn their loss of cognition. Nick [my husband] has brought up a couple of times that we are 25 years away from where our parents are now. Not so far. We must take care of ourselves. I’ve been neglectful. Have been eating too much sugar and not exercising enough. Nick has been good about walking the dogs. Matthew [our son] needs to increase his physical activity, as do I.
I just cocoon. Sit on the couch, licking my wounds, my psychic, emotional wounds.
I have to pee…
***
A week has gone by since I last wrote, since I last journaled. Tracey [my sister] visited Sunday. We had lunch with our parents.
Last night we [my sister & I] decided to sell the house [our parents’ house]. Huge relief. Have interested parties already.
***
My body is simply exhausted from the stress and responsibilities I’ve taken on since my mother had her stroke. I still haven’t allowed myself to feel the grief in my heart at her losses. Her sudden plummet into vascular dementia and loss of speech and language comprehension due to her stroke are absolutely devastating, more so than my father’s alcohol-related dementia which has progressed over time.
***
[paragraph structure added later]
So, this is not exactly a journal. Meant to bring one of mine. Look in spa gift shop and considered buying a gratitude journal. Decided not to. Not sure exactly why aside from the fact that it simply was not what I wanted. So, here I am writing with my illegible handwriting on the few pages of notepaper in my room.
Moved outside onto the lanai. Patio. Rearranged furniture. Turned down champagne in lobby. Instead accepted a bottle of water, which sits beside me ready to be opened and consumed. Cracked it open. Had a few swigs. Not able to totally succumb to relaxation. Not yet anyway. After mani-pedi, in opposite order, I ate lunch, checked into my room, which turned out to be a bungalow – near the spa. Nice.
Then made dinner reservations. Hope dinner is fun, that Sarah & Allie actually do make it here. After making the reservations, I took a walk along the coast. Got my feet a bit dirty, as I was wearing free spa flip flops…
And, there it is – a sigh, a deep inhalation, breathing in sea air and scent of scrub from mani-pedi. I can hear birds all around me, along with the hum of what I guess in an A/C or perhaps pool heater. Not sure what in front of me, behind the wall, behind the pool/spa building. The building where perhaps or probably I’ll be getting my massage.
Sheriff helicopter just flew by really close. Getting the running narration out of my head and onto the paper. Not especially interesting. Rather mundane. But must start somewhere. And, feel I must write. Cannot believe I didn’t bring journal. Meant to. Or at least to bring laptop. Typing on iPad, even with Anker keyboard, is frustrating. I type too fast. Crap – my handwriting is illegible!
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