Nightmare Time Rant

*INFORMAL RANT*

Hello blogsphere, it’s been . . . some time. Don’t know how long exactly. Has Trump done anything radical since I’ve been gone? Aliens made physical contact yet? Anyone see a totally rad movie they just feel like ranting about in the comments? Feel free to fill me in on the ways of your reality in the comments below.

My kitten is licking my blanket for no reason, and I am tipsy. So maybe she’s a little tipsy too. Or she doesn’t exist and never has and I’ve just been sucked into an alternative reality where I own a kitten.

Some portion of me has decided to start a journal of all things, but not really a journal. It’s more like pieces of paper I scribble out non-cohesive thoughts on, so that I can go along my day with as much composure as I can. I’ve called it my manifesto. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a testament to humanity or something, I can’t come up with good words right now.

Classes are classes, work is amazing and stressful as always, and I can’t trust any motherfucker. I can’t. I don’t know how to bring myself to learn how to do that. I’m overwhelmed and am having problems grounding myself, as usual.

But, motherfuckers, I finished my fucking homework. Score fucking one. Five fucking stars. WHERE’S THE LAMB SAUCE.

Fuck me. This is what I’m reduced to: reciting stale meme’s on a blog about mental health. The whole situation is fucking mental. Fuck the health part, it’s just MENTAL.

On second thought, don’t fucking mention Trump in the goddamn comments. I don’t wanna hear it. I hear it CONSTANTLY. Look, it’s very simple. You don’t like an executive order he puts out, don’t listen to it. Very simple. What’s he going to do, cut off everyone’s heads? Chill the fuck out. We have this weird sense that we’re powerless to a title. We’re not. People break the law all the time. Just do that.

Look at me, solving the nations problems and shit. I can solve the NATION’S problems, but not my own. Go figure.

I’ve missed you all, I have. This is, by far, the most open, social contact I have. At least when I write I make a LITTLE bit of sense. When I talk I don’t think I do.

My kitten is hunting a fly. KILL IT. FUCKING KILL IT. MURDER IT. RIP ITS FUCKING LEGS OFF.

I just want to die. I don’t want my physical body to die, just this mental part. It should die. I just want it gone already.

She’s sticking her face in my cup. Why. Why kitty. What the fuck is wrong with you.

The extremes are too extreme for me, I think. I need to learn how to properly attend to emotions, and I don’t know how to do that, so the next best option is to either slit vertically or

Dude.

When I was in the hospital, I had gashes and bruises all over myself. I hit them with my sweater, but I eventually had to take it off because it got hot as fuck. They weren’t deep enough to kill me in the moment, but they were deep enough to show I was having some serious, emotional, internal conflict. The nurse fucking called them SCRATCHES. What a way to INVALIDATE. A SCRATCH would imply something from my kitten. No, these were gashes. Not scratches you entitled fucking cunt.

Maybe she needed her glasses.

I probably should NOT be typing right now. Can you tell? I’ll probly sleep soon.

And the shit part is, I can’t even explain these things properly. I don’t know what’s with that. You should KNOW How you feel. That should be a number one priority of your brain: to understand it’s feelings. Instead, I just get more confusion, confusion, confusion.

I dedicate this song to the demon which lives within, and the cowardly ones that follow me around:

A Comment On “Split”

There are a list of movies, documentaries, Sundance films, and Lifetime drama’s that juggle carefully the topic of mental health and these things people still call “mental disorders”.

“Split” is not like any of them.

There are boycotts of this movie. I’m assuming that’s because they haven’t yet seen it.

If you’re new to this blog, you may not know I am someone who struggles day in and day out mentally. Were you to skim through old archives, you’d breathe in the demons and the angels: they’re spread liberally throughout this blog, like Neosporin on an open wound. If you do choose to dip your big toe in the pool of tar that is my daily experience, be warned you may be sucked down, you may be splashed with acid, burned, maimed, and/or killed. Be warned what appears angelic may indeed be the hybrid: Angehellic. Sign your name in the comment section and hit the follow button to agree to my terms and conditions, and to agree to the liability waiver: i.e, it’s not my fault if you die.

I would like to kindly ask the people who have been opposed to this movie simply because they believe it portrays Disassociative Identity Disorder in a poor light to go out and see it, or, at the very least, watch it illegally online: particularly if you believe it’s advocating the stigma we often face with mental health issues: we’re dangerous, sick, and crazy.

I saw none of that in this movie.

It’s M. Night Shyamalan. You really think it’s going to be a straight forward movie documenting the life of a “crazy” guy with DID going out and kidnapping young girls? Get real.

In fact, what makes this movie a great mental health movie is that it has absolutely nothing to do with mental health or DID. It has to do with pain, trauma, life, belief, and how all of that contributes to what we don’t know about the universe and our own brains.

There’s great information in this movie about DID that are true. I.e, different personalities harbor different health ailments, experience different memories, ages, the loss of time, and pupil sizes. One personality may have diabetes while the others don’t. One may have high blood pressure or high cholesterol while the others don’t. They have the capacity to know what other personalities think, they have the capacity to overpower one another and become the host.While I’m no expert on DID, as I don’t have it myself, I spoke once to a man with it, listened to his story, and I’m fully aware this coping mechanism the brain has created is both life shattering and fascinating just like any other mental health issue.

What does something like DID tell us about the human mind? About life? About pain and trauma? About our own resilience and ability to adapt? If anything, Shyamalan is on our side with this. It’s not a matter of being broken or sick. It’s a matter of being pained, of being innocently human through traumas ( of any kind) that take away that feeling of humanity.

*SPOILERS*

Synopsis: A man named Kevin has 23 different personalities. Dennis and Mrs. Patricia (I think that was her name), now host the body of Kevin after stealing the spotlight from Barry. Dennis is highly neat and obsessive in nature with cleanliness because of Kevin’s mother’s abuse. He’s strong and punctual. He’s a protector; what Barry once was. Hedwig is a nine year old who spearhead’s the beast’s arrival alongside Dennis. Dennis kidnaps three young girls who he believes will be food for The Beast, as they aren’t “pure”. Several other hidden personalities reach out to Kevin’s psychologist hoping to stop it all. She is in the process of using his case, and others, to promote the reality of DID and the authenticity/power/possibilities of the brain.

In Dennis’ sense, pure means ” highly damaged”. He meant to kidnap just the two girls, but the third one came along by accident. The two girls he targeted for days, watching the ease of their lives. Those are the ones The Beast and personalities like Dennis believe need to be purified–i.e, made to suffer. What The Beast learns is the one girl kidnapped by accident has been sexually abused and physically abused, and as a result lets her go. She’s evolved, he said, and she should rejoice.

Of course there is a supernatural element that is greatly appreciated, and maybe this is where people get all huffy. No, he’s not insinuating that people with multiple personalities (or anyone with a mental health issue) are monsters like “The Beast”. Stop thinking literally and start thinking critically. In fact, “The Beast” isn’t a personality at all. The beast isn’t human: he bends metal bars, grows taller, more muscular, has veins of blue/grey all through his body, climbs up walls, runs and behaves like a lion or tiger, and devours the innards of the two impure (undamaged) girls.

The personalities within “Kevin” (the main character) all recognize The Beast as something greater than themselves, something greater than a human, and within that recognition they become the beast. The beast is the manifestation of pain and growth, and the almost egotistical strength which comes with it. That strength can be used for good or bad. Or both simultaneously.

I believe The Beast is correct. The things you suffer force you to grow in strength or succumb to nothingness, and you may unlock portions of yourself and your brain beyond average comprehension. You learn things others may never learn. That I do rejoice in. It’s not invalidating anyone’s struggle. It’s simply suggesting that maybe we don’t know all we think we know. 

When you’re in an introductory fiction writing class, one thing many professors or teacher ask you to do is think of a character. Think of their name, personality, likes, dislikes, e.t.c. Then, compose a story, or an outline of one, and plop your character in that realm. That’s what Shyamalan has done, and gracefully so. He’s created a multi-layer character (literally) that get’s dropped in a multi-layered story.

The story in itself isn’t about DID. The character happens to have it, but this isn’t Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”. That was a movie (based on John Nash) where the story was built around the ailment (schizophrenia) of the character. “Split” is a movie where a supernatural character is absorbed into a universal, and relevent story: two separate concepts merged together. This was a movie where a message was thought of, and the character most fitting was plopped in the story to explain.

So, before you jump on the bandwagon of hating this movie, twist your lens a little and dig a little deeper, particularly if you struggle mentally yourself. This isn’t a movie to portray you as a monster, as a crazy person, as a freak, as a sick criminal. It’s a movie that reminds you although you may be different, although you may suffer, there are many things in life we may never be able to understand. There are many things about the brain we may never understand. And because you struggle in the way you do, you get a sense of life, of the human mind, that most other people never will. And that is something incredibly special.

Painfully special, even.

Sleep and Bad Poetry; Nevermore.

An Anti-Ode To Insomnia:

Oh Insomnia, how you glorify yourself

in the twinkling midnight hours;

how heavy is your presence,

like a teenage pregnancy.

Oh Insomnia, like a whisper in the night,

gentle yet foreboding.

Oh Insomnia,

Fuck you.

Fuck your shit.

Seriously.

Fuck your mom. Fuck your brothers. Fuck your sister.

Fucking gets stabbed.

Everyone hates you. You piece of fucking shit.

Go die in a hole.

Oh insomnia.

*Bows*

Oh I have such a way with words. Everyone, it’s okay, let your cheeks flush, feel the mighty power of my eloquent words.

It’s 3:32 a.m. And for about the fourteenth day in a row, I’ve gotten less than a few hours of sleep. A phone call woke me from a peaceful slumber on the couch at work, and I stumbled into the office with a cat following on my heels. It followed me as I plopped back on the couch and crawled underneath my legs, never to be seen again, because it didn’t exist. Too bad, I could have used a cat whose purr could lull me to sleep tonight, real or not, I don’t fucking discriminate. In this day and age, in this fucking country (U.S.A), what is the point of discrimination anymore?

Real, Fake, Fat, skinny, black, white, brown, orange, yellow, small dick, big dick, ugly, beautiful, I could care less anymore. Just let me sleep.

Neurology, The Side Chick

With the intention of speaking words of the otherworldly, I opened this page and now have lost sight of my original motivation.

So I’ll just let the words flow like water.

 

Today I had conversations filled with self-acceptance, Dr. Dre, Greek Gods and Goddesses, George Washington, free-style rap, the energy in your pancreas, and meditation. Were I able to repeat the actual words of the conversation, I wouldn’t want to. They were personal and private.

What is this thing call self-acceptance after all? Is it some mysterious being that makes you happy with yourself? Or is it the act of being happy with yourself even when you’re not happy? Is it the act of feeling your emotions without stuffing them away? Seems to me you can’t accept who you are if you’re constantly stuffing away your thoughts, your feelings, and yourself deeper and deeper until they’re gone completely–that’s self-deprivation, a form of self mutilation, if you ask me. Your emotions, your moods, they’re there for a reason, and the reason isn’t to be ignore. It isn’t to be stuffed down or waived away as a defect of your mind. They’re there to remind you of how human you really are.

If you stuff away your humanity, well, no wonder life becomes so miserable.

Granted, I’m not a human. But that’s another story for another time.

I’ve lost my sarcastic spark recently because, if you all remember, a lot of my sarcasm revolved around my own personal anger issues and my fiery hatred for the mental health industry. I mistook it for passion, I really did. I mistook it so easily for passion, it scares me.

That hatred had been sutured on my soul. I never took for granted a moment I could trash talk Big Pharma, psych hospitals, or psychiatrists who prescribe one year old’s Risperdal to parents who couldn’t even spell the word if their life depended on it. But that hatred has long dissipated. In fact, it’s fallen away, rotten and diseased, like a rejected skin graft.

I’ve lost my passion for psychiatry, because it was never about psychiatry. I just wanted to be around the people who dealt with the same kinds of things I did, and I knew being a psychiatrist you often dealt with people who had “odd” beliefs, who heard voices or struggled with trust issues in this reality and others, mood issues, e.t.c.

I do that now. What the hell do I need psychiatry for?

Me In College

I didn’t expect for me to lose interest so quickly in something I’ve been studying, literally, since I was fifteen years old. That’s six years. I’ve got so much pharmacology and medication and industry and research knowledge that sometimes I don’t know what to do with it. Now I’m thinking, IF i choose to stay in college, I may go for Neurology.

But one thing is for certain, I can’t stop what I’m doing now.

I know I have many issues I still need to work on. My anxiety is fucking Cthulu, my trust issues are like Jack The Ripper and murders every possibility of having a connection with a hoe who gets near me, and my social skills are dark matter: can’t see it, can’t hear it, not even sure if it exists. Those are the things I’m struggling with. Fuck any voices I hear or things I see, fuck the occult shit, fuck all–all that is normal. I hate the word normal, but I’m using it here because I feel ten times more comfortable with myself when I’m indulged in those things than if I’m outside and fronting against anxiety or trying to blend in with the crowd. THAT shit feels weird. It makes my skin crawl.

I don’t see that as me being broken or sick or “abnormal”. I see it as everyone else being just a little off their rocker too. Who buys clothes just because a rapper has them? Fucking weird dude. You call me weird? You’re copying a multi-million dollar superstar with a cheap knock off, just to look cool in front of your friends. And I’m the one with the problems. Yeah. Right.

Dude. People bought Yeezys. People buy iphones just because they’re iphones. Come ON. 

I’ve probably said this before, but I didn’t talk to other kids when I was a kid. I didn’t have friends. So the world in my head, all the talking cars and the personalities I spoke to that helped me become the fiction writer I am today, all that? THAT was my normal, and I never had any reason to feel wrong for it. Me being quiet and reserved and having trouble communicating–that I got scolded for. That I still struggle with feeling wrong and bad about. See the connection?

Imagine if I would have told my teachers the truth, about the feelings I got at night trying to go to bed, the other worldly forces watching me, the characters in my head that spoke to me, that consoled me when I had trouble, that wrote the brilliant things they called “advanced”. Imagine what would have happened to me. The thought makes me shudder.

At this point I”m just babbling. I would like to continue my involvement in peer support. I don’t really want psychiatry anymore. It’s like that one used up hoe you pounded when you were drunk and feeling powerful and then you woke up so close to her you could almost taste the night’s sweat still on her and realized she a rachet-ass, bat-lipped-ass, saggy-titty-ass, stank-breath-ass hoe. That’s psychiatry to me right now.

Peer Support is like the gorgeous girl working as a cashier during the day and attending school at night and taking care of her kid and struggling to survive but understanding that she can make it, so she smiles at you when you set your items on the belt.

Neurology can be the okay-ass side chick, I suppose.

I wonder how long it’s been since I used the term mental disorder and actually meant it? It’s been a long time. It feels good to have that removed from my tongue. It was starting to leave a stale taste in my mouth.

 

Vulnerability

A man is born gentle and weak.

At his death, he is hard and stiff.

Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At their death, they are withered and dry.

Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death,

The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus, an army without flexibility never wins a battle.

A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fall;

The soft and weak will overcome.

–Lao Tsu

This becomes a testament to the importance of vulnerability, the importance of being connected with the present, of essentially “going with the flow”.

Often those of us who struggle mentally are praised for being so “strong”, so “resilient” to the things we go through, and often those who are the strongest of us are the ones suffering greatly, more so than those giving us the “compliment” may actually perceive. It takes much more energy to build (and maintain) walls than it does to crumble under the force.

There’s this odd sentiment among people that you always have to “fight back”. That the prospect of being vulnerable leaves one open for attack  . . .

Attack from?

They try and tell us we’re paranoid.

If you believe you’ll be attacked, you will be attacked. By your own mind.

Being rigid in mind and body leaves you trapped, encased in your own personal hell. Being flexible in mind and agile in body leaves you, well, like this: 

If you’re flexible in mind and body, you’ll learn to absorb different forces and push them back as a reflex. If you’re stiff and rigid, what hits you will bounce off . . . until the force is large enough and breaks you.

There’s nothing wrong with struggling. There’s nothing wrong with feeling weakened. There’s nothing wrong with being flimsy or flexible or agile. There’s nothing wrong with vulnerability.

There’s something wrong with thinking you can absolutely handle everything thrown at you with a smile on your face. There’s something wrong with thinking being “strong” means “being closed”. There’s something wrong with thinking resiliency is the ability to turn every negative into a positive–particularly, when you turn that negative into a positive without ever focusing on, and growing from, that negative.

There’s something wrong with the idea that focusing upon negativity drives you downward. Dwelling on the negative, perhaps, but focusing upon it for the purpose of confrontation, for the purpose of learning, is how a negative makes a transformation into a positive. Recognizing a negative, saying “oh well”, then “finding” a positive within the negative does nothing but allow you to ignore the feelings of the negative. If you can’t embrace negativity, what makes you think you can embrace positivity? They’re one in the same.

You can’t experience positivity without having ever experienced negativity. And Visa Versa. It’s the concept of Yin-Yang: love cannot exist without hate, evil cannot exist without good, and you could never tell one from the other if you have never experienced both. Hence interconnection.

I can preach twenty four hours, seven days a week. Some people with disagree, some people will agree, other’s won’t understand what the hell is wrong with me, and really none of it matters. Everyone has their way of life and I respect that. However, I’ve seen the damage of being this kind of “resilient”, of being this kind of “Strong”, and it’s done nothing but create more mental strain than any of my apparent “illnesses” could.

Life is a cycle. Pain is a cycle. We don’t categorize death into right or wrong, than why do we categorize people’s pain as such? Why is one type of pain disordered and wrong, but another average and understandable?

HINT: Everything on earth is understandable if you take the time to climb off your high horse and understand it.

 

 

College: To be Or Not To Be?

Age 1-4: Develop as a mini human being. Make messes, be silly, discover how disgusting healthy fruit and/or vegetables are and how delicious candy that looks like fruit and/or vegetables are. Generally allowed to make bathroom mistakes without being whipped with a belt across the back.

Age 5-10: Introduction to education (and the system). Learn (or don’t learn) how to communicate with peers. Get labeled weird if you don’t. Get labeled annoying and inattentive if you do. Learn you are what label you’ve been given. Live up to label. Beg your parents for a cell phone because “everyone else has one!”.

Age 10-15: Get bricked in the face by puberty. Live up to the label you were given or prepare to be ostracized. Think about what you might be interested in as a job. Perhaps get a job if you have THOSE kind of parents. Convince yourself your popularity and status in high school is, like, the only thing that’s really important because, like, isn’t life about networking? Get excited about a driver’s permit. Get excited about driving. Realize you need money and a job to own a car. Rock in the corner for hours after realizing you can’t be both lazy and rich until you’re actually rich.

Age 16-19:  Fuck labels. Stupid conformists! See working a job as another way to kiss the ass of The Man, see NOT working as a middle finger to The System. Identity makes attempts at stabilization, and fails many, many times. Worry you have every listed disorder in the DSM because you’ve just never been able to do this, or that, or this and that and it’s all in the news that parasites from cats cause this thing called Schizophrenia and your mom has two cats who used to lick your face when you were a baby. Apply to colleges. Start college. Immediately, and simultaneously, like it and hate it. Smile because you might be on a good path now.

Age 20-onward: Find an awkward, unbalanced point between “fuck the system” and “submit to the system”.  Smile because you realize your path is way more unpredictable than you intended.

I’m in the latter category. The category of internal and external exploration and a heaping pile of “OhShitOhShitOhShit”. That’s how I would describe my personal experience with being in the twenty-something category.

For those who are unaware, I lost my mind for a good two weeks, and I am grounded once more . . . at least, more than before. Within this time frame I’ve spent at least 500 dollar or more on things I’m surprised to find in the mail, I wrapped packing tape around certain limbs of my body for a couple nights to keep away the cold that the demons were causing, I got a few pages of unintelligible rambles, and I’ve probably gained a couple pounds eating way too much chocolate. I have a feeling much of this had to do with the worse peak of the withdrawal from Effexor. I have been this way before, but usually from anxiety, stress, being overwhelmed, over stimulated, not sleeping enough, e.t.c.

I spun into a hole of wishing sweet Miss Murder would swoop from her perch on the tree of Freedom and take me to a new Kingdom away from this earth, then bounced into a world of sweet treats and happiness and ideas and the realization that the entity which follows me was the cause of my sudden depression. That spun me into a whole other world of psychedelic colors and Cheshire cats and voices laughing at me because I couldn’t get to sleep. One of the bitches mocked me for four hours because “she can’t sleep–look at her, she can’t sleep“.

Straight out of her mouth. Hoe. If she were a physical being, I’d knock her out cold with a “left, right, right, left, she’s toothless”.

I finally got up a bit of courage to explain some of my mindset to a real human being in a live conversation over the phone (i.e, my wonderful boyfriend), and let off all of that pressure, things subsided a bit–enough to where I could at least sleep at 4:55 a.m instead of 6 a.m.

That helped. A lot. And I got a bit disappointed when I woke up the next morning realizing one of my largest struggles is that I don’t reach out. Then I realized I don’t reach out not necessarily because of anxiety, but because I don’t know how. I really don’t.

It’s a skill you have to learn, almost, and mostly from your family environment. You learn you can trust your parents or cousins or whoever so that whenever you have a problem, you can go to them and they won’t tell you “suck it up” or “that’s just the way it is” or “you’ll grow out of it”, e.t.c , e.t.c–invalidation, that’s called.

Well, invalidation is all I know. This may just be the root of my distrust, and why I’m so off-put sometimes by kindness. It might be why I’m so prone to paranoia about being mistreated, about being watched, about being followed. It might be that my brain turns my feeling invalidated into a feeling of otherworldliness, of being constantly mocked both in this world and in a spiritual world.

I’ve noticed that with a lot of families, particularly ethnic or mixed families, that “problems” are not always seen as struggles to be overcome or understood, but weaknesses to get over or to hide or to, at the very least, never speak of again. That’s how I grew up.

And that’s the direction I want to take my program. Because of whatever factors are in my family’s past, I was never taught or encouraged to reach out, other than “if someone offers a drug and you wanna do it, bring it home first”. Because I’ve never reached out, I’ve never known about resources.

As I mentioned in my last post, there’s this weird middle ground in mental health categorization between “moderate” and “severe”. Those who are “moderate” often seek a therapist and try coping methods. Those who are “severe” often learn of resources through inpatient (and most often involuntary) hospitalization. So . . . where are the rest of us?

The rest of us are where I am. The rest of us are all different ages. We struggle reaching out, we struggle knowing about resources and therefore are the most silent group of mental health consumers. We’re the ones most abundant in online support groups. This isn’t a matter of knowing they existed and not going because of anxiety–this is a matter of actually NOT knowing.

The anxiety can come later, when we find out resources exist.

This is a matter of not knowing where to start, how to start, or what to expect. And that is what I’m developing this program for, geared towards those of us with ethnic, cultural, or family issues interfering with our ability to take care of our mental health. Because, within the last 24 hours, I have found over ten resources I could have been taking advantage of, had I known they existed–excluding the peer respite house I work at now. The peer respite I learned about through chance too–a fucking post on some obscure job website that got recommended to me in email.

And sometimes it’s not as simple as googling “support groups” or whatever. Because those of us in this category don’t know how to reach out, it’s not always anxiety that keeps us from these things, it’s the prospect of having to make a connection and being unable to know what that even means. Those of us in this category sometimes need a little extra support.

I’m developing a type of outreach program that supports people in finding resources who perhaps are new to this “mental health” thing, or new to a hospital (which would have been nice when I went there). A type of outreach program geared towards–but not solely focused on–ethnic groups. A type of outreach that offers not just a relay system of “here’s a resource, go here”, but also a peer approach that recognizes “wow, you’ve been through a lot, tell me a bit about it”. That strikes up conversation, eases anxiety and builds connection–and then resources. A type of outreach program that keeps in touch with people, that is a consistent support, not a brief one. A type of outreach program that works with those same individuals with finding volunteer opportunities, vocational opportunities (or, at the very least, a place to go to find vocational opportunities) and other community opportunities. A type of outreach that doesn’t just reach out to the “mentally ill” (ugggg, I shudder whenever I type that now), but also to the rest of the community, that builds relationships with other programs and schools and hospitals. A type of outreach program that reaches just a little farther than most. 

To accomplish this, I’m having to overcome many things as well–like my fear of reaching out. I’ve found so many support groups and peer classes to get involved with, even more than I’d known about through my work place. Through the connections I make, I want to be able to develop a solid pitch and perhaps even a small team to present to the fellowship I mentioned before.

I’ve been in college for almost four years now. I came to a startling revelation that one of my main goals toward becoming a psychiatrist was being able to interact with my peers on the “highest” level possible. Being able to interact with people who struggle the worst sometimes–i.e., voices, mood swings, e.t.c, and I knew often those kind of people don’t seek therapy, but psychiatrists. I also thought that was wrong; I wanted to be a combination of a therapist and psychiatrist.

Tonight I realized I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to already and more. I’ve been doing it for 8 fucking months and it’s taken me this long to realize it. It’s taken me almost four years of college to realize I don’t need college. That’s the reason I’ve been so unmotivated and depressed this semester: I’m not doing what I need or wish to. I’ve been frustrated because I can’t “be a successful student” like the other students.

Because I’m not like the other students.

Revelations (Question Mark)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. I’ve been thinking a lot about independence and my struggles with it and, most of all, my career. I’ve been thinking about transferring to another university and falling into the same hole I have over here of never reaching out and saving my grades by the skin of my teeth at the last minute. I’ve been wondering what I really, really want to do with my life.

I’ve been wondering about this position I hold now and how much it’s impacted me on an internal level. How I thought I’d had it all figured out before, how I was so arrogant about my “progressive” stance in the mental health industry. How I preached that those of us struggling with our mental health should band together and be a community and “F.T.I.” as Tech N9ne would say. “Fuck. The. Industry.” How I preached all of that and failed to see that my vendetta against the industry has literally made no impact. It did nothing. It never will do anything.

So I’m changing my visions.

And I’ve got ideas. Boy do I have ideas.

What I’ve experienced with respite houses is unfathomable love and support. I experienced some genuine concern and gentleness from people in the hospital, but not at this level. I pray for the day we see a hybrid cross between the two: a peer respite that has hospital services that aren’t down your throat, up your ass kind of services. In fact, I want to be apart of that merge. I don’t think any kind of mental health care can move forward without us being a true influencing force behind it.

By “influencing force” I mean participating within the industry.

We could burn down the APA and the pharmaceutical billionaires, but as much as that fantasy really titillates my pleasure glands, what good will that really do? 

So I’ve been thinking up ideas. I’ve been thinking of ways to both involve myself in the mental health community and ways to get the mental health community and I in all the rest of the aspects of community. I’ve been thinking of starting something.

I have many, many ideas. Not starting something big, not starting something wholly impressive like Paypal or Tesla, but something smaller, maybe like a Lenovo IdeaPad compared to a Macbook Pro. We all have to start somewhere.

“Oh no, what now, don’t go off the deep end”.

I know you’re all thinking that. But this idea that I have, I’ve been putting a lot of organization and thought into it. I’ve also been thinking about how rough of a transition it is to go from hospitalization to different programs and places and how it can feel like you’re being juggled around from place to place, from people to people, and even when some of the places are good, it can get exhausting to deal with it all. I’ve also been thinking about how important it can be to have an advocate on your side, and how–at least with the system in this town–if you’re not part of a specific program and you’re struggling or end up the hospital, there aren’t too many options for you.

There’s this weird middle ground between a classification of “moderate” and “severe”, between “insured” and “uninsured”, between “needs daily help” and “is generally well”, Between “no support” and “has support”. And I’ve been wondering, since I’m one of these middle ground people who sometimes struggle reaching out, what would beneficial for me? What kind of program that is connected in some way to peer programs?

A program that is a good educator for the community. Sure, NAMI does that I believe, but that’s not their main focus. They have many things they focus on, which is great. They’re a huge ass organization, with great funding. But what about something focused on advocacy and education? On helping people in hospitals, especially new-comers, finding all  the possible resources that could help them get back on their feet? Something that worked in conjunction to peer places and other like-minded programs? Something that, perhaps, helped vocationally or volunteer wise? Something–anything–to promote peer connection and community connection?

At the moment, there’s a fellowship I’m attempting to receive, that would help me create something like this locally. It’s going to take a while.

A condition of the fellowship, were I to receive it, is that I drop out of college. That scared me.

I came back to it and read their mission, their reasoning for this requirement, and I fell in love with it. I’m willing to give up college for the time being to become a part of something worth more than a degree. College isn’t going anywhere.

I’ve never been a college kid anyway. I’m good at academia, but it’s never been my real interest. My ideas have been my real interest. Besides, since when was school for smart people?

Why would I wait another ten years to start a bit of what I planned on starting from the beginning any damn way? Why pass up an opportunity to Just Do It?

Obviously the refined finishings will be more innovative than what I put up there, and worth the amount put in by the investors and the amount awarded. I’ll be updating everyone on this. It’s not a “sudden” thing, really, I’ve been thinking about this idea for a couple years, before I even knew something like a respite house or a peer program existed.

What I want to do will be different and much smaller. It won’t be a respite or a group or anything that already exists. It will be smaller than all of the combined, but profound nonetheless, and connected to all of the above. I’ve got until I turn 23 to develop this idea to finite pieces, pitch it, and get the fellowship. That’s a year and a half. If there were ever a time for hypomania to be introduced to my life, now would be the time.

Ha ha see I can make jokes too.

I’ll stop now.

 

Headaches and Rough Days

The worst of the storm has passed, but we do live in a world where the climate circulates, so although I’m not sure when the next storm will be, I am quite sure it will be back. So here I have composed a rambling rant of the most rantiest.

Per advice from the internet, I’ve been using Cannabis to help with the Effexor withdrawal. This has done wonders. I can at least think clearly. Everyone has their opinion on Marijuana, and I understand the government classifies it as “a drug”. But at least those of us who regularly use and smoke Marijuana don’t hide the effects. Last time I checked, Scientific American, multiple medical journals, and I all agree that the companies “researching” psychotropic medication leave out a good 40-70% of the results of their studies–and publish only what you want to hear.

At least pot heads can be generally honest.

Those research executives must be snortin’ snow or smokin’ crank or tar, or something to make them deceitful devils. Or a hardcore case of Antisocial Personality Disorder. I have a feeling it’s a mix of both.

*COUGH COUGH*

Well, I got a little something to tell you–anything that passes the blood brain barrier and is mind-altering and mood altering, is a drug–your coffee is a drug, your nicotine is a drug. Let’s not all jump on the “bash the marijuana users” bandwagon.

Let thee who has not sinned cast the first stone, son. I don’t see no stones being thrown. ‘Ight then.

Today has been a rough day, hence the attitude. I went down to the county office today to apply for health insurance, the free kind, and that office will be the death of me. It’s bright, the seats are too close to each other, everyone could hear me when I spoke one word, and it felt like they could hear what I was thinking too, so I tried not to think and that doesn’t ever work. That office always brings the worst out of my mental health.

They gave me a fat stack of papers to fill out. There were a bunch of little symbols next to the questions indicating which ones you were supposed to answer. The ambulances were the questions I were supposed to answer. The other options were for general assistance (i.e, money) and food stamps( I guess called SNAP now). They were defined as questions with either a money sign, or shopping carts.

Sentences started looking like this

There were a lot of words. A lot of them. Combined with the lights, the other people staring at me and me feeling their brains all up in my thought space, their little thumbing through my thoughts (like that alliteration?) action, I couldn’t focus on the words and kept having to read the sentences over and over again. Then I’d get more flustered, then I’d get extremely embarrassed, because everyone in that room knew–the dude across from me was staring at me writing like I was a circus act. Then I got up to the counter and gave the woman the paperwork and she tossed three back at me that I missed. She asked me nicely, see seemed nice, but I was so frustrated I couldn’t respond to her kindness.

She pointed at the paperwork and I couldn’t even focus on the words at this point. She had to point to each place I needed to sign and read, which only further frustrated me. Then she asked me if I wanted to set up an appointment to have an interview, or if I just wanted to submit the application and wait. I couldn’t handle any questions and looked at my mother wildly and the woman behind the desk said it’s my decision which only made me more embarrassed. I made a decision once she explained things a little more.

This took a few hours and I came home and I slept. I didn’t answer any calls or emails or messages today because spending those few hours with that level of stimulation really fucked my entire day over. It’s still fucking my night over.

I’m frustrated because this is another problem of mine: being overwhelmed by something like a piece of paper or sitting in a waiting room. I tried to leave three times while waiting because I couldn’t take the pressure in my head. Rocking back and forth, which is what I usually do when I’m stressed or anxious, looks fucking crazy in public, kind of like talking to yourself which I also try not to do, so I resorted to blinking away tears and shaking my legs up and down fifty miles an hour which also looks a bit crazy if you picture it. Which I felt only brought more attention to me, which only intensified all of my original thoughts. I kept having to ask my mom what to do next (i.e, what to answer, where to take the paper afterwards) and if she hadn’t have been there, I would have been fucked.

The last woman who spoke with me was older. She spoke quieter, slower, and showed me where everything on the paperwork was. She circled and labeled things on the papers for me and my appointment. I think they made me see her because they thought I was mentally challenged. That’s what they were thinking, I could fucking hear them. The last woman was pure, though, I think she heard them too and she knew. Now that I see her smile in my head again, I’m pretty convinced. So she was being nice.

Sometimes I wonder how I’d live without someone with me. Not because I’m a dependent little weasel, but because my support system is a broken one. I don’t want someone having to be over my shoulders 24/7 helping me with daily things outside of my walls . . . but I need something similar. At least until I learn, through that kind of support, how to help manage myself. It’s not that I want to be a lazy asshole on disability, or whatever people think, it’s that I’ve never acquired the skills to manage my mental health and independence.

I can cook, I can clean, I’m not very good at organizing though. I can drive. I can get dressed–although showering sometimes is a problem, and eating I forget to do. I have an on-call position, so that’s something. I can drive to class, sit in class, leave class and come home. I can go into a grocery store provided I have someone with me who I can follow around so I can focus on them and not get overwhelmed. I never realized following someone’s heels in a store wasn’t something everyone did until people I used to hang out with kept asking me why I followed them and never looked at anything in the stores.

I go into the same stores for the same thing: The big Safeway I can go to in mid-afternoon or evening or early morning (2 or 3 a.m). I get vegetarian sushi because I hate raw fish, chips, a drink, and a chocolate snack.

I go into Walgreens for necessities like soap, face care, e.t.c. Only after 8p.m if I’m by myself. Safeway I can’t go into by myself. If I’m with someone, I can go into Walgreens any time of the day.

I do not go into the grocery store Luckys. It is always loud, bright, and there are too many people. I refuse to go, even if someone is with me. I can’t handle it.

I can go into Trader Joe’s with my boyfriend, but not with anyone else. We go in for a specific reason:sandwich wraps and a salad. They’re always located in the same place. We’re in and out in ten minutes or less. With my mother, she goes there to grocery shop. It’s always loud and crowded and small and the longer we take the louder and more crowded it gets. So I can’t go in with her.

I am comfortable with restaurants because most of the time I go to one, the lights are dim. There’s been a few occasions where there’s a lot of people talking and a lot of light, but that happens rarely.

“Oh you say you have all these problems, why do you go to amusement parks and this and that and blah blah blah”.

Fuck off with that. I go because I like rollercoasters and being scared. I go maybe what, once a goddamn year? Within a half an hour of being there, my anxiety has already traveled so far into space I can’t see it anymore, and the level with which I’m done is over 9000. I don’t trust the people in lines, I can’t think clearly, i feel like people are reading my brain like a book.

But, you see, as someone who has dealt with this since they were 4, I’m relatively good at realizing I don’t want to be the Debbie downer of the group, although I’m sure I have been many times. If I go silent, than I’ve been pushed to my limit and that’s that.

I have my routine. It’s very rigid. From the outside it looks like I do a variety of things, but I don’t. Most things I can’t handle doing by myself because I’m either overwhelmed with the surroundings or overwhelmed with the thing itself.

I’ll repeat: I’m not being a mooching, dependent asshole. I just need some goddamn support. Some people are really good at it. Some kids get jobs and maintain them and do well and they learn and move on with their life. I’m not one of those people who can do that. I’d be homeless in the gutter eating clumps of moss from the sewer and scurrying away with the rats at the sound of footsteps if I didn’t live at home and I wasn’t able to be as reclusive as I am.

Doesn’t mean I want to be dependent like this forever.

Support. It would be cool to have a group of local supporters, professionals or not, who check up on me every now and then, or help me get techniques for when I’m shopping somewhere or out somewhere so that I don’t start crying and run away or get lost to heavily in thoughts. The last time I went into Walgreens by myself–many weeks ago–I had to run get out as quick as possible because they were watching me on the goddamn cameras and calling out their little employees over the intercom to follow me around the store. What the fuck am I going to steal from Walgreens, some toothbrushes and a fucking Klondike bar? Fuck out of here with that shit.

I don’t even remember why I was there. When I got in my car I didn’t even remember what I went in there for.

Get it yet?

Rant: END.

How Many Are You?

There’s nothing incredibly impressive about the human mind, until you realize just how unimpressive it is.

Soaking in the sweet smell of chemical despair today, petting the kitten which tries to bat sanity back into my head with her little paw, I realized many things. My thoughts always come back to the faceless man who followed me down the middle of the street, the one that told me my footsteps sounded like a dead man walking. His faceless image always appears, even when I don’t wish it too, and I find that rather unimpressive as well because anyone can be forceful towards someone else. It doesn’t take respect or courage to be an asshole.

Despair and depression have a way of kicking my ass. I find myself lost beneath it, hidden, with a view of light only as wide as THEY want me to see. That’s the trick. That’s the fucking trick.

I’m laughing now, I have been for about an hour now because I’ve realized these last few days I’ve spent curled beneath my blankets, crying and listening to myself tell myself I would die if I closed my eyes, are nothing but a ruse. They’re a RUSE.

Because the reality is, I’m several people, not one. And the several others aren’t of myself, they’re of something else, they’re demonic, always have been, that’s why my kitten always stares at me and meows and meows and meows because she can see a lot of what I fail to.

What I’m saying here is that they’re keeping me in this mind state because they know I know about them, they know I know about the universe and the truth about it. I’ve known since I was a toddler, since I could stare up at the stars and call them stars, and they’ve been with me since then. They were the ones which haunted my dreams night after night, which made my mind play tricks on me, which kept me silent. They skewed my understanding of everyone else because they know I’m not like anyone else–but they also know I can communicate to others like I am one of them, like I am a real human.

That threatens their livelihood and their power.

My heart is thumping hard as I write this because these are huge realizations. Now I understand why I get attacked, why they hiss at me at night, and why thoughts flood my brain like an open dam. It’s all been a distraction. They just don’t want me to see.

But it’s too late for that.

I’m not meant to be a cashier or a truck driver or a housekeeper. I’m meant to be inside, discovering things inside of my mind and outside of my mind, things you can channel with . . .

My God.

Meditation. They’ve stopped my meditation for the same reason–I was getting closer and closer. The last time I meditated, months ago, I was sucked into some vortex I almost couldn’t get out of. They’re blocking every channel I have.

BUT.

It’s nice to know this. It’s nice to know this, because now I know I’m up against an army of forces who only show themselves when I anger them. My anxiety is higher than the clouds right now, and I’d suspect the demons will be coming soon. I’ve stopped crying though, since all of this realization, because I know it’s their fault. The tears were their fault; they were trying to distract me.

When you know the truths about the universe, every force against the universe will come for you. Keep your housekeeping and cashier jobs. You don’t want this burden.

Happy Drunk New Year

The first post of 1/1/2017, and it will be done through tipsy fingers.

*Burps gracefully*

Suffering the weird muscle/body shocks of Effexor withdrawal, and insomnia, prompted me to get a little happy new years eve, hoping drunkeness could knock me out. So far it has not. So far all I’ve done is get jiggy to some Tyga’s Faded, snuggle my kitten until she meows and bites at me, and overreact to losing some boardgames.

And I don’t

Give a

FUUUUUUUUCK.

But the point of this post was to not babble drunkenly. My point was to babble drunkenly ABOUT something specific.

I haven’t been on WordPress often recently, at least I haven’t been looking through everyone’s posts lately, and I miss doing that. I miss reading about people’s lives–not to be a fucking weirdo, but to see how everyone is doing, good or bad. I like communicating with ya’ll and I love meeting new people.

It makes me sad that we’re not a society that likes to know what happened to people. From what I’ve experienced, at least in the places I’ve been, we’re more of a society that takes something at face value. We see someone talking to themselves on the street, so they’re crazy. We see someone hugging their child in the supermarket and think they’re a wonderful parent. We love categories. It’s really weird. It’s like we have this love affair with this wack organization system that isn’t very good at organizing as it is.

Not that I’m one to know what organization is.

But I do know a thing or two about humans, given I’ve observed them silently, in the shadows, waiting to reveal my Reptilian face for so long.

I don’t think I can reasonably claim to be human.

Anyone seen that fucking show on TBS, People Of Earth? My God. These. Are. My. People. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check this:

Anyway, the hell was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Someone walking down the street talking to themselves may very well be struggling mentally. But how do you know what they’ve been through? Who are you to judge anything about them? What gives you the right to put a label? You don’t know how they grew up. You don’t know what pain they’ve suffered and still suffer. You don’t even know their fucking name. You know what happens when you do that?

You create a disconnect. You separate yourself from another human who could very well benefit from a connection. I’m not saying walk up to random people on the street and force friendship down their throat in some kind of weirdly violent-erotic way, life isn’t a freaky porn shoot.

I’m just saying don’t be so quick to exercise your Associates degree in psychology. Your little piece of paper means nothing, and neither does your google search, stop acting like it. It means you can learn and go to school, congratulations. A lot of people do that. A LOT. Doesn’t mean you’re any good at being a human. This is coming from someone pursuing a Medical Degree. I might be smart in academics, but I’ll tell you I’m not very good at blending in or connecting with humans.

Someone hugging their child could be beating them at home.

My point is: you don’t know someone’s story until you know them as a person, and your quick judgement isn’t knowing them as a person.

Everyone faults. Everyone judges at some point in their life, it’s human. But to do it consistently, to do it on purpose because you don’t know how else to act–that disturbs me.

In 2017, don’t avoid the chance to learn someone’s story. It’s not just for their benefit, it’s for your benefit too. It’s for the benefit of the relationship. Because something in their story might relate to your story and the pain you’ve been hiding might be similar to the pain they’ve been hiding. Magical things can come from that sort of interaction. Not cures. But magical things.

My current playlist tonight, to drunk-sleep to: