Recently I posted a journal entry about being diagnosed with ADHD, and while that is true, the writing sounded whiney to me. Have I mentioned that I am now coming out of a depression? I’ve been back on antidepressants for almost a month. I feel like a different person. Truthfully, the SSRI’s don’t take away the sadness or gloomy outlook – and I wouldn’t want them to. I know when they are working because I first have a physiological response: my shoulders come down, my chest expands, I breathe easier. My joints ache less. The nightmares abate and I can sleep restfully. I’m calmer in every situation.
And then the healing can begin. My thinking begins to untangle – not unravel like a dumpster fire in a flash flood! But untangle – and make sense again. I can follow one thread to the next in a cohesive way; I can think straight again. I can think. I can reason.
Next come the creative urges. Beauty excites me again…I hadn’t noticed when that had stopped happening. Ahhhhh….I have inklings of delight again. The medication allows me to relax just enough to sleep, to dream, to imagine. And that is how it works. It doesn’t take away my frustrations, my difficulties, or my grief. It allows me to cope with them. To sort through them, prioritize them, and plan for productive change. I can love my life again.
I don’t remember the first time I realized how glad I am to be here now – to have been born exactly when and where I was born. This way, baby. To be exactly who I am. I think it could have been grade school – but certainly by junior high, I became aware of feeling gratitude…and enjoying every little detail of every little thing around me. When my physiology gets turned around here and now get reversed to now and here – which is nowhere. Pardon the word soup, but I can be silly again, too.
By it’s very nature, mental illness is immaturity in action. Acting silly isn’t. The difference is presence. The difference is being childlike, not childish. I used to joke when people said something about entering their second childhood – that I’ve never left my first. Seriously. Never stop being childlike, delighted by every little detail of life.
Living with chronic illness is exhausting, but by far the worst illness I deal with on a daily basis is the OPD. OPD (Obnoxious Personality Disorder) and it’s symptoms are debilitating. When I am miserable, feel like life is not treating me fairly and God has abandoned me, I know where to go for help. I go to church. Right here, today, with Carolyn Myss. She is my spirit animal, and lucky for me, she’s got clues to spare.
And then I channel my inner Elizabeth Bigelow and remind myself what a privilege it is to be alive in the here and now, even if I don’t know how the technology works…
Okay. I’m like the Terminator – I’m ba-aaack…I won’t pull any punches here; the election results catapulted me into an even deeper depression than the gradual slide I had been in. A couple of people suggested that I seemed “kinda bummed.” I’m sure they will recover from my reaction. Let me be clear: I am not bummed. I’m devastated. Absolutely gutted. It’s not just the business of politics – it’s personal.
And I’ll get into some of the details of the day to day hell of the past week with you, but first, let me begin with the healing. Because I have not been able to sleep – or breathe well – I called my doctor yesterday. I decided, a bit late, that I need to go back on an antidepressant. Obviously I am struggling to cope with assholes. That’s what antidepressants are for. She offered me a prescription for a sleeping medication and I declined. They are all habit forming. I have habits. I have bad habits in fact. But I do not knowingly engage in new bad habits. I have enough old ones, thank you.
I have fond memories of my father patiently teaching me to play solitaire at a young age. I still play on my laptop or phone when I’m waiting somewhere, or sometimes even when I’m anxious. It relaxes me. Because I’ve been playing all my life, I rarely lose. Now there are many apps available to win money playing online. I struggle financially, so maybe I should consider playing solitaire for money. It’s not gonna happen. That’s called gambling. And gambling is a known addictive behavior. I have an addictive personality. I am never going to willingly engage in any addictive behavior. That’s called self care.
When I talk about self care (let’s do) I do not mean that I switch from coffee to herbal tea after noon (although I usually do that, too.) I mean that I do not engage in any behavior that risks my optimal health.
Some of you know that I was a roller skater until my forties. Not the kind you clip to your shoes we had as children, but the kind you invest real money in to have custom made. The kind Michael Jackson flew into Detroit to learn dance moves from. And yes, I was a token white person in that sport. I skated with Anita Baker at Detroit Roller Wheels before she had a recording contract. I have maintained since high school that it would have been an Olympic sport had it not been a black sport…but I digress.
When I do enjoy the bliss of deep, restorative sleep, I am often roller skating in my dreams. My heaven is paved with smooth wooden streets. I can’t begin to describe the freedom of being able to dance on skates, the sense of flying when you’re moving fast. The sense of floating when you’re moving slow. The trust of moving through air with your eyes closed being led through a dance. There were enough rinks in the Detroit metro area that you could drive from one adult dance session to another and skate continuously for hours any day of the week. And I did. It was my drug of choice. I also knew I could take my skates and travel alone anywhere in the country and meet other healthy-minded sober individuals (you can’t skate drunk) that I could feel safe with.
But once I had moved to northern rural Michigan I had to give up skating. There are no rinks nearby. I haven’t skated in almost 30 years. Would I try it now? Hell no. I used to love horseback riding. Probably not going to do that again this lifetime…never say never, as they say. I can say with certainty that I am never going bungee jumping. You get the idea.
So why in the name of self care would I vote for a fascist? Anyway, here we are. As it happens I didn’t really have much energy to deal with my reaction to that mess. That is going to take time and enormous discipline to sort through. My cat is hanging onto life by a thread at the moment. And my precious only child is in crisis with his alcoholism. It would be difficult enough to deal with were he not also living in my house. So now I’m dealing with an energy intruder who cannot seem to control his own behavior and is making my life crazy. Kicking him out means he has no safe place to stay. He becomes homeless. He’s broke. He is sick and not strong enough to work consistently. It has to be faced, and yes, I am strong enough to do it. Sadly, I’ve had ongoing experience with this all of my adult life with most of my family members. It is heartbreaking, which is the real reason I called the doctor yesterday. I was afraid I might be having a heart attack. It was anxiety. While I would give my life for my son, I won’t make a single compromise for his demons.
And so I have begun to work the 12 step program again. I have found an online Al-anon group so that I can attend meetings. I will get a sponsor, I will continue to meet weekly with a therapist. I will be diligent with self care.
This is the first morning in a couple weeks that I have woke without panic. My breathing is under control. I managed to get some sleep. I’m not shaking. The sense of dread is not completely gone, but I feel it dissipating. And now my inner warrior kicks in. Jesus, I can be a raving bitch. I’ve had to be, and I’m as good as it as I am at playing solitaire. But the only alternative to being her is to be more protective of my personal space moving forward, a lesson I could have sworn I had learned. But here we are.
A Painterly Home 