The Struggle of the Disorder of My Mind

Is today a harbinger that the new meds are not working? – it’s a terrifying thought. I have been brought to my knees with fear – just as I was feeling that maybe this euphoric feeling might be permanent with the miracle of medication - now petrified that the joie de vivre might be fleeting and just a cruel joke on me.  Something is chasing me – the black dog is at my heels again – gloom crowding in on me, the darkness of my soul all enveloping – a sense of dread, anxiety, fear, panic and depression – an endless cycle that is self nourishing and is greedy as hell.

The sadness of yesterday, the feeling of wanting to isolate myself - not be with or talk to anyone or even continue my display of gratitude to all friends who have stood by me time and again through recurring slips and still love and care.  In my panic to stop the descent, I just get sadder and more panicky. I am so scared because I don’t want to lose my mind and my emotions again. I don’t think my friends can take another “withdrawal” – Homer’s opening words in his call today – “are you in withdrawal again?- do you need to come out to Camp Guantanamo to recover” – hell, I have only been away for 10 days – can’t I stay on an even keel for even two weeks? And the feeling of not deserving the loyalty of friends and being incapable today or yesterday of telling them about the gratitude that I feel, although it seems so important to do so. I need to do it before it is too late again. The feeling that I have so much to give and can’t give anything is a burden on my mind and in my soul.

William Styron’s definitive chronicle of his depression succinctly describes how I feel: “Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self – to the mediating intellect – as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode”. Nobody understands the pain and how much one wants it to stop – you would do anything to stop the pain – the quiet, calm of death seems so enticing – just peace and no more pain – ever. Thanatopsis is very seductive at this point – comforting even.

I hate the soft, silent crying only triggered by remembrance of being in the depths of hell in my mind, my crazy uncontrollable mind, and the fear of falling again, the fear of abandonment, the fear of not accomplishing anything and the fear of not being able to stop it once it starts. Not being worthy of anything. Nothing seems positive today. Faye’s words are encouraging – but I hate imposing and can only tell her by email messages back and forth – we have interacted 25 times today and 13 yesterday – but talking or seeing anyone is an overwhelming black thought – meeting her face to face would have just dissolved into more crying.  It is so much easier in cyber space – she can’t see the crying although she knows it’s there.

My friend, Tamer, thinks that cyber words are not important – he doesn’t know that sometimes his words have given me hope when I couldn’t reach inside and find it for myself and I couldn’t call anyone because there is nothing more to say except: “I’m depressed” and cry. The nice thing about cyber friends is that you can’t cry or if you are crying, they can’t hear you and you just keep typing and holding on to this new friend – especially when they are funny – it becomes a “fierce attachment” – he just doesn’t know how important it is to just keep having contact with someone – you can get out of yourself, out of the self absorption and black thoughts and he is not aware of the crazy person he is speaking to and doesn’t understand the desperation which comes across in a chat. “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me”. Then you feel crazier than ever – desperate? Shit yeah – I’m desperate – desperate to keep my sanity and maintain that fierce attachment even with a cyber friend. Communication, if open and new, keeps hope alive. I somehow think he cares and caring is what keeps you hoping.

There is the fear that friends will tire of always being supportive (fear of abandonment) and that I will sink into the “fierce attachments” mode – it bores the hell out of me so I project that it also bores the hell out of them – they need a break – so I withdraw into my crazy mind – just me and “it” and I sit by and watch like a spectator as it slowly disintegrates in front of me – my “mediating intellect” – as I stand by helpless – and yelling at myself – “Stop the craziness – stop it now”.  Inside there is a scream welling up: “Help me, I’m falling again and I can’t stop it”.

I keep taking showers to wash it all away but they don’t wash away the disorder in my mind or the darkness in my soul. It is too hot and muggy for a long cleansing bike ride and I have promises to keep that would not accommodate a long enough ride to outrun the demons clawing to get inside my brain. So I sit here and slowly disintegrate. I just want the pain to stop and don’t know how to stop it.

And on top of everything else, my feet are swollen – my feet NEVER swell, but today they are swollen – but so is my jaw still swollen from the surgery – but are feet connected to the jaw in some sick way? Is my brain connected to the jaw or the feet? I look like a chipmunk with a mouthful of nuts – with FAT feet and a brain that is “on holiday”.

And I hate my hair cut – I hate everything about myself today and shower after shower doesn’t wash the hate away. I can’t get the water to wash the darkness out of my soul. So I organize – organize the shelves, the paper work, the closet, the pantry, the refrigerator, the dresser and it still doesn’t organize my brain. The disorder is overwhelming me to the point that I can’t even organize this blog and I need to stop.

 

Incredible Gratitude Continued

Most of the past two weeks I have been not only celebrating the miracle of medication but now that I have emerged out of the black hole, I have been having overwhelming feelings of gratitude for those people around me classified as friends and the question of “what do I give back?”. I never feel it is enough or that my words just don’t cover how much I appreciate those around me when I can’t contribute anything or have been understanding during periods of “fierce attachments”

Recently, I have had the fortuitous joy of being awash in contacts with multiple friends – telephonically, electronically and even in person, whereby I had the opportunity to issue mawkish, albeit ab imo pectore expressions of gratitude to many for their love and loyalty – especially those embattled warriors who have held my heart when it was hurting and quieted my mind when it was writhing in pain on more than one occasion. To those who have figuratively picked me up off the floor and held me until I felt safe, others not so near who plied me with daily calls, chats and emails. “Are you okay?” is a sentence I am frequently asked. Am I okay – no, I am fucking out of mind most of the time.

I have been musing not only why do I deserve these jewels in my life, but how can I ever pay homage to their love, caring, constancy and loyalty with mere ineffective words without sounding mawkish. But here goes:

Julie – my steady constant with whom I feel the safest and who has abided hours of sobbing confessions, fears and hurts – she gives me the freedom to say the deepest darkest fears without trepidation as I spew out all the demons and pains in my brain, confessing that I just can’t take the pain anymore and want to stop it, and then she revives me and talks me into staying amongst the living when she says “you have always been my idol”. I will never forget that because it kept me hoping I had something to contribute to someone and I can’t disappoint my Julie.

By association with my love for Julie, I love whom she loves, her Chip who has also been a strong hold and makes me feel so good because he loves my cooking – “Just get in the car and get your butt up here, I’m hungry. I‘m having tabouli withdrawal”.  Julie’s comment – “The way to a Southern man’s heart is his stomach obviously” I truly love him and know he worries – I want him to know that I know. When he yells at me with his crazy old Savannah accent – it makes me feel loved. And I love cooking for them both.

Jimmy and Neil – what would I have done without being in their loving embraces and hospitality during the adjustment period to the new meds – they leave me alone to do my own thing, but always include me. When I get lost almost daily and sometimes more than once daily and call Jimmy, never tiring, he tells me where I am and stays on the phone until I get to Round Lake Park and can find my way. When I am back in Savannah, I love when my phone rings and it’s Jimmy in the middle of the day just to say “hi” and ask if I am okay. I love when he calls me and says “I’m driving over the Sunshine Bridge and I just wanted to call and talk to you while on the bridge”. On Sunday when I was feeling so sad and exhausted, he said “let’s play beauty shop” and spent hours doing my hair to make me feel better. I love when he walks up to me and gives me a hug – and when I ask him “what?” he just says “Nothing”. He breaks my heart and I love him so.

Neil, I love because he loves Jimmy and now that he knows me better, he loves me too. Besides that, he is a hell of a hanging-out partner – there is nobody more fun to go to a gay bar with and he’s funny as hell. I hope he knows how much I value that he accepts me without even having known me before he meet Jimmy. But most importantly, I love him because he loves Jimmy – truly loves him and by association loves the people that Jimmy loves. He mirrors my heart and capacity for love.

Okay, enough for today as there are so many, and the order in which I have written about them does not indicate the order in which I care or recognize anyone’s contribution nor the gratitude I feel for each- but it is just enough for today as I cry as I write remembering all the care I get which seems without warrant and just the thankfulness that I am out of the black hole and have so many people who love me.  Also, everyone is going to have to put up with the Latin expressions weaving in and out of my prose – I know only Loic and Grant appreciate them but the rest of you are just going to have to deal as sometimes there is no other expression that expresses exactly what I want to say. 

A New Beginning

 

Apprehension about exposing the mussiness of my mind to the world is reason enough for the dilatory start of this venture originally meant to be my own private anonymous outlet to assuage the urge to compose extended epistles to the unwitting with prolix verbosity, assuming there existed interest from anyone in anything I have to add anyway. But lo and behold, it is no longer anonymous as I have allowed entry to two readers, both friends, one old and one new.

Faye, as she already is aware of the deep, dark recesses of my mind, but trusts me with her children anyway and is not frightened when I disappear for hours with her very precious Olivia. She is the inspiration for this brainchild and has added herself to my readers since she was instrumental in its provenance. My beautiful, funny Faye, ever encouraging, assures me that once I hit the “Post It” button – I will find it easier to continue exposing the pastiche of my excogitations (one for Tamer).

The second soul who has willingly subjected himself to the aberrations of my mind is my wondrous friend, Tamer, in whose honor I have chosen his suggested name for this opus – ensuring that I will have him in my thoughts each time I return to it. Also, he has been a pain in the butt requesting the link, therefore to quell the roaring beast, I have acquiesced to his demand. So now I have to say something really nice about him – but that is the easiest thing in the world to do.

Tamer, who with thaumaturgical ability sends a hug whenever I need one and has been a constant steady beacon ; who often unknowingly, has put the wind beneath my wings miraculously when I have found myself hanging ever so tenuously by a thread, even when I was being a smartass and appeared “scornful” and “desperate”. I now feel him in my heart at all times – even when he is busy and can’t reach out with his special touch of internet-lingo-filled messages. His electronically sent embraces have been a steady comfort and he always makes me smile, even sometimes break into a loud deep laugh. I cried once, though, when he, not understanding the language of “smart ass”, felt hurt in his heart and I thought I had lost him, but he trusted me enough to give me a second chance for which I am ever so grateful. He is the best friend of my heart as I am of his.

That’s all for today but at least it is a start.  More to follow in my current mood of feeling overwhelming gratitude for a multitude of friends.