Into the New

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This is the beginning of the 4th week with my new meds, namely the one Big med replacing the other Big med. Both of them address bipolar psychosis and mood swings and generally being wobbly in the brain.

Yes, that would be there professional diagnosis if I were to have one. Wobbly. Wobbly and inconstant as the moon.

So, my gentle readers, my lovely wintertime doldrums, so famously described so often…they’re easing up. This makes sense to me as there’s been no snow, no bitter cold. I feel bright on bright days, and moody on cloudy ones….wanting my mood to change? wait five minutes. It’s been quite a season, nevertheless, and I have felt as if I was going down some dark roads in my mind. I do have chronic suicidality, which means I think about death a lot and my pink hair is but a ruse.

I was thinking about how tired I was, not of the day, not of the season, but of doing this cycle, up and down, always and forever. Understand this, my dear reader, I may have been diagnosed 14 years ago (for the first time) but my brain and my body have known the ebbs and flows of wild Hurricane Jady for as long as I can recall. It’s maddening, and exhausting, and indescribably difficult to maintain sometimes. Even as a child, there were these days; The days when the night takes such a long time to come, and the evening feels like a water break rather than a restful respite.

Tonight, the streets are wet, the rain comes and goes, and I just had a very tearful therapy session about being on probation at work. Yes, they put me on probation for performance issues. The addressing of these issues, mind you, that led to me taking a medical leave. I was informed of these issues in a letter that I was subsequently asked to sign. I have a copy if you’d like to read something truly, devastatingly embarrassing to me. This was last Tuesday.

The subsequent week, I spent working as hard as possible to show my coworkers that I was not, in fact, incompetent. I kept track of every note in a very detailed spreadsheet and entered them all into the EHR with care, and I managed to schedule my upcoming week to be fairly busy. I got a hold of many of the patients I’d missed session with during my medical leave, and was able to reschedule and reconnect with a few.

I still can’t help thinking that everything I’m doing is being scrutinized, judged, and found wanting. My goodness, the feeling is strong. Nevertheless, I’m not sobbing desperately, I’m not suicidal, and I’m actually feeling fairly able to handle my disappointment and discomfort.

So in short: yes, I still feel bad, but also yes, my new meds are working. Hooray, I think?

Flashback to Reality

~ jadybyproxy ~ 1 Comment

Hello my dear ones. I’m sorry to say that this is one of those blogs wherein I discuss a challenge rather than a success. This probably does not come as a shock, since I generally blog only the truly awesome and truly awful.

sigh.

The last time I used Zyprexa, I was in the psych wing of Stanford’s hospital in California, for about 5 weeks before transitioning to live-in therapy and finally going into intensive outpatient several months later. Zyprexa is strong as fuck, sedating, and I admit I never thought I’d need to use it again. Things are going poorly.

I’m paranoid. I’m not sleeping well. I wake in the middle of the night because I keep having the same nightmare night after night. I am always feeling as if there in an impending, horrific-beyond-words doom circling my head. I am worrying constantly, about every social interaction–every conversation, every exchange. My body is tense, I cannot sit still, I cannot stop bursting into tears. It’s been a little over a month of feeling this as intensely as I do now, and it’s not lessening.

so, about 6 weeks ago, I seek out an appointment with my doctor in order to address the growing unsettled and uncomfortable feeling all over my body and in my head. My doctor, being good at what he does, and I believe taking off some time, is unavailable until February 23. Well, fuck. So I set an appointment, much earlier, with my PCP (primary care provider, a general practice doctor, not a psychiatrist) in order to see if she is willing to prescribe me something stronger than my current medications, at least until I am able to see my regular psych. In this appointment, she admits she’s never prescribed the med I want, so she instead offers Zyprexa, which she is far more familiar with. I hear that medication and my heart falls. I retake it, because I am desperate, and instantly gain 10 pounds in 2 weeks. I set another appointment with my PCP wherein I tell her, in layman’s terms, “ok, I tried your med, can we try mine now?” She responds by telling me that I can stop taking Zyprexa, and I can wait for my other doctor. she literally says, “It’s just a couple of days, girl! you got this.”

(I have not ‘got this’, madam. I do not have THIS at all. )

Keep in mind, I am bugging and bugging my psych’s poor receptionist for any cancellation. She finds one with a different doctor in my psych’s practice. I take it immediately. I ask if since they’re in the same practice, if SHE would be willing to prescribe, I kid you not, a mere 2 weeks of a non-narcotic, non-habit forming, non-in any way fun to imbibe, medication that I would deeply prefer…no, no she will not. She’s “willing to discuss” changing dosages of my current meds…which at this point is pretty much a slap in my face. So I cancel that appointment and wait-list for longer. this entire time, I’m sleeping like shit, paranoid as a tinfoil hat, and crying at every emotional cue in my life.

Finally, my doctor has a cancellation for tomorrow. Of course, It’s been long enough festering in my brain, that I am a mess. I’m a hot, melty mess, loyal readers. Such, a mess, in fact, that I filled out medical leave of absence paperwork today just in case I need time for my new meds to kick in. I am struggling so hard, and I do not want to lose this job.

Just to point out how deeply societal biases are dug into my head: I literally feel guilty that I’m seeking a mental health medical leave AND I’M A DAMN THERAPIST. There’s a really shitty side of my brain telling me that I’m being a big baby and need to toughen up. Get back out there, suck it up buttercup, and do your work! Yet, there’s a much more reasonable side of me saying that I cannot do the good work if I am in a psych ward or dead.

I guess, loyal reader, that we are seeing what happens to a weather witch when seasons no longer happen the way they used to, combined with a hefty dose of interpersonal turmoil. Not only is it winter, in February, (the longest and most terrible of months), but there’s family things going on, too. I’m not comfortable sharing that part because it’s not my story, but suffice to say, I’ve been crying for ever so many reasons. and, of course, for no reason at all. I cannot describe quite how perfectly the inner and the outer world have aligned to create the EPIC storm in my brain, but if it wasn’t so damn miserable…it’d be pretty hilarious.

Well, tragedy plus time equals comedy. You’re welcome for the giggles, Future Jady.

Vlogged

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It’s rough, it is unedited, it is pretty much me talking at you for eight minutes, but you might find it interesting, loyal reader. All my love, as per usual 😘

My first try ever at a video blog. And don’t you dare expect me to say vlog one more time… 

Trying

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Well, true to form, I am having incredible difficulty sleeping in the likewise incredibly comfortable bed that my parents have provided for my trip up to Montana.

However, my bad fortune is your good luck, because I managed to find out how to post videos to this blog, in a fairly easy way for me to do from my phone, which is great because my computer is definitely not a powerhouse of editing and video quality.

So enjoy this first story about Ashley, sadly a lot of the stories that are most present in my mind are difficult ones to tell, and I’m sure difficult to hear for some people. I want to remind you all that this is something I want to do out of love and remembrance, and hopefully it doesn’t end up feeling too bad for everyone. I guess we will see.

Drugged

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Well now, loyal reader, can you believe I quit rehab? Holy flipping smokes, 13 years, and it’s done. It was a shitty ending, but hey, even Stephen King has those. The important part is that, despite feeling as if it were impossible, I managed to get out of a career that does not suit the parts of myself I wish to nourish. In short…it’s not you, rehab, it’s me. It’s always been me. I was never the girl for you. I had to shut down my gentler and sweeter sides, and grow calloused and hardened, and I hated it so. I was ravenous and starved for my witchy, hippie, holistic, happy, spiritual, joyous and weird self.

Fuck universal abstinence, by the way. Drugs have been in this world for the entirety of humankind, and they’ll never not be here…even if they’re, like, robot drugs in the far future. Drug are not going away. Furthermore, they really shouldn’t. I fucking love drugs. I hate addiction, but damn, drugs are miraculous.

Drugs aren’t all created equal. Please tell me your lil’ sugary coffee drink isn’t any different from a harrowing, life-ruining heroin addiction, I dare you. I’ve been the witness to some heavy trauma, things I cannot and will not ever share outside of my own therapist’s office. Seriously. My poor therapist. I will say, they haunt me, and that’s just vicarious trauma. I know, and I cannot overstate, that heavy addiction comes from heavy trauma. People, however, tend to over-correct, and when they drop their bad habits, they get gun-shy about chemicals in general. The people I work with, the difficult one, and by that I mean, the ones who ‘never want to use a substance again’? They’re cheating themselves out of some seriously powerful healing. They also are in danger of becoming recovery bigots, who simply won’t accept anything outside of straight-edge sobriety. They also vote trump, which is a big fuck you when you’ve taken the time to get them registered to vote. (He hates the homeless, y’all. He hates you. Stop voting for him.)

ANYWAY. With the knowledge that ALL drugs aren’t the same, hey, what if a few of them were really good medicine when properly utilized? What if, go with me on this, some of us don’t have the luxury of turning our nose up at chemistry, because our brains fail us? What if I would be dead without drugs?

I think that pretending that something you dislike does or should not exist, simply because you don’t want to deal with and work with it, is some grade-A level republican-style ignorance, and I don’t accept that bullshit. Do I want people to stop ODing and dying in the street? sure do. Do I think safe injection sites, needle exchanges, micro loans, suicide prevention, gay rights, secure housing, available and healthy food, continuing as well as early education, and employment resources are in dire need and must be prioritized above all else in the world of healthcare, to STOP early death? Um, yes. Yes. YES.

I also think that I cannot live a life I deserve without the assistance of therapy AND medicine. Drugs are medicine. Abusing drugs isn’t something to punish, it’s something to treat. They’re not well. Stop telling people to not treat their own trauma, when in a system that chooses overwhelmingly to punish and exploit those with trauma and accompanying addiction, people without resources will make bad decisions out of pure social poverty.* People are going to find an exit from pain in one way or another, and I promise you that my 6 pills a day beats the hell out of killing myself. I swear, no exaggeration. I would be dead without drugs. I’m repeating this on purpose. Take note.

I’ll probably be writing quite a bit about the rehab world in a while, but right now I’m in a recovery of my own, and it’s going to take a lot of energy. It takes energy to make energy, and I’ve been running on an empty tank for quite a while. Need to refuel my soul…………and take my meds. Talk soon, loyal reader. Soon, I swear.

*social poverty is a little expression I’ve coined meaning the state wherein someone has used all their social resources, burned every bridge, even the enablers are fed up, and they have utterly nothing else but the drug.

So Much

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I have such big, big emotions. I’m also assessed as bipolar I, which means full manic episodes. I personally would diagnose myself as schizoaffective, since I have a whole ton of psychosis, and a few other things that are pretty trademark…but you really shouldn’t diagnose yourself. Even though I’m right. It’s fine. Sigh.

However and nevertheless, I’ve got a spicy and interesting brain with a tendency to bully and trick. Oh, and delusions are the flipping worst. Even delusions of grandeur are not fun. Well, no, they’re wildly, blindingly fun, but they ruin your life and damage relationships, burn bridges and make bad decisions happen ever so much.

So I’ve got some delusions going on, and they’re quite insidious, because I’m already a fairly sensitive and worried person. I’ve been paranoid and raw to the proverbial touch. I’ve worried and panicked excessively, much more so than usual, and it’s driving me a bit crazy. Every email, every text and absolutely every call, I am instantly on edge. It’s exhausting.

On the other hand, I raised my meds a bit early this year, and it’s worked out pretty well. It’s not ideal to be groggy and tired so often, but it’s been a lifesaver in terms of my sanity. I cannot describe madness with all the details that are seemingly little but very telling. I know, for example, that I’m headed down the road to trouble when I overhear conversations and assume with surety that they are talking about me and my life. I get extremely worried that everything I do is being judged and measured. Sometimes that’s the first step towards thinking I’m in a Truman Show scenario. It’s so frustrating to be at that point with the allure of total insanity, and yet knowing it’s all a brain trick. I miss full mania the way some people miss heroin. I was in love with that feeling. It is no longer an option in my life, though. I’m not 24 again, and I cannot fully destroy my life without losing a LOT that I love.

I’ll cheer this post with a short story. When I was admitted into the Stanford psych ward, wherein I would reside for the next 5 weeks, apparently my shitty ex did laundry (very rare) and put the basket in the bedroom. Legend has it that Dante the cat pushed all my clothing out of the way, and peed directly on his clothes. I was embarrassed at the time…now I simply say GOOD KITTY.

Alright loyal readers, enjoy the day, worry about me less than you’d think, and send some peace, please.

Loyalty Points

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Good morning on a pretty May day, loyal and patient readers. Let’s get this out of the way:

*General Disclaimer* I AM TERRIBLE AT REGULAR UPDATES *General Disclaimer*

Now, I have a teeny, tiny reader base. I promise you, I’ve never gotten much feedback on this project. I admit, I’m pretty sure the only readers I’ve had for the entire blog has been Mom, Godfather, and varied other family. I do not hate this! My writing on this blog is raw and rarely edited beyond basic grammar and spelling, and even then I miss things. However, this blog continues to be close and dear to my heart, and an important document to recall larger, sweeping swatches of my life. And on that note:

Welcome to my 40th year of being, my 20th year post-Ashley, and my 13th year of the blog! Can you even believe I have nearly enough focus to write this Mid-May? Hooray!

I would mention other touchstones, but the divorce and a few other traumas have dropped off the edge of importance, and I don’t feel the need to count years post-whatever bullshit happened there. (way to NOT mention it, Jady) This blog has been a lifeline, an embarrassment, a venting space, and a damn sweet few memories I’ve kept that would otherwise be lost to my bipolar brain. Thank all the gods for online journaling…there’s no way I’d have maintained a paper log for anywhere close as long. I’d have lost it long ago.

Now, and since my blog reached double digits, certainly…actually, the entire time I’ve blogged, I’ve wondered what to do with all these words, eventually. The editing process of taking these written entries and making sense of the structure seem overwhelming. I could never, ever do a chronological autobiography, because my memory is shite and I don’t recall most things in a linear way. I have considered a few options; coffee table book of poetry and art, novel about the extent to which we, indeed, are all mad here; maybe a radio play…the possibilities are endless and I really cannot choose confidently. So, being me and it being wild springtime, I’ve chosen to do an entirely different project altogether.

This summer, my goal is to make several visits up north to the family in Montana, and begin the process of interviewing Ashley’s loved ones and building a library/collection of stories about my sister. It’s been 20 years, half my life. Damn.

I’m sharing this now, because when June 3 rolls around, I have no idea what I will feel. I know, right now, I’m treading in grief to depths I’ve not reached often in my life. It hurts, my dear readers. It hurts so much. It;s entirely possible that I will be unable or unwilling to discuss my feelings…and it’s also really really important that I remember this. Is part of my ‘complicated grief’ (clinical term) that I simply forget the pain over and over each time until it boils over? Is it just the cycle I will feel endlessly? Seems needlessly cruel, Universe, and a bit excessive, if you ask me.

In any case, I’m collecting my energy and directing the extra, if ever there is, to this project. I’m planning a few trips to Montana in the next few months, and I’m working on the process of scheduling my mom’s 11 remaining siblings to meet with and share stories. Everyone, as you can imagine, is not in the same area…however, there’s quite a few in Missoula, MT, and my parents just so happen to have a home or two there as well. It’s a beautiful -place in the summer, so it will not be a chore. I will be sobbing daily, but that isn’t quite a chore either. More of something for which I have a natural flair. I’m excellent at crying. Be amazed.

So, gentle and sweet readers, if you did happen to know Ashley while she was around, I am in no way limiting myself to the aunts/uncles, they are just easier to find and endlessly delightful, so it’s a good excuse to see everyone. I’m very interested in her school life, both high school and college, and yet have no clue as to how to track people down. I hope there are a few willing folk, somewhere. Help of any sort is appreciated.

To note: improv will still happen, all summer, I don’t give up my zen time. It keeps me on the sunny side of sane.

End of Times

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Hello again after a while, loyal reader. Suffice to say the world has been interesting enough to distract me from my written word. Or rather, I am using all my energy to write documentation for work and administration for the same. I have so many outlets and so little energy for my creative brain….That is one of the several reasons why I am stepping down as a clinical Director and taking a position as an outpatient therapist. I will be officially done with my role as CD as of April 1. (Bad timing, but that is not a joke.)

No, it is not often that people give themselves a demotion, at least not in the places that I have worked. in fact, I spent a great deal of the first five years of my career, wanting to pursue bigger and higher up the ladder roles. I applied as a clinical director at several of the places where I worked before eventually getting the job at my current organization.

Needless to say, as the former gifted child/perfectionist/on the spectrum/every other buzz words you can think of for someone with a spicy brain… I got intertwined with my role and the facility where I work. Although of course, my professional boundaries disallow me to have friendship with people in my facility, it’s impossible to not form a relationship of sorts when you are working in the same building as someone day in and day out. The therapeutic alliance is incredibly important for people to have robust treatment, but it is a fine line that I have found difficult for many clinicians to navigate. Or, put in simpler terms, sometimes people get too caught up in the job. Those are the times when people need to take a step back, re-address their needs, and move forward more mindfully and deliberately. In my case, I needed to re-address my needs in the form of my priorities, which have changed significantly within the last year or so.

First of all, I am so deeply grateful and extremely happy that I am not raising a child at the moment. Raising a dog suits me in just fine, the cats are in a nice addition on top, and that is about all I can realistically handle in my life. I’m not ashamed to say that I am a very high maintenance human, and I have enough going on without adding a small, helpless human to the mix. that continues to be a painful and harsh realization, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate, and it doesn’t make my choice any less difficult. However, I am truly enjoying my freedoms and my goal moving forward is to spend more time traveling, spending time with my loved ones, and making art…essentially doing everything I would do if I were dying soon, but without the dying soon part.

Secondly, I am in no rush to buy and maintain a piece of property right now. The market is just awful and it’s going nowhere good anytime soon. Furthermore, I love where I live, all my maintenance is taken care of, and my apartment is beautiful. I have no interest of going deeply deeply into debt to make a big change that I’m not sure I really would enjoy more than where I am.

Thirdly, I’m quite pleased with my romantic relationships at the moment and have no interest in making huge changes in that department either. I feel very secure, I get awesome attention from beautiful people, it’s very nice. So marriage and a solo relationship, also, have dropped off the priority list.

And lastly, but by no means, least, I want Time to be able to make the art… Both theater and visual… that I need to create in order to feel fulfilled in my life. I have ideas of several fun projects that really need to get fleshed out and worked on and maybe even produced in the real world instead of just my imagination. I have been neglecting this side of myself, and the rare occasions were in. I have been able to perform or be artistic in someway have been a few, but delightful and necessary. Some people find their Zen moment in exercise, some in prayer, I find it in collaborative art. Get

ting back into Improv within the last year has been so rewarding, and relationships that have gotten stronger in the improv world are ones that I just treasure. Some of the people who I play with I have known for over 20 years, so they have seen me be a lot of different versions of myself and loved me throughout. It’s a very good feeling to be around people of that nature. Also, I have done a lot of people’s projects (good and bad) and I am very curious who would be likewise engaged and interested in working with a project that I started on my own . I have a few good ideas, I’m pretty sure.

All these priorities have one person in mind, namely, me. Not to say that I am endlessly giving, and without any sort of support. But my cup has been consistently empty, often, for quite some time and change is absolutely critical. Do I like change? Not in particular, dear reader, not at all.

I have had a few panic attacks related to this change in work, more than a few actually. I cringe when I think about the actual process of moving my office from one building to another, and I’ve already started mentally packing and cleaning and sorting. For those of you who know me well, you may know that one of my stress dreams that I have on repeat is one where I have to move immediately out of my house and I have nowhere to go. I absolutely hate the process of moving. I have so many things that are so difficult to carry in the car, including a large and very wonderful plant stand wrapped in a vine that I have had for years and would really prefer to not lose on the transfer to my new location. So that’s been a stress and a concern, although it won’t help me to worry about it until closer to the end of the month.

I am also moving buildings, which means that the people I see from day today will be completely different folks than the ones I currently see five days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day. That’s a big blow to my confidence and a sad consequence of moving jobs. I absolutely love working with the people that I work with at my current location. Leaving them is definitely the hardest part of this entire situation.

By the time my birthday rolls around, I will be a month into a new job, have an entirely different schedule, and never be on call again. At least that last bit seems pretty fantastic to me.

Wish me luck, send me good wishes, I’ll even take the occasional thought and prayer.

Time and Time Again

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Shocking Opinion: Winter is lousy and dark, cold, and endless. Winter is an insidious bastard that seeps his misery into the firmament of every single day. Now, this may seem rather bleak and as if I’ve given up. Sure, I complain a whole lot, and my complaints are hyperbolic beyond measure. Yet I remain resolute in my dedication to making this winter livable.

Sigh. This post was going to be a boastful, cheerful description of all my little winter projects, like improv and craft night planning, that make my days tolerable. I was going to share my self-care and brag about how well it was working. I was going to add a few clever tips for snapping your brain out of the winter doldrums. But I’m sorry to report that it doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes nothing really helps and then you feel awful for a while. I’ve studied this in MY brain, and I’ve seen it in so many others…You cannot completely avoid the effects of mental disorders by willpower alone. It’s an impossible goal and one that I imagine has ruined more than a few confident people’s days. Setting yourself up to believe that you must wage brain on brain war to shut down any ‘bad’ feelings is a surefire way to have a complete meltdown. Believe me, I’ve been there. In fact, I’m pretty sure I am there.

Here’s the thing: all the study and all the experience in the world doesn’t prepare me for the little, numerous, subtle ways that my brain can trick me and hurt me. My brain may be a bully, but she’s also quite clever. A goddamn velociraptor in my head. She now me better than anyone, too, and is shameless in using my weaknesses against me.

A sensible person may ask why I discuss my brain as a separate entity than myself, and I agree, it’s strange. It’s a way I’ve found of sorting my thoughts and feeling into reasonable versus unreasonable. It makes me feel agency and a bit of control over at least one portion of my whole. I’m no stranger to psychosis, which I’d most simply describe as a non optional separation of the brain, body and soul…although writing that down, I don’t think that’s a ‘simple’ description at all. Consider this: The brain, the body, and the soul are three musicians in an ensemble. Usually they’re in synch, mostly, on tempo and working together on one defined performance. When fully psychotic, they’re still musicians but there’s no synchronicity, no teamwork. One part is blasting out a solo riff while the other two are reading their sheet music in dismay, not knowing that each is attempting to play a different song from the others. Oh, and sometimes the entire gang stops to contemplate horrific trauma in my past and just fixate, all together, on that cruel memory for a while. It’s a mess.

I’ve been struggling, my dear loyal readers. Those of you who know me, by way of Oakland, Chicago, Sheffield or Salt Lake, for long enough, know that I’ve been in dangerous levels of psychosis, and I’m glad to say that this is NOT a danger scenario*. It’s a Tornado watch, not warning. However, also definitely not a drill. I’m going to be frank: I have literally been on disability for this bullshit and while I’m VERY happy I can work and function without SSDI anymore, work is exhausting and so, so hard. I do not miss waiting on my teeny disability check, and I certainly don’t miss living the way I had been; deep into drinking and smoking a pack a day, hanging out with cokeheads and abusers. However, working full time and managing being an independent adult is a huge task for me, and I don’t always do very well. It’s ironic that I’ve technically been disabled since birth, but it was only really when the psychosis came to visit that I felt truly incapacitated**.

Now, the really funny part about all of this is that I can -describe- what is going on in detail and with fair insight, but that does very little to settle my nerves. Knowing a thing and Handling a thing are two very different skill sets. Do I know what I’d say to my client in a similar state? Sure. But it doesn’t always work on clients, and it sure as hell doesn’t always work on me. Shrug and sigh.

Short story, it hurts and it’s hard and I feel a few kinds of ways about that. Well….glad I avoided that whole ‘complaining’ thing, THAT would have been a grim few paragraphs, eh? Sigh again.

* Psychosis is a spectrum. We’ll discuss THAT can of worms one day when I’m feeling better.

**We did include my limb difference on the disability application and I think it did help to have an irrefutable physical ‘disability’, although it’s weird to think of it that way. Honestly, it has rarely felt disabling at all but I guess that’s what happens when you’re both this way.

That Time of the Year

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Oh dear, another big gap between blog posts. In keeping my life moving at the pace to which I have become accustomed, my artistic endeavors have been a bit to the wayside of my thoughts. I’m luckily able to do a few shows with my improv teams, and I’ve had a few evenings where I’ve spent the timer drawing and painting. But I’ve done nearly no writing outside of documentation for work, and I’ve read even less, unless you count endless internet scrolling. In short, I’ve been missing much of the creative joys I try to keep going in my life, and I’m suffering because of it. Readers may note that every time I commit to writing more consistently, I end up doing pretty poorly, so I won’t commit again. Instead I will wish, hopefully and fervently, that writing will happen and I will feel comfy sharing it with you all. Happy Holidays or Whatever, and may the new year bring you the opportunity to make some beautiful art.