Love and Spontaneity #reverb10

Dec. 16 Prompt: Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? -Martha Mihalik

Dec. 17 Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? -Tara Weaver

Perfect.  Just as I sit down to write this, another headache is coming slamming in.  The barometer is changing, and like many migraneurs, barometer changes can give me headaches.  More often than not they do.  But I had gotten away with the first 24 hours of this storm, so I had hoped maybe I would be spared.  Sigh.

I couldn't decide how to approach the friendship prompt.  I feel like I have endured a lot this year, but most of it was spent in our duplex, just my husband and myself.   It was much more a year of physical and emotional stress than it was of perspective change.  I know that stress and mayhem are supposed to build character, but my character can only be built up so much before it topples me with its weightiness.  I know how to get through shitty times, because so much of my life has been shitty.  That sounds awful, and I should make it clear I am very happy.   But that is almost entirely because of my marriage.  This is not to disparage my friends.   And perhaps it is just a way of pointing out how dear of a friend my husband is to me.  But he was the person's whose shoulder I sobbed when it all became too much.   And vice versa, frankly.  

We have become better friends this year.  We both talk about it a lot:  It is as if we have just met each other again, 10 years later.  Again, a horrible year in terms of events, a fantastic year in terms of my marriage.  Our family is mostly on the East Coast.  I have a sister in Dallas, and a sister in Australia.  We are a pretty self-contained unit, and both being shy introverts, we aren't the most social people, so we really rely on each other.  I actually am more of a social person than he, which is almost scary.  

Although I do think my sociability would be enhanced if I felt I could confidently accept invitations in advance.  But I always risk being sick the day of.  Which cleverly segues into my lesson learned in 2010.  Heh.

It is hard to get me to do things at the spur of the moment.  Yet I have more "memorable" moments when I say "Fuck it, let's do it," than when I try to plan ahead.   I mentioned in an earlier post that I plan compulsively, and while I do not have OCD, it is considered something I need to pay attention to as part of my overall mental health.  Of course, keeping an eye on over-planning is kind of a Catch-22 for me, but I do as best I can.

Whenever I say, "Okay, let's do it," I have fun.  Always.  Whether it is to run to a restaurant at the last minute, or catch a movie, stuff that may not seem very bold to you.   But I can't even be sure I will be functional the next day, so planning for things is no good.   In fact, I know I use the obsessive planning as a defense mechanism for my lack of control over my health.  

And I also have a tendency to "hoard" the hours I am not in pain.  Sometimes I just enjoy hanging out doing not much, when I am feeling all right.  Add that time to the times I am down with headaches, and that leaves not many opportunities for spontaneity.  

Spontaneity for me could mean deciding on the spur of the moment to order a fun dinner from Whole Foods for New Year's Eve.  Then ordering it two weeks ahead of time.  But hey, I ordered it as soon as I thought of it!  And some of the joy I do find in planning comes from exactly this type of anticipation, so I actually was not being as much of a freak as usual.

But it can also mean moments of truly plunging in, and challenging myself, such as sharing the communal showers at the Oregon Country Fair, and overcoming just a little bit of my body-hatred.  It also meant I decided to go to a class on the Medical Cannabis Industry.  And at the moment, I am annoyed, because I had another great example of when taking a chance did something positive, and the migraine has knocked it out of my head.  Grrr.  Planning does have its place, I guess.

I will never be able to stop planning entirely.  I see the same behavior in other family members!  But I am trying to take risks, however tame they may seem to others.  

In fact, I just decided to let my hair grow out its natural color (with plenty of gray), and made the hair appointment for early next week!   And earlier that same day, I am going to stop off at my favorite tattoo shop to discuss my next tattoo.  Wheeee!

Baby steps, people.

Body Integration: Where I end, is where I begin. #reverb10

December 12 prompt:  Body integration.  This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body?  Did you have a moment that wasn't mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?  -Patrick Reynolds


I thought long and hard about this prompt.  I was beginning to feel as if I was going to have to talk about the same thing I talked about for "Moment," which I had already cited again in my post for yet another prompt.  Next I tried to think of one of my rare athletic moments.  The few times I exerted myself, there was not any particular moment I got into some kind of zone, where mind and body melded.

Suddenly the phrase "mind and body" leapt out at me.   How could I have missed that?

One of the dilemmas of being bipolar is determining the point at which one's personality ends, and the influence of the illness begins.  Mental illness is a biological illness, but it manifests in our behavior and mood.  Are our "real" personalities and our bipolar symptoms, which are, after all, largely behavioral, too intertwined to be teased apart?  It certainly can feel that way, especially when you are in the midst of an episode.  The fact that sometimes a particular mood will really bring out a troubling personality trait fills me with trepidation that I am directed more by my illness, than my own volition.

One of the things I have found on Crazyboards (which I mentioned in the "Community" prompt blog post) by listening to other bipolar patients' experiences, from childhood to the present day, so much of my life is an echo of theirs.  From similar yet unusual childhood mishaps, to relations with our parents, to our delusions and/or hallucinations,  and how they spill over into our day to day lives, no matter how rational and responsible we try to be.

So is the startling similarity of so many bipolar people's lives just a correlation, or do precursors of our first "official" mood episode start appearing way earlier in our lives than one would think?  The traditional age of onset for bipolar illness is late teens, or early 20s.    But while we may not have an acute episode until after our childhood, sometimes it seems as if our early behavior and personalities are strikingly similar.

And because bipolar illness is a genetic one, our parents offer suffer from mental illness of one type or another.  So many if not most of us had unstable and chaotic childhoods.  If anyone needs structure, it is bipolar people, and that kind of tumultuous upbringing often causes us to find ways of sabotaging and undermining ourselves.  Crazy parents are often unable to provide the support and nurturing we need, through no fault of their own. The more regular our lives,  the better we fare from day to day (although I will admit that I am very unlikely to impose structure on myself).  I don't really know how a "normal" family interacts, but our family gatherings are almost always tense affairs, involving a great deal of teetering on egg shells.

Unfortunately, the mood episodes that make me feel most alive are mixed episodes, which are widely accepted to be the worst and most dangerous episodes in terms of the risk of a patient harming themselves or others.  Rages, sobbing, over-sensitivity, self-loathing, sensory overload; the sensation of my body trying to crawl out of its own skin, the pacing, the inability to sleep.  Things taste awful, so I stop eating.  My frustration threshold is non-existent, and I can feel anger coursing through my body.

Mixed states are the most visceral and terrifying periods of my life.  I hope that no one ever judges my overall personality based on my behavior during such an episode.  But I would be disingenuous to tell people that mood episodes are somehow not a genuine part of me.

Just because I haven't added any media for a few days, and this is supposed to be a post of the uniting of body and mind, here is a picture I took of myself during my last mixed episode, in the early summer of 2010.  Most of you of course have no idea how I normally look, but here I am drained of color, my face is set and furrowed with anxiety, and I look exhausted because I had probably gotten about 12 hours sleep in the last 4 days.

Nasty Little Things #reverb10

December 11 prompt:  11 Things.  What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011.  How will you go about eliminating them.  How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?  -Sam Davidson


1.  Migraines.  I will probably not ever be able to totally eradicate migraines from my life.  But I am trying a class of medication I have never tried before for migraine, SSRIs.  SSRIs are anti-depressants, but are used off label to control migraine. Cymbalta seems to be the SSRI I hear about most often in relation to migraine.  If the Cymbalta doesn't work,   I am finally going to risk hurting my neurologist's feelings, and ask for a referral to the Headache Clinic at UCSF Mount Zion.  35 years is enough with generalists, I need a specialist.  Any lessening of the numbers or severity of migraines is quite frankly a quality of life issue.

2.  Seizures.  My husband's that is.  2011 will be the year DH has surgery to see if they can lessen the number or severity, or maybe even stop altogether, his roughly weekly seizures.  This would be a wonderful change for both of us.  He would be able to drive again, which would make him so happy.  I would be so happy with any improvement.  My life with DH will be wonderful no matter the number of seizures, but of course I want him to stop having them altogether.

3.  The metal in my foot.  In January of 2010, I had my left foot entirely reconstructed:  My heel bone was severed, and pulled over; a ligament was pulled and pinned to help create an arch for my foot; metatarsal bones were moved, and either screwed into a new place, or were fused together. An X-ray of my foot reveals one HUGE bolt on the outer side of my foot, and a cornucopia of small screws holding my foot together, in an entirely different shape than it had been before the surgery.  It looks like there is a porcupine in my foot.

My foot is much, much, better.  But it turned out I am actually allergic to the metal in the bolts they used.  I have had a peeling rash all over my foot since the surgical wounds healed.  It looks like athlete's foot, too, which is embarrassing.  The only solution is to go back in, and take all the metal out, so I am having another surgery in January or February.  Getting rid of the metal will mean I won't have horrible itching and peeling anymore.  

4.  Mixed episodes.  Mixed episodes (sometimes called agitated depression) are generally considered the worst kind of episode by bipolar patients. One has all the sadness and self-hate of depression, and all the energy and irritability of mania.  It feels like you want to crawl out of your skin, like energy is pouring out of every pore of your body, but it is all energy directed into self-loathing and anger.  My psychiatrist and I are trying to stop these by adjusting my medication.  Not a very dramatic solution, but unfortunately, the only thing dramatic about treating mental illness is when the treatments don't work.

I only started having mixed episodes consistently 5 years ago, although my first one was over 10 years ago.  I was diagnosed with bipolar illness when I was 24, and it is accepted that I experienced my first depressive episode when I was 18.  Depression and hypomania are bad, and I don't like to experience them.  But I am the most likely to harm myself or others while I am in a mixed state.  The closest I have come to being hospitalized was during a mixed state, and in retrospect, it was agreed if I got that bad again, I would be admitted.  Not having to experience horrible periods of disordered thoughts is once again a quality of life issue, for the very rudimentary reason that it would mean that I would be less likely to harm myself or others.

5.  My current state of unemployment.  Can't really do anything about this until the headaches stop, but I plan to find employment by volunteering with a couple of different Cannabis oriented non-profit organizations, in the hope of making the type of connections I need to find a good job in the Medical Cannabis industry.  Working in that field would mean I was involved in a cause I feel strongly about.  And I feel happiest about myself when I feel like I am doing something to change the world, however small the piece of it over which I have influence.

6.  Clutter.  Who's the world's worst housekeeper?  I am.  Add to that our place is cute, but tiny, about 700 square feet. DH and I are on a campaign to both get rid of stuff, and to find ways of organizing things so that there is at least a place to put everything:  I can't tidy up  if there isn't even a place for everything to go.  Clutter depresses my husband more than it does me, so an attempt on my part would make him happy.  But I am full of guilt about my lack of housekeeping skills, and finding a compromise would mean I spend less time ruminating about what a bad person and wife I am.

7.  Compulsive planning.  One of the things about being bipolar is I don't handle stress or change well.   One way I try to compensate for this is by planning for every. possible. contingency.  Ever.  For anything.  Work, trips, what to make for dinner, phone calls, when I will switch into the exit lane as I approach my exit.  Everything.  It might sound like that would be a good thing, but when I can't stop, and my mind is always racing through "what ifs," and "just in cases," all day long, it is enervating and exhausting.  At the suggestion of my psychiatrist, I am addressing it by using the technique of Mindfulness.  Just to free up the part of my brain that is constantly at work, vamping and revamping imaginary schedules, to feel quiet, and be able to accept things as they come, sounds wonderful.

8.  Friends of friends.  One of my tendencies is to try to expand my circle of friends to include the friends of my friends.  But just because someone is a friend of my friend doesn't mean I have anything else in common with them, will like them, or be able to trust them.  And eventually, if I don't like someone, I am going to say something nasty, although it is usually in response to his or her nastiness to me.  I have to realize I do not have an obligation to make nice to people I am not interested in knowing, and who usually are flummoxed, or even intimidated by me.  That sounds very, very snotty.  And I am not as impressed with my accomplishments as others might be.  But on paper, I am formidable.  It's in person that I am a sickly, whiny, lazy hermit.

9.  Compulsive shopping.  This one is going to be interesting, because I think I may have already created a work-around for this problem.  But it is equally possible I am fooling myself.

When I have mood swings, I spend.  It might be on things I need, but it usually is not.  I buy kitchen gadgets, and books, and Cd's, and DVDs, and clothes, and purses, and shoes, and gifts for my friends and family, and costume jewelry (an area of particular weakness, organic brain syndromes = love of SHIINEEE).  It is easy when my mood is stable to pretend I have a plan for dealing with and preventing it next time, but to say that is to imply I can be rational when I am crazy.  And mental illness doesn't work like that.  If it did, I could just tell myself to "cut it out," as my psychiatrist will say when he is teasing me: He knows it isn't as easy as that.

Rather than a solution, I found a work-around:  Thrift shops.   I am in a thrift shop at least once a week, and when I am feeling well, more often.  Sometimes I hit 3 or 4 in one day. But I can buy lots of items, and not spend much.  And realistically, I do need clothes, as my work clothes used to be for working with dogs, and are basically stained jeans and t-shirts.   But this way, I can spend very little, yet sate my compulsion.

I do realize this is at odds with my desire to cut back on clutter.  I'm human, so sue me.

10.  Dog nails that are too long.  I'd like to take a quarter inch off the nails of the right paw of Violet, my French Bulldog.   I use a dremel with a sandpaper bit to grind back her nails:  She has black nails, and guessing where to press down with a blade is too risky.  With a dremel, one grinds the nail back millimeter by millimeter, so one can see the approaching quick before hitting it.  And if there is a small nick, the speed of the rotation of the dremel bit cauterizes it.

But as much as I like the dremel, it took me several years to realize that the way I hold Violet when I use the dremel (football hold, if you care) meant that her right front paw was at an angle that was extremely difficult for me to reach.  Bit by bit, the two center nails of the four that hit the ground began to grow longer and longer.  Now Violet has the equivalent of coke nails.  This can be remedied by diligently trimming that paw weekly, while staying on my regular monthly schedule with her other paws.

This will make my life better because when Violet stands on my stomach, she will no longer stab me with her ridiculously long nails.

11.  Obeisance  to my mother.  My mother and I have a very difficult relationship.  We always have.  I have 3 sisters who do not have the problems with my mother that I do, but see what goes on.  They often run interference for me.

My mother has a diagnosed personality disorder, but only receives treatment for the depression that often accompanies the disorder.  It took me years (and a few shoves by some therapists and psychiatrists) to realize that my mother treated me the way she did because while she loves me instinctively, she doesn't really like who I am, and isn't really capable of loving me unconditionally.  That is heart-crushing.  

All my life, I have tried desperately to win her favor.  I wore the clothes she picked out.  I took the courses she wanted me to.  I went to the college she picked out for me, even though it was not my first choice.  I went to law school because she told me it was the only possible next step after I got laid off from a teaching position. But it was never enough.  And being the type of person who is almost never ill, she tends to think my chronic conditions are more gambits for attention that anything legitimate.

My craven attempts to placate her will be the hardest thing to give up, because her anger scares me.  But my husband has urged me to stop deferring even the smallest of life decisions to my mother.  I have begun to stand up for myself in little ways, and while my mother doesn't like it, all of my positions have been so clearly reasonable, she had no choice but to accept it.  I know from experience there will be a face to face confrontation at some point; DH will have my back in the resulting shit storm.  

Finally feeling like an adult member of the family, and not a cowed child, is a change I look forward to n 2011.