Confessions

Warning: This post will contain triggers for former cutters, and people with mental illness, and likely people who have suffered abuse. Read at your own  risk. You have been warned.




Thinking about writing this post made me feel better. I had everything planned out, what I would say, what I would talk about, the words I would use. Then I started to feel embarrassed about how I feel, and putting it out there. I don't expect anyone to ever read this, but it is out in the digital world, so there is that chance. But, the excesses of emotion I want to spew and vomit embarrassed me. I don't do well with emotion. I often want to just shut it down. I work hard at trying to feel what other people feel, and trying to act like other people do. It's exhausting. I tend to want to push all that negative emotion down, because it just makes my life more difficult. I don't like dealing with it, so I stuff it down until it just explodes and I can't deal with it. It's my borderline personality disorder. This is the criteria I have to meet. According to the highly unscientific test I just took, I rate as severe. Look at the criteria, and apply it to the rest of this post, and see how well it applies to me. They may as well put my picture in the DSM-V.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's what I was planning on originally

I am a recovering cutter. I think of it as being the same as a recovering alcoholic. All it will take is just one blade put to skin, one little slice, one just bit of pain, and it will all come back. I will carve on myself, and hope no one notices. One cut is too many, and 100 isn't enough. But there isn't a 12 step program for cutters. Cutters don't talk about it. Hearing someone else's story can be a trigger. Try to imagine a room full of cutters hearing other people talk about it. It would be a great school. And I guarantee after every meeting, someone would fall back into habits.

But I digress, maybe. You, dear reader, if you exist, can decide that.

Hi, my name is Me, and I am a cutter.

I used to cut. It got rid of the pain. It got rid of the anxiety. It got rid of the anger. It filled the horrible empty hole that exists inside of me. One glorious bit of pain. That sharp draw of pain, bright and silvery and sharp. Then behind it came the wonderful warm and gooeyness. I felt fabulous after it. Stressed out at school? Cut myself. Can't deal with what's going on with my house? Burn my arm. Can't get the adults to do anything about the abuse in my house? Slice open my fingers. Bored? Carve a name into my arm.

Now, I am still a cutter, no matter what. I'm just a recovering cutter. And when I saw cutter, I really mean that I had self-injurious behavior. I have a burn mark on my arm where I had repeatedly burned my arm with a curling iron. It was the time of big hair, so I used the curling iron often. The first burn was an accident. But there was a period of time where I had a constant burn there. As soon as it started healing, I would "accidentally" burn myself. No one would notice. No one ever notices. You know, that's part of what cutters count on. That's part of the pain they are trying to deal with. No one noticing. See, for me, the thing was that sometimes I cut to feel something. I was so empty inside, I couldn't feel anything. That bright shiny pain made me feel something. I could be there and be real. But sometimes, I cut myself because I hurt too much. I would cut myself, and let the pain inside flow out with the blood. Even now, sometimes I want to just cut myself so that people can see how much I actually hurt.

Now, it's been over 2 decades since I purposely hurt myself. Unless you count pulling out my hair or eyebrows. I don't. But, probably it does count. There was a time when I had very short hair because I was ripping it out. I do still pull my eyebrows. I don't count that. Again, someone probably does, but fuck them.

See, here's the thing. I don't feel things like other people feel things. I'm empty inside. I try really hard to feel the same way normal people do. I try to act the way normal people do. Sometimes I even succeed. I can actually look normal to people for a long time. Hell, I've fooled my husband for months, I think. I amy be wrong there, but I don't think so. I work really hard to try to feel the good emotions. I try to stuff the bad emotions down so that I don't feel them. I hide them in a little box in the closet in my soul. I imagine it and visualize it even. I see a teeny tiny box and I feel myself stuffing that anger and rage and hate and pain into that little box, and shove it into the overflowing closet. It's like one of those cartoon closets, where stuff comes spilling out when you open it. I try not to deal with any of that until the door can no longer hold, and everything explodes out.

But still, I often feel empty. It's a coping technique. I learned it when I was being abused. If you can't feel anything because you are empty inside, then it can't hurt. Eventually all that' was left was anger and rage and a big gaping empty spot in my soul. Or maybe a big gaping spot where my soul used to be. I don't know if I have one or not.   I'm not sure that I care most of the time.

And I often think of hurting myself. Not a week goes by when I don't think of it. Sometimes it's all day long, every day. Other times it's just a passing glimpse. I know that if start again, I won't start. But the thought of boiling a big pan of water and sticking my arm into it, or turning the oven on, and sticking my arm on the heating element. It gets hotter than the stove. Or taking a knife and cutting myself. The idea sings in my head. It's like the Siren's song. It just sounds so good. I want to do it so much. That bright silver shivery sliver of pain, and then the warm gushy stuff that comes after and fills me up. It makes me think that it would fill me up and make me feel not empty.

I want to feel not empty. I don't want to live in my head anymore. I hate being in my head. I want to think that other people are real. They aren't always real to me. My family is mostly real, but other people just doesn't really exist for me. Apparently I'm a little sociopathic on top of the bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Just because I don't have enough of a shit sandwich with that. I've reached the point where I can't control it anymore. I can pretend to be a normal person for a while, but it's exhausting to do. At some point I have to stop. It's amazing how many people think I am a normal person, and not one who thinks about what it would be like to fall down the stairs, or run a knife across my stomach. That's not what normal people think about. That's not what they do.

While writing this post, and it took hours, I decided that it was time to call and get a therapist again. I hate doing it. I don't want to talk about any of this. It's hard, and people want me to feel stuff. I don't like feeling stuff. But, that's the problem. I need to feel things. Fuck it. I hate doing te work they want me to do. I know how to do it. I don't like it. It's going to be hard and painful and terrible. Maybe, at some point, I won't feel empty any more. I'm so tired of feeling so fucking empty. I want for those happy feelings that I feel occasionally to stay more often, and not just be there for a little bit. I want to not be this. Living in my head right now isn't good.

I hope I didn't trigger anyone. I doubt that anyone is there, I'm just talking out into the open aether of the Internet. This is just a small taste of my head. This is part of what my life is like. It's not edited. so forgive my errors, which I am sure there are some of. I feel better for getting it out. I've never told anyone in my life what it's like in my head. I think if I were to say everything, it would scare people.

Two things I try to remember: mental illness lies, and one fucking day at a time. I didn't cut myself today. Hopefully I won't do it tomorrow. One fucking day, hour, minute at a time.

Boy, there is a lot of updating to do.

Oh, I haven't written in so very, very long. Mostly because I haven't been in the mood, or I've been exhausted. I've spent the past several weeks just so mind-numbingly exhausted it's all I can do to get through the things that I have to do. 

Life has been hectic. DH has decided to forgo further ECT treatments. They were working, but he took a few months off for a surgery. Now that he's fully healed from that he's decided that going back for the treatments is just "too much work", even though I'm the one who manages all the logistics. Whatever. It kind of irks me because of all the work that we put into getting him these treatments and the fact that we are back to meds that don't work. It's going to cause problems in the future, but I don't know how yet, and I don't know what's going to happen when it does.

That brings us to The Boy. He's going to be 16 this month. I'm not ready to have a 16 year old child. If he ever gets a girlfriend he's now old enough to date. The last month of school is always a problem. It's been a big one this year. He's really not wanted to go to school at all. At this point he's going to fail about 1/2 of his classes. I don't know if he will have enough credits to become a sophomore at the end of the week. This is finals week. He blew 2 off yesterday. It was a nightmare morning trying to get him to school. Instead of going to school he spent 2 hours just wandering around. He didn't go to school. The bitch of it is that he might be fail one of the classes he was passing because he blew off the final yesterday.

It's very frustrating. His anger is nasty. We are kind of looking into maybe putting him into a residential treatment center. We looked at boot camp kind of things, but they don't accept kids with major mental illnesses. The Boy has Bipolar. Major mental illness. it's not a choice I want to make. DH is kind of ineffective, so it's up to me and I am kind of sick of being the adult in the matter.

We are minus one cat. Our big guy died a few weeks back. He had a seizure and died. It was quick and he wasn't in pain. It was under 5 minutes from the time he seized to the time he died. That's the way I want to go. Once second I'm here, the next I'm gone.

That's my life. That's the way it's been lately. I spend more of my time exhausted. Trying to take care of everyone is exhausting. DH is going on a 2 week vacation at the end of the summer. I won't be, but only worrying about The Boy will make my life that much easier.

I have to get back to my real life for a while. I need to help The Boy finish some homework from this school year. It needs to be done by tomorrow afternoon, so we have to hurry and finish it.

One Small Change and a Little Update

You'll notice that the title of the blog has changed. We've changed from "From My Brain" to "Out of My Mind". The URL will be the same, but I like this title better. It's exactly the kind of wordplay that I like, and it amuses me greatly. The thoughts come out of my mind, but I am, on occasion, out of my mind.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. On top of being a little out of my mind (see told you I liked it), I've got chronic pain issues. I have degenerative disc disease. I've got a full blown herniated disc at L5/S1 (lumbar vertebra 5 and sacral vertebra 1 for those who aren't familiar with spinal anatomy). It hurts most of the time, and it hurts a lot sometimes. My coccyx is also deviated back by quite a bit due to breaking it twice, plus I have arthritis in my back, as well as muscle/nerve involvement. I have arthritis in both my knees, in the right one worse than the left. I can't straighten my right knee out all the way. Plus I have fibromyalgia. Yeah, I am in general, falling apart. My old orthopedic surgeon used to tell me I was too young to be this damaged. Yeah, well obviously I'm not because here I am.

My knees have bothered me for about 25 years. For those of you playing along, yes, I'm 38. Since I was a teenager they have never not bothered me. Plus I have a lot of trauma to my knees thanks to my brother and father, and trying to learn how to ice skate. I made it through half of one class, fell and tore my anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee.

Anyway, there is all this back story to explain that I have been dealing with a lot of pain recently as well as some nasty headaches. Chronic pain is exhausting and it leaves me not really willing or wanting to do much. I also get grumpy and short-tempered. The fact that there is so much more going on with DH and The Boy, whose school problems are a post for another day, and I'm screaming from stress and anxiety and pain. Sunday I ended staying in my room for about 8 hours and didn't talk to anyone or do anything. Very refreshing.

Just to warn you, you should prepare yourself for more snow pictures. April 1 we are going to get hit with a winter storm, 6-12 inches in my area. The calendar may say spring, but I live in the Great White North. I actually saw snow the first May that I live here. And I think there has been at least one severe storm in April every winter but one. One year in March we had storms every Wednesday.

On the moving to Wordpress thing, I'm not too sure that it's going to happen soon. I have the account, but I'm feeling very frustrated with it, so I haven't spent the time that I should to figure it out. On the other hand, I have just opened a Tumblr account.... I'm quite the social media maven.

As always, prayers and thoughts go out to all the people in Japan. I hope that my reader(s) are safe and warm and with everything they need. I'm now going to add in the people of Libya.

Charlie Sheen

That poor man. His life is crashing in around him. It was funny, for a while. Now it's sad and tragic, and for a part of the population a very scary warning. Now, no one in his camp has outright said anything so we will never know for sure, but if the man isn't bipolar, I'll eat a tiger's blood drenched hat. As we are now stipulating, at least those of us here are, that he is bipolar, I will make a further case that he is in a massive manic or even psychotic episode.

I heard Dr. Drew Pinksy, celebrity addictions doctor, describe Sheen's state as "hypomania". Now, hypo means below, so hypomania means below mania, or a slight manic state. Frankly, Dr. Drew can kiss my lily white derriere. He's wrong. If that is hypomania I would truly hate to see a full blown manic state.  Bipolar mania can become psychotic, and from his latest webcasts he sure looks well on his way.

It doesn't appear that anyone around him is trying to get him help. And hey, mania can be fun. You turn into the life of the party, you're sex, drugs and rock and roll all rolled up into one, you spend cash and make friends. You're also self-destructive, delusional and paranoid. The people on his webcasts are playing along with him, which can hurt him more. Drugs aren't helping him. Bipolar and addictions are hugely comorbid, more, I think, than any other mental illness, but don't quote me on it.

The reason that this is a scary warning for a segment of the population is because we are bipolar. We know that what is happening to Charlie could happen to one of us just as easily. When we are stable we know that we need the meds, but then we start feeling good and think we don't need it today, and then tomorrow,and so on and so forth. When we hit a manic state we feel goooooooood. Who needs those pesky meds? Then we crash. Luckily, knock on wood, I've never had a severe manic episodes. I've only ever dealt with hypomanic states. But those were bad enough to scare me. I take my meds every night, even if I don't want to. My DH reminds me to if he sees that I am moving towards that hypomanic state. Charlie's state prompted a conversation between DH and I. If I end up a major manic episode he is to immediately 5150, or involuntarily commit, me. I told him that if he didn't I would never forgive him for not helping me when I was in that state. I told him to ignore whatever I would say, but get me the help I need. I hope there is someone in Charlie Sheen's life who can and will do that for him. Whatever the reason is, he needs help.

If you think that you have, or someone you know and loves has bipolar disorder get help. It will never hurt to see a psychiatrist and find out that your worries are wrong. Better living through chemistry is not a joke, it helps.

Products of our childhood.

I got to thinking. I was washing dishes, a task which lets me stop and think. It's a mindless task and I can reach a Zen state. I accidentally turned the water on too hot. I realized it when I put my hand under it and yanked it out. It reminded me of when I was a kid. My dad would complain that I wasn't washing the dishes in hot enough water. It felt pretty hot to me. But, I had delicate kid hands. My dad had heavily calloused worker hands. He was an electrician and spent a lot of time working outside. He didn't feel the hot. I did. And it hurt. I complained to my mom about it, and she talked to my dad about it. But still, every time I washed dishes, and I did a lot, because dish washing was "girl" work, dad turned the hot all the way on and the cold almost all the way off.

Now, you probably have a good idea of what my dad was like. He wasn't a nice man, and still isn't. He apparently appears nice, but hey, they give good drugs now. Anti-depressants rock. He puts on a good public face. But, in private.... Yeah, he was abusive. Luckily, for me, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I'm still an abuse survivor. There are a lot of people who had it worse, much worse. But there are also a lot of  people who had it better.

I am a 30something woman. I have mental illnesses. Some of them are direct results of what I grew up with. I am the product of what I grew up with. I have to fight hard to deal with my temper. I have serious control and trust issues. I am much more likely to react angrily or defensively than I am to be calm about it. I know these things about myself. I work hard to not be that way. It's becoming habit for me to take a breath and wait to see what is happening and to be reasonable about it. As I get older, it gets easier. I've learned politeness and firmness works a whole lot better than raging at someone. I am much more likely to get what I want if I don't go to that place first. After all, I always can go there. I can't come back from it.

Here's the thing. I may be a product of my childhood. But I am not a prisoner of it. Yes, I have PTSD because of it, but I don't let it control me. I have a personality disorder, but it is not who I am. I am me. I am not the illnesses. I finished high school, I graduated college. I have a 15 year old son. I have lived on my own since I was 19.

I have some brothers. They are prisoners of their childhood. The oldest of them is 2 years younger than me. He didn't move out of our father's home until he was 33 or so, and then it was a forceful move, which is a story for another time. Of my two youngest brothers, one is in college and lives with dad, the other lives sort of with dad, and the last time I talked to him wasn't working. They stay with our father and take care of him. He's in poor health. He still manipulates them and controls them. They don't talk to me or our mother because we are the "enemy." They can't break free. And what's worse, they don't want to.

I wish they would break free. I wish they could break free. I wish there was something that I could do, but there isn't. They don't want my help. They don't even want to talk to me because they listen to my dad, who tells them that I am manipulated by my mother. My brothers still live in Hell. Every day I am glad that I was able to get free of that, and that I don't have to live there.

I may be the product of my childhood, but I am not the prisoner of it. I was able to break free and become more. Every day I try to be more. That's the only thing I can do.

On Loneliness and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

As I write this it has been one week and one day since my husband went into a crisis support unit here in town. It was snowing the night that he got evaluated so he didn't get taken to the unit that night. They came and helped transport him the next day. This is a good thing. My husband has severe depression. Severe enough that he has several suicide attempts under his belt and several hospitalizations.

Four days after that he went into the hospital. Again, a good thing. I fought for him to get that. His psychiatrist, who I think is a smarmy bastard, hadn't even contacted the csu to find out how he was until I called and complained about it. I shouldn't have been surprised, since this is the same man who changed my husband's meds and then scheduled an appointment for 2.5 months. Seriously? Who does that?

For 18 months we have been trying to get my husband ECT. We saw this same doctor over the summer. He said that my husband wasn't a good candidate, which, in my non-medical opinion, was utter bullshit. Three separate doctors, including 2 other psychiatrists, said that he was a good candidate. The only problem with them was the fact they didn't prescribe it. Dr. McSmarmy is the only doctor in our town to do that. The next nearest are an hour away, in separate directions.

He ended up with this doctor as his psychiatrist because our previous doctor's office closed. This guy was the only person in town to take my husband's insurance.  Again, the next nearest one who had any openings was an hour away. We don't have a car, and that is just too far. We do have medical transportation, but still.

Anyhow, back to Tuesday. We went to the doctor's office, again it was snowing. We live in what I lovingly call the Great White North. I love it, but winters are long and snowy and cold. Tuesday was both. I went in loaded for elephant, and wanted to get him in the hospital for closer observation. I would have been happy for med adjustment, even though no meds work, or don't work for long. We have tried them all. Miracle of miracles, his doctor suggested the ECT.

He had his first treatment today. He will have around 10 treatments in the next 3 weeks. After than he will start going out towards a maintenance treatment. That's once every month, but we will build up to that point. This is a good thing. After 18 months, clearance from a cardiologist, which included a heart catheterization a year ago, another cold day. There were also the 2 different neurologists we saw. Hours of driving all over the state, hours of tests and procedures, only to get told no. It was frustrating. I could see my husband just collapse onto himself. And finally, finally, we have succeeded. I can't help but think about how different our lives would have been if he had this done 18 months ago. We are both hoping that this will be very successful and that our lives will be different. I have known this man for 17 years. For most of them he has been depressed, sometimes more than others.

I was at the hospital this morning after his treatment. He was coherent and no short term memory loss, which can occur. This isn't your daddy's shock treatment. There have been huge strides. He won't end up like McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, great movie, see it if you haven't.

That is a lot of exposition to get to the actual meat of this post, and if you have read this far I owe you cookies. That is actually loneliness. The first few days of him being gone I got some space. Our apartment is tiny. There is no space for the three of us to get away from each other. Since we have to walk to get anywhere and my husband and I both have physical limitations we don't go a lot of places in the winter. We have had entirely too much togetherness. I enjoyed the hours to myself while our 15 year old went to school. He has been a clingon while his dad was gone. But today, I realized that the house was too quiet. It's already been too quiet at nights without his CPAP machine. I didn't sleep well the first few nights, and now I've gotten somewhat used to it, but it is still too quiet at 3 am.

I realized last night that I miss having him next to me in the middle of the night. Don't get me wrong, having the entire bed to myself, well myself and the three cats who own us, is nice. But, reaching out in the middle of the night and touching him is reassuring. I miss that when he is gone.

Dr. McSmarmy is talking about sending DH home on Monday after his next treatment. DH and I talked about it after his treatment today. We would both like him to stay in the hospital for another week. Dr. McSmarmy tried to blow off DH's opinion. Oh hell to the no. That won't happen when I am around. Maybe I will start going to all his appointments with the doctor now that I have seen how DH is treated. Although he tries to condescend to me. Yeah, keep that up and I will shove Dr. McSmarmy's overly whitened teeth down his throat. Politely of course, since DH asked me to be polite.

It isn't that I don't want him to come home or that he doesn't want to come home. He's bored out of his mind. We are just worried about him and his well-being. And when he comes home, I will be happy, at least until we spend too much time with each other again.