Month: September 2017

Kaleidoscope (Part 6)

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Abandonment

With the last installment of the Kaleidoscope series, we come full circle to a sense of abandonment. Because… that’s where I ended up. By the time I came to you and told you that I thought that you needed to go and start talking to someone about your depression, I was alone… and had been for some time.

This should be apparent by the other kaleidoscope posts, and yet, it’s more than that.  It’s that clear and aching sense of being left bereft and alone.  An odd dissonance, because I was and am still in a relationship with you… and yet, I was also alone. Left alone to deal on my own. A situation that created a sense of betrayal and resentment, because without intention I had come to depend upon you.

Dirty Pacifier

That secure spot of comfort and safety was removed from my reach.   I had tried so hard in the beginning to not depend on it.   To not need it.   And then when I did, it was taken away like a handful of sand slipping though one’s fingers.

Two years passed while I slipped further and further beneath the surface of hurt and betrayal and loss and anger and resentment.  It didn’t happen all at once, but one fraction of a millimeter at a time, nearly imperceptible in the moment other than those few rare sparks of occasional awareness.

I had to bury that part of myself, that soft and vulnerable need.   I had to, to protect myself.   It only made this sense of abandonment worse to put that small part of me in a box and close the lid.

Abandonment is separate in the series because it is its own animal.  It’s own monster.  It stands on its own and feeds the anger in ways the others don’t.   That’s why its last and alone as I reveal it to the light.    At the core, my anger comes from here.  All the other hurts and slights feed this one.  It is the monster in the closet, lurking and ravenous, eating up every slight, every hurt and ache and sadness.  It swallows it all up and keeps the anger burning.

It is the beast that lurks in that ball of fear in my gut as well.  The one that reminds me again and again not to trust, the one that says its not over, that you’re not back. It is an insidious whisper in my ear, always there to remind me not just of where I am, but what happened to get me here.

Gideon’s Challenge

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Gratitude

Mental health issues are not a joke.  Nor are they something you can ignore and hope will go away.  You cannot “wish” them away, nor can you force them better with positive thinking and “will power”.

Most of them also cannot be cured.  They can be managed to a point, both through therapy that can teach you coping skills and techniques as well as with medication… but for many, managing is the best you’re going to get.   Honestly?  That’s a hard one to swallow, even for the patients let alone those that have never experienced mental health issues, and yet… there it is.  The glaring truth is that like one’s physical health, those with mental health issues are required to do regular maintenance to keep things running somewhat smoothly.

  • Major Depressive Disorder  (Although, I have a feeling if I were to be re-diagnosed while on my medication it would be changed to Dysthymia with Major Depressive Episodes.)
  • General Anxiety (at times with social triggers and panic attacks)

These are the issues that trouble my mental health and have since I was a teen, as diagnosed by a psychiatrist and treated (on an ongoing basis) by a psychologist.  And possibly, more recently, a bit of undiagnosed PTSD.  Although, how do you know when you’re cured of that?  It IS curable, isn’t it?  I’m pretty sure it is… unlike the others listed above which require treatment to “manage” them, but cannot be “cured”.

In my life I have tried many different medications for my anxiety and depression.   Some worked.  Some sort of worked.  Others didn’t work at all.  These type of medications work differently on different people, and you don’t know how they’ll work or even IF they’ll work unless you try them. But even with the ones that seemed to work well on my depression or anxiety, there was one constant through them all.  What never changed and never faded was my suicidal thoughts and urges. (Yes, they are different; thoughts are just thoughts, whereas urges are a need to act on those thoughts.)

And then entered one wonderful, miraculous, magical (not in the metaphysical sense) pill.

10mg Prozac

I was so lucky.  And I am so grateful for that luck that inspired the doctor to prescribe me 10mg rather than the usual 20mg starter dose.   I was so lucky because it turns out 15mg is my “magic” number.  It’s a child’s dose, not even the starter dose for an adult.   And yet… it manages my depression and anxiety beautifully.

That’s not the most important part though. What is the really miraculous part is that with this medication my suicidal urges… disappeared.  The thoughts are so rare now, and passing at most.  The urges are completely gone.   Urges that were once my constant companion, with me when I went to bed and when I woke up in the morning.  With me every third minute of the day.   Constantly there, no matter how hard I tried to push them away or bury them.

And with a child’s dose of a pill that I avoided taking (due to reputation) for YEARS… suddenly, those thoughts are gone.

They come back when I’m bumped up to the 20mg dose.  As does the crippling, unmanageable depression.   And yet, 10mg isn’t quite enough to find a good balance.  I take 10mg a day alternating with 20mg…. averaging out to 15mg a day in my body’s system.

Is it perfect?   No.   I still have to go to therapy.   I still have anxiety and mood fluctuations that dip into clinical depression.  But, none of it is as severe in the years I’ve been taking Prozac.

And I am so very grateful.

Gideon’s Challenge

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Frustration

I have had my tires slashed so many times I’ve lost count, although the police have an accurate record of it, as I’ve made a police report about it every single time.

It has happened at a location as far away as 3 hours from home, and as close as just down the street.

I5 Seattle

It has happened at…

  • the post office (local and up north)
  • the gas station (the one I work at, not yet at one I’m filling up at)
  • more than one grocery store
  • the park
  • while parked on the the street
  • a number of parking lots (where I have tried parking both among other cars or out in the open)
  • the mall parking garage
  • the airport
  • along the side of the road when I ran out of gas
  • while parked at a number of natural forest trail heads
  • twice at other peoples private residences
  • once while I was parked on the side of the road and sleeping in the car at the time

I have walked miles upon miles due to this, spent thousands of dollars replacing the tires on my car again and again.

It has been going on for two years now? Maybe three?

It isn’t rocks or stones, it’s a gash or puncture in the side of the tires.  Yes multiple tires, usually two on one side of the car or all four.

It’s not coincidental… it’s intentional.

I am always hyper vigilant of my surroundings, and yet I have not caught anyone following me. The feeling is there though. Even before the tires started happening, I could feel the unease of someone following me. Watching me. Thus why I’m so vigilant.

I’ve switched to public transportation when I can, and yet… it’s still happening. Tires are so goddamned expensive.

I am frustrated.

At least the EPA says that the air quality is supposed to be making its way back to a rating of “Good” by sometime tomorrow.

Gideon’s Challenge

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Breathless

The smoke and ash from the fires on the eastern side of the state have blown in.   Cars and rooftops are covered in ash making it look like everything is covered in dirty snow, and it’s hard to breathe.  I feel for all those stuck even closer to the blaze, and my heart goes out to those going through the ground eating devastation of the fires on the other side of the mountains.

Here are the photos I took last year at this time of the year.

today01

And here is what the air looks like today on the farm before the ash started to really come down and cover everything.   Note, the mountains did not move… you just can’t see them.

today02

No filters were used in these photos.  No color editing was done, just cropping.

Kaleidoscope (Part 5)

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Taking Up the Reigns

I closed down that vulnerable part of myself… and I began to pick up the weights you dropped and filled my pockets with them. I took control with stronger characters in our play, and I took up the responsibility of decision making that was once yours. I struggled to negotiate with others and be sociable, did my best to fill your shoes the best I could in the ways I was able.

Somewhere along the lines, I realized what I was doing. I realized you were no longer acting as my dominant, and that I was beginning to take on that role.

onbkbruqI began to feel weighted down. It was… so heavy. It was too much weight for me, but I refused to let it show and continued to pick up the heavy stones you dropped and pocket them anyway. Not doing so would mean letting go of your hand, and for me that wasn’t okay.

Baby the Babysitter

When Cognito was built, I buried myself in the work, knowing it was all on me to make the dream come alive.

I established rules for you, because you had no self control of your own. Your fear of losing me made you irrational. You were scrambling to gather up stones, yet all you were gathering was pebbles and you weren’t even noticing that the pebbles were NOT the weighted stones you’d dropped so long ago.

You couldn’t even be bothered to read through the faq and help me edit, or dig for information. Not until I pushed you for it. Even then, a good amount of your participation was somewhat lackadaisical in nature.

And once built, we were… quite directionless. Off kilter. Our dynamic was no longer fluid and smooth. Not two people walking in stride any longer, but only two people walking side by side instead.

And all that weight I was carrying… It was so heavy. So goddamn heavy that my spine was aching and my knees were beginning to buckle beneath it all.

All you wanted, all the time, was reassurance that I wasn’t leaving. No matter what I said or how often I said it, you wouldn’t believe me. Your cling began to have claws that scrabbled and scratched at me in your desperation.

I began to work more and more, trying to find relief from that weight more than anything, although it’s true that I desperately needed the money as well.

Kaleidoscope (Part 4)

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water_minimalistic_dethklok_drowning_minimalist_desktop_1920x1200_wallpaper-435525

Drown and Drop Neglect

To drown is a beautiful thing.

Do you remember why I named it drowning? Because there is a safety there, an assurance there. A sort of peace there, when you’re holding me under the surface.

It’s something I have only ever experienced when submerged in water and sinking. It’s a letting go. A letting go of control, a quiet release and acceptance that I have only ever before come across when beneath the water, still and silent and unconcerned with life or death.

I found that in you… and I named it drowning. “Subspace” isn’t the right word, at least not for me. “Flying” intimates some form of conscious control over where you are going.

But there is no control when you drown. There’s only water and weightlessness and silence.

Before you, only in the embrace of water had I ever allowed such a full and complete release of control and responsibility.

That peace? It was one of the strongest lures for me where my fixation on death was concerned, although I didn’t realize the correlation until recently. I didn’t realize that YOU giving me that peace was a part of what made those cravings for death ease. I can’t say it was the sole reason my suicidal urges slipped away, my medication is a huge factor, but… that doesn’t change that the peace you gave me in those moments provided me with something I needed that I thought only able to be reached in death.

And then… it was gone. The possessive intensity and confident assurance you had possessed turned into a needy cling and desperation. A desperation that flavored the water of the drown and made it impossible to sink as deeply as I once had.

And the drop that came after, that horrible torturous time of vulnerability that ravaged my insides and tore them to ragged shreds…. you were no longer able to assuage it. Not because you weren’t there, but because you weren’t… you. You were too preoccupied to be attentive and focused.

And then you were too preoccupied to even tell I was drowning at all… or dropping in the days after.

In that other site, we tried the last time. It wasn’t the first time the drown had faltered or the neglect had happened… but it was the last.

Because you had to ask if I drowned, which I had. And then you had to ask if I dropped, which I had. Yet, when I said no, you were too far gone to realize I’d lied. You didn’t even bring up a token protest of “Are you sure?”  Nothing.    There had been a time when you would never have let that answer go so easily, even if you couldn’t tell I’d lied you would have dug at it.

And that’s when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

I cried. I cried a lot that night, and then I closed it away. I slammed a door on the drop and forced it down until it strangled in on itself and shriveled away. It didn’t die easily, but it did die eventually. And I shut down that side of myself, the one that looked to you for protection and sought you for that taste of the peace only you could provide.

I realized that side of me couldn’t survive in that neglectful environment. It was safer to close it off than allow it to die.