I have spent the better part of today reading over old entries from as far back as July, 2005. I can't believe I was ever that crazy. And yet, the threat of that craziness is never very far away. For the past two years, LTD and I have kept tight controls of my medications and therapy. I am still on enough medicine to drop a buffalo. I still see my psychiatrist once, sometimes twice, a month. I am still under so much stress at work it is almost enough to level me. But I am not sick. That has accounted, I think, for the lukewarm entries of late. Updates. Anecdotes. Run-of-the-mill posts. My life has been like that...just flowing along on a wave of normal with neither peaks nor dives; doing the laundry, washing the dishes, fixing dinner, going to work, planning a wedding. It is second nature now for me to take the pills, keep track of the side effects and show up on time to my doctor's appointments. Everything is just smooth sailing...

Spencer is awesome. He is attending cosmetology school and he loves it. We still have philosophical conversations about life, about art and music, about personal goals and such. He is no longer living as a transitioning female. He identifies now as a gay male. This happened quite suddenly last year and for a while we all thought it was just a phase. It may be. But he is happier than I've ever seen him. (One day a few months ago I did some research on the odds of a gay parent having a gay child, but I couldn't find anything.) It is perhaps that rare. At any rate, he no longer sees his therapist, has made tons of friends at school and is preparing to take his driver's test. I think this is about as normal as it's going to get around here.

I have found a partner with whom I am perfectly suited. She is even-keeled and laid back. She takes everything in stride and handles my (now infrequent) mood swings with the greatest of ease.

Riding normal.

But the threat of my illness is never far away. We know summer approaches. We know the meds could stop working. We know depression or mania could just show up one day despite our best efforts and blacken the field. But we take it day by day. So far, no surprises.

Is it wrong for me to miss it? After re-reading about the total devastation that was my life a few years ago, why would I miss it? I think above all else, I miss the ability to write. This keyboard was my anchor during those hellacious moments and what came from that was often lucidity that I could never hope to achieve now. There is something about introspection for the sake of survival that took me to places I cannot even imagine at this time in my life. What is there to say now? I'm fine. LTD is fine. Spencer is fine. Work sucks. The dog needs a bath. Everything is fine.

Bipolar people love their highs. I loved mine. But I need to remember the crash afterwards. I need to remember that I nearly lost everything. I need to remember that I am well because the medication is making me well. And I so need to see the beast, still lurking there in a dark corner, ready to advance as soon as my defenses drop. I do not want to get sick again.

And still, I miss it.

I had a hearing for my state disability a few weeks ago. I was represented by a lawyer and was prepped for the procedure. It took five minutes of giving my testimony before the judge stopped me and said, "I'm going to grant the claim." Three years and five minutes. The transcriptionist said, "Wait! I don't even have a page typed!" The judge said, "I think we set a record!" They all laughed. My lawyer never said a word and later told me that what transpired almost never happens. I didn't see what was so funny.

I was lucky. I had long-term disability covering me through work while I was out of work for two years. I had a steady monthly income from that. When it ran out, my doctor simply released me back to work and I got a new job. The state disability is going to cover what the long-term work disability paid out. That's what the lawyer was for...to get back the money they paid me. It was all so simple.

But I was turned down three times before a hearing was set. The same set of circumstances that led to my disability was the same issues that got me the approval in the hearing. Nothing changed. But they put me through the ringer for nearly three years waiting for it.

I see patients all the time that have been turned down. Crazy people that couldn't hold a job at a gas station, handicapped people who have trouble getting out of their houses, some people so far gone they need someone to represent them in court because they can't focus on what's happening long enough to give a straight answer. And they get turned down, again and again.

What's wrong in the system that denies these claims when they're truly warranted? When it's their money paid to Social Security in the first place? When what it's intended for goes unheeded and these people lose their homes, when they've lost their jobs and can't work? Most of the patients on my unit fighting for disability don't have insurance. We discharge them with a stack of prescriptions that we know they can't have filled. We discharge them to the street or to a homeless shelter because they've lost literally everything.

Six simple words: "I'm going to grant the claim." That's all it took. But I'm not quitting my job to go on disability. I'm able minded, so far, and I'm doing the best job I know how. I can still work and I will until it becomes necessary to stop. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

And in the meantime, I'm praying that these poor lost souls that flock through our doors eventually hear those six simple words and get what they deserve, that they get what's theirs. It shouldn't have to be so hard.

I systematically, one by one, and very carefully took one pill at a time, separated the capsule and emptied the contents into the garbage can. Then I carefully put the capsule back together and replaced it in my pill box. I did this for five days. And then I waited. I wanted to prove to myself that I didn't need the medication, but more than that, I wanted to write again. After a few days, I didn't feel much like writing. I was too busy wondering where LTD was going when she was supposed to be at work. I was too concerned with not eating, because my food was poisoned--not directly poisoned, as if someone were adding arsenic to my meals, but poisoned by proxy, by an interaction of meds I had taken up to that point that were still in my system. If I could only cleanse myself of all these chemicals, all would be well. Except, I couldn't get out of bed. I slept and slept and slept. They clocked me at 17 hours one day. I thought about running away. It didn't matter where. I thought about leaving LTD and Spencer behind and just leaving, but I had nowhere to go, and besides, what would I do when I got there? I got scared and started taking the meds again. I'm relatively better now.

One of the inherent components of being sick is denying that you're sick. A crazy person will never tell you that she's crazy. They believe in their delusions and that paranoia and insanity is very real to them, no matter how outlandish, and they will go down fighting to protect those beliefs. So if I can say, "Okay, I need the meds. I'm crazy off the meds,"...doesn't that mean I'm sane?

The first thing to go is my sleep. For two days now, I have been up at 2:30am, writing, listening to music. It seems I can't get enough music. LTD called Dr. K and they tweaked my meds a bit. The Geodon nearly floored me. My arms and legs were so weak I could barely stand up. I stumbled around in the kitchen until I could stand it no more and went to bed. But not for long. It's coming for me. How obvious it is now. The signs are so apparent. My brain feels like hay, swirling around inside a storm in Africa. But my God, I try so hard to be still for LTD. Why is this happening now when her father and mother are so sick? How selfish am I? What control can I exert over myself to make everything normal and right, to stop the derangement of this path that leads to nothing but destruction? Early morning hours are so dangerous. It is too quiet to go chasing demons. It is too dark to seek refuge. I am too alone to talk to anyone. The world is asleep. I search for music. I torture myself over written words.

I'm somewhere between being okay and dangling over the pit. I hide my symptoms well enough that I can make it through the day without LTD getting that worried look on her face, or without Tasha asking if I'm okay, but that door is open and things are slipping through. I'm afraid to go to bed at night...the closer it gets to that time, the worse the anxiety gets. What is it about lying awake in the dark with thoughts of death and taxes? That's where I am. In school I'm doing well enough that people don't look at me funny, that my research papers don't alert my professors to looming psychosis and I can disappear within the masses like any of the other older women walking among 20-somethings with golden futures. I hide. Summer looms and I'm starting to think my medication isn't working, that my brain isn't lubricated enough for slick thoughts, that my arthritis starts to tighten up my joints and it all leaves me cranky, stiff, crumbling towards insanity. Am I encouraged enough to think I can make it three summers in a row without the ECT helmet? It is too shocking to think about. I tiptoe along, careful where I place my hand, and all I can think is what makes me so damn lucky? Is it LTD? Does she keep me sane? Is it her strength that keeps me strong? I don't want to hurt her. And I dread seeing that expression she gets on her face when I'm sick. It is absolutely heart-wrenching.

People with bipolar get sicker and sicker as they get older. The meds stop working. The therapy stops being effective. There are more and more hospitalizations, more shock treatments. They start to lose things....their families and friends, their homes, their health. They are the people you see wrapped up in newspaper on the corner. Is that my fate? Where will I end up? I am lucky to have a doctor that sees me on a reduced rate, who prostitutes for his drug reps for double samples so he can give me meds for free. Being sick in America without insurance is not a good place to find yourself. And that's where I am.

Dangling over the pit.

My mind seems to have slowed to a crawl. It takes a while to answer a question. It takes a few beats to state a sentence. My movements as well, shuffled and staggered. The medicine is helping me. I know this. I haven't needed to go into the hospital, though I've been close. I'm seeing my shrink every few weeks. He is watching me very closely. But my writing is all stupid and boring. I can't read. Nothing creative flows from me, which now poses a problem, since I start a creative writing class Tuesday. I'm hoping it will jolt me awake, that it will force the process back into my neurons.

The other day I was sitting on our swing out back just enjoying the trees and birds, not worried about anything. Two seconds later it hit me like a brick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I may never be able to work again. I might get to a point where I can't drive a car. The medicine is keeping me out of the hospital but if I stopped taking it for one day, what would happen? I'm enslaved to it. It keeps me out of the hospital, but it also keeps me slowed, numbed, dumb, stupid.

I'm just now accepting this. It is a big pill to swallow.

I am falling into a hole too deep to reach into.

Sorry. Try as I might, I couldn't finish that sentence without ending it with a preposition.

LTD and I were at dinner tonight with Tasha and her boyfriend laughing and talking about everything and nothing. The subject of our trip to Florida came up of an incident Tasha had with a jalapeno pepper. Apparently she had just popped one in her mouth at dinner one night, thinking nothing about it since she had tasted the flavor of this hot pepper before. What was comical was that the heat surprised her so much that she started cramming food into her mouth to quench the fire. The waitress took forever bringing her another drink, so she drank mine, she drank LTD's, all while shoving crackers and bread into her mouth. The other really comical thing about this is that I have no memory of it whatsoever. Nothing.

What is really pitiful is that I don't remember what I'm not remembering. I don't know how many blank stares LTD gets when mentioning something about this or that. "Oh you remember...it was when your mother was here last year." I have no memory of my mother being here last year. "You remember when we were stopped at that traffic light and that old guy limped by..." I have no memory of this. Significant or not, it slips through the crevices of my brain and becomes blank, black, devoid of shape and color and sound.

What has ECT done to my brain? What lasting effects do I suffer from receiving those zaps nearly a year ago, side effects which should have worn off by now? My memory has never been that great, but things are happening to me and around me which float away, things that should stay and become permanent, all flickering down to a dimness that I can barely see. And it is the loss that seems permanent, that has me wondering all the time, "Will this stay? Will I keep this memory?"

I seem to be perfecting the smiling-and-nod knee-jerk reaction that people with memory problems adapt. I add nothing to the topic, but I can appear to be remembering, a silent acquiessense that says more than words could. But behind the smiling is pure torture. Was I there? Did this happen when I was away from the table? Was I in another room? Do they only think I was there? Will it come back? Is it coming back now, slowly and in pieces, to reform itself before my vision? Or is it all lost forever only to worsen as time goes on?

I am lucky that I have an understanding partner who doesn't demand that I remember. She is supportive and patient. But I want to know. I want it all to flood my brain with the sights and sounds of the event. Will it ever come back? Will I eventually get used to it? The best I could hope for is that the tide will rush violently over this dry beach. The worst that can occur is that I will never get any of it back, that the holes in my brain will keep flushing away the train trip, the wedding, the funny thing that happened at dinner one night, the anniversary...

This blog is the only thing that documents it all. This blog is the proof that I was there. The only thing I can do is keep writing.

Battling a beast usually conjures up in one's mind, in this case, a woman, decked out in armor, shielded against the beast's fire and holding a sword or some other metal device in which to slay the onslaught. Sometimes it feels that way, but usually it is something as small as dodging an ever persistant house fly that happened its way in when you let the dog out. When your defenses are low, things get in very easily. Things like the boom-boom-boom of your neighbor's stereo while he's outside looking at his car's engine. Things like raging war on the house thermostat because it is never consistently cool inside. Things like your dog following you from room to room, no matter from the kitchen or into the bathroom, just to follow you and be near you. I've said it before. I'll say it now. It is the absolute minutia.

I felt it sitting on me all day yesterday, pushing me down, weighing heavily on the X that marked the top of my head. I moved around. I did some housework. I stayed busy with a list T made for me before she went to work. Accomplishing all the tasks did nothing to lift the weight and so I tried a little experiment. I sat down on the couch, relaxed my muscles, cleared my mind, took some deep breaths and let it have me.

The whispers in my head began immediately: You are nothing. You have nothing. You will never be anything. You suck. You should kill yourself. You belong nowhere. nothing is going to save you. Go ahead and cry. No one will hear you. No one will care. You were never meant to live this long. You've done nothing with your life. You have no friends. you belong to no one. Tasha would be better without you. T doesn't need you. She'll get over you. Disappear.

Crying my ass off was the only thing that washed the crevices clear. It left me absolutely numb. Crying last night helped fight off more of the same. Today, we are here again, battling, not letting go, not sitting still, not letting it in, not letting it destroy me, not being able to sit on the fucking couch and just relaxing.

T refuted all those bullshit statements last night in bed. She told me that I belonged to her, to Tasha, that Matt was depending on me, so he was yet another person who needed me. I cried so hard. And I am now constantly on the verge of tears, of breaking down, of being blown away.

What evil descends when I am left alone in this house with nothing to do. What absolute horror plays out in my brain when I'm trapped inside these walls with nothing but myself to talk to. I remain, as ever, my own hostage.

I've been up and down over the past few days, going up towards mania and then crashing down into depression. The meds are holding, as I don't lose control completely...just enough to know things are a little off balance. Believe it or not, it's helped me to know that LTD needs me. It grounds me. (By the way, I'm going to tell you LTD's real name, even though we'll still call her LTD, for obvious reasons, as you will see. Her name is *drumroll*....Tracy.)

I'm still waiting to hear the determination regarding disability. I only have until September before everything runs out. My insurance is about to be cancelled. Things could literally be gearing up to blow up in my face, again. I'm lucky I have T running interference, though she does make me do my share of the work...making phone calls, mailing off forms. She won't let me fall. Each time I start to slip just a little, there is a firm hand holding me over the alligator pit. I know she won't let me fall. If I do go down, it'll be because I let go. And I'm holding on.

T's mom is doing a little better. Her eyes are open but she's not really seeing anything. She sort of looks right through you. The doctors say this is the process of coming out of all that sedation. It has broken my heart to see T going through this and there is still a long way to go. We take it day by day, never knowing what to expect. Some people say to "hope for the best, expect the worst." It's hard to do. She's fighting. She's a tough old broad. She's fighting her ass off. And all LTD can do right now is stand by her bed, hold her hand and encourage her as much as possible to keep fighting. It is heart-wrenching to watch.

This is why I can't get sick. T is depending on me. Matt is depending on me. Tasha is depending on me. There is so much to stay well for. There is so much to hold on for. This year I'm not going to say "I'm not going to get sick." This year I'm going to say "I'm going to stay well." And I'm going to let these people need me. And I'm not going to let them down.

And all the while I have T's firm grip holding me safely over the alligator pit. I won't let go.

Color is everywhere. The trees all look so beautiful. The weather is warm. LTD and I are planning a vacation to Florida in June. I'm still not going out of the house and my symptoms are sprouting up here and there like mad, but life continues to go on. Yesterday my doctor put me on yet another new medication. When I ask him to discontinue some, he adds more. Maybe I should tell him I need more medication and get the results I need. Everything is reverse psychology with them.

My food is poisoned. No matter what I eat, it makes me sick. The medication is toxic, I'm convinced. I wish I had the time and money to go to one of those spa get-aways where they totally cleanse your system of everything. I don't think I'm going to feel good until I'm clean. And putting these chemicals into my body every day and night is not helping. I can avoid food...I do it easily by just eating when LTD is around. I'm not purging, though I've thought of it. I'm losing weight.

And every once is a while, I feel myself being taken over. LTD has been a life-sustaining force. She keeps me grounded. She keeps me safe. I wish I could let her totally inside my brain--she would so slay this beast. It doesn't seem like I can do it from the outside, but I have my own ammunition. I'm looking forward to going to Florida, so I can't be sick. I can't go into the hospital. My family is depending on me to stick this through. And I will, as long as the toxins don't overwhelm the system. Poison. How insidious it is!

I fight. I fight. I fight.

My medicine is making me sick. I think I may be toxic and I don't want to take it anymore. I'm sure the food I ate yesterday was poisonous and now I'm afraid to eat. I think this way of looking at these things is totally...I can't think of the word...logical? It seems paranoid, I know. But if someone's paranoid about being followed and they really are being followed, does that make them so? I know a build-up of chemicals in the body can cause toxicity and that's what is happening to me. Every night LTD brings me my medicine, I want to smash something. I'm going to be very careful about what I eat. And I'm asking my doctor tomorrow about taking me off all my medicine before my kidneys and liver shuts down. These things can happen over a period of time and I've been taking these toxic medicines for a very long time. Something is changing in my body chemistry and the only way to stop it is to change the thing that's causing it. I can't sit around and wait for my liver to shut down. I want to try a holistic method of control. Vitamins, supplements. Healthy alternatives. I don't think this is so far-fetched.

The thing is this....symptoms are appearing magically because I'm looking so closely for symptoms. What is not there appears out of nowhere because I'm looking through a microscope at the possibilities. I am swirling through tunnels of symptoms and collecting these abberations because my keen watch has alerted me to the possibility of those symptoms being present, even when they're not. It is a microscopic phenomenom. One little half sign becomes a full fledged symptom, because I'm looking so closely. I'm not sick. I'm not going to be sick. I'm on full alert for the beast to come knocking on the door so every little sound outside is that beast, even though it could be nothing more than rustling of leaves, the wind blowing against the window. I'm afriad to open the door.

If you don't see an entry for a while after this, you'll know the beast got in. I'm not going in this time. I'm going to run like hell.

Last night was a bad night. My medicine made me high as hell and when I went to bed, the bed started spinning and my lips were vibrating. I had to get up and do the dishes, clean the kitchen and do a load of laundry. My thoughts were racing and I had an internal sense of total restlessness. I couldn't vacuum because it was 1:00 in the morning so I just laid down on the couch with my eyes open and stared at a picture on the wall.

Some might think that this was an episode of hypo-mania but wouldn't any normal person do those things if she couldn't sleep? Don't people sometimes get up and clean the house when they're wide awake during the wee hours of the morning?

We are in a precarious situation here. I know every year I say I'm not going back into the hospital but this time I mean it so much, they'll have to get a court-order to get me into the place. I'm just so against going back in. The thing is this: I was so depressed that anything seems like hypomania now. Having energy and getting things done around the house looks manic compared to my sleeping 18 hours a day. We have to look at symptoms closely and there's such a fucking fine line there. I'm waking up now at 9:00 a.m. on my own and staying busy all day. I'm still sleeping about 8 hours a night, my speech isn't pressured and I'm able to finish projects...so things are okay.

This new medication is one I took last year and it made me manic as hell. We started on the lowest dose possible and it seems to be working. We just have to be verrrrry careful.

Why am I so scared?

I've been so depressed lately that it's hard to write about. My birthday was wonderful and temporarily lifted me out of the doldrums, but the muck is so thick, I have to paddle hard and fast against the tide just to keep my nose above water. I've had no energy, no motivation to do anything and have been isolating myself in the house to the exclusion of everything in the world. Nothing gets me out of the house. Nothing keeps me awake. I've been sleeping my whole fucking life away. I can't describe what pain it is to sit on the couch and do nothing but stare at the wall. I get up and pace from room to room, stopping here and there to touch something, pick up a book, straighten a cushion. Mostly I've slept...18 hours a day, waiting for Spencer to get home, waiting for LTD to come home from work...waiting for something to happen. Still, when the phone rings, I don't answer it. If someone comes to the door, I don't answer it. It's all I can do to let the dog and cat in and out. They are my main companions every day and they tire me so easily. I've just squandered away all the hours in all the days and have been hanging by a thread, waiting--hoping--it would snap, if only to get my attention and make me look at this monster of sadness. It has been like a wall of pain that I can't climb over. I've become so exhausted throwing myself at it that I don't even try anymore. Each day I wake up, I look at those long and looming hours like enemies, like torture from which I can't escape, and not even tears move me into a forward motion. I've been statued and stagnant, unable to even lift my arms to fight, not even caring whether this thing kills me or not, and realizing that I'm alive only because I have no choice, that I have to live for Spencer and LTD, that there are no other options. I've been half crazed and dazed inside the minutes that seem to strangle me with their absolute tenacity.

Today Dr. K put me back on an antidepressant. It's been over a year since I've taken one because they seem to induce mania in me. We'll just be watching closely. There was just no choice but to do it. Something has to give. I can't go on like this anymore. The rope swings overhead so closely that I can hear the threads cutting through the air. What makes people reach out for it? What makes someone make that final decision to put the noose around their neck? I don't feel the choice is mine. I couldn't do it to Spencer. I couldn't do it to LTD. I couldn't do it to my mother or to Susie or to Daniel. What a totally selfish act suicide must be. But what pain there must be in that, to do it inspite of everything, inspite of everyone. I've made the conscious choice not to kill myself, inspite of myself. I have to get busy living, or die trying.

Tonight LTD and I are going to make a daily chart of activities that I can follow to keep me directed. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. We need all the help we can get at this point.

There seems to be no explanation or rule as to how I spend my days now, no hard and fast system that gets me easily through the hours. At times I am so frozen by inertia that I am choked, grabbing at my throat and sucking in nothing to feed my lungs. Other times I am busy with the industry of simple housekeeping, but I am always aware that my life, by no ordinary measure, ticks away with the second hand to an unsatisfactory demise. What will become of me? Will I always spend these days with time so unforgivingly stretched out before me? Will there always be such tortuous indecision crowding the hours that I spend those sweet minutes just walking from room to room?

There is no routine to my life. Sometimes I sleep, other times I don't. Sometimes I'm tired and want to do nothing. Other times I am filled with an energy that will not abate no matter how much I do, or undo. Bridging these two extremes is that nagging awareness that the tick, tick, tick goes on without regard for my suffering.

And I do suffer. Sometimes I think I always will, that I'm cut out that way, and that nothing will ever happen to me to ease off the intensity of that pain. I foresee it only worsening, deepening, purpled like a bruise against a white nothingness bereft of words, challenged by the ordinary, but too scared and unsure to strike out forward to conquer it. I can never consume it...I can only fight long and hard enough to stop it from consuming me.

But you see, there is that fight. There has always been that fight. I've been up against the ropes for so long that I fear if I ever dropped my arms, I would just fall down and die.

I went in for neuropsych testing yesterday. They don't seem to know what to do with me. Is the problem medical? Is it mental? Who can tell? They did the testing anyway and I'll have to go back in a few weeks to get "feedback," which is just the name for the interview that tells you how badly you're fucked up...or not. It could all be in my head. I believe with everything that's holy that my brain has been damaged. Even though they say ECT doesn't cause it, I think it did. I think I have brain damage. The neuropsych testing could prove or disprove that, in either case, I will still believe that something is very wrong with my brain.

We were going along swimmingly, after taking the MMPI (567 questions) and doing some design copying with red and white blocks, we got to this portion of the testing where I had to tell the examiner how two seemingly different things were alike. It went like this:

E: Cat and dog.
T: They're both animals.
E: Good. Pen and pencil.
T: They're both writing instruments.
E: Yes. Love and hate.
T: They're both emotions.
E: Yes. War and peace.
T:
E: War and peace.

I totally blanked out. I never got the answer from the examiner and I still cannot figure out how they're alike. The biggest problem, however, throughout the entire testing (which lasted about four hours) was memory and recall. I couldn't remember items from a list she had named just seconds before. I couldn't repeat two stories she read to any degree of detail. I couldn't remember how to draw a picture that I had just copied minutes earlier. I did well on the computer portion when doing something was the task at hand (finding the H in a jumble of letters, counting how many times a little light blinked). There was another test on the computer that I can't remember at all. Based on all of this, I can't discern how the testing went at all except to say it was hard and tedious...not at all the fun I thought it was going to be.

I'll post the results once I get them. It should be interesting either way to see if the damage is real...or if it's all a part of my hypochondrism (I just made up that word). Stay tuned.

Had an appointment with Dr. K today that was so boring, I almost felt like lying to spice things up. I must be the dullest patient he has. "How are you sleeping?" My sleep is off. Sometimes too much, sometimes not enough. "How are you eating?" I've lost ten pounds in two weeks from drinking water. "How is your mood?" Blah. It's just blah. That was basically the entire session. Next time I go in I'm going to tell him I'm having an affair with a priest (again). I'm going to say it's not affecting LTD at all since she's so worried about my stealing and drinking. I may even tell him I've taken up smoking crack to help boost my moods a bit.

LTD's goal this weekend is to get me out of the house. HA! We'll see. She may need machinery to do it. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to do anything. Kelly told me the weather is getting to everyone. She said she heard on the news that Tuesday was the highest suicide rate in this country in years. While I'm not thinking about offing myself just yet, I can certainly understand those poor bastards wanting to put an end to it all. Give me mania any day, folks.

Coffee with Daniel on Saturday, I think. That should do it. And LTD is the sweetest, most amazing person I've known in my life (second only to Spen...uh, Tasha). I just need to get my ass in gear. I'm writing about my bipolar disorder, formulating all these experiences into a book. Dara helped me write the query letter for it and though I've gotten back about eight rejections, they've been good rejections. You'd have to be a writer to understand that, I guess. If someone actually asks for the material I won't have anything to give, aside from what I've written on this blog. I still can't write. I still can't process what I'm thinking into words...at least words that will entice an editor to want to see more.

I cleaned the kitchen floor today. I can say that much.

My medicine sometimes makes me high as a kite. I don't know why or what medication is the actual culprit, but after taking morning meds, I occasionally blast off through the roof. Like today. It begins with a buzzing in the lips, accompanied by dizziness, rapid thoughts and speech, and an incredible feeling of spinning. It's probably why I don't mind taking morning meds, but unfortunately, it doesn't happen that often.

I watch for symptoms of mania so closely that depression sneaks up on me when I least expect it. The other day I sat on the couch for so long, I couldn't walk when I finally decided to get up. I was sitting with one leg tucked under me and ignored the prickly feeling you get when an extremity is falling asleep. For five hours it felt like a charley horse in my calf. Of course, I immediately suspected a blood clot. I did a Google search for DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and was relieved to find that I didn't have any of the symptoms (except pain). Much like the brain tumor I didn't have and the pulmonary embolism that didn't exist, it was simply a pain in my body that went away completely the very next day. (My God, you should've seen me when I was pregnant--I had every ailment my Maternity textbook listed.)

Right now, I'm just spinning. And enjoying it. Too bad I'm not getting an overflow of creative energy. This is all you're gonna get.

It gets to be a major outing just to go to the store for milk. It is something to do, something that needs to be accomplished. Being out of work does that to you. While my doctor continues to maintain that I'm not ready to go back, every day I think about getting a job. Would I be able to pull it off? Would they notice the hesitation in my voice? Would they feel the fear? Would I be able to walk in there with all my wits about me and fake readiness?

The meds are keeping my mood stable. I can feel this palpably. It feels somewhat like a big hand holding my head down. Aside from a few episodes of short-lasting mania, I've been okay. I've been okay except that I have all this time on my hands with nothing to fill the hours. Writing only takes me so far before I believe that what I'm doing is total bullshit.

I've been sick for seven months. I've been sick since June. And though I've had periods of total recall, absolute wellness, what follows quickly on the heels of that is hiding in the house, not answering the phone, standing next to the machine and listening to my friends begging me to pick up the phone and talk, pacing from room to room with no motivation to do laundry or make the bed or cook dinner.

I've been sick for seven months. I think I will be sick for the rest of my life.

Did I forget to mention that I'm seeing a therapist? Let's call her Dr. G. She has a fruity sounding name and actually, her entire name sounds like something a porn star would use as a pseudonym. She is not the Lioness, but she is close to it. We talk for an hour and then she repeats, almost verbatim, exactly what I told her. And she gives assignments, which I love. I don't know how I get so lucky ending up with the right doctor, but it happens. And the way I found her was total kismet...

LTD and I were renting a car to pick Spencer up from the airport when he came back from Boston at Thanksgiving. My tags were surrendered and LTD has a truck that only holds two comfortably, so the rent-a-car was necessary. While we were inside the office, a woman was waiting for a car and the staff kept referring to her as "Dr. Somebody." We didn't think anything about it until we got outside to the parking lot and found ourselves parked next to a car with the license plate that read "Psych PHD" (not that exactly but close to it). LTD suggested I go back in and ask the woman if the car belonged to her and if she was seeing patients. We were desperate at the time to find a therapist and coming up empty with all attempts. I went inside. Yes, she was a psychologist but she was no longer seeing patients because she was teaching at the university....but, she did know of someone named Dr. G who was seeing patients and I might try that. I did. She accepted my insurance and she could see me in two weeks. Having not met her personally, I just went on blind faith.

And she turned out to be the one. I like her style. She'll use a cuss word every once in a while and I like that too. She calls me on my bullshit in a way that makes me acknowledge it...and then challenges me to find a way to straighten it out.

I've seen her twice so far and came away today with a list of things to do (which she copied and put in my chart). I like that. She doesn't think I'm stupid. Though she does think I've got some definite mind slowing going on, she doesn't think it's permanent and is interested in finding out the results of my neuropsych testing (scheduled for January 15th).

So, I'm back in therapy and on the road to getting myself back. I'm excited about the possibility that I could come back...that I'm not totally lost. I'm gonna go ahead and shoot for the stars.

July 15, 2005
FROZEN IN CELLULAR HELL
PERSONAL INSANITY
One neuron sloths through the syrupy muck within a sappy synaptic underworld, fighting through tentacles caked by a goop that sucks it back by some sadistic reversal of the process, pulling it away from its natural forward course...the search for the idea, the thought, the ah-ha resting place. It just stops, suspended in a quicksand of hollowed out impotence, suspended somewhere between the brightening of an idea and the expression of a simple word. It sits there and frowns, wrinkles the skin that encases the frontal lobe, and it stops all movement while the word, whatever the word....umbrella or chasm or tea bag wreaks an absolute tortuous havoc on the psyche that causes more pain than is necessary. That's where I live. That's where my words live now.

TODAY:
It has happened before. I do remember being sick and being filled with words that were at times overflowing. I felt such inner turmoil, but I was able to express it everywhere...here on this blog, in notebooks, on scraps of paper. The words and the passion for those words was alive and vibrant. And now they're just dead. I hate to harp so much on this, but this is the very reason why I'm going to ask Dr. K to order neuropsych testing for me tomorrow. I wonder if the readers of this blog can see a difference? What do my friends and family think when they read me now? Am I the only fucking person seeing this shit go down?

My friend Kelly wants me to take lithium. I actually considered it for a moment until I remembered what it did to me. It was the first medication I was on when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I remember that my moods almost immediately stabilized. But it made my eyes feel big. I didn't blink as much as someone should. I was always thirsty. And I gained nearly 100 pounds before I could stand it no longer and took myself off it. This is the way with bipolar drugs...each positive response will be matched with a equally negative side effect. But Kelly has a point. Lithium is the only approved drug for bipolar disorder alone. It is not used to treat seizures (like all the other mood stabilizers on the market). It is not used to treat migraine headaches. It is for bipolar disorder only...and it works. It does its job very well. But the side effects make most bipolar patients non-compliant with treatment. Like I was. Like I would be again if the weight started piling back on. I am very careful as to which drugs I will take, and because of this, Dr. K's treatment regime for me is stunted. What he wants me to take and what I will take meet always at some negotiation in the middle. Lithium is the drug of choice for bipolar disorder. I know this. And what all my doctors in the past have known is that it would be useless to prescribe a medication that I will not take. Dr. K doesn't even mention lithium anymore. So what's the problem? If there are medications out there (Tegretol, Trileptal, Depakote, Topamax) that my disorder can be treated with and not cause weight gain, why worry about lithium at all? Well, tegretol gave me facial tics. Depakote made my hair fall out. Topamax made me stupid. Trileptal, a less toxic but also less effective derivative of tegretol, seems to be doing the trick for now. My moods are less jagged...there seems to be a steady stream of mood that flows like...flows like something that I can't articulate right now. Because all these treatments, all these meds, all these switches from one drug to another, upping and downing of doses, swallowing 8 pills before bedtime has made me quite brain damaged.

Kelly said to me last night, "I don't know what's happened to you. You used to be interested in things. You're making your family miserable. Take the lithium! Look at you..." I tuned most of the rest of that out. I could only consider that I am making my family miserable by trying and stopping all these medications that are not treating my bipolar as well as lithium would. And she was right that something has changed in me...something happened to me. I've been very aware that I am changed, that I can't write, that I'm not interested in things that used to challenge and inspire me. I realize now that it's not the medication doing that. It's the disease. But the biggest cannon I could point at the beast is the one drug that will also turn me into a big, fat blob. "Wouldn't you rather be happy and fat?" she asked. There's the rub. I'm not happy when I'm fat, even with lithium easing off the hard parts of my illness.

But would it give me my writing back? Or as Dara so eloquently stated in comments one day, my passion. Would I get back the passion for words? If I took the lithium, would this stupidity I feel go away? Or is it too late? Has this illness won? If I took the lithium would it even matter by now? Has my brain been hollowed out and scraped clean to such an extent that lithium would only make me too stable to care about being lost, being stupid, being fat, being wordless? I still have tears. I can still cry. I'm crying now as I write this. My old friends from Ohio, from Florida...my family...none would know me now. People I worked with here would note the change. Kelly did.

LTD has not. "Am I sick? Do you think I'm sick now?" I asked her tonight. She hugged me hard. "You're not sick." I asked Daniel today over coffee. He didn't think I was sick either. But the thing is, I don't trust in myself enough now to determine for myself if I'm sick. And I guess I will never have that ability again because even normal feels sick to me. As well as I feel now, I still know that I'm not the same person I used to be, that things are missing, that my thoughts are lopsided and derailed.

If I tried with all my might, could I conjure up the poetry of my madness and express it here? With nothing really going on upstairs, nothing expresses itself with wild abandon, with truth and grit, with fingers-flying across the keyboard urgency. And the worst part of all of that is knowing it, feeling it deeply and being able only to skim the gist off the top. It is phantom pain. It is still feeling my arm after an amputation. It is seeing only the tip of the iceberg and being unable to imagine the enormity of the mountain beneathe. It is just beyond the reach of my fingertips.

Is lithium the answer? Should I agree to take it? Should I tell Dr. K on my next appointment that I'm ready to get well, to get myself back and that I don't care about the weight gain...just give me back my passion? What do I have to lose now...except for the ability to recognize my gross, bloated face in a mirror? Can I be fat and happy?

I fell asleep last night at about 12:30. Not too bad, eh? I woke up at 7:45 to get Spencer off to school and then went back to bed. I slept until 1:00. The day before I slept until 4:00. My sleep is fucked, as are my awake hours. It is already 6:00 p.m. and I have accomplished nothing. The pacing from room to room continues. I have done my best to fluff this off to medication changes. My dose was doubled. Surely that has something to do with it. I am still on house arrest. My 30-day tag surrender was up yesterday but I won't be able to get my new tags until Wednesday, when LTD is off work, and when I have disability money to pay for it. I'm about to start hating this imprisonment and am ready to venture out on my own. I don't know if it's readiness per se, or if it's just being so sick and tired of being in the house all the time. Where will I go? There is Christmas shopping to do, but will I be able to accomplish that on my own? Will I end up having a huge anxiety attack right smack dab in the middle of the mall? Will there be security involved? Will I be asked to leave peacefully? God, just thinking about it...

I never know when to keep my mouth shut. For two nights in a row I have been unable to fall asleep, even though the medicine is supposed to make me drowsy. I find myself wide-eyed looking at the those illuminated numbers on the alarm clock at 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 2:30. It seems like it will never end. And while I know I'm not sleeping, that hypomanic symptoms are starting to rear their ugly heads, I become more and more anxious, requiring the use of Klonopin, which I have been trying not to take...or rather, I'm trying not to medicate every little ailment with this tranquilizer. Going outside? Take a Klonopin. Going to Walmart? Take a Klonopin. Can't sleep? Take two. I'm taking that Trileptal in the morning now. The dose doubled today, and yet, I feel nothing different...except that I can't sleep. Going to bed at night is a nightmare. Tonight, if it happens again, I will get up and blog. I will get up and jog. I will do anything else besides lie there and watch those numbers change minute by minute. Surely war troops use this as a form of torture...make one sit before a big digital clock and watch the numbers change each minute. I can't take another night of it. I won't.

Another adjustment of the medication and I am holding on. I have been sleeping all day and staying awake all night long, pacing, watching TV, watching LTD sleep, writing, moving slowly in circles in the kitchen...nighttime is a dangerous time for a manic on the move. I notice that all my clocks are set on different times. The hall closet door won't shut. There is a dip in the wood in the hallway, a slant noticeable even by the naked eye, but part of the charm so many of these houses in this old neighborhood share. I am down to 73 books on my bookshelf, having sold most of them to a used bookseller for gas money months ago. There is really nothing else I can do but count things, straighten things out, move furniture, talk to the dog, watch the cat sleeping soundly on the bed, where I should be. She has more room now. The dog follows me here and there, but even she is tired, and will sigh when she has to get off the couch to make yet another round.

I'm giving the medication a chance to work, but I know it isn't working and probably won't work. I can feel the mania coming back in pieces. I am conscious that the thought processes are started to get a bit slippery. The therapeutic dose range of this medication is 2400mg. I'm taking 300mg right now and will build up by 300mg each week. What to do in the meantime? I wonder if doctors sit at home during dinner and think, "Man, I hope my patient stays stabile while we go up in her dose...I hope she holds on." Because I do. I pray I make it. I hang my hopes so high, grit my teeth and shake my fists at the sky, and I hope so hard that I won't get lost, that I won't take people down with me when I fall, that I can avoid the ECT helmet long enough to get myself back to me...this medicine has got to be the thing to save me from destruction. God, please.

I started that new medicine last night, the Trileptal. It seems the decrease in Topamax made me a bit hypomanic and something had to be done. But oh. my. god. This Trileptal is kicking my ass. I took the lowest dose possible and slept for 13 hours. Now I'm walking around like I have bricks in my legs. My arms feel like concrete. The funny thing is, my head feels clear. What is this shit about medicine anyway? You can either be clear-headed and not be able to move, or you can feel fine physically and not be able to think of the word for chair or snowman. Is there no fucking medicine that can make you clear-headed and be able to walk?

When LTD and I went to see Dr. K last Friday, I asked him to order an MRI for me. I told him I was certain that ECT was causing brain damage. He maintained that my symptoms were due to medication side-effects and that ECT didn't cause brain damage. I still don't believe that ECT doesn't do damage to the brain, but look at this little ditty I found in a book I purchased on my last trip to Borders...

From the book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder by Julie Fast and John Preston: Your bipolar brain often creates problems instead of helping you cope with them. Often it simply isn't possible to think clearly, problem-solve, and maintain an appropriate measure of emotional control, because certain brain structures that regulate emotions lose their ability to function appropriately. This appears to be due to abnornal chemical regulation of these brain mechanisms. It can also be caused by actual brain damage, which can begin to gradually occur when people with bipolar disorder do not get treatment or have poorly controlled, recurrent episodes.

It would appear, dear readers, that by hopping off again and on again on my medication, I am causing my very own brain damage.

Every day that LTD works and Spencer's in school, I have 7 hours alone. These hours are often filled up with pacing from room to room, anxiety-ridden moments of boredom or despair, when I find myself questioning my sanity and filling my lungs to capacity with deep sighs. I don't know how to manage my own time. LTD leaves lists with small, easy tasks that I either accomplish by early morning and face the rest of the day with nothing else to do or that are left undone because I find myself frozen, statued by (...unable to find the word here). I can't find the word.

This house-arrest lingers on. I'm sure I wouldn't leave the house even if I could but just knowing that I can't makes leaving the one thing I want to do. Where would I go? There is no place for me to go.

Tonight LTD and I were sitting at the kitchen table at medication time. It hit me suddenly that I didn't need to take that Geodon. "It's an anti-psychotic. I'm not psychotic." Her contention? "You're not psychotic because you're taking the medication." Why is it that when I start feeling a little bit better, I start to question my need for medicine? I actually thought about cheeking the pills. It's been bothering me since a dream I had about the Geodon about a week ago. In the dream I had opened the Geodon capsules and emptied them out, putting the capsules back together and then replacing them in the bottle. I challenged the need for the medicine in the first place. "You believed the power company, the phone company, Kelly and Dr. K were all in on a conspiracy against you. You thought people were coming into your apartment at night and causing injury to you. You told Dr. K the halocaust never happened. You made a racist statement. You said you were going to be a Broadway producer...you wrote all of this in a letter and gave it to Dr. K, which is why he admitted you into the hospital." Of course, I don't remember any of this. But my point is this: I may have needed it then, but why still? If I stopped taking the Geodon, would I just automatically become psychotic again? I mean, psychotic episodes during mania are just that...episodic. Why am I still taking the freaking Geodon?

It is at the core of mental illness to deny mental illness. I know this. But I'm getting better. I'm starting to feel well again. Why am I still taking enough medication to drop a fucking moose? Jesus, will I always be doing this? Even I'm fucking sick of it. Why can't I just accept it and move on? Why can't I just open my mouth and swallow the fucking pills?

Having coffee with Daniel at Borders today was almost a religious experience for me. Coversation was nearly effortless and I felt a calm I have not felt in public for a very long time. There was no one staring at me, no terrorist activities going on around me, and no familiar faces I needed to place to put my world in order. I didn't trust it at first, but then I stopped trying to--stopped trying to trust it. There was no need to. It was simply coffee at Borders with a very good friend.

There are miles to go, I know this, but this tiny nugget of sanity was like a silvered jewel in the palm of my hand...and not one I needed to fist so tightly as to cause my skin to tear, but one I could roll around and play with. I was out in public, without LTD or Spencer to anchor me, and actually walked through the store with Daniel, talking, laughing, and I was not scared. What is owed to this major accomplishment? Was it the decrease of the medication? Is it just part of the process of my getting better? Is wellness coming back? Are some of those dark crevices in my mind lighting up, if only by candle light? If only by the light of a match? Are those dark spots becoming enlightened?

I don't mean to question it. I don't feel the need really for an answer. It just feels so wonderful to be human again, to be Tracy again, if only for a few hours, I want to cry. No, I don't want to cry. I want to dance. I want to celebrate. I want to tell everyone I see. I am here. I am here. I am still here.

LTD and I went to my doctor's appointment yesterday with a list in hand. We've been keeping track of all my symptoms and I was more than prepared to have all my medications stopped and was going to skip out of his office a woman free of all mind altering substances. He cut my Topamax in half. I was fine with that. I'm always fine with going down in meds than adding more on....but then he had to go ahead and suggest adding Trileptal. Trileptal? Was he fucking joking? Nobody uses Trileptal anymore. I tried to act like I knew why, but I didn't. Even when I got home later and researched it, I couldn't find the specific reason why doctors aren't prescribing it aside from the fact that it is a very old drug and there are newer and shinier meds on the market. He's still trying to push the Depakote, but I can't take it because it makes my hair fall out (and I mean like fistfulls of hair) and the lithium, which I can't take because it makes me really fat (and I'm talking a hundred pounds). Is my mental health really worth being an obese bald woman? I think not. My contention that Trileptal causes birth defects didn't hold much water, so if this cut in Topamax doesn't produce the desired effects, in three weeks, when we return, Trileptal it will be.

What it really boils down to is this: Trileptal is a "last chance" drug. I know it. He knows it. Every fucking person in the mental health community knows it. When a patient presents to the psychiatric ward for admission and hands over their list of medications and trileptal is on it, the red flag goes up: "This person must be really sick if she's gone through the gammet of mood stabilizers and landed on trileptal."

You know what? I'm not going to bother myself with this. I'm sick and I know it. I don't give a shit. If it works, it works. Topamax is making me stupid and this really is the last thing I want. I mean, other than being bald and fat. The choices here are not so desirable, are they? Mental health or circus freak? Which would you choose?

There is a term I'm looking for. There is a term for letting loose of all you're thinking of, for letting go of everything in your brain without pause. I know there is a word for it, but I can't remember what the word is. This is how my brain works these days. I could take you to Borders. We might have to get there in a very creative way, taking several side streets and backtracking through a few neighborhoods along the way, but we'd get there. I couldn't tell you how to get there. In my head, I could not explain how to take one street and then turn left on the next street and then keep going straight until you get to the first street light. This is the same way wet brain works. From A to C, somewhere B gets dropped.

My responses are delayed. From the outside it may look like I'm just waiting for a bus. LTD asks me how my day is going and my mouth opens a little to let the word out, but nothing happens. Inside a veritable riot is exploding in my brain. The right and left hemispheres separate as if to give birth and slowly a tornado forms and sweeps through blowing letters and words and sentences around as if to wipe out all of creation. If I am still enough, if I keep quite still and wait, the letters will settle in the aftermath. "Good." I have been promised this is temporary. It seems to be getting worse.

Mental illness is a monster the likes of which I have never hoped to battle. It is Satan here on earth. How incredibly crafty it is, attacking a person's very livlihood, a person's very art or beauty or love? How many times have I heard family members say, "He used to paint...he was an artist, but now he's afraid to paint" and "She was a promising runner in college, was training for the Olympics just last year but her medication makes her legs too weak." The singer who won't speak. The writer who can't form words. The musician who now believes the piano is a form of evil.

I've been writing my whole life and I've always considered myself a writer. I've published a few things, but I never considered myself an author. But the hope of that always kept me alive, it always kept me going. I don't know if I have that hope anymore.

I am effectively on house arrest until December 16th, 2007. It seems in the state of North Carolina that if you let your car insurance lapse for any amount of time at all, you get a nice little fine and you get an added bonus of having to surrender your tags for 30 days. My insurance ran out last November when I ran out of money to make the premium. I went a month or two without insurance, changed carriers and then all was right with the world....until my tags expired.

This recent episode of agoraphobia is coming in quite handy, I think, or I'd be going stark raving mad right about now.

We are preparing for tomorrow's ambush at Best Buy. We have our camping chairs and table, blankets, and well, I would list the other items but my brain is quite empty at the moment. Is it a parka? A rain jacket? I can't remember the word for it. The forecast for tomorrow is cold and wet. Yes, a storm is rolling in. We made a trip to Best Buy to get some general information and were told that the line will begin forming mid-afternoon. By 10:00 p.m. it will wrap around the back of the building, slice through the parking lot and disappear around the Macaroni Grill restaurant. And it will be raining the whole day. I'm setting a personal goal to be first in line.

Now, about the other storm. I keep breaking down in sobs. Three times today, for absolutely no reason at all. Once in a restaurant, once in the car while talking to LTD about a leaf blower and once looking at my face in the bathroom mirror. I keep getting more and more confused, at times having just no idea where I am or what I'm doing. I was able to find a therapist and secured an appointment, but honestly, I don't know what she's going to be able to do for me. I feel completely hopeless. I see Dr K on the 29th. I'm going to ask him to schedule an MRI for me. I think this last round of ECT did some actual brain damage.

The winds are really picking up outside.

The Lioness has been dead for more than a year. I cannot tell you how much I feel her absence right now in my life. I am a therapeutic orphan. Psychiatrists don't perform any outrageous feats of therapy. They are not built that way. Glorified pharmacists are about as close as you get these days. Rapid thoughts? Take a pill. Anxiety? Take a pill. Flashbacks from childhood? There's a pill for that, too. Hell, there are several pills for that one. But you are left to wander in the wasteland, child, pained and disillusioned by any artwork that moves you, filled up with the emotion that can't be expressed, because there is no one to listen to your pain, no one who has the time to flesh out the grumbling discontent that is choking you into oblivion. It's right there, growing like a malignant tumor at your throat, but you will have to gag on it because your therapist is dead. She has been dead for over a year. And there is no one on God's green earth who will ever replace her...no one who will know you the way she did. You are an orphan.

LTD has given me until the end of this day to find another therapist. There are miles to go. There are a thousand pages of the phone book to pour through. There are mistakes to explain and close calls to smooth over. There are years of tragic episodes to tell. There is much work to do. It will be difficult to do without words.

She is not afraid of me. LTD is not intimidated by my illness, has never backed down from it, nor cowered in a corner by its ferocity--for that matter has she challenged it, bowed up to it or tried to frighten it away. She has merely accepted it for what it is and sparred with it in the ring when she found herself there unwittingly. She gives it all she's got, never takes cheap shots, and never leaves--even when leaving would be best for her, when it would be best for all of us. She stays. And she takes me and my demons out into the world believing the distraction is the best therapeutic response.

Surprisingly, it has worked, despite the horrendous tragedies being played out in my mind. We've been bowling. We've played Bingo. We've gone to Buffalo Wild Wings to play Trivia. While the inner workings of my brain have been wreaking havoc on my psyche attempting to force a house arrest, LTD has refused to accept the incarceration. And out we go, among people, in public, engaged in activities that make my brain's mechanisms trip the correct triggers to function adequately. There may be pressured speech. There might be rapid thought processes. There may even be paranoia. But all the while I am rolling the ball. I am dabbing B11. I am talking to people. I am winning $100.00 at Bingo.

And while we're driving and I'm trying to find my way, while I'm desperately trying to find anything at all familiar to me, something, anything, that looks like something I've seen before, she will say, "I know you're lost, Tracy, but you're safe. I know where we are and I'll get us home."

And she does. And I know that no matter how sick I get, she will not leave me. I've never known anything as much as I know this. She will not leave. And for that, I am not lost. I will never be lost as long as I know that.

We were driving back from spending time with friends tonight when LTD said, "You're lost, aren't you?" She is beginning to be quite adept at reading the aberrance when it presents itself, even when it does so with silence. I was lost, but it was a comfortable loss since I wasn't the one driving. I've been getting lost for weeks now everywhere I go, even inside my own house, from room to room, from house to mailbox, from car to front door. I've been getting lost in North Carolina, one moment driving in Winston Salem...the next moment thinking I'm driving in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I've gotten lost twice now driving home after having dropped Spencer off at school. I've been driving down streets having no clue where in the world I am--just driving, turning down streets, turning around, back-tracking, looking for landmarks.

I am crazy. I admit this readily. I know I'm crazy. I have to admit it because denying it only increases the level of it. I continue to take all the medicine. I swallow the big pills. I choke down the nasty Lamictal. I gag on the Geodon. I do this twice a day and each time I do it it feels like a psychological sparring session with the Bipolar Beast where I feel like neither one of us is really winning. For a split second what I want to do is take the handful of pills and throw them against the wall or crush them under my heel. I want to smash them in my fist and fling them out the window. For a split second the desire to do so is almost too much to bear. I swallow the pills. I swallow the fucking pills.

And for that I am stunted. I am held back. I am half-smiling. I am compliant. I am a good girl. And the words won't come. The passion has cooled and there is nothing burning. I've become one of those patients my co-workers and I always cringed over--the ones who had one too many shock treatments--where there was nothing left. They'd come back blank-stared, numbed, wanting nothing, needing nothing, having nothing to say, becoming like a piece of ward furniture, propped up in a corner somewhere. We'd suggest to the medical team that maybe it was time to stop the treatments, but usually they'd continue with a few more and inevitably, the patient would start eating his own feces or undressing behind the nurses' station before it was decided to discontinue the ECT, when it was too late to stop any permanent damage.

"I'm afraid they've stolen my words," I said to Spencer earlier today. I can't write. I feel it, deeply. I know it's there somewhere, but I can't make the connection to it. "No, Mom," he said and sat down next to me. "Your words are in your mind. They didn't fry your mind. They can't take your words, ever." He cried and only when I tried to soothe him did I realize that I was crying too. "That is the saddest thing I could ever think of happening to you," my son said to me. It only made me cry harder.

There is no fire here. All that passion has been used up trying to find my way home.

I received a notice of disapproval of disability from the Social Security office yesterday for, you ready for this?--"...bipolar disorder, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, heroin and cocaine abuse." What boggles my mind is this: if I did suffer from suicidal ideation, alcoholism, heroin and cocaine abuse, wouldn't I more than qualify for benefits? What more would it take?

I don't know much about this system but isn't this my money I'm being turned down for? Isn't this money I've been paying into with my own tax money over the years? And shouldn't I be entitled to it now that I need it without having to jump through hoops of fire to prove I'm worthy of it?

I've been told that nearly every case gets turned down the first time and I think that's just sad. A friend of LTD's knows someone who got turned down and he was friggin' blind! What the fuck? Who's in charge here? What fucked up branch of government is pulling the strings? I'm appealing the decision, of course, but I had to get a lawyer to do it. And I still may not win. What is wrong with this system and do we have any hope of winning?

It's that feeling you get right when you've realized you've locked your keys in the car and the baby's inside...that feeling of horror you feel when you've taken one step too many off the stage...it's just that feeling, over and over again that I keep experiencing for no reason at all. It lasts for a split second but it happens about 20-35 times every hour. ECT has gotten inside my brain and awakened the fear factor. That's what it feels like...like someone is coming up behind me every few moments and scaring the living hell out of me.

There used to be a time when I felt blessed with this disease. I did. I figured the moments of creativity were worth the mania and strife and the moments of actual down time caused by depression weren't that lengthy or severe anyway, so it was all an even trade-off in the end. But I keep getting sicker and sicker and the treatments keep getting more and more harsh.

I've been writing here for five years. Will I be writing here for five more? I've been living on my own my whole life. Will that too come to an end? Will I need sitters? Drivers? Nurses? What twisted third dimension is my life about to morph into?

Yesterday before the switches were pulled the doctor discussed turning up the juice on the ECT machine. It would be my last treatment, why not go out with a bang? Why not, indeed? I don't know how high we topped out, but I seemed to have been emptied of quite a bit of brain matter. My mood? Stable. My memories? Scattered. My brain is frantically trying to remember something--as it builds up the memory blocks in the right order, it feels like my brain is on fire and these blocks are rolling and tumbling, scrambling to fit into the right order--but nanoseconds before I latch onto what that memory is, an explosion occurs and leaves me with nothing but smoldering ashes. This happens every ten minutes or so. I've chosen to ignore it.

I think if I have any more ECT I will be left with permanent brain damage, if I haven't already. If this sample of writing is any indication...

From the time I arrive for ECT until the time I leave, I am overwhelmed by hands. LTD and I are beckoned to a small room where I change into a gown and a pair of "shock socks." I am helped onto a gurney and a nurse immediately begins the search for a good, juicy vein. It will not be easy. Another nurse will enter and begin the search on the other side. I can feel their hands everywhere. The veins they can hit will roll or blow and I will be crying by the time they've finally started the IV. Three sticks is considered a success. They will apologize.

One of the nurses will administer a medication through my IV that will make my mouth very dry. LTD will make small talk. She will hold my hand. When we are alone I will say something like, "Let's go" or "Let's run." She won't joke around. LTD is a proponent of ECT, having seen it work miracles, like I have, on many, many psych patients.

The transporter will come for me and place a little blue surgical cap on my head. I can feel her fingers tickling my scalp. She's supposed to tuck my hair into it but she never does. LTD leans in and gives me a kiss. (In ECT time, it will be a fraction of a second before I see her again.) The transporter will roll me through arteries of halls, down and down and down several hallways, through double doors and past operating rooms until we get to a hallway painted tropical and lively with bamboo and trees and a big white tiger.

Once in the OR there will be more hands. It's funny but I can't remember if the team is masked or not. I don't even know if they're gloved! The OR nurse immediately begins to swab both of my temples and the middle of my forehead. She also swabs the top of my head with a gunky solution. I don't know what it is or what it's for.

The anesthesiologist places electrodes on my chest and hooks me up to something. Someone else puts a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm and another one around my lower leg. My doctor and the residents are very concerned with "settings" on the ECT machine.

When the oxygen mask goes over my face, I know we're getting close. The rest of it will go just like this:

Dr. "Tracy, take some deep breaths."
Me *takes deep breaths*
Dr. "Tracy, deeper. Deep, in and out."
Me *long breaths*
Dr. "That's better."
Me *feels burning white hot fire going in IV, moans, closes eyes*
Dr. "That's going to burn just a little..."
Me *opens eyes in recovery room to find LTD standing next to bed*

You see? It's actually quite boring and I guess why they have to make it seem so exciting on TV. It will be later on in the day that I'll discover bruises left by the attempted IV sticks, that I've bitten through my tongue or bitten off part of my lip...that's about as exciting as it gets.

I'm scheduled for two more. After that I don't know what I'll do for shits and giggles around here. I may have to go job hunting again.

I had a treatment Friday and then we went to Walmart. I don't know if we went Friday or Saturday, but I would not suggest doing this at all. If you are planning to have shock treatments any time soon you should probably avoid Walmart for five to seven days afterwards. That is my Tracy Shock Treatment Tip for the day.

LTD & I were strolling through the frozen food section looking for petite quiches when all of a sudden...and I mean like a hammer dropped...everyone looked familiar. I wish I could convey how utterly disturbing this is. Of course you know how annoying it is when you see one person in public that you recognize and you can't quite place them....did you go to school with them? Do they shop at the same grocery store as you? Is it your neighbor? Your landlord? Your banker? Your candlestick maker? Now, do that with every fucking person in the store! And this is not something you can just shake off. You don't just say, "Okay, this is a side-effect of my shock therapy" and skip on your merry way. At least I don't. It becomes important for me to figure this out. It doesn't matter to me that there is a very important reason why these people aren't recognizing me. I just know that I know them from somewhere.

Dr. K once told Kim that this phenomena was a symptom of mania, but he was wrong. It's a side-effect of ECT. I think I may have mentioned this before on this blog, but I had a patient recently who went through the same thing--recognizing other patients on the unit as students of his when he taught school (forty years ago). I told Dr. K's colleague about it and he expressed some interest in it and even asked me to do some initial research, but I got sick. Man, if I was a psychiatrist, I'd be all over this.

Is there some pathway in the brain that ECT is opening or lighting up that makes people more recognizable? Is it possible that people we pass by in crowded malls and on streets (even for a split second) that we believe we'll never see again we actually do see again?

Spencer is taking an honors biology course in school this year and every day I pick him up from school he tells me something amazing. The other day he popped into the car and said, "Did you know if the human eye was more advanced that light would look like rain?"

Yeah, something like that.

Being disabled has never applied to me before. At least, I never let the word wrap itself around me like a snake and push out all the air. And I guess it doesn't now, except that I'm letting my perception of its meaning grasp me around the middle and make me gasp for my life, the meaning of my life, the purpose of my life. I can't work. I can't even get through a simple interview. My doctor won't release me back to work and even going behind his back, sly as a snake and thinking I'm so big and powerful, I end up getting crushed under the guises of my disease, left sweating it out like a junkie on the rebound of withdrawal, outside in my car with all the windows up, shaking, sweating, jerking out my embarassment, grabbing at my face, only able to anchor myself to reality by snatching a fistful of my own hair and saying out loud, "Shut up, you fucking asshole. You're not dead. You are not dead."

In a way I am. Going outside is getting more and more difficult. I take Spencer to and from school every day. Those are my excursions. I pass by the same landmarks every day, on the same highway, past the same car dealership, past the same McDonald's, over the same hills. I can see the same buildings of the city rising above the trees on the way back. I could make the trek with my eyes closed. One tiny little deviation off the main path, however, and my blood pressure will rise. My pulse will quicken. I will have to start paying attention. Mailing a letter, picking up a gallon of milk, paying a bill, having the car inspected....these things will instigate that small tic in my left eye, the twitch in the corner of my mouth, make my head bobble slightly...by the time I make it home I'll be a ticking fucking time bomb.

This is precisely why I am in the condition I'm in by the time I make it to my doctor's appointment. The hospital is like a small city. No, not like. Is a small city. There are three different parking lots. There is constant movement in each one. Always. Pulling in and pulling out. There is bottlenecking, breaking down, hesitation. Sometimes people just stop to watch the helicoptor take off or land from the chopper pad. The spaces are very narrow. The cars are too close together. By the time I get to the elevator, I'm half out of my skin just from the whole parking experience.

The elevator is an experience unto itself. There are four, but they are all very small. And no matter the day or time, you will be on one with someone in a wheelchair or with someone pushing a stroller. It will be tight. If you have problems with people being too close to you, it will be a harrowing ride to say the least. For me, I have to get in the very corner, (no matter if someone is already there, I will ask them to move), and I will face the corner and hold my breath all the way up. And of course, I have to go all the way up. And the elevator will stop at every fucking floor to let more and more people on. Ironically or not, I am usually the only one getting off on the 8th floor, Psychiatry, and then the real fun begins. This is when I start seeing people I've worked with, doctors I've seen on the unit, or patients I've treated. But what pisses me off more than anything is the fucking waiting room. It is very tiny and the chairs face each other about two feet apart and I just refuse to sit in them. So I pace in the hallway until Dr. K comes out. And what he sees is me pacing in the fucking hallway with my little slip after I've braved it out through the fucking parking lot and the elevator and the waiting room and the first thing he asks me is how I'm fucking feeling.

I really need to learn how to not say the first thing that comes to my mind. I need to learn how to keep my opinions to myself. I need to learn how to hold back, lean in, wrap around. I need to know how to expand out and about and unfold gently, without aggravation, without tension. I need softness. I need light. I'm no tiger. I'm no evil enchantress. I need a disguise. ECT is scheduled for Friday.

The big joke in this house is that I have a boyfriend named Daniel, who happens to be a chaplain, who happens to be married and that I happen to be a lesbian. That's a pretty big joke. Even Kim said on the phone one day, "C'mon Trace, everyone in the blogosphere knows you have a big fat crush on Daniel." I'm not sure why we have to label these sorts of attractions women have for men, feelings a woman might have for a man that go beyond the usual friendly feelings crushes, but we do. It's another example of fitting something aberrant or unusual into a box that we can close a lid on, satisfied that it fits somewhere in our psyche.

I could actually say I'm in love with Daniel, but not in the traditional sense of how the populous might perceive that concept. I'm in love with him in the sense that he is a man that I can open myself up to, pour out little secrets that I don't share with anyone else, not even with my partner, and unfold mysteries about myself right before his face without fear that he will be appalled at my insanity or my ugliness. It was the same way with the Lioness. I was in love with her too. Maybe "in love" is the wrong term. Maybe what I really want to say is that I love these people unconditionally, if that is possible to do on such a surface level. I mean, I don't know Daniel outside our coffee talks, outside our experiences at work. I didn't know the Lioness outside of work, beyond the confines of our therapy sessions. How was it that I developed such strong feelings for these two people immediately and not with other people that I've liked and known for years?

Another example is Dara, who comments here and whose advice to me is golden. I've met her. I've hung out with her a few times. At best we were acquaintances, but her aura, her essence, burrowed under my skin and became a part of me as if nothing in the physical world could stop it. Perhaps that's it.

Nothing in the physical world could stop it. Maybe these are people in my soul group. My first girlfriend said people were always so focused on finding their soul mates they hardly paid attention to the people in their soul groups. When I asked her about that she said, "There are people that come into our lives for a reason, to teach us something, to steer us in a direction we wouldn't normally have followed without their lead." While I never paid much heed to soul mates, I did believe, and still do believe, in soul groups.

I have a small collection but the ones that belong there are some twisted mother fu...are quite warped, lemme tell ya. I always knew, from the very beginning, that some member from the American Psychiatric Association would end up being a part of it, but never someone from the Cloth. It boggles the mind, doesn't it? Dara is there. Susie is there. There are others milling about. And though all but one are still alive, when I've backed myself into a corner I imagine them all sitting on a wall above me looking down as if from some high, holy place saying things like, "She'll backtrack and take a left," or "I think she's gonna punt," and "She'll be okay if she just does nothing right now."

And then there's my boyfriend, the chaplain, who would say, "Be still. Breathe. I'm praying for you," and then under his breath, "I know she's gonna blast outta there like her ass was on fire."

I woke up in a very, very mood, as Pooh might say. The light was too harsh, the birds were too loud. The dog was too white. The cat, too black. The kid was up and ready for school, which annoyed me for some reason. LTD left the coffee on for me and I drank copious amounts. I had a pounding headache. Nothing good was going to come from this day, I suspected. I didn't suspect, however, that terrible things would occur, with no warning, and things would transpire over which I would had no control.

My disability ran out. Poof. Just gone. Long-term is not scheduled to kick in until mid October. I don't know how they expect people to get from one point to the next. How do you feed a 14-year-old on nothing? I haven't finished paying this month's rent. How am I going to pay the next? The system, folks...it's not so good.

The Great and Powerful Oz...wasn't so great and powerful, was he? And neither am I. I have a brain. I have a heart. I have courage. I just have to find my way back home. How am I going to accomplish that if I can't get my prescriptions filled? Things are about to get pretty interesting over here, folks.

A lesbian psychiatric nurse who has bipolar, “Crazy Tracy” depicts life from both sides of the gurney. Her blog is personal, emotional and powerfully written. With severe bipolar I, Tracy is often hospitalized or recovering from an episode. Her descriptions of manic perceptions and depressive despair are harrowing and real. Unusually (at least in the blogosphere), she’s a proponent of ECT, having undergone many courses of it.

I had to see another psychiatrist for the Disability circus. The appointment was at 5:40, so I knew it was going to be rushed and half-assed and led by someone who was tired and wanting to get home. I had no idea it was going to be like speed-dating. I could barely understand what she was saying. Her name was Dr. Chukameanuckasakalama. It went like this:

Dr. C: Do you know what day it is?
Me: Yes, Tuesday.
Dr. C: It's Wednesday.
Me: Oh. (I really thought it was Tuesday. I've been off a day all week.)
Dr. C: Spell "world" backwards.
Me: d-l-r-o-w.
Dr. C: Are you sleeping at night?
Me: No. I go to sleep at midnight and get up about 3 or 4 a.m.
Dr. C: Count backwards by 7 from 100.
Me: (I couldn't do it. I never can.)
Dr. C: What's the capitol of this state?
Me: Raleigh?
Dr. C: If you found a letter with a stamp on it, what would you do?
Me: I'd mail it.
Dr. C: Okay, thank you for coming.

There were many other probing questions, but that's about the gist of it. Fascinating, no? I'll bet, based on this, I'm really going to be getting that disability!

By the way, the jail called. They offered me the job. What would you do?

And the Lamictal goes up, up, up as the mood goes down, down, down. Be quiet, be still, be complacent and compliant. Just be. Just hush. If I knew the mystical placement of my feet, the exact motion of my arms, the perfect tilt of my head, and of course, all the right answers, I would get there, and present that self to all the powers that be and not have to down these pills.

But could I, really? Isn't that what got me to this point in the first place? I was dancing too fast. I was twirling too close to the precipice. I was spinning out of control. But whose precipice? Whose control? What a shining moment of aberrance it is when you are singled out, when the spotlight hits that piece of you when you have fallen off your guard. There really isn't a place to hide when you're the only one on the stage and you're making the most noise, when all eyes are on you, and the very act of trying to appear normal is making you look more crazy than ever.

The Lamictal increases tonight. It will double in dosage. It will knock me for a loop. It will make me stop thinking that I'm going to write an Oscar-winning screenplay and go on the Oprah show. It will make me stop thinking that I'm going to go to rowing camp, become a world-class rower and be the oldest member of an Olympic rowing team. It will make me stop believing in fairies. It will make me stop believing.

I hate my pills. They make me furious. I hate that I'm enslaved. I hate that they control my thoughts and feelings. I hate that I have to swallow such poison so I can meet some conventional definition of normalcy. I hate that if I stop taking them, I become engulfed by a world that exists only to me. I hate the abyss with its bottom of black nothingness, with its seductive suicidality.

So it isn't really the pills I hate, is it? It's the disease. I got that just now, writing this. It's the fucking Bipolar. Dr. K once said that. "Hate the illness." I didn't get it then. We're killing it now, you know. With every increase in medication, with every addition of a new pill, we're killing it. But while we're knocking out the racing thoughts, the dangerous behaviors, the rapid mood swings, we're also killing off the creativity, the impulsivity, the flying through on the tails of brilliance.

There is no good way to end this entry.

Applying for disability benefits is like jumping through hoops of fire with your ass already alit, blindfolded, doing flips, backwards, while dodging poison-tipped darts. That's applying, not getting. There are a thousand forms to fill out. The phone calls are endless, sometimes daily calls from your case worker. There are release forms to sign and fax. There are doctors to see and exams to undergo. There are numerous mazes to navigate. If LTD wasn't keeping on top of it all, I would've been turned down already only because the paperwork is too much for me to handle sometimes. "Go here, go see this person, sign here, initial this, send this, fax that, go there, be there at this time, track back, call your doctor, have him fax the notes from your last visit to this number, get a list of your meds, call the Partial Program, find out the date of your last shock treatment, go here, see this, be there, give three tubes of blood, piss in this cup..."

Fact is, I don't want to be on fucking disability. I want to write a fucking screenplay. Do I know how to do that? No. But lots of people who can't even write have written the stupidest fucking screenplays that have been made into films. Look at "Blades of Glory." What the fuck was that? I could do better than that with one eye tied behind my back.

I don't want to be on disability, but it seems I'm the only one who thinks I shouldn't be. It seems I'm the only one who thinks my good days outnumber my bad ones. It seems I can't discern my own fucking mania.

"I don't want you to have to go back into the hospital again," LTD said today. She may as well have said, "I don't want to have to kill you." At this point in my life it will be like getting on a bus with no destination. I will have to refuse if it becomes an issue. I will have to leave this place. I will have to run. I will not go back in.

And I guess I will have to be suspicious of the intentions of others--of my friends, of my doctors, of my family, of my lover. I am a psychological suspect again--everything I do is being held under the mental microscope. And if I reign it all in, I can't breathe. I never was good at keeping secrets. I talk too much. I blog too much. Spencer is too astute.

So we wait. LTD holds her breath. I interviewed for that job at the detention center. They said it would take weeks before the background check came back. I am hopeful. [I side-stepped Dr. K's refusal to release me back to work at the hospital by applying somewhere else.] And LTD hopes we'll hear something from Disability before I hear anything from the jail. We're like two old prize fighters, circling one another, still sizing the other up. I wait by the phone. She practically lives in the mailbox.

I love her. I understand her. And like everyone else, I know she is just adding up the few months I'll be at a new job before I totally crack up and have to go through this shit all over again, but fuck, am I suppose to live my life waiting for the next fucking meltdown? It's so damn tiring. I'm so tired.

It seems these days you can't say anything without offending some person, group or faction in the world. We're so afraid. I'm so afraid. Maybe we need to be scared. Who's to say? This was one topic of conversation I had with Daniel, yesterday at Borders, whilst sipping a cool and creamy vanilla mocha caramel frozen java concoction. Yes, I went out into the world again and socialized. I tell ya, I'm getting BRAVE!

I don't know how we stumbled on it, but I think it was Daniel who used the term "African American" that I jumped all over. I hate it. I hate that we distinguish between people of color, whether that color is black, white, tan, red, brown or yellow. And if we're going to do it, we should do it across the board and distinguish everyone by their ancestral background. Call me a German-American. I'll call Daniel "that Scotch-American Chaplain Guy." We're doing it with Asian-Americans pretty consistently now. Let's beef it up and do it with everyone...or not fucking do it at all. Let's call each other what we are...AMERICANS--unless you really are African or Asian or German and are packing a green card. Is this so very un-PC? Or is this as PC as it gets?

Oh man it was good to get riled up. It felt so good to feel my blood move rapidly through my veins. We talked about movies. We talked about how "Shindler's List" changed us. We talked about music. We talked about work. We talked about paper clips. (This was actually in reference to a film Daniel saw called "Paper Clips" about a teacher who was challenged by one of her students who said he couldn't conceive what the execution of six million Jews looked like, that six million was a number that was just too large for him to consider. The teacher suggestion that they collect something that could represent that and they decided to collect six million paper clips. This began in a rural country school and spread far and wide and Daniel and his wife cried like babies throughout the entire film. I haven't started looking for it, but I'm sure it's going to be a hard film to find.)

These coffees...yesterday, and last week with Wendy, make me feel so sane and grounded. It's more than the connection with another human being. It's more than that. I have that with LTD and with Spencer. It is the express purpose of delving into the psyche, reaching down and finding words to describe what and how I feel about something. They are touchstones for my sanity that anchor a piece of me to the fact that I'm still here. I feel as if I've accomplished amazing feats, like I've done a back dive off the high board...like I've swung upside down from the trapeze with my eyes closed, my arms out, free and wild. It may have looked like we were just sipping coffee. But it was so much more for me, grappling in tangled vines for one shred of normalcy for so long. I leave, I walk away, overwhelmed that I pulled it off...and I smile all the way home.

So I dedicate this to Daniel, who is, without a doubt, the coolest man of God on the planet, and whom I love for sticking by me when it would be so much easier to just walk away:

From the Impossible Dream CD by Patty Griffin
"When It Don't Come Easy"

Red lights are flashing on the highway
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight
Everywhere the waters getting rough
Your best intentions may not be enough
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight

But if you break down
I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy

I don't know nothing except change will come
Year after year what we do is undone
Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home

You're out there walking down a highway
And all of the signs got blown away
Sometimes you wonder if you're walking in the wrong direction

But if you break down
I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy

So many things that I had before
That don't matter to me now
Tonight I cry for the love that I've lost
And the love I've never found
When the last bird falls
And the last siren sounds
Someone will say what's been said before
Some love we were looking for

But if you break down
I'll drive out and find you
If you forget my love
I'll try to remind you
And stay by you when it don't come easy

When LTD and I picked up the refill for my Geodon, they only had 20mg tablets. I have to take 180mg at dinner. 180mg. As if I don't already take enough fucking pills as it is. Nine fucking pills at a pop. If I took all the pills I'm supposed to take on a daily basis at the same time, I wouldn't have to eat anything. It would be a meal in itself. But the taste of that Lamictal would distinguish itself among the others. It is a bit like chalk laced with battery acid. And it's shaped funny, so it sticks. If I don't choke on it, I have to drink and drink and drink to get it down. The Metformin is about a foot long. And the Chantix makes me sick as a dog. Pill time around here is so fun, lemme tell ya.

Last night I had resolved never to take another pill in my life. After taking the handful at 10pm, it took about 20 minutes for the nausea to start, and then on top of that, a slight pounding began at the base of my head. After an hour, I was in the throes of nearly vomiting and was unable to open my eyes because of the pain. It wasn't a migraine--I've had one before. It was the pills trying to kill me. I didn't want to wake up LTD, so I went to the couch and balled up. Spencer applied cool, damp paper towels to my forehead and gave me sips of diet Coke. And the room spun and tipped me over and turned me round and round. If they're not giving me diarrhea, I'm constipated. If they're not making my mouth dry, I'm spitting when I talk. And the best part--they take turns keeping me up all fucking night long or making it so I can't wake up all, day or night. Every once in a while, my body just freezes up. I can't move my joints. I can't bend my elbows. I can't move my fingers. I can't turn my head to the side. And at the worst possible times, I lose my expression. Or rather, it looks like I just don't give a shit.

This morning, looking at the multicolored pills in my hands with a leery eye, I knew I had to take them. But I took them through tears. They own me. I am their slave. I took them and waited.

So far, nothing. A little nausea. We will see what dinner brings.

I have been a virtual prisoner inside my own home, going out only with LTD or with Spencer as my chaperone. It has been days--I don't know how many--since I left the apartment alone, but I purposely made a coffee-date with my friend Wendy at Borders to force my hand today. She knows about some of the things that have been going on and was wise enough to call at noon to confirm. "I'll see you at Borders? At 2:00? We're still on?" Yes. I was determined. And I did go. I didn't even think about it. Right up until the moment I had my keys in my hand and was out the door.

The lump in my throat just popped up the second I turned the key in the ignition. There was no real danger except that I was staring. I shook it off and put the car in drive. I managed to get to Borders without having another staring episode, but halfway there, my lips stuck together. I mean that literally. It took effort to pry them apart. I could also feel my pulse pounding on the tops of my feet.

In spite of it all, I was doing fine. Then I got lost. What was strange beyond the fact that I have been to Borders a thousand times and should be able to find my way there blindfolded was the fact that I wasn't freaked out about being lost. I just kept turning down streets and driving. I just turned and drove. I ended up getting there the back way off the Interstate ten minutes late, but I got there.

I caught Wendy checking out Angelina Jolie on the cover of In Touch magazine. We each had--hmm, now I can't remember--but it was a cool concoction of vanilla, caramel and whipped cream. And we talked and talked about everything under the fucking sun and I didn't stare once. I asked her if she found me "strange" or "crazy" and she said no. I've chosen to believe her even though I felt strange and crazy and weird. My eyes felt big again. But at the same time, it was sublime to be sitting there, in public, sipping that chilled coffee and engaging in the exchange of words with such an intelligent woman. She is a helicopter nurse who works at the same hospital where I'm employed (or not employed...not sure anymore). I always think "There goes Wendy" every time they buzz over.

So after two hours it was time to leave, I felt brave enough to tackle an errand I've been putting off for quite some time. I headed for jail. I had met a nurse when I was in the Partial Program who works there and she suggested I apply for a job at the Detention Center downtown. She said the benefits were great, the job was great and with my psych experience, I'd have no trouble getting on there.

I had no earthly idea what building it was except that she had told me it was next to the "penis building." You're probably reading that twice, but if you lived here, you'd know immediately what and where I was talking about. I knew accomplishing this task was a huge fucking mistake the minute I got off the highway and hit downtown traffic. There were a million cars trying to crash into me. There were thousands upon thousands of people walking around way too close to my car. There were too many traffic lights. And the buildings, including the penis building, were like monsters--menacing and dangerous and would, at any moment, crash down upon me with enraged annihilation. Before I knew it, I was turning again. I turned around the same block about five times before making it to the penis building and spying the detention center. It took 12 more turns around the detention center before I had enough nerve to park--parallel, which I did on the first try but was so upsetting to me that I had to sit in my car for five minutes just breathing before I could even think about getting out. I then had to actually go in.

I had to cross the street and walk a flight of stairs to get to the entrance. The lobby was empty. Two women sat behind bullet-proof glass at a small reception area. I asked for an application and was handed a packet of papers about an inch thick. "I'm applying for a nursing position. Does this cover that?" She shook her head and motioned for the papers back. She then handed me one form. "This is all I need for nursing?" She laughed a little. "No, honey. For nursing, this is the application to get an application." Oh, goody.

I started feeling a little better until I walked back out towards my car. And then I had this feeling of total exposure. I felt as if I was in the path of an oncoming train. I quickened my steps. Once in my car, I found I had to re-trace the turns to get back to the highway and the anxiety started to build. Even as I found the ramp to the interstate and knew I was home free, the anxiety grew. Halfway between the jail and home I had to pull off the highway and scream. At first it was just screaming, but it soon turned into "FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!"

I get so tired of playing it nice. I want so badly to just dissolve. When someone asks, "How are you doing?" I want to say, "I'm just barely holding it in over here." When the maintenance man came over today to fix my air-conditioner I wanted to say, "Y'know, I'm bipolar and it's a non-stop fucking circus up in here...the last thing I fucking need is to be battling 90 fucking degree heat in my own home." When I picked up that application I wanted to say to that woman, "What idiot approved the design of that building across the street in the shape of a dick?" But I don't. I'm too busy trying to appear normal. And I'm pulling it off. Ask Wendy.

I'm home. I'm safe. Can't say if I'll be going out again any time soon, though.

Midnight seems to be the magic hour. If I'm awake, I'm conscious that the shaking stops. I can hold both arms out in front of me and my hands are steady with no sign of that fine tremor. My eyes stop feeling big. The staring stops. My head relaxes because the tension in my neck just gives way. My shoulders suddenly slump. Kim would say, "Get your shoulders out of your ears." That's what happens. My shoulders fall out of my ears. The stiffness in my trunk gives way and allows movement at the waist to go in both directions, opposite of my legs. I feel like one of those dancers on those Hanes commercials. Limber, loose...unmedicated. Salient. Is that a word? Is it appropriate for what I feel? Solvent. Does that apply? I'm just picking these words right out of my ass because the sound of them seems proper for what I feel at midnight...when the meds let go a bit and relieve me of the torture that is my daily fucking life now.

I'm down to about four cigarettes a day. I forget to smoke. Even as I'm walking out to the porch, midway, I've forgotten what I've gone to do and turn back to put the dishes away or take clothes out of the dryer and before I know it, it's four hours later and I remember that I haven't smoked. When I do smoke my hands shake as much to rival any drunk in the throes of withdrawal that I've ever seen.

The pills are too numerous. I do believe I'm taking a pill that counteracts the side-effects of a medication that counteracts another medication that causes bothersome side-effects. Nobody will say it, though, because it's so ludicrous, but if they did it would sound like this: "Take this pill for your racing thoughts, but it will make your muscles tight. Take this pill to help with the tightness. That pill will cause urinary retention. Take this pill to counteract that." Another real case scenario? "Take this pill to help with the psychosis caused by your bipolar disorder. After a while, you'll develop diabetes. But don't worry, we have a pill for that too. And when the diabetes gets worse, you'll start injecting yourself with insulin every day. We'll worry about the retinopathy and neuropathy when they occur. Don't go outside without shoes on. You don't want to lose a foot."

And all the while I'm thinking I don't need any of these fucking pills. I'm backed up in the corner thinking it's all a big fucking mistake. I was having a bad day. I was misdiagnosed. I know crazier people than me and they've never been under the shock-helmet. I know people who would greatly benefit from a few psychotropics and they function well enough in society without ever having to purchase a pill-dispensing case so big it won't even fit in a fucking purse. My doctor tells me I'm still very sick and won't release me back to work. LTD thinks I need to be on long-term disability. Kim says I am "still so sick." Spencer says, "I think you're getting better."

What do I think? I honestly don't know how I'm holding it together. I have no job, no income aside from the paltry short-term disability checks. I'm managing to get bills paid, but I have nothing left over to do anything with. I'm keeping the house clean and laundry going. I manage to go outside when forced. And throughout every normal day I am completely stopped by stares...just stopped, unable to move or talk or break free. LTD will nudge me out of them or Spencer will clap in front of my face, but most of the time I have to wait for them to pass. I'm thinking this is where some of that stiffness is coming from. You try it. Stand still for 3-5 minutes about ten times a day and see if you stiffen up. Is stiffen a word?

That's another thing...my grammar these days is awful. Spencer corrects me all the time. I trip on my words. At times I feel like I'm choking on them. This leads us naturally to food. I get hungry but when I try to eat, after a few bites, I'm full. No, not full. I feel if I take one more bite, I might choke.

So what I do now for one shred of sanity, the one thing I can do to reach utopia, is wait for midnight. That's where normal is. That's where I can find things. That's where I'm myself. If ever there was a time that I knew to the core that I wasn't in my right mind, it is now. I know these things are aberrant. I'm quite aware how strange this all sounds. Does that mean I'm not crazy? We believe that in the psych field, y'know. Most insane people don't know they're crazy. And most patients who proclaim far and wide that they're nuts, actually aren't.

What I wish for, what I desire, is a colorful madness--I want to run through daisy fields in my mind. I want to live full-fledged in a multi-colored surround-sound play-ground of passion that pitches me up and over waves of fluid dreamscapes. I want to be inside crazy with no knowledge of these side-effects, with no idea how horrible it is to not remember conversations, to scramble for words, to be screaming and scratching for a way out from the inside while trying to appear normal on the outside. I want the symphony following me about, the conductor knowing the exact score to play for each scene. I want the director making sure everyone is on their marks. And I want to be cut loose and fed to this fucking bitch whole.

I'm quite tired of pussy-footing around.

When I look into the mirror, I see a psych patient looking back. I do. I have that look now. I know it comes from an interaction of two or more of the fifteen psychotropic medications I'm taking these days, but I don't know which ones, and I'm not really sure you can say it's this one and this one and this one. I think it's an under-current of neuroleptic coupled with a mood-stabilizer with a sprinkle of anxiolytic that somehow sloughs off an aura of insanity that I carry with me everywhere.

It's obvious now that I'm on meds. Some people might not be able to tell, but they certainly walk away thinking something is amiss. I don't blink enough. My pupils are dilated. I stare too much. The muscles in my face get stiff sometimes and freeze a bit, usually in the shape of a frown, which is much better than, trust me, a frozen smile. The smile looks a helluva lot more psychotic than the frown.

And it's not just my face that carries the tell-tale signs. Yesterday LTD and I were driving down the highway, she in her truck and me following in my car, when she looked in her rear-view mirror and waved. I waved back. She pulled off into a shopping plaza and motioned me forward. "What's wrong?" she asked. She is, without a doubt, the most perceptive person I have ever known. "How did you know?" I asked. She could tell by the way I waved. My hand was stiff. My body had frozen up. When this happens, I walk like a psych patient. I can't bend my arms all the way. I have to take smaller steps because I can't bend my knees all the way. I have to move my trunk and neck in one motion. And if I happen to have a smile frozen to my face at the time, people will cross the street to avoid getting too close.

So when I look into the mirror these days, I look deeply. I look hard. And I know I'm in there somewhere. I know that sooner or later I'll come back out. I like to imagine that I'm inside somewhere catching the perfect wave, or sliding across a freshly waxed floor in silky socks, or tumbling down a grassy hillside, or just lounging around in comfy clothes waiting for my cue to take center stage. For now, there's no way out. The meds make sure of that. For now, I am my own hostage.

I was supposed to be discharged from the Partial Program Friday but my doctor decided I was decompensating and needing some medication adjustment. Instead of going home that day, I got admitted to the inpatient department on the psycho ward. They did major tweaking of my meds over the weekend (read: added a shit-load) and sent me on my way this morning.

This is what it takes now to keep me upright. It took me over an hour to fill that pill dispenser and I still don't think I got it right. LTD is looking it over and finding discrepencies from one day to the next--one blue on Monday night and two blues for Tuesday, one white pill missing from Friday morning. You'd think it was fucking rocket science.

The problem is, they made so many changes Friday when I was admitted that I'm not sure which drug is causing me to walk like Frankenstein. I'm ambulating pretty much like those old psych patients did who were on heavy doses of Thorazine (where the term "Thorazine Shuffle" came from). Yesterday it was so bad every step I took was excrutiating. From noon to 10 p.m. I told everyone who would listen that I felt like a board and they did nothing. The doctor finally ordered Cogentin (which is a drug that counteracts side-effects of neuroleptic medications), but the nurse didn't give it to me until after 10 p.m. And I kept getting more and more stiff.

I'm still walking like a zombie, but not as bad. And it feels great to be home. I have my last treatment Wednesday (I hope it's my last one). And LTD is sticking right by my side and taking very good care of me. All is going well, folks. Thanks for all your good thoughts and emails you've sent. It has helped me immensely.

Well, it's not so much a helmet as it is a strap. ECT begins tomorrow. And because my brain reacts so well, or rather, so much to shock, we are spacing out, pardon the pun, the treatments. I'll have a jolt tomorrow, two next week and then one the week after. Four more and I'll be done with my course. And my very own Dr. K (or his colleague, Dr. R) will be doing them. Anyone will be better than Dr. Little Man. I will tell you the horror story about Dr. Little Man one day. Oh hell, I have time...why not now?

He was the doctor who gave me the four treatments while I was in hospital a few weeks ago. Or was it a month ago? I don't know. Time means nothing to me now. The first very strange thing about his technique is that the treatments hurt. Yes, they hurt. I've had, what?, forty or so treatments over the years and never, ever, ever has a treatment hurt before. All four treatments...pain unlike you could ever imagine. There was something he was running into the IV that was like a slow liquid fire. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was quick. But it was like, "Oh God, please, please, stop, please stop this, I've change my mind, stop the procedure, don't do this, I don't want this treatment, I want to retract the consent form, Can anyone hear me?, Is anyone listening to me?, stop doing this right now, please stop doing thi...." and then mercifully, out. It was like that every time. The second horrible thing was the memory loss. I remember NOTHING afterwards. I kept a journal and it's all written down, but after a day or so and after a few treatments, the erasure is complete. It is GONE. The journal entries are the only thing I have that are proof of what I went through. Those and eye-witness accounts. And one eye-witness account of something else was the third thing that occured that never happened before. LTD came to visit me one day and said my entire body was stiff as a board. I couldn't move it at all. In my journal entries there is a notation that says, "Dr. C says, 'Maybe you weren't given enough Sux.'" I don't know what that means. But there is a notation about these trunk-like movements after every single treatment, about patients making comments about me moving like a robot and about me pestering the nurses for muscle relaxers. All through the course of my stay are entries in my journal about being in pain, being stiff, crying about not being able to bend over or put on my shoes, not being able to move. But I remember nothing of it now. I don't even remember LTD coming to the hospital that day and raising hell at the nurses' station about my condition.

So, there is something definitely wrong with Dr. Little Man's technique so much that I sabotaged my last ECT with him by drinking a full glass of Diet Coke the morning of my last scheduled treatment. He scares the hell out of me.

But Dr. K and Dr. R do not. And tomorrow I go, though somewhat leery of having my brain zapped, I go anyway. Worry not, dear readers. I promise they will take good care of me.

At night, there is just nowhere to go. While LTD is soundly asleep and Spencer snores away in his room, even the cat and dog are curled up somewhere in the house, there is nothing for me to do but sit here at this keyboard and quietly type out some words. Even typing sounds loud.

I've checked my stats on my webpage. I've answered some emails. I've checked out a program at the hospital where I'm not working that offers a diabetes education class. And I've dreaded going to that stupid, fucking, retarded baby outpatient class in the morning. We have a new patient there--a pastor, who is sooooo unlike my Daniel--who, after five minutes after his arrival, began to diagnose and treat everyone's illness, got on my nerves so bad that I shut my mouth and said not one word the entire day and then left early. And I get to spend the whole day with him today. He's bipolar. My god, am I this obnoxious to people? I must be! Bipolar people can be pretty fucking obnoxious. I must be too. I must be! I hate the fucking mirror.

My ECT is being scheduled today. And guess who gets to do it? Me! "Yes, I'd like four orders of brain damage with four side-orders of massive memory loss on the side...yeah, give me three short-term and one permanent." Don't let anyone tell ya that memory loss from ECT is all temporary. It's not. Some of that shit NEVER comes back. I still don't remember being discharged from the hospital. Not the entire day. Not one thing. And I remember nothing of the entire next day. Nothing. Two entire days...just gone. You might think, "So what, what's the big deal?" But here's what happens:

LTD: "So Mike bought Andrea the ring yesterday. He's giving it to her tonight at dinner."
Me: "What?"
LTD: "They're going to La Paz."
Me: "What the fuck are you talking about?"
LTD: "Mike and Andrea getting married."
Me: "Mike and Andrea are getting married?????????????????"
LTD: "Yeah."
Me: "This is how you tell me?"
LTD: "I told you this already!"
Me: "When?"
LTD: "The day after you got out of the hospital!"
Me: "NO YOU DIDN'T!"
LTD: "Yes I DID!"
Me: "NO YOU DIDN'T!"
LTD: "Tracy, you called and congratulated them!"
Me: *blank stare*
LTD: "We bought them those special wine glasses that night."
Me: *wrinkled forehead*

That's what it's like. And maybe there's no Mike and Andrea. It could just be that Karen had the baby. Or Jason broke his leg. Or Daniel went to Ireland. Gone. Poof. Just gone.

Okay, I'm going back to bed. I'm so glad we had this time together. Just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it....comes the time we have to say, so long. There are some things you never forget.

So I've been attending this Intensive Outpatient Program for mental health stabilization. It's like an outpatient traninging camp kindergarten for people not ready for prime time, which would be me. And I've been rolling along thinking it's all a big joke. Why should I have to be doing this? I'm doing well. I'm taking my meds. I'm washing my laundry. I'm making my bed and doing the dishes every night. I'm maintaining my life.

We had this assignment today. A situation. Name a time in your life when you didn't think you were going to make it. List some strategies you used to help get you through it. Discuss with a panel of three of other patients how you got through it. And write down key points that you could use in your current situation. Everyone got to work.

I started by coloring in o's and a's and underling letters that couldn't be colored in. I couldn't think of a time when I couldn't make it through. And the ones I could come up with, I couldn't think of how to word them. That was strange enough...me, not being able to come up with written words to express myeself. But I couldn't put it all together.

I got up and found a couselor in the hallway. Near tears, I told her the assignemnt was too hard and that I would have to go home. She found the therapist in charge of the assignment and got us together to discuss it. I was leery of this. I thought he was doing this intentionally to break me. I balked at talking to him about it and cornered myself at the end of the hallway. This brought the director of the program out into the hallway who suggested we take this into a private office. I was in hysterics by now. There was a whisper: "Find the nurse." When the nurse arrived, there was another whisper: "Find the doctor." When the doctor arrived, yet another whisper: "Get a milligram of Ativan IM."

A shot in the arm. And then the Relaxation Room. I was able to make it back to the rest of the lecture, but was out of it, unfocused, bemused, even, but still leery of the intentions of this whole set-up. What was the main gist of this program? Bulking insurance companies? Tearing down defense mechanisms? Finding breaking points?

I came home exhausted. I came home disoriented. I came home.

It's been happening every night about this time....as low as I can go, plunging down into depths I have never known before....there I go swimming into the muck. The tightness I feel in my throat is like a sickness, sucking the sides of my neck inward until it cuts off the flow of oxygen and I swear to God I can't breathe a hint of air. Sometimes I know death is just right around the next corner. I know it like I know the sun will rise, like the next wave will flow in, like the next minute will tick through. And it's not a scary thought. It's just an inevitability. I'm not afraid to die. I'm not at all afraid to die. It's not living that scares me half to death.

I went to church yesterday and could only stay twenty minutes. It was the same Unity Church that I had attended a few weeks back (months back?), but this time, I did not cry tears of release or joy. I did not feel an overwhelming sense of belonging and serenity. I felt only stifled and cold and because I was unable to sit still, excused myself to the person sitting next to me and left while the minister spoke of blessings for which we should be grateful. Walking out, I silently ran through the list: I am grateful for my child. I am grateful for LTD. I am grateful I have a car to drive. I am grateful I can function on two hours of sleep. I am grateful that madness has not eaten little holes in my brain...yet.

I am grateful that Dr. K said I do not yet have to undergo more ECT treatments. They are coming, though. If I don't get this sleep under control and harness the lability of the moods I'm swinging through lately, they are coming. In the meantime, I am searching for Jesus. And I am running out of options.

The MCC church was not for us. While we are seeking a gay-friendly place to worship, MCC was just too gay. United Church of Christ was too holier-than-thou. Unity, I am finding, is not going to accept Spencer (I have yet to spring him on them), and I was kinda feeling them out to see what their reaction might be. It won't be good. I had LTD drive me yesterday to find the Unitarian Universalist church and was happy to discover that it isn't as far as I thought it was. Very doable. And I will...next Sunday. But I can't help going in there with all my hopes scattering about my feet, with my heart on my sleeve, with every little hope and dream resting on the appropriateness of this service/worship to accept both Spencer and me...and especially, for Spencer to accept it. He's the harder sell these days. He's leaning toward an overall Wiccan philosophy and I've been playing hell trying to find some good place that will nourish that in him.

I am trying. I am praying. It's not all for Spencer, of course. It's for me as well. I need more ammo against this bipolar crap. I've got the doc. I've got the shock. I've got the meds. I've got the therapy. I just need more ammo. I'm loading up as if for bear. And I'm taking aim.

I sabotaged my ECT Monday. That's really the only honest way to say it. I got up at about 2:30 a.m. so thirsty I could barely swallow. But I did swallow. I downed an entire can of Diet Coke. For ECT, you must be NPO (nothing by mouth after midnight). And I downed a Diet Coke. My thirst still wasn't quenched. I still felt like I could drink up the entire ocean.

I've been in search of music, in particular, Sinead Lohan (which according to the staff at Borders, isn't even stocked by the company that put out the CD in the first place). I've not been in a good mood. My memory is shot. I remember cursory things, but nothing of substance. I wonder every day if I've incurred severe brain damage this time. I can still write, I guess. I can string words along, at the very least. But it takes a long time. And what used to be somewhat effortless is now like hammering each word to the screen, one at a time, with many backspaces to correct mistakes. I'm not so hopeful that music will help.

Everything is getting on my nerves. I made Spencer cry the other day. I made LTD walk out and leave me in a very precarious situation, alone, to stew in my madness. She came back right away, but for a second, I had to wonder...what if she doesn't? How safe was I really?

I no longer have a job. I no longer have any money. Rent was due yesterday. I didn't have it. I don't have it. I have no idea how I'm going to get it. Madness, for me right now, looks like this lanky guy leaning against a counter top, chewing on a toothpick and saying, "So, you gonna pull a rabbit out of your ass or what?" Madness is not poetic right now. It's just surly and impatient.

Fuck madness.

Oh, did I tell you that I was diagnosed with diabetes while I was in the hospital? Yes, they diagnosed me last year, but I never followed up. This year, I got a Diabetes Educator, a Nutritionist and follow up with an endocrinologist. My sugars are running between 140-270. They seem to be highest in the morning.

Just one more thing, folks. One more thing.

I have been in the hospital for 12 days. I have received four electroconvulsive shock treatments. I have forgotten blocks of time, forgotten people and places and statements. I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what happened, how I happened to find myself in the exact same place as last Summer. LTD has repeated it to me over and over and over again. "You were a bit manic...and you wanted to tell Dr. K what was going on...you just needed ten minutes of his time...."

Ten minutes turned into a direct admit. We spent hours and hours in Dr. K's office while he set everything up. He wanted a direct admit--he didn't want me going through the Emergency Room. We sailed right in. I ended up in the same room as I had last year. LTD stayed with me the entire time. Until the bitter end. Until the goodbye time.

I begged her not to go. I begged her not to leave me there. The whole thing just went off wrong. Dr. K was being over-protective. I didn't need the ECT helmet again this year. I just needed some fucking rest. But for a few days I couldn't eat off plates. It was the strangest fucking thing to have happened to me in a long time. I can't explain why it was so logical then and needed no explanation, but right now I can't explain it because I don't remember the reason for it. Something about those plates...that ECT completely wiped out.

And I saw my friend Kelly (which I know because LTD told me I did but which I cannot remember). The treatments this time have jumbled up my memory to such an extent it's as if someone took a large spoon to the calender of these recent past few weeks and just stirred the fuck out of my days. I see Kelly floating through. I see pieces of patients' faces. I hear snippets of conversations, but nothing clearly. Nothing certainly. Not even my room is clear to me. I remember only the door. If you think that's not crazy, it is. LTD has had the most infinite patience in the world--just like Kim used to have--when explaining something to me for the fiftieth time. "No baby, remember....that doctor saw you on consult. Dr. W was your doctor. That other doctor was your ECT doctor." I just smile and nod. I remember nothing.

So I'm home now and my life is topsy-turvy. I'm not working. I have no intention of returning to work. A publisher wants to see Time for Your Meds: Where Humor Meets 4-Point Restraints. Yes, this very site, slightly edited. I'm having another article published with Nursing Spectrum. The last one went over very badly at work--it's just too tedious to go into. Hopefully, this one will do better. Not that it matters. I tell LTD ten times a day that I'm not going back and she just nods.

I remember so little. Bits. Pieces. Scraps. And all of those pieces are melded into and bled into each other that they're looking pretty much the same. It's just one big scrap of blood-tainted rag. That's what I remember. Everyone is telling me that I'm doing better, so I guess I am. But you'll have to take it from them.

I am back. For how long, god, who knows? And where am I headed? It's hard to say. This was a bad one. This was a horribly awful one. And I'm staring down the barrel of two more treatments. I tell LTD that I'm not going Monday. I won't go. She just nods.

I'm here at least. I'm an upside down cake. But I'm here. God help me, please.

Where is my soft spot? Can I seek it out under a tree? Can I find it if I’m looking for it, or does it have to creep up and envelope me by surprise? Another night, no sleep. The clock has ticked and ticked and ticked until it became an essential part of who I am. If the ticking had stopped at any given time, would I have just keeled over and died? The fact is, there is nowhere for me to get comfortable. I can neither sit nor stand, lie down or walk. I cannot shop or read or write for any length of time. My mind spins round and round and the thoughts are disjointed and unconnected. And whatever happens to me this summer, no matter the fight I’m going to put in, I still see something large and dark looming. It matters not, not anymore. I’m just going to accept it for what it is. I’m just going to dive blindly right into the middle of its guts. I’m going to drown myself in the blood and I’m going to cherish the choking and the starvation for peace, for contentment, for that elusive moment when the sky has opened, just by a slit as thin as string, and let one fucking ray of sun shine on my fucking bloody face. I’ve been trailed for days. I’ve been followed. I imagined that if I looked back I would see some monstrous blob ready to suck me into its middle and suffocate me with its gushy entrails. I’ve imagined it was my worst enemy, a demon, a “one-way mother fucker” as we used to say in the neighborhood—and that it was going to devour me without conscience or regret. And what did I see when I finally turned around to look? What was there when the footsteps were just too grating on the nerves to keep me from slowly facing it? It was me. It was me.

Night is a hard time for a manic on a meltdown. The even breathing from the other rooms is just a reminder of what you should be doing and can’t….what you need to be doing but won’t. And everything in the room in which you are imprisoned—your den, your livingroom, or outside on the patio—all underscore that you are awake when the rest of the world sleeps. And the symbolic irritations do nothing to calm your nerves. The clock….especially the clock….ticks and ticks and ticks just to remind you that you are standing in the middle of the room waiting for the next minute to bring you closer to daylight so you can get out—so you can drive, you can shop, you can walk the mall or go to a flower store. You can go to the library or to Borders. You can buy a book that you won’t be able to read. You can be in a place that is going to close up on you and chase you back to the very place from which you just escaped. The couch is so inviting…inviting, inviting, inviting….you really should throw a party and invite people you don’t know, get to know them, and let them think you a fascinating creature. A creature: like the painting on the writing desk that Spencer painted at school—the eagle with its eye, watching you pace, watching you swing the bat, watching you watch your watch. And there’s the phone that you can’t use. There’s no one to call. No one to talk to. There’s nothing but the handle that sits idly in the cradle that won’t ring. A coffee ring on the counter. I get a cleansing wipe and scrub it hard. I get the broom and quietly sweep the floor. I take laundry from a basket and refold it. Better this time. Much nicer. Cleaner lines. Smooth creases. Creases on my forehead. My mother has them too. Two angry vertical lines right between our eyes where we’ve frowned so much. Where we’ve etched out the season of our own discontent. They are war wounds. I earned mine as sure as hell. I’ve earned every last crease. I frown again and look at the clock. I’m thankful that I don’t have to work. I’m thankful that I don’t have to work. I’m wishing that I had to work. Did I mention this? I’ve been written out of work again.

"Weather Channel"
Sheryl Crow

Sunny morning
You can hear it
Siren's warning
There is weather
on both sides
And I know it's coming

Just like before
There's a black dog
That scratches my door
He's been growling my name
saying
You better get to running

Can you make it
better for me
Can you make me see the light of day
'Cause I got no one
Who will bring me a
Big umbrella
So I'm watching the weather channel
And waiting for the storm

It's just sugar
Just a pill to make me happy
I know it may not fix the hinges
But at least the door has stopped it's creaking

I got friends
They're waiting for me to
comb out my hair
Come outside and join
the human race
But I don't feel so human

Can you make it better for me
Can you make me see the light of day

'cause I got lab coats
Who will bring me a panacea
While I'm watching the weather channel
And waiting for the storm

You won't want me
Hanging around the birthday pony
Even though it's just a game
You know we are the same
But you're the better faker.

I've been listening to this song over and over and over, so loud as to induce a brain tumor. It's in my brain and it's mocking in its sincerity. I can convince myself that she wrote it for me, by some compelling force, by some gift of trans-Atlantic telekinesis, or from wherever she was when she wrote it. Is she insane? Is she crazy? Has she lost her mind at some point? How else could she know? And if it's true that she has been in that storm, how is it that she can be so successful, write her lyrics that sing to a certain someone's madness, and whistle all the way to the bank and back? How can she describe someone's torment with nothing but her voice and a guitar?

I am disappearing. I am watchful. I am fighting with tooth and fang, holding onto a thread so thin it's promise is translucent. I have a knot under the skin on the top of my right hand. It is swollen and bruised and painful to touch. I keep touching it. When I make a fist, it looks a small mountain surrounded by a river of veins. It could be an aerial shot of some small continent. I can't stop looking at it. Where did it come from? How can we have injuries and not know how they got there? Did I do it in my sleep? Did I do it when I tried to gut the pig out of my intestines?

What sloppy discernment. What slippery symbolism. Can I fake it until the meds kick in? I can...as long as no one touches me. I can...as long as no one poisons my food. I can...as long as my defenses are stronger than the onslaught. I can, I can, I can. I just wish LTD would stop changing the color of her eyes.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ENTRY IS REALLY, REALLY GROSS

I'm not sure if my subconcious mind is effecting my body, or if my body is effecting the thoughts of my dreams, but lately, I've been manifesting my dreams into a physical awareness. I wrote that sentence fifty times and I still can't make it clear.

The other night, three separate times in sequence, I had a dream that I was puking up a baby cat. I could feel the kitten in my throat. I could hear it mewing. I was leaned over the toilet retching, but I couldn't get it out and I was choking to death. I woke up gagging and couldn't get breath into my lungs. I couldn't get any air in because of that kitten. When I went back to sleep, I had the same exact dream. And then again.

Last night I had a dream that a baby boar was eating its way out of my intestines. How gross is this? I could feel its snout, its teeth, coming out through my stomach. When I woke up, I was practically tearing at my abdomen...and then had the worst case of heartburn of my life.

Psychotropic meds are fucking wild, man.

I am knee-deep in music. I've been listening to everything: Jane's Addiction, k.d. lang, Patty Griffin, Natalie Merchant, and Michael Buble (my new obsession). And I've been shaving every fucking piece of hair off my body (except my head, which is not a part of my body anyway). People have been sooooooooooooo slow today. It's been a Sunday fucking drive through these here parts. But they're also talking slow, moving slow. What sometimes appears to me a cool, orchestrated ballet of life in the fast lane now only seems to be a fucking cluster-fuck at rush hour. The meds aren't working fast enough. The dog doesn't walk fast enough. People at work don't work fast enough. For me everything sounds. like. this....one. word. at. a. time. And I get the overwhelming urge to just shout, "JUST FUCKING SPIT IT OUT, BITCH!"

But in my mind, it is a fucking roller coaster ride of emotions, most of them extreme and the words, the thoughts in my head aresomuchlikethisthatIcan'tdecipherhalfthetimewhatthefuckI'mthinking.

Here we go again, folks. But I'm going to be the winner this time. I'm going to kick the holy living crap out of bipolar. This time.

I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 2:30. I've been up ever since and have gotten much accomplished. Yes, I'm taking the meds. Seems they take forever to kick in, though, doesn't it?

Which brings us naturally to funeral songs. The other night at the BBQ with Ann and Debbie, we all came up with songs we'd like played at our funerals. I've had mine picked out for some time now.

MINE: "WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE" by Bon Jovi
LTD: "TIME FOR ME TO FLY" by REO Speedwagon
ANN: "SPIRIT IN THE SKY" by The Kentucky Headhunters
DEBBIE: "FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY" by The Beastie Boys

All appropriate choices, if you ask me. What's yours?

My medicine makes my bed turn in slow circles each time I lie down and close my eyes. At first it is an easy, soothing feeling. I just roll into it, feel it spin me clockwise into these bits and pieces of sleep...promises of dark enchantment. Sleep is an escape for me these days...it is a welcomed reprieve from the constant mood shifts and swings. I'm like a junkie just starting to nod off as the delicious drug makes all the ugly world go away. And then I jolt awake, my head jerking forward as if I've just awoken during a boring class lecture.

I've been sparring with sleep these days. At night, when I want it, I get nothing but jabs. I duck and move. During the day when I want to get things done, it comes. I fight it as hard as I can, but it's so seductive, so absolutely exotic and tempting. I can almost hear it say, "C'mon, baby. Lie down. You know you want it." And I do. I slide into that bed at noon and let it totally engulf me. I let it devour me. But when I want it, does it let me have it? No. When I need it, will it give it to me? No. Sleep is my master these days. I am its slave. I am compelled to kneel down at its feet and let it own me. The seduction is almost too hard to fight. And like the junkie, I don't want to. Unlike the junkie, I can't get my fix when I want it. I can't buy it on the street. I can't cop from a friend. I can't command that sweet release whenever I need it. And maybe I don't want to. Maybe it's all part of this bipolar mess that I have to bear. Another cross to drudge across the concrete. Another scar to wear. Another challenge.

I'm so sick of it. I just want to close my eyes at night, fall asleep and wake up in the morning like normal people. Or lucky people. Well, hell. Since I can't sleep, I am dedicating this poem to LTD, who is sleeping. With her blond hair and lashes, she looks like a snow angel.

Every Morning's Mourning.

Watch you sleep
Dream and roll over
avoid the monsters
and the light
Watch you sleep