Posted by trouble on March 19, 2002, at 6:31:57
In reply to Oh shit., posted by Zo on March 18, 2002, at 17:47:42
Hey Zo,
It really does take over a person's life. It's like a Machivialian and capricious God, who seems to hear me for awhile and then suddenly says HA, Gotcha, so long!
If I only knew if there's something I'm supposed to do, I've been trying to ward off this hypomania for the last few days, b/c the last time, coming down felt like I'd been thrown out of a Lear jet. And the attitude I took going into that particular episode was adventurous and excited, this is gonna be one sweeeeet ride!So this time I've been trying to stop it from coming by forcing myself to eat, I gagged on my food today, even looking at it makes me nauseous, but I don't know, I just got this idea if I sleep and eat and try to stay on a routine then the insanity won't get in. This is akin to trying to stop a Mack truck with a stern frown. So now I'm just trying to be accepting and submissive, and willing to act on any cues from any place about what to do. Meanwhile there are obligations I have to attend to today, and I don't think it wise to leave my house like this. Today I was laughing dementedly in public, and got bitten by the Stigma bug more than ever before. Which I thought was hilarious, of course. Then the convulsive sobbing and fatigue, life force drains out in seconds and I can't get out of the restaurant. I have Valium, for the first time I got valiums from my pdoc to maybe help me sleep, but I don't have the will. My volition is gone.
Telling nice, flexible clients when I'm not well and have to reschedule. I feel like emailing her today, so I don't have to hear that discomfiture in her tone, but email seems shameful too.
The only solace we have is the fact that we're not wandering the streets (yet?), eating out of dumpsters, spending our days wondering where we're going to sleep that night, wondering if we'll get raped this week. Some of our brethren really do live like that, and for whatever reason we have been spared, and that weird, creepy luck might help attenuate the blinding rages we still have enough sense to experience. Kicking against the pricks.
It's taking so long to accept that this is how my life IS. Because sometimes it ISN'T. And you build on that hope man, adding healthier strategies to your regimen, read self-help books, stick close to the therapist, and then out of nowhere you start feeling yourself slip.
I've been shopping the last couple days, I have no petrol for my oven, but that's ok right now while I'm not eating. And I take the money out of my wallet and look at it, wondering what it's for, knowing it's been slated for something important, so that can only be literature. I looked in the psych/self help section today for an hour before deciding it's all the same story, then went over and bought Letters To A Young Poet, hardcover edition, then sat in my car, holding it against chest. That is solace.
I spent the rest of the day handing out greenbacks to drunken amputees.
Big hug.Someone actually asked me today if we PSB members were compensated for our involvement in this project. I was speechless. But he was a mental patient himself, off his meds, got that skewed perspective thing going on.
There are a couple women here, I forgot their names but they posted on PB a few times this month, who have a real poise about the deal they got, and if they can do it, I have to believe we all can. At our own pace.
So this is what compensation means to me these days, faith and gratitude that the big black boot coming down from the sky only squishes me now and again for its own kind of amusement, when I keep tripping over what it's capable of. Schizophrenics to the left of me manic-depressives on the right. You and me still typing on a keyboard.
This post was meant to be consoling. You ok?trouble
poster:trouble
thread:20124
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020314/msgs/20207.html