Psycho-Babble Social Thread 449986

Shown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.

HTML help!!!

Posted by smokeymadison on January 29, 2005, at 22:27:36

i am attempting to add Chapter Five to my online journal. i saved the Microsoft Word file as a web page and uploaded it to the web shell. then in the "index" folder i just put in the name "Chpater Five" but about halfway through the web page the font runs off the page and almost to infinity. i have looked at the pure HTML but i am not that proficient at HTML and don't know what the problem is. here is the link to the problem page:
http://www.angelfire.com/az3/smokeymadison-on-bpd/Chapter_Five.htm

any suggestions greatly appreciated!!!
SM

Re: HTML help!!!

Posted by crazychickuk on January 30, 2005, at 17:58:12

In reply to HTML help!!!, posted by smokeymadison on January 29, 2005, at 22:27:36

Hi have you been putting infront of all your sentences? then at the end ?
I suggest for new paragraphs, and use word pad NOT notepad .. if you have allready done this..
then i suggest <center> then write your texts then close with </center> that makes it all in the middle you can do <center> at the top of the page with at the beggining of all paragraphs should need to close center of cus its an on going journal ..
hope this helps ...
can email me or msn me if u like
crazychickuk@msn.com :-)

Re: HTML help!!! » crazychickuk

Posted by smokeymadison on January 30, 2005, at 19:19:06

In reply to Re: HTML help!!!, posted by crazychickuk on January 30, 2005, at 17:58:12

Here is what the pure HTML looks like where the font doesn't run off the page:
What does it mean to give a rose? One gives something to another for various
reasons. In this case, I was trying to
somehow help the people I gave roses in the hospital. My sixth hospitalization. I remember giving origami peace cranes to a
girl in our governmnet housing project when I was in fifth grade. Now I give roses. So little has changed, it seems. Some asked for them, some seemed genuinely
shocked when they received them.
here is what is looks like where it is messed up:
I started back on my Abilify two days ago, after the pregnancy test came back negative. Today I woke up still tired and in a foul mood. I drove to <st1:City><st1:place>Cincinnati</st1:place></st1:City> for my outpatient therapy and got through the first session. Then it hit. Agitation. I tried to sit still for five minutes in art therapy and could not. So I left to smoke a cigarette outside. I went back in and shared my drawing of my support systems.
of course, it could be something in the babble before my actual writing starts, i don't know. does this make any sense to you? thanks for responding, i really want to get this fixed. it is driving me crazy!
SM

Re: HTML help!!! » smokeymadison

Posted by alexandra_k on January 30, 2005, at 19:53:29

In reply to Re: HTML help!!! » crazychickuk, posted by smokeymadison on January 30, 2005, at 19:19:06

Hmm. Maybe I'm not gonna learn HTML after all...
:-)

Re: HTML help!!! » alexandra_k

Posted by smokeymadison on January 30, 2005, at 21:22:24

In reply to Re: HTML help!!! » smokeymadison, posted by alexandra_k on January 30, 2005, at 19:53:29

looks like a freakin foriegn language doesn't it? when i made my website i just copied and pasted a template from angelfire.com and added my won pictures, music and stuff to the template. the book HMTL for dummies doesn't get as complicated as the stuff i posted looks. not sure what that stuff means. that is the problem. i just saved a word document as a web page and that is what it looks like.
SM

Re: HTML help!!! » smokeymadison

Posted by alexandra_k on January 30, 2005, at 21:29:37

In reply to Re: HTML help!!! » alexandra_k, posted by smokeymadison on January 30, 2005, at 21:22:24

> when i made my website i just copied and pasted a template from angelfire.com and added my won pictures, music and stuff to the template.
Oh Smokey, you have just disposed of my reason for wanting to learn HTML. Brilliant!!! Thanks a bunch :-)
Now I will have to get back to my work...
>the book HMTL for dummies doesn't get as complicated as the stuff i posted looks.
Ya. Thats the book I got too...
>not sure what that stuff means. that is the problem. i just saved a word document as a web page and that is what it looks like.
Hmm. Can't help you there...

This should help- new HTML

Posted by Angielala on February 1, 2005, at 12:20:40

In reply to HTML help!!!, posted by smokeymadison on January 29, 2005, at 22:27:36

Hi there,
I have been writing HTML for years... so I thought helping you would be a piece of cake. The problem I found is that there is 3rd party HTML in there- meaning HTML that is written by where ever you are hosting your website... which makes it impossible to go in and jsut fix it. The main issure is that there are hundreds of "span" styles in the HTML.... normally each paragraph would have one, and that would only be in the style (fonts, etc) change in each paragraph, which in your case they don't. So what I did was re-write the HTML for you... leaving out all those "spans" and used the more norm HTML- using to break lines into normal paragraph form... here's what I wrote:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
What does it mean to give a rose? One gives something to another for various reasons.
In this case, I was trying to somehow help the people I gave roses in the hospital.
My sixth hospitalization. I remember giving origami peace cranes to a girl in
our governmnet housing project when I was in fifth grade. Now I give roses. So
little has changed, it seems. Some asked for them, some seemed genuinely shocked
when they received them. Roses turn outward, petals channel water to the roots
and attract insects to pollinate the flower, sustaining life. I didn’t fold
shells this time. Shells are the remnants of life, folding inward.
I gave a purple rose to my roommate. She refused her Xanax because she was
convinced God had healed her, a miracle that happened at approximately 7:30
Saturday morning. She kept repeating that she was saved and that she no longer
needed to eat or take medication. I tired to reason with her, asking her to
pray about whether she should take her meds, hoping that spirituality itself
would help her regain some sanity. It apparently did not work, because she lost
it. She stopped talking to me or to any of the other patients. She sat in our
room in a chair staring at the wall. When a nurse tried to make her drink some
Boost, she threw it at him and spat it out all over him. She starting screaming
and did not stop for two days. They put her in the seclusion room and I never
saw her again. When the screaming started, half the patients on the ward demanded
their benzos early. It really hurt the few of us who had grown close to her
to see her completely fall apart. At the beginning, she had been very confused
and worried about her memory problems. She could not remember our names or what
she had done a few hours before. Then she became fixated on God saving her and
the miracle, and one by one the other patients started toavoid her. I did also,
at the end, because everytime she started talking she would start bawling about
her son who was in jail. I figured that it was best to leave her alone. Now
I do not know.
I connected with the others within hours of arriving on the unit. I had been
out of Fort Wayne three days when my mood dropped and the thoughts of slitting
my wrists became strong. I drove myself to a hospital that I had heard was a
good one and went through the emergency room. I normally sleep the first couple
of days on a unit, the psychological stress being so great that I exhaust myself
physically. But this time I had Klonopin in my system and I did not feel like
curling up in bed. The decision to go to the hospital was not even a very stressful
one. I knew that I needed to go, so I went. It is strange how these suicidal
thoughts can take me even though I am not that depressed. Of course I am defining
depression by such terms as loss of appetite, poor sleep, hoplessness, etc.
Perhaps the medications cover the symptoms while leaving the dark root intact.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the part of myself that wants to die.
It craves extinction, total nonexistance. It first became apparent to me in
sixth grade, when I slept with a knife under my pillow while trying to decide
whether to cut or not. I had just moved to my dad’s house from my mother’s
house. I was cutting her out. Like a parasite, she needed to be removed in order
to let me grow. But I was already grown in so many ways. Therefore, I have endured
a splitting of the self. My self is shattered into many pieces. I try to look
into them, to find myself, and only see a distorted picture. Why am I holding
onto the part of me that wants to kill myself? That is the golden question,
I think. If I can figure that out, I can let go. Now that I am out of the hospital,
I will be in intensive outpatient therapy, assuming my car gets fixed of course.
The damn car keeps breaking down, just like my body and my mind. Matt keeps
joking that we should move to Stepford so that I can get a tune-up. I find the
joke both funny and offensive at the same time. Speaking of jokes, there was
one that has been circulating the internet lately. 
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly. 
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3,4,5, and 6 
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just
stay on the line so we can trace the call. 
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you
which number to press. 
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will
answer. 
If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the
thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and may bite off your
ear. 
~unknown
 
A Piece of the Puzzle:
 I think that I have a hold of something that is very important to my recovery.
It started with a very simple expression spoken by the psychologist overseeing
my outpatient treatment. He asked how I express my anger. A very simple question,
but oh how thunderous the implications. Anger is one emotion that I do not express.
I just do not. I stifle and constrain it to the point where I think that it
has turned against me The crystal liquid pouring over the rim? Anger. Of course,
it is a classical theory that depressed patients have turned anger inward. I
do not know that it applies in all situations, but for me, it does. That part
of me that is suicidal, the part that refuses to loosen its grip on my mind;
it is seeped in anger. The question now is what to do from here. Having this
revelation does not cure me. I feel calmer than I did before, but the dark still
edges my mind. I just need to read more about anger and get in the outpatient
therapy. I am going to have to ask my aunt if I can stay with her throughout
the week and ride along with her to work, since she works about ten minutes
from the hospital. I am so reluctant to do this and so dreading this. I hate
to ask for help, to ask others to give of their time and energy. The fact that
I have asked her for favors before makes it all the more difficult. Perhaps
the assertive group therapy they have planned for me will be a good idea after
all. I never pictured myself as a meek or unassertive individual, but perhaps
I am in this regard. It is connected to the anger issue. I hate myself for being
weak and needing to ask others for help. I feel like a parasite. I feed off
of others and drain them.
 
Baby?
 I made a serious miscalculation the past week. I was thinking that my last
period was during the last hospitalization, in Cincinnati. But it was not. It
was the hospitalization before that, in Fort Wayne. This means that Matt and
I have been having unprotected sex during the most fertile time of the month
for me. I realized this yesterday. I tried not to think much about it but I
got online today and charted an ovulation calendar and yes, there is a good
chance that I am a couple of days pregnant. This is the first time in two years
that I am this certain that I am pregnant. At first I thought about going out
and getting a morning-after pill, if the doctor would even let me at this point.
But I think that it is too late. Do not get me wrong, I want this pregnancy,
but Matt does not and we are so financially unstable right now. Not to mention
that I have a year and a half of school left. On the other hand, I would be
elated to be pregnant. I have wanted this ever since I was 17, the first time
I thought I was pregnant. And I might have been and there might have been a
miscarriage. I am still not clear on that point. That time in my life was so
choatic that I cannot distingish between what was reality and what was obsession.

 I am afraid that I do not have good enough reasons for wnating to be pregnant.
So many of them are selfish. For example, suicide would not ever be an option
again if I were pregnant or had a child. I could never rob the child of life
or of a parent. I could be done with the ever-impending doom on the horizon.
Having a child would bring so much meaning to my life. But there I go again
trying to quelch the emptiness. I do not want to have to tell the child when
asked why I had him or her that I had him or her because mommy did not want
to wind up killing herself. The truth would hurt. This is going to upset Matt
very much if I am pregnant. He is not ready to be a father. He is not ready
mentally, emotionally, or in any which way. He is not ready. Well, he may have
to be in nine months. 
 My mother would be elated and my father horrified. Actually, everyone would
be horrified but my mother. They all have feared this might happen and that
I might never get my degree or any farther in life. I know that school would
be very hard with an infant to take care of, but not impossible. I have known
plently of people who did it and got through. There are a few unselfish reasons
I want to have a child. Call it mother-instinct or whatever, but I want a child.
And really, when would be a good time to have a child? After I graduate when
I am trying to get a career started? After that, when I have a solid career?
I really can’t think of a perfect time. Anytime would be hard. And so
I have to wait a week and a half to find out. And obsess and obsess in the meantime.
I do have the dilemma of whether to take my meds as prescribed or to smoke cigarettes
or to drink all the caffiene that I do while I wait. I will probably quit the
medication for the time being as they will take that long at least to wear out
of my system and cut down on the other two. My doctors would be horrified, but
I want to take no risk that I might do permanent damage to the child. I will
start taking vitamins and sit down with Matt and have the talk. This is not
going to be easy.
 
Waiting for an Answer:
 I am suspended in heavy, thick air. I am somewhere down the rabbithole between
reality and delusion. I have been here so many times, the smokey air almost
smells familiar. There is no light. I grope about, trying to find some concrete
thought onto which I might hindge the rest of this swirling mass of mind. There
is only the promise that in a week I might be flooded with light, the passageway
might open up and I might see what the rest of my life holds. But the meantime.
In the meantime I am mad. I cannot sleep, cannot quiet the thoughts that assult
my mind. And the lure of the Klonopin. Sweet, stilling Klonopin. If I should
partake of it, the jelly bean, the tranquilizer of the red mind, I might, in
nine months be presented with a monster. Limb deformities in animals, the pharmacist
quoted. But Ambien might be safe, he said. If only I could afford it. If only
I had the strength to walk to the pharmacy and buy it. The script lays here
on my desk, a solution unfulfilled. 
And Matt. Matt is the rabbit I am chasing down this hole. A sad, tired rabbit
who has, perhaps, the clarity of mind I do not. He tells me that I am not pregnant,
that it is all in my mind. Who is madder, the rabbit or the girl? He says that
our lives will end if I am preganat. Well, everything that he holds to be his
life might end, that is for sure. The Knight in shining armor, the good old
Baptist boy will end. Perhaps they should end anyway. Are they not delusions
in and of themselves? I suppose that we all hold delusions of what we think
we are in this life. I have no concrete image of what I am, therefore to be
faced with this is not as earth-shattering to me as it is to him. I must sleep.
And only then can I awake from this dream, be it with a child or without.
 
The Night Before:
Tomorrow I start my intensive outpatient therapy. I have already read the first
four chapters of the Feeling Good Handbook, by David Burns, one of the two books
they use in the program. My beef with cognitive behavioral therapy exists on
many levels. First of all, I do not believe that thoughts always give rise to
emotions, in that order. Sometimes emotions surface that are completely unrelated
to thought. Of course, I could be wrong on that point but it is the always that
really gets me there. I do believe that thoughts are related, connected to emotions,
which is why I think that the therapy will do me some good at least. Second,
so many examples given in the book are of relatively successful, stable people
who are just perfectionistic in their thinking and need to loosen up a bit.
I am not one of those people. I am in a bad situation all around. Therefore
I have every right to feel bad. Before I entered college I owed no one anything.
Now I owe over 30,000 dollars in credit card bills and medical expenses. I need
to declare bankruptcy, but cannot afford it. I am on the verge of eviction and
having my electric turned off. I do not have my degree and have fallen so very
far from where I thought I would be in my life at this point when I got out
of high school. So how is cognitive behavioral therapy going to make me feel
any better about my situation? I am a perfectionist and I could stand some loosening
up a bit, so there it might help.
I am very angry at myself for all of this and at Matt for several reasons.
He works less than 30 hours a week even though he knows that we cannot live
on that. Sure, he is always trying to find more work, but never quite gets it.
He is so very slow at taking action of any sort. I was the one who filed for
food stamps and found a way to pay our rent and electirc this month. But of
course, like he is always telling me, I really do not let him do much of the
work himself. On the other hand, when I do not do the work, it does not get
done fast enough. I cannot trust him to get it done in time. How did I wind
up with this guy? I love him dearly, but he drives me crazy. Looking back, there
was something there between us from the moment we met. To get very sappy and
romantic, we sort of said "Hello, where have you been?" If I did believe
in destiny, I would say that it certainly had a hand in our meeting when we
did. I was so very lonely, eating up guys left and right, never finding someone
who would stick with me through all my insanity. Matt was also lonely and had
given up for the time being on finding anyone with which to be. So two lonely
people get together and form a need-based relationship. Perfect.
The problem is that, through therapy, I am changing. Matt is not in therapy
and is not changing at the same rate I am. So I get frustrated with him for
being the way that he is and then I look at myself and see the same things and
get even more frustrated. Frustration can be healthy if it leads to change.
So there I go again, changing, leaving him behind in some ways. I blame his
parents all the time for sheltering him like they did and then dumping him when
he moved in with me. Half the time I feel like his mother. I had a head start
on him by six years. My parents finished dumping me at age 17. My mother annoited
me an adult at age 12 and I worked to pay for my own clothes and school supplies
starting in the fifth grade. That continued with my dad, but I was not given
the recognition until recently, if even now. So how can I blame Matt for not
being as mature as I am in some ways? It really is not fair. We have lived different
lives. We have been through completely different experiences. Until now. Now
we are struggling to understand each other, even though we recognized each other
at the beginning. And I think that we do understand quite a bit about each other;
we know how each other works, but acceptance is a whole other issue. Can I accept
the fact that Matt is just beginning to learn what it means to be an adult when
I have been there for years? Yes, I am trying.
 
 
 
A Not So Lazy Sunday Afternoon:
 The pregnany test came up negative yesterday. The doctor personally came and
got me from the waiting room and showed me the lab results for the blood test
as we walked back to an examination room. Negative. I really did not feel anything
at the moment. As I left, he told me that pregnancies always come when you do
not want them and never when you do. He knew somehow that I had wanted to be
pregnant. I was totally exhausted. I had only gotten fifteen hours of sleep
that week. I called my mom, who had been waiting to hear whether or not I was,
and told her. She let out a sigh and said she thought that she was going to
faint. Her heart had skipped a beat when the phone had rang. I waited to call
Matt. I was so angry that he had refused to go to the hospital with me. I should
have beenmore understanding, considering that he had only gotten four hours
of sleep and had to work a twelve hour shift later that afternoon. But I was
furious. The anger probably prevented me from feeling anything else at that
moment. I know that Matt was probably just scared and was dealing with the situation
like he does with a lot of things—buries his head in the sand—or
his pillow, in this case. The fact that he told me that he was done catering
to my obsessions when I asked him to go also angered me a great deal. I very
well could have been pregnant, according to the ovulation calendar on Yahoo.
It was not just an obsession. 
 I walked from the hospital straight to a local bar where I had planned to
have one drink. After the week of hell I had been through, I really needed a
drink. I ordered a Bacardi and coke and sat at the bar. I started to feel like
I was falling very hard. Falling through my seat and through the floor and through
the earth. I felt more and more depressed. Now, the bar is the worst place to
be when feeling this way. I ordered another drink even though I was already
feeling tipsy. I left after that drink and headed across the street to the bus
stop. I called two of my friends who knew that I might be pregnant and told
them the news and that I was drunk off my *ss. I also called Matt at work and
told him. He said that he knew when I told him that I was not pregnant, which
pissed me off. He also said to be careful getting home and to not fall and hurt
my hip again. I got home and sat on the couch in the dark livingroom, staring
off into space in a drunken stupor. The kitten brushed against my legs, wanting
petted, but I did not pet him. My mood darkened further and I thought of downing
all my Klonopin and Restoril. Life had no meaning, no promise of having meaning
in the near future. I wondered if I was sterile. I should have been pregnant.
I wondered how much it would cost to have a fertility test done. I had the long,
lonely weekend to get through before I could get back to therapy. I could not
do it. 
 I picked up the phone and called my psychiatrist’s number. I explained
to the answerer that I needed to take some of my meds to get to sleep as soon
as possible because I was suicidal but that because I was drunk, I was not sure
if it was safe to take any. She paged the doctor, and I was left to wait for
his call. About fifteen minutes later, he called and asked what was going on.
I explained that I was not pregnant and that I felt like overdosing. He replied
that it was good that I was not pregnant, that it was not the right time. He
gave me credit for calling, and said that overdosing would only wind me up back
in the hospital again. He said that two drinks could not have raised my alcohol
blood levels to a dangerous point, even if I had low alcohol tolerance because
I had not drank for so long and that it was safe to take two of my Restoril.
I promised to take only two before we ended the conversation. 
 Holding the bottle in my hands, I thought of ending my life. But I had promised
not to. So I took two as quickly as I could and went to bed. I tossed and turned
for two hours. I could not shut off my mind. I started to feel less suicidal
and got up and walked out into the livingroom. I searched for my outpatient
therapy doctor’s number and called him, since I had already bugged my
own psychiatrist once that night. I left a message asking what to do since the
Restoril I had taken had not worked and I was feeling a bit suicidal. I sat
on the couch and waited for two hours for a phone call back. I grew more and
more sleepy, a stark contrast from that state I had been in. I had felt wired,
like too much adrenaline had been pumping through my veins. I went back to bed,
setting the phone on the nightstand. I woke up this morning when Matt came to
bed. 
 I woke up energized, excited to begin the day. I called a friend and asked
if I could go to church with her, something I had not done in years. But she
was busy, so I turned to finding a job. I applied at four places. On my way
home I thought about how angry I had been with Matt the day before and how completely
the anger was gone. One of the places I applied was the place we had both worked
at and had met. I doubt that I will be rehired because I quit without giving
a two week notice during a fit of mania. The guy who introduced us was working
when I turned in my application and he asked if Matt and I were still together.
I replied gleefully that we were. He said that he would try to get me rehired.
I considered quiting the outpatient therapy and just getting back to work, but
I think that that is not in my best interest. Since Matt and I have not been
evicted since I quit working three months ago, I think that I can wait two more
weeks or so to go back to work. I do not know how long this good mood is going
to last.
 
Confined by a List of Criteria:
 Much madness is divinest sense
 To a discerning eye;
 Much sense the starkest madness.
 ‘T is the majority
 In this, as all, prevails.
 Assent, and you are sane;
 Demur,--you’re straightway dangerous
 And handled with a chain.
~Emily Dickinson
 
 I partially define who I am by the disorders I have. I have been diagnosed
with Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar
disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder in the past four years by various doctors. I have memorized the criteria
for each, and I constantly think “Oh, that was such a borderline/obsessive/manic
thing to do!” I have taken these disorders to heart. There is something
wrong with this. Sometimes I act or think the way I do because I have been diagnosed
with these disorders. On the other hand, sometimes I catch myself and do not
act a certain way because I know the criteria. Being labeled is a double-edged
sword. It is beneficial as well as detrimental. 
 Take for instance my wanting to drop out of the outpatient therapy program.
I love the program. We have art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, assertitiveness
training, and stress and relaxation training. I have become good friends with
two other girls in the program. We sit together and go and eat and smoke together
during the noon break. I was thinking about dropping out in part because my
doctor never called me back. He is going to have some explaining to do because
either he or the doctor on call is supposed to call back. I was so pissed that
I was going to drop out. Wanting to work was just an excuse. I can work in the
evenings and on the weekends at the place I am most likely to get hired until
I am done with the therapy. But I caught myself in time. I recognize that dropping
out for that reason would be a borderline thing to do, so I will not. In this
case, knowing my disorders was helpful. Now that I think about it, I really
cannot think of a time I have realized that what I was about to do was a characteristic
and done it just because it was one. But I still feel confined. Why is this?
I need to think some more about it. I guess that it is just disturbing to think
that my behavior can be, maybe not neated or easily, but still can be labeled
as a group of disorders. To see myself in a list in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders is disturbing. I want to be originally insane. I
have met so many mentally disturbed peole who think they they are unique because
of their disorders. They glamorize having disorders. I used to much more than
I do now. But now more than ever I want a good life, and I know that I cannot
have it while I am preoccupied with being insane. I have learned this little
fact mostly through being with Matt and seeing the possiblities we have together.
Because I want us to succeed, I have looked harder at myself and what it will
take for me alone to succeed. 
So, I feel confined by the disorders because as long as I am labeled with them,
success seems unlikely. My preconception is that most people with these disorders
do not get very far in life. Thinking about that statement, I realize that it
might not be true. I really do not know that for sure. I am going to back to
my belief that having these disorders has made me stronger. There cannot be
light without the darkness nor success without failure. And because I have had
plently of darkness and failure, it is about time I had the opposite. Or perhaps
a better balance of the two.
What is meant by nonduality, Mahatmi? It means that light and shade, long and
short, black and white, can only be experienced in relation to each other; light
is not independent of shade, nor black of white. There are no opposites, only
relationships. In the same way, nirvana and the ordinary world of suffering
are not two things but related to each other. There is no nirvana except where
the world of suffering is; there is no world of suffering apart from nirvana.
For existence is not mutually exclusive.
~Lankavatara Sutra, from Buddha Speaks 

Where is God?
He has forgotten me
He has deserted me
 
Like a cut on the cheek
Of a beautiful white face
That seeps
Its hurt evenly
 
Like a dirty child
Walking aimlessly 
Through the alleys
Searching for sustenance
 
Like the wave
Expending its last breath
Tumbling over
And over
 
I am assaulted
From every direction
And can only scream
Where is God?
 
But from my mouth
Spills an endless flood
Of pure white feathers
Drifting silently to the ground
 
What was it?
 
Was it the curse
Spoken at age twelve
To the star-studded night
And regretted immediately?
 
Was it the rampage
Of adultery
The bed defiled
And the man hurt?
 
Was it the theft
Of the dime
From the collection plate
As it drifted through the pews?
 
They say that God
Does not turn his back
That it is us
Who turn ours
 
But I face a cloudy night
Where the full moon shines
Through the thickness
And upon my face
 
And I ask
Where is God?
 
I Need My Abilify! 
I started back on my Abilify two days ago, after the pregnancy test came back
negative. Today I woke up still tired and in a foul mood. I drove to Cincinnati
for my outpatient therapy and got through the first session. Then it hit. Agitation.
I tried to sit still for five minutes in art therapy and could not. So I left
to smoke a cigarette outside. I went back in and shared my drawing of my support
systems. The therapist seemed to think that it was all right that I cannot accept
Christianity and instead prefer Buddhism. She said that I should work on my
assertiveness when pressured by Matt and my family to go back to church. I included
the arts such as origami, writing, and music and nature as sources of support.
To me, these are far more “real” than the Christian God. To me,
God can be seen in these. This form of God exists as the glue that holds these
complex systems together. God is everywhere and everything. That means that
we are also partly divine. But I still yearn for the peace of mind believing
in the Christian God would bring. I wish that I could. 
After I explained all of this, art therapy was over and it was time for assertiveness
training. I could not go. My agitation was growing worse, I was exhausted, and
I needed to get something to eat. I ran into the program manager as I was sneaking
out. He asked me where I was going and I explained why I could not stay. He
said that he would get a hold of my psychiatrist and ask whether I should take
the Abilify that night. The doctor, I found out later, said not to take the
Abilify until he could see me the next day. I desperately need to take it. My
thoughts are thick. So thick that I ran a red light on my way to therapy this
morning. I find myself losing track of what Matt is saying when he is talking
to me. My mind drifts through, tangles, and I am left wondering how I got to
the thought currently in my head. On the way back to Oxford I wound up in Kentucky
for a good 15 minutes. I could not follow the directions to get home. Tomorrow
I am going to have to fight to keep the Abilify, I think. I just need a beta-blocker
while I am adjusting to the medication. Klonopin calms me down physically, but
my mind is still racing just as fast as ever. This is mostly OCD, I think. I
have no energy so I cannot be manic. I am a bit depressed. My concentration
problems could be due to the depression too. I need the Abilify to keep my OCD
under control. I refuse to go back on an SSRI. The sexual side effects and weight
gain were so bad and the Zoloft and Paxil did not really help untangle my thoughts
as well as Abilify does. I will refuse to stop taking it. I know what I need
and I will fight to get it. 
 
Stepping Outside of Myself for the Moment: 
Possibilities. There are so many. I could go on disability for the next ten
years or so and occasionally check myself into the hospital when I became suicidal.
I could work at Walmart for the next ten years and work my way up the corporate
ladder. I could get my degree and work in an entry level social work job for
the rest of my life. Or I could work in an entry level social work job for a
few years and then go to grad school and either go back into social work or
become a therapist after that. The last possibility is the one I want the most.
What is it going to take to get there? 
I have to be able to write papers. The medication certainly helps, but my perfectionism
is the main constraint. I will sit at the computer for hours and barely get
a first sentence out. It takes me days to write a short paper, weeks to write
a long one. I have found it helpful to skip the introduction or the first sentence
and just get started on a later part and then to go back and write the beginning.
Weird, I know, but it works. Then I have to know when to stop writing. I do
not know how many times ten page papers have become twenty, much to the chagrin
of the professor who has to read it. 
I have to be able to handle school and work at the same time. I have to work
the rest of the time I am in school if we are going to live comfortably. While
I am good at multitasking in the short term, I am horrible in the long term.
I spend too much time researching subjects for classes that I do not wind up
using for papers, too much time researching in general. I take on too many hours
at work, filling in for others because I know that we need the money. I burn
myself out. Lack of sleep has always been a trigger for mania for me. I get
manic and impulsive and quit the job. I have been through nine jobs since high
school. 
I have to take good care of my physical health. I need to start doing the exercises
the physical therapist recommended for my bad hip and back. I need to get enough
sleep and eat a more balanced diet. I need to go and exercise at least three
times a week. Sounds like a New Year’s resolution, does it not? The psychiatrist
at the hospital told me all of this, and I am starting to believe it. If I am
going to get where I want to be I have to. 
 
Mourning: 
I held a jewel in my fingers 
And went to sleep. 
The day was warm, and the winds were prosy; 
I said: “’T will keep.” 
 
I woke and chid my honest fingers,-- 
The gem was gone; 
And now an amethyst remembrance 
Is all I own. 
~Emily Dickinson 
 
I have been thinking a lot about my childhood lately. It is lost. Every depression
takes a little more of my memory of it. Or perhaps that is just the way it is.
As you get older you remember less and less. I talked with my mom today for
over an hour. It is weird to think that my little brother is now 17. I still
remember him at 12, hunched over the kitchen counter with his pencils and his
large pad of paper, drawing his little heart out. He has become quite the artist.
My mom is all worried because she just found out that he is sleeping with his
girlfriend. My little brother is no virgin. Weird. At least they really love
each other and are crazy about each other. I lost my virginity to a summer fling.
It lasted a week. Then the guy went home to Seattle. 
But getting back to when I was little, I know that OCD set in very early for
me. My mom told me today how I had this fascination with light switches at three.
I would turn the light on and off again over and over, driving her crazy. At
four I was fascinated with the glass door to the stereo cabinet. I would open
and close it over and over, loving the squeaky noise it made. I miss the fascination
with the world I used to have back then. Now everything seems dull and uninteresting.
There are too many questions that go unanswered. When I was little, I believed
in God whole-heartedly. There was no doubt in my mind that He was up there,
that I was being taken care of by a force greater than myself or my young parents.
I lost that belief at 12. I cursed the star-studded sky and have regretted it
ever since. Once you lose your faith, how do you get it back again? 
I have been to Israel. I went with my dad and very pregnant stepmother when
I was 14. While I found the trip fascinating, I found no comfort in the tomb
where Jesus was supposedly laid to rest, no comfort in the various churches
of the saints. I was very emotional the whole trip. This was partly because
I did not find what I was searching for. I had gone expecting something profound
to happen to me there. I had hoped to find my faith. What I found were stones.
Ancient stones, thousands of years old, dusty and shimmering in the 115 degree
heat. They composed the walls of the old city, the churches, and the very walls
of the apartment where we stayed in Bethlehem. What was it about the stones?
I equated the stories from the Bible, the whole religion of Christianity with
these stones. They were beautiful, but inanimate, dead. On the other hand, there
were the people with which I came into contact. We visited the equivalent of
a concentration camp in the West Bank. The Palestinians there had been removed
from their homes after World War II and detained for 40 years in this camp.
Two generations sprung from the first, and there grandchildren and children
lived with their grandparents and parents in tiny shacks. They stored water
in tanks on their roofs. The water flowed through a pipe all the way from outside
the West Bank and was controlled by the Israelis. They never knew when the water
would be turned on or shut off. When I visited, I could see remnants of the
barbed wire and fences that had surrounded the camp until a few years before,
shutting the occupants in. We visited a particular family on the 4th of July.
The grandfather told us to pray for their freedom as we celebrated our own.
 
I was more interested in the welfare of these people than in my own dead religion.
I could not understand how so many tourists could visit the land and not see
what I saw: the suffering of the Palestinian people in the West Bank. They rode
their tour buses unaware of the events unfolding in the lives of the people
around them. While I did not find my faith in the Holy Land, I did find an end
to some of my naïve innocence. I lost a little bit more of my childhood
there. 
 
Getting Back to My Life: 
I am not going to outpatient therapy anymore. My car runs just fine some days,
but not others and I cannot risk driving it to Cincinnati. I am getting over
the agitation caused by starting the Abilify again. I will be getting back into
therapy at the local crisis center with a new therapist. I am really feeling
pretty stable right now. I have plans to get back into school this summer and
to double major in psychology and social work. It is about time I got back to
living my life. I have spent enough time in hospitals and enough time being
mentally ill. It is time to move on. As I am writing this, I am fully aware
that I will have set-backs and relapses from time to time. That is inevitable.
But the important thing is that I am moving forward. I am getting somewhere.
The thing with mental disorders is that it is truly an issue of mind over brain.
It simply takes the desire and the courage to want to change and slowly it will
happen. It also takes the right medications and the right therapists. 
Living is like folding an origami project without directions. You may misfold
but you can always unfold the paper and start over as long as you do not throw
out the paper. Sure, there will be creases where should not be because of the
mistakes, but over time they nearly disappear from sight. Over time form takes
shape and meaning and only at the very end does the whole project make perfect
sense. In the meantime there are unanswered questions and doubts as to the purpose
of the project and how it will turn out. The only way to find the meaning is
to keep folding. 
 
One Step
These actors, they seem 
To not know their scripts 
Or why 
The bright light shines them in their faces
 
They seem to stutter through 
Their lines not knowing that 
Their reward would be the 
Conglomeration of the fragments of their minds
 
But they cannot 
They know not the ability to walk 
Into the spotlight, 
Through the gates of enlightenment
 
One foot back, one foot sideways, 
They make no progress, no cessation 
In the flow of their tears 
That threaten to drown them
 
I watch and wonder 
How a human being can 
Be so obstinate to growth, to change 
And then i look at myself
 
I know that change 
Is the void the surrounds, 
Terrifies 
The soul into cowering
 
For those that hurt 
For those that are being hurt 
For those that are deaf and dumb, 
Take a step forward.
 
One step and the spell is broken 
One step and the hip swings 
The leg to take another 
Forward, into the light.
 
And I challenge myself to do the same 
 

</body>
</html>
Paste that and test it- I think that will help. If you have a problem, email me- anapauline@yahoo.com
Hope that helps you!!
~Angielala

Re: This should help- new HTML » Angielala

Posted by smokeymadison on February 1, 2005, at 18:48:03

In reply to This should help- new HTML, posted by Angielala on February 1, 2005, at 12:20:40

It worked pretty well. Oh my god, i can't believe that you went and did all that for me! thank you so much!
SM

Re: This should help- new HTML

Posted by Angielala on February 1, 2005, at 19:13:23

In reply to Re: This should help- new HTML » Angielala, posted by smokeymadison on February 1, 2005, at 18:48:03

It wasn't a big deal at all... I'm glad my nerdiness in that area could help someone :)
~lala
> It worked pretty well. Oh my god, i can't believe that you went and did all that for me! thank you so much!
>
> SM

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