Hi Everyone!

It's been too long, I know. After my last post, I should have jumped right on here as soon as I was home. I apologize for anyone who has been worrying or wondering. 

I spent exactly one week in the hospital, Monday to Monday. I spent nearly all of last week recovering from the new host of medications and this week trying to get back into some semblance of normalcy. Whatever that means. 

I wrote every day I spent there, and so I have much to share. To begin, let me tell you the story of how I came to be home again.

When you're in the hospital over the weekend, you can have visitors from 3 - 5 pm both Saturday and Sunday, so I invited several people to come, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. 

I suppose it was this dose of the "outside world" that made me realize that something had to change. Erik and I had hoped the structure and intensity of a hospital setting would be a salve that would work on me and bring a lasting change for good in the course of my illness. Well, the hospital program wasn't quite what we had hoped it would be. (More on that later.)

Sunday evening after everyone had left, I was standing in front of my metal mirror that looked like it had been dented by three bullets, getting ready for bed. I was brushing my teeth when I had the sudden realization that something had to give. 

Over the last twenty years, I have tried counseling in various forms and medications of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Whenever I stood on the edge and should have been in the hospital, I always managed to pull back from that particular cliff, feeling like a stay in the "mental hospital" would somehow set me apart. Going to the hospital was the scariest threat any counselor could hurl at me and so I learned to keep many things to myself.

Standing in front of that "mirror", I saw that I had now fallen over that cliff. I could say that I had tried counseling, medication, and hospitalization. But all that had gotten me was a cartoon reflection and a wardrobe without ties. I realized that it wasn't so much that I wanted to die, but rather that I simply didn't want to live like this any more, depressed, anxious, hurting myself and the people that love me. And there are so many things I haven't tried yet - doctor's I haven't talked to, diet changes I haven't made, alternative therapies I haven't considered. The hospital wasn't the place for me. 

So, I put my toothbrush back in its case, carried my bin of hygiene products back to the nurses station and informed them that I wanted to go home. In less than twenty-four hours, I was walking through my own front door - all my freedoms restored.

My week in the hospital was helpful in its own way, and I will talk more about that in the days to come. But for now, it's enough for you all to know this. I'm not done yet and I think there's rather a lot more to come.

         - T

The night before I voluntarily head to the hospital and I can't sleep. I guess that's not much of a surprise. What does surprise me is the appalling lack of information on the program I am about to try to check myself into. There is not a single review, first person account, or even description of the facilities anywhere to be found. Which means, I cannot prepare myself beyond bracing myself for the unknown. 

This also means that I plan to pay as much attention as I can so that I can catalog the experience here for any other person who might try to find information on this program. I'm going to wait to add any details until I'm back. But I just wanted to give whoever has been reading an explanation as to why the blog is about to go dark for a couple weeks. Maybe I'll convince Erik to write a guest post. I doubt it.

Erik said to me earlier that he went to Air Force Basic Training to become better, even though he knew, for a variety of reasons, that it would be really hard. He said me going to the hospital is kind of like that. Even though we don't know for sure that it will make me better, we have to hope that it will. 

Well, here's hoping.

The medication I began taking on June 4th may be working. At least, my counselor thinks so. I seem different. He wasn't very specific, but he's my barometer when my husband and I can't clearly see. The day to day starts to bleed together so definitively that it becomes impossible to tell whether the proportion of good days to bad days is getting better. So, we listen to my counselor. Report to psychiatrist - it's working. We increase the dose.

The downside? The lifting stupor allows the ever insidious anxiety to not to much creep in, as explode forth into my daily life. And still I am maxed out on what they call benzodiazepines; the most common group of medications prescribed for anxiety disorders. 

The doorbell sends me running for my bedroom, carefully ducking so my shadow is not seen through the fogged window. I am terrified that someone wants something from me.

More hours than I think should pass without a phone call from Erik and I am panicking, sometimes on the verge of checking with his supervisor, calling the hospitals (I have actually done that last one). How do I know he's okay? Accidents happen all the time. Who is to say now is not the time something is going to happen to the people I love. Statistically, I'm due.

At night, a spider crawls up the wall in my bedroom. The creature must die or I cannot sleep in that room. Nighttime is the hardest. If my house creaks and groans (as houses do) in some way I haven't heard before, I lie awake staring at the windows, ceiling, door wondering what's coming and if my husband will wake up coherent enough to protect me. So often I lay looking at him, his back to me as he sleeps peacefully and wish that he would come back to me from the cocoon of sleep that keeps him safe. I want him to wrap that cocoon around me. Keep me safe.

I ascribe my anxiety to two categories: fear (or relatively realistic) anxiety and situational anxiety. Fear anxiety covers arachnids and other assorted creepy crawlies, strangers, accidents, and general discomfort with my level of safety. Situational anxiety covers stress, overwhelm, and those random times when panic seems to leap at me from some corner of the ceiling. Both have gotten exponentially worse as the depression has conceded some of its ground. 

The solution - an anti-convulsant called Gabapentin (generic) or Neurontin (brand) with an off label use for panic disorder. This particular medication is not significant (aside from the hope that it helps my anxiety), so much as my begrudging realization that I have purposely been keeping the names of my medications from you.

You might think I'm crazy. Heh heh.

It is the middle of the night and I cannot sleep.

This evening I finally received a book via UPS that I have been hunting for, for months. It is out of print (it took me a while to understand this), and I don't know why I didn't just order it online to begin with. 

The book is called Love Works Like This by Lauren Slater and I have been awaiting it's arrival with baited breath. I love Lauren Slater. I have read Lying, Welcome to My Country, and I will certainly read anything else she comes up with. She's brilliant. And not only is she brilliant, but I identify with her in a very substantial way. She writes words straight from my head. 

She firmly believes in the chemistry of mental illness - that it can be helped tremendously with psycho-pharmaceuticals and also, in not blaming her mental illness on her mother. And so, as soon as the book arrived, I cracked it open and didn't stop reading until I got to the last chapter and realized I wasn't ready for the book to be over yet, which meant I had to stop reading. 

I have been so interested in finding Love Works Like This ever since I discovered that she wrote this book about her personal experience with pregnancy and child birth. You see, Lauren Slater has had mental illness most of her life. She describes her life as having spent a decade in the hospital. She was first hospitalized at the age of 14, the last time at the age of 24, and very nearly at the beginning of her pregnancy when she went off her meds.

Now, there is a certain amount of interest on my part, because I have always wondered about having a child. I love children, have always loved children, and have always been, if I may say so, rather good with children. 

The main problem, of course, is that I have also been cursed with these genes; Mental Illness and Addiction on both sides of my family tree with deep roots in both. I have one relative that committed suicide, another that has attempted, and it would surprise me not in the least if there are more of them that have as well. 

Every time I have thought of myself as a mother, I have wondered about the curse I could be laying on my child. I would not wish my mental life on anyone, not anyone. And how could I possibly roll the dice on a child? Because as much as I have loved the children in my life, I know that I would love my child so much desperately more. And I know that as much as it breaks my heart to see any person, children especially, in emotional pain, to see my own child suffer with chronic mental illness and know that my genes were the cause, would be excruciating. 

But more than all that, reading Lauren Slater's book has reminded me, at a point when I very much needed reminding, that what I want more than anything else is to live a life worth living. I want to do whatever I have to do to get better sooner rather than later, so that should I decide to have a child, I will be living a life worth living when I do. 

Erik and I have been discussing the hospital for weeks. There are treatment programs all over the country, but in Albuquerque there are only crisis intervention programs. I am not an imminent threat to myself or others. This is not what we're looking for. We are looking for something more residential, more practical - something life changing. And of course, something for which our insurance will pay. Why is this so hard?

I want to get better. So. Cart me way. Next week. Tomorrow. Right now. Take me to some place where I can face my demons once and for all; where I can learn to handle the catatonia that my doorbell induces; where I can have "down" days that don't mean I'm looking for the closest tall ledge; where I can face the people in my life who have treated me poorly and not feel angry or abandoned or alone. 

I want to seize the day, every day.

And just this moment, I don't know how.

As I launch into my new business Social Structure Marketing and cross my name with my husband's name and the business name, it occurs to me that my blogging activity will more than likely cause problems for our business. I could try to find a way around this - go underground with my blog, use a pseudonym for blogging, or new social media accounts, but that would completely undermine the point of Begin Anew. 

Mental Illness does not make me incapable of contributing to the world and it does not reflect poorly on my husband. If anything, the fact that we are in a loving, stable relationship shows his devotion, commitment, responsibility, and integrity. 

In a book of short stories called Hidden Lives: Coming Out on Mental Illness, Jill Sadowsky writes, "We turned to friends and family for support, but it appeared that although we knew Doron was ill, to most of the world he was crazy, undeserving of much attention. Our thirteen-year-old daughter summed it up: 'If Doron's body were hurting, people would send gifts, but because it is his mind, they throw bricks.'" (from "The Last Call")

The point is, now that we seek to build a business, we will not hide away my problems. People with mental illness are all around you, they manage your portfolio, teach your children, fix your car, do your taxes, clean your houses, design your websites, and manage your social media presence. Being in business does not rid me of depression or anxiety and we will not pretend that it does. 

For more information about our services at Social Structure Marketing, please visit our facebook page or visit our Landing Page. 

Another appointment with my psychiatrist, a new medication. And this time it's a new, new medication. Something just put on the market. Oh joy. My favorite kind. Because no one knows for sure if it will work, how it will work, what the side effects will actually be, and the drug company has rainbows coming out of its you-know-what trying to sell the damn thing. 

First side effect to watch out for, drowsiness. Great, this again?

In even worse news, my psychiatrist has informed me that there is absolutely nothing else I can take to help with my anxiety, which is only getting worse. I have stepped up the ladder on anti-anxiety meds over the last two years and I have hit a very solid, not at all breakable, ceiling.

What fun.

Erik's continued absence leaves me shaky at best. Despite the many avenues I know exist for getting me off my butt and out of my house, I have a long list of excuses not to open the door - starting with the undone chores and ending with my inability to answer the doorbell. (Which, very uncharacteristically, rang twice today.)

Here's hoping things get better soon.

My husband, Erik, is going away for two weeks. He is being sent off by the Air Force for an educational thingy*, during which he will be "working" approximately five hours a day and then doing whatever he wants for the rest of the day. 

He will not learn new things. He will not have fun or relax or go see his family that lives nearby. He will sit in his room and be sad and lonely and contemplate buying a sewing machine and pretend that he will use it. Oh wait.


That's me.




*There's a title to this thingy, and a purpose, and if you ask Erik he will tell you. If you really want to know, post a comment and I will have Erik respond, because I could only explain it if my life depended on it and really, and just this moment, it doesn't.

**Also, I'm pretty sure I'm using "transference" incorrectly here.

It has come to my attention that I need to clarify a few things regarding my last post and my goal here. 

Millions of people suffer in silence every day. They tell people they are fine, okay, hanging in there, getting along, busy, tired, not feeling well, under the weather, in a rut, overwhelmed, or any of another hundred things that are partial truths and downright lies. 

Mental Illness is not popular. People do no want to look at it, admit they have it, are married to it, gave birth to it, were birthed from it, grew up with it, or are in any way related to it. People think it's their fault. They are embarrassed by it. They are frightened by it. Just like with anything else that isn't quickly or easily understandable or quantifiable, we stigmatize it. We make it other. We separate it from ourselves so that it is easier to ignore, blame on someone else, and cover up. 

My goal here is to be uncovered, found out, and understood. I want to help people understand what the mind of a person with mental illness is like. My diagnoses are not as important as my symptoms and the simple fact that I am a person with mental illness. My experience is not like every other person who has mental illness, but there are enough similarities to help everyone who knows anyone who struggles with mental illness. It is those similarities that I am seeking to draw out of myself and present to the world. 

I want you to see through my eyes, if only for a moment, so that you can understand better, respond better, feel better, and be more able to help the people in your life who are suffering. I am not trying to make you a suicide hotline. I am trying to help you hear better, so that those people in your life can feel heard and less alone. Because feeling alone is one thing we all have in common.

Regarding yesterday's post, I am not reaching out for help. I have a team of people in my life who are doing their best to help me - husband, psychiatrist, counselor, doctor. They are my line of defense against the ugliest parts of myself. They help me, save me from myself. Ultimately only I can do that, but they are my support system and they are getting darn good at it. 

I guess what I'm saying is, worry if you must, but know that whatever words I leave here for you to read are simply so you can see my and others' predicament more clearly. 

For my family and friends, I welcome you into a deeper understanding of me. You can ask me questions, comment here, and in general engage with me on this and any topic. But, and I say this with my heart in my hand, I am not looking for you to call 911 and send them my way. I love you and I look forward to you knowing me better.

I welcome you into my world. 

Thank you for visiting.