Silence

A few years ago I attended a women's retreat. I shared a little of that experience with you not too long ago. One of the "rules" (really more of a recommendation) was to spend a certain amount of time each day in silence. Attaining that goal meant more than not talking. That was the easy part. It required being alone and away from a million little things. Phone, TV, music, the obvious stuff. Once I eliminated those things I realized that my surroundings were far from silent. The ceiling fan and fridge whirred and, without other noises to conceal it, they seemed loud. I left my room expecting to find a quieter space outside, perhaps on one of the gentle trails or on a bench beneath the sprawling branches of an old tree. I had to share the trail with other people and, although they were quiet in the normal sense of the word, they still made noise that filled my ears. Even when I was alone on the trail, the gravel beneath my feet crunched with every single step I took. Silence, true silence, was eluding me. Eventually, I returned to my room and decided it was quiet enough. I was able to exist with my thoughts, my journal, and my pen.

Several years before that, I went on a spiritual journey of sorts. This was long before I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and I was desperately grasping for something, anything, that would give me some peace. Upon arriving at the spiritual retreat center the first evening, I was instructed to be silent until a specified time the following morning. No talking and no turning anything on to listen to. Being alone with myself like that was unnerving. I didn't much like myself at the time and I definitely did not respect myself. I was trapped in an illness I did not know I had and the silence outside my body made the noise inside by body seem that much louder. My thoughts jumped from one traumatic experience to another while my inner critic picked apart every little decision I had made, proving to me how bad my choices were and how terrible a person I was. My skin crawled with tension and my stomach hurt. I did the only thing I could think to do. I wrote. I had no watch or clock so I have no idea how long I scribbled in my journal. I continued until all the jumbled mess in my head was transferred to paper and until I had described all my emotions and body sensations as well as I could. Finally satisfied, I carefully closed my journal. I felt lighter. I still needed to deal with the awful things I had written but, for the night at least, they lived in the journal and not in me.

You Understand? Really?

My friend expressed some concern about me not long ago. She is a newish friend and does not yet know much about having a bipolar brain. She knows even less about my particular brain and the life experiences it initiated and stored in its memory.

"You're not quite yourself today. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just in a funky place right now."

It's a good answer. Most people accept it easily and we move on. More importantly, I avoid thinking at a level which would prompt tears or temper. My friend, however, didn't like it. She pressed the issue. I don't remember the exact string of questions or my answers but I kept trying to politely and nonchalantly redirect the conversation. The only way to make her interrogation stop was to be direct and probably rude.

"Look, there's nothing wrong in the world around me. My bipolar head is just screwing with me. It's illogical, it happens, and I'll be fine."

What else could I possibly say? The 15 minutes we had together before going to work was not enough time to explain the meaningless anxiety churning in my gut or the darkness I was walking into. I didn't really want to explain anyway. I wasn't ready to share the very personal, raw details she was trying to elicit and her aggressive, albeit well-intended, poking for information has made me less inclined to share in the future.

Then she said, "I understand." The conversation could have, should have, ended there but I laughed and shook my head. It was a knee-jerk reaction and it was stupid.

We pulled into the parking lot at work. "Really. I understand."

Northern Goshawk

My mind commenced to spinning as a result of her audacity. Thoughts. Feelings. Images of "understanding" eyes full of pity. Memories of "understanding" voices telling me to suck it up. It all moved through me so fast that the only knee-jerk reaction I had was stunned silence and the inability to move. Long moments passed.

I scoffed and stepped out of the car. As we walked into the building we work in she continued looking at me. Her eyes oozed just how pathetic I was to her. She looked at me like I was a sad, little, wounded sparrow even though I felt much more like a Goshawk whose territory had just been invaded.

Those not initiated into the pain, euphoria, confusion, and chaos that bipolar disorder gifts to the fortunate sick and the people who love them do not understand.

A Weekend with Friends

Manic. Margie pegged me. She saw it before anyone else -- including myself. Here I thought I was acting normal and she says, "How many drinks did you have?" She wore a big, goofy grin.

"What?" I asked incredulously. "None. I had a glass of apple juice." I made the decision before going on that trip that I would not drink any alcohol. It's bad for bipolar disorder, a condition which had only recently been diagnosed in me.

"Girl..." She let the r hang in the air for a moment and shook her head, "You're as tipsy as I am and I had three glasses of wine!"

I was a little stunned to hear that. "You're buzzed."  I teased.

"So are you!"

"I'm not." I retorted. "I'm fine. Just enjoying myself and the show."

"No." She drew out the word again, shaking her head again. "You're acting high. Buzzed. Lit."

I considered her statement, took stock of my behaviors over the last couple hours, and realized she was right. The mellower me was being usurped by an overly spirited, bubbly me. I hadn't noticed it in my own self. Someone else had to point it out to me.

Later that night Margie, Kristine, and I took off for a walk around the retreat property. I thought it would burn off some of the energy in me and bring my slightly manic mind and body back down to earth before they had enough fuel to spiral out of control. It was quiet time so I had to whisper. That helped. It was dark, so I had to pay attention right around me. It helped me focus and bring my mind back to me. The quiet and the dark kept my senses from being stimulated as much as they had been during the show. The energy in that room had apparently been electrifying. I thought I was reacting at a level comparable to the other audience members. And maybe I was. Maybe they were simply able to come down to a normal level of happy and satisfied when the show was over whereas I was not.

We wandered along wide pea gravel paths for almost two hours before going to Kristine's room. She shared her room with Gayle, the friend who had taken the lead in making this little weekend happen.

"I have pictures taken of me when I was manic," Gayle remarked before I had time to close the door. "My eyes were so big ..." she held her hands up to her eyes, curving her fingers to pantomime binoculars. "My eyes were so big that you could see the whites of my eyes, all the way around the colored part." She pointed at her eye, tracing a circle in the air around its iris. "I see that in you." Gayle giggled.

She can read me like a book. I don't mind though. She has Bipolar Disorder, too, and has been managing it longer than I have. She's honest with me so I know I'll get genuine feedback and support. I guess she's almost like a mirror. She reflects me back to me and then I see the symptoms.

We sat on the little balcony attached to their room and visited for a while. When the time came, we said our good nights and gave hugs all around. "Sleep tight," I said as I opened the door to go.

"I will," Gayle chuckled. "But you'll still be awake."

Gone Caching. Back Later.

Summer is upon us. We have the light of the sun until well past the "normal" 6:30pm dinner time. I'm reminded of how much my body and biology is governed by the natural rhythms and cycles of the world beyond my little air conditioned space. Every summer dinner gets pushed back later and later until one evening I realize that it's not being served until 9 o'clock at night. I prepare dinner when I feel hungry for dinner and I'm not hungry at 6:30. Instead, I am hungry when nature's light begins to fade. No matter how much I try to discipline my body and control my schedule, I'm simply not hungry at what is considered a "reasonable" dinner time. Even if I force myself to eat at the so-called decent hour my stomach is growling as the sun is setting. Personally, I figure Mother Nature knew what She was doing when She built that little when-to-eat-instinct into me so I go with it - much to the dismay of certain parental and grandmotherly types in my life.

Such a realization drives home the importance of Mother Earth and Father Sky in managing mental illness. I need to work with them. Get outside into the full-spectrum light provided by our sun instead of that provided by the special bulbs I bought for my lamps. Breathe the fresher air beyond my front door instead of the recirculated air around me right now. Put my feet on the ground instead of the foundation of my house, a concrete sidewalk, or the black pavement of a road. I have a million reasons to not do those things. It's hot. The sun's too bright. I'll get all sweaty. I'll get a sunburn. I don't want to get off the sofa. I'm watching a movie. I'll go later.

Yesterday I pushed myself into the great outdoors. A handful of fellow explorers and I set out on a trek into town and beyond. Our mission: to find caches. The planned geocaching route was a little overly optimistic and was edited a few times along the way. Our fearless tracker took point with the intention of finding 26 hidden treasures. 26. Four miles and an hour and a half into the trip we finally stepped off the concrete and onto the trail through a nature preserve. Deer. Butterflies. Lavender. Cactus. Trees. Scattered throughout were all the caches we were to locate with GPS coordinates, a few hints provided by the person who hid the items in the first place, a little creative thinking, and some keen eyesight. We are terrible geocachers apparently. Twenty-six?! Not a chance and I knew that from the beginning, but I thought we would do better than two. Ten miles and five hours and all we found were two caches.

Was the time wasted? Not at all. We had a good time. I slept better last night than I have in quite a while. As I'm writing this I am realizing that anxiety has not crept up on me today. Mother Earth and Father Sky were good to me yesterday and I feel better today. I'm grateful.

BTW,
Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

Anxiety Strikes Again

I hate it. Straight up. I hate anxiety.

I appreciate that it is hardwired into the human creature. We need it for survival. It warns us of potential danger and primes us to fight or to flee. I get it. When it works properly, triggered at appropriate times, it's great. But then there are the other times....

Getting a lump in your throat because you need to walk down the street to get the mail sucks. It makes no sense. The walk is only a single block and the neighborhood is safe so going to the mailbox should be a nice, leisurely stroll. Instead, I'm driven to keep a close eye on everything around me and my entire body is pressuring me to hurry up and get back home, back to safety. Logically, I know this is unreasonable, unwarranted, and I feel a little embarrassed but I can't help myself. I want to return to a state of comfort.

In the not-so-distant past I thought I was having heart problems and went to a cardiologist about it. A series of tests revealed my heart was just fine. If the problem wasn't with my heart, then what the heck was going on? I'm a little dense I guess because it took me a while to decide I was having stress related anxiety problems. Maybe I was just in denial. The stress in my life at that point was unreal. At times I could barely do my job because my hands would go numb and my fingers would curl up. Other times I could feel and hear the blood whooshing through my ears with each beat of my heart.

I was light-headed and got dizzy if I stood up too fast but I chalked that up to poor eating habits. Skipping lunch was the norm. My workload was just too heavy to stop for something like lunch. It was a bad idea and I knew it but I did it anyway. I didn't have a choice. Well, technically I did and as far as my employer was concerned they were not pressuring me - I was deciding to work straight through my lunch time. It was terrible. In hindsight it was just flat stupid.

The real doozy was my hair falling out. At first it seemed normal - like the little bit of hair that gets tangled in your brush over time. After a while it was a quite different. Rinsing the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair left hair tangled in among my fingers. It just slid right out of the rest of my hair. I thought for sure I would go bald.

I am really glad that many of the symptoms I experienced then are not happening now. I still have anxiety issues on a daily basis but I'm keeping my hair.

Coffee Bites

Waking up late this morning meant I had a raging headache. Since I’m typically up and moving by 6:45am, I’m typically drinking my first cup of coffee by 6:46am. Don’t talk to me until I’ve had a cup of coffee in the morning. I refill my rather large coffee mug 2 or 3 times during the 45 minutes I’m getting ready for the day and then one more time before I climb into my car.

Yep. I have a caffeine problem. I’ve gotten better, though. The coffee pot at work used to be 10 steps away from me and I refilled my mug all day long. It was so easy to do and, come lunch time, I didn’t feel hungry. The lack of hunger pains was a good thing, in a way. My work load was excessive and I worked right through lunch because I felt like it was the only way I could possibly complete everything that was expected of me. Fortunately, the coffee pot is much further from me these days. Unfortunately, my work load is still ridiculous.

I’m a spoon-full-of-sugar-in-my-coffee person. In an attempt to wean myself off of so much coffee I’ve been skipping on the sugar. It worked for a little while; I drank 1 or 2 cups while getting ready and didn’t finish the cup I took with me. I’m developing a taste for unsweetened coffee now, so my brilliant strategy isn’t so brilliant any more.

More recently I made a trip to Goodwill with my over-sized mugs. I’m drinking out of little mugs, the little white ones frequently found at pancake houses. The idea is to drink the same number of cups and since the cups are smaller I’ll drink a smaller volume of coffee. It’s totally psychological. It’s working, though. I can’t finish an over-sized cup of coffee anymore. It get cold, that nasty room temperature, before I can finish it which is strong motivation to not drink so much.

I’m still getting headaches if I don’t get to my coffee early enough in the morning. Clearly, I still have a caffeine addiction.

A New Challenge and Meditation

New goal: I’m going to write 500 words each day for the rest of May. Hopefully I’ll be successful with this personal challenge. I didn’t quite make it for the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge, although I am going to finish it. I’m almost done - I’m down to X and K. I didn't do well in the NaPoWriMo challenge at all. Poetry is hard for me. All in all, I am proud of the poetry I wrote, I just didn't write a poem each day. I didn’t even get close to the 30 poems goal. I’m thinking I can be more successful with a challenge that is a little more flexible.

I’ve decided that I’m going to participate in a meditation group that is starting up soon. It’s structured to be more along the lines of shamanism than Buddhism. Buddhism is about clearing your mind (right?) and that is something I am simply incapable of doing. Some people disagree but they are not able to crawl inside my brain to experience, first hand, what my brain and thoughts are like. I’m not a Shaman in any way, shape, or form, but shamanism is more suited to the workings of my mind. It allows, even encourages, the thoughts, feelings, and images that arise during a meditation. They are part of who I am and, if I can avoid directing them or filtering them, they can help me understand myself and come to terms with all aspects of myself.

Thoughts, images, and feelings pop into my head all the time. I keep myself busy as a way of managing all the popping – it’s annoying at best. Horror movies and other graphic media are anathema to me. They foster thoughts that make me feel afraid and anxious. Certain places and activities do the same thing. Worry washes over me and I cannot enjoy myself. I won’t make a list in case your brain works like mine and the list itself will create feelings of anxiety.

The meditation group will have time for journaling, an activity I enjoy profusely. It’s helpful in the moment and interesting to look back on later. I can see where I have grown, where I have stagnated, and where I have withered. My journal is like a good friend complimenting me on the good things I’ve done and willing to smack me in the face for the things I messed up.

The last feature of this particular group is that we will have time to discuss our experiences. What helped us meditate? Hindered us? What did we experience during the meditation and what might it be revealing about ourselves? A great deal of trust will be involved because not all experiences are about unicorns and rainbows. They aren’t all beautiful because we are not perfect. The meditations will certainly reveal those things that I don’t like in myself and in my past. Sharing some of those things will be difficult. I don’t know yet if already knowing someone will make sharing easier. I’ll find out soon enough.

E is for Everyday

Every day!

It's the same battles with the same people over the same things.

This job is bad for me. It's stressful and it's a stress that I can't walk away from. I must stay. It's my job to stay. No matter how rude and mean another person gets with me, I must accept it without getting my feathers ruffled. Preferably, I will still smile.

Every day!

I don't have the option of sitting down and taking a breather. I can't step away and count to 10. I must stay in the middle of the very thing that is causing me so much grief. My stomach churns and my ears ring.

I struggle with the people I am responsible for, trying maintain their attention. Keeping them focused on the intended topic is like catching cockroaches when someone flips on the light. They would much rather talk about bell-bottoms, staircases, boogers, and underwater basket weaving.

Cell phones are not allowed and I vigilantly watch for them and the ipods they believe they are so good at using on the sly. Texting. Flipping through music. Checking out the latest post on Instagram. Even making the occasional phone call.

Using computers is even harder. Once they are logged on, I must constantly monitor, ensuring they stay on task instead of playing minecraft, shopping, or watching you-tube. I feel like I'm playing a life-size version of the game where you bop the rabbits as they pop out of the holes.

I'm exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained. Every day.

A is for Ativan

is for Ativan and Ativan is for anxiety. Anxiety is awful!

I know everyone experiences anxiety - it's part of the human condition. A certain amount of anxiety is to be expected and the level of anxiety is expected to correlate with whatever is going on in life. That's normal. I thought I experienced normal anxiety just like everyone else did. I was all grown up before I knew any different.

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Heat-Milk-Without-Scalding

When I was a little girl, I used to have a hard time getting to sleep and getting back to sleep if I woke up in the night. I was worried but I couldn't tell you what I was worried about. My mom was wonderfully patient with me, always climbing out of her own cozy bed and blissful sleep to help me with a feeling that I could no longer manage on my own. We walked back to the kitchen, lit only by the single, dim bulb over the kitchen sink. She warmed a few cups of milk in a small saucepan on the stove, stirring constantly. As an adult, I understand that she was keeping the milk from scalding. As a child, though, she was stirring in calm and love. Adding a teaspoon of sugar made it perfect. I sipped on warm milk until I was relaxed enough to climb back in bed.

The little ritual has served me well through the years.

For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.

Describe Depression

Warning: adult language.

"Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help."

I hate that commercial. For years I criticized the need to take medications to deal with depression. All those side effects. How in the world can someone think that taking a medication with all those side effects is a good idea? Who wants to live with diarrhea for the rest of their life? Who wants to develop a shake, a jitter, that never goes away?

I was convinced that depression could be handled by a good diet, good exercise, and a balanced life. I had none of the above. No wonder I was depressed. I didn't eat right at all. Coffee in the morning on an empty stomach. And not just one cup either. Several cups. I needed several cups of coffee each morning or I would get a headache. Several cups of coffee has its own side effect - shaking, the jitters. The irony of it. Take the medication to avoid depression and you get the jitters. Don't take the medication and live with a coffee breakfast and you still get the jitters. So fuck it.

I didn't usually get lunch either. The demands of my job were sufficient that I worked right through lunch most days. As the school year went on, I ate lunch less and less often. I ate foods that were less and less good for me, too. I resorted to quickie foods when I took… when I stole a moment to grab something to eat. Chips and a soda. I often skipped the soda, but not for water.

I avoided just about all liquids. If I drank anything during the day, then I needed to use the restroom during the day. The life of a teacher does not allow for such luxury. Passing periods are short and students are shuffled along and into their next classroom as quickly as possible. I couldn't leave my room unattended. That could be disastrous. My room had all kinds of equipment in it that the kids could have messed with. Graphing calculators go missing when they are not accounted for at every moment of the day. Even with eagle eyes on them the batteries still manage to be stolen. The projector is a favorite to fuck with. The kids can't steal it (at least not easily) but they can still mess with the buttons and disconnect the cords. The same with the Elmo. It's a great piece of equipment, but needs to be watched over. Going to the bathroom between classes was not an option. Going to the bathroom during the class was not an option either.

My diet was terrible. Dinner was usually decent. My husband cooked well and often. I worked so much and for so many hours that he usually took care of dinner. He was typically home well before I was.

Exercise? What's that? The closest thing I got to exercise was hiking up to my second story classroom. Up the stairs in the morning. Down the stairs to walk the kids to the cafeteria. Up the stairs to work in my room through lunch. Down the stairs to pick my class up from the cafeteria. Up the stairs to start the afternoon classes. Down the stairs at the end of the day to walk my class out the door. That doesn't include any of the ups and downs that happened during conference periods. Meetings. Copies. You would think that counts for something. But it doesn't. I was thin enough, but not because of exercise. I was thin because I wasn't eating. I was malnourished I'm sure.

Picture is not mine.
Source: http://www.desura.com/mods/star-trek-continuum/images/black-hole

Depression is black beyond all that is black. It's inky and deep. It's a black hole that sucks you in and it's devoid of all things.

A black hole has an event horizon. An object farther away than the event horizon can swing by the black hole and escape. It's trajectory will be affected greatly but it will not be swallowed into oblivion. An object at the event horizon can orbit the black hole without falling into it but also never escaping it. The object is locked in place, forever attached to the black hole. Never really falling prey to it but also never really being free of it. Anything that is inside the event horizon is doomed. It will orbit round and round getting ever closer to that infinitely small point of everything that is called a black hole. It will never escape. Doomed.

Depression is like that. There is a point of no return. As you approach depression you have the ability, the chance, the possibility of escaping it. You'll fall into a funk and your life will be changed some but you'll swing out of it and be on your way. Hopefully you'll never come across another black hole depression again.

It's possible that you can live your live at a balance point somewhere between completely depressed, clinically depressed, unable to function and might even kill yourself depressed, and living free of depression, a happy, fulfilled life. That emotional event horizon is probably like living a basically depressed life. Always in that state of wondering if this is all there is. Never truly satisfied with anything that life has to offer.

At that point of no return, though, everything changes. If you've ever approached it, then you know. It's a terrifying realization that you have slipped inside the event horizon and there is nothing you can do to stop the fall. Your perception of existence is warped, time is slowed, energy is pulled away. You can feel yourself detaching from the world. On a molecular level. There's the sense that the molecules in my hand are somehow not part of my hand. They are part of the molecules that make up the world. They are part of the world before they are a part of me. The matter that makes up our mundane existence takes priority over the matter that makes up my body. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

Depression is deep. It's a hole that keeps going. You fall infinitely far and then you still have infinitely far to fall. You're falling into nothing. You're falling through nothing. Try to imagine what existed before the big bang. Nothing existed. But nothing is still something. Like zero. No. Nothing is nothing. If anything goes into that nothing, it is scattered into a million billion pieces. Anything that was me is torn apart, dissolved into nothingness.

Life as Lies

This past November I participated in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. The challenge is to write 50,000 words or more for a new novel. It's hard and it's fun and the novel-wanna-be that I wrote needs a lot of editing or a recycle bin. Here's a small snippet from it that I rather like. It's from the perspective of my female main character and she is reflecting on her early college years, remembering her life when she was 18 or 19 years old.

No. I was not happy. I thought I was. I was having a great time, but I was manic and didn't know it. I had no idea what bipolar disorder was. I had never heard about it and 20 years passed before I was diagnosed with it.

At that time, I thought I was a normal college kid. I hadn't lost any friends yet. I wasn't failing my classes yet. Although, I was eating less and less frequently, drinking more and more often. That's the way it was for everyone. Right?

Yes, I thought I was happy. Pretending to be happy. Fake it 'till you make it. I think other people saw me as happy and having fun. Too much fun. Being irresponsible. I don't know.

I was numb - that lack of sensation that follows a tragedy, a trauma - but there had been no life event that would warrant such a reaction. I was unable to feel much more than empty, hallow, and disconnected.

I didn't feel disconnected from another person. I wasn't hallow because I lost an attachment or empty because I was missing someone. I was just empty.

I felt disconnected from the world. Like I was in this world but not really in this world. If that makes any sense at all. Think of it like a dream. At some point in many dreams you realize you are dreaming. You don't wake up. You don’t stop the dream. You notice and move on. But your dream version of yourself knows that leaving the dream is possible. Returning to reality is a reality and you can return to the dreams again later. Back and forth between dreaming and waking -- always recognizing the dream as a dream, a lie -- always recognizing the waking as reality, the truth. It was kind of like that. Only I could not ever wake up. I felt like I should be able wake up and at any instant appear in reality, in truth, and it would be in a place that was not this place. Of course, that's nonsense and on some level I knew it. Sometimes.

I felt the atoms on my skin. I saw the molecules of air. Not literally, but I was acutely aware of them - each one. When I touched something, I saw the atoms repelling one another. I understood that we never really touch anything. Our sense of touch is nothing more than the force of atoms attracting and repelling one another. It's a rather depressing view of the world I suppose. But that's how I saw it.

At the same time, I felt the connection to everything. No. I sensed, saw, the connections. Electrons in an atom are not confined to little circles around a nucleus, like the nice drawings in textbooks depict. Electrons are not points. They are not little dots running round and round like the monkey and the weasel.They are waves. And they extend to infinity. And that means everything is literally connected to everything else. All of existence is woven together.  It's a great tapestry made of electron waves. I saw it all. Sensed it all. It was clear to me. I understood. But I was not part of it. I was on the outside looking across this universe. I was an observer, only watching and seeing this world and all that happened in it. But I was not part of it. I could not interact with it.

I know it sounds crazy. It sounds like I'm trying to tell you that I'm from another planet or another dimension. I guess that's how it comes across. If you've never felt it before, it's understandable that you would likely come to that conclusion. I know I'm not from another planet. I know I'm not an alien or from another dimension. Intellectually I know that. Knew that. Still, I could never shake the feeling that this life was the lie.

Thanks for reading. I hope I captured some small part of the onset of a mental illness. Please share your thoughts and feelings about it. Constructive criticism is always welcome.