Go Ahead. Call Me Crazy.

I am a middle class woman with a middle class job holding onto a middle class life. My money and my time are limited. I need to thoughtfully decide how to use those resources and be intentional about when and where I engage the larger community in a conversation about mental illness and stigma.

Stigma is definitely a problem, one that is well known among people with mental illnesses. We, meaning me, worry about the consequences of the wrong people finding out about our, meaning my, diagnosis. Whether it's fair or not is irrelevant when the job, custody, or respect of peers has been lost. The damage is done and it can't be undone.

Patsy Cline singing "Crazy" written by Willie Nelson

Stigma must be addressed. People must be educated. I get that and I agree whole-heartedly. How to address it, though, that's the million dollar question.

Recently, I've come across a number of blogs and facebook posts that focus on the use of the word "crazy" and, invariably, the writers are upset about it and are insisting that it should be removed entirely from our language. They are vehement about it, almost as if they were fighting against using words like "nigger" or "retard." I mean no disrespect by writing those words here. I would never use either of them to describe anyone. I'm only making the point that those two words are exponentially more offensive and hurtful than the word "crazy." "Crazy" isn't even in the same league.

Unlike the other two words, "crazy" has a lot of nuances, meanings, and connotations. The derogatory interpretation is just one of many. The word isn't the problem so much as the context. Who is saying it? And why? I don't care if my sister is calling me crazy as a synonym for being goofy or if my best friend says I'm crazy because I did something that she can't imagine doing herself. I see no harm in saying things like "I'm crazy in love" or "crazy about going to the concert." Patsy Cline does not offend me with her song titled "Crazy." It's actually one of my favorite songs of all time.

Just to be clear, certain uses of the word "crazy" cut to the bone. Those five little letters have been thrown at me a time or two (or more) by loved ones who were angry with me. It makes a great little jab when disagreements turn ugly. Saying I'm bleeping crazy as a synonym for demented, psychotic, or delusional can bring me to tears, especially if it comes from someone who knows about my mental health battle. Most of the time, though, it's just not a big deal. I'm actually more offended by being called "sweetie" or "hun" (short for "honey" in the south).

I'm sure it feels like I've gone off on a tangent in this post but I haven't. Returning to the fact that I'm middle class with limited resources, I must ask myself if I really want to spend my time fighting against the word "crazy."

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."

Rule #1: Eat

Everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Who decided that? I'm guessing it was a breakfast cereal company. The point is, breakfast is not necessarily the most important. Maybe lunch, when I need to get over the midday slump, is most important. Why not dinner? That's when I need to refuel after working all day. Where do snacks fall in the spectrum of significance? 

At the moment it doesn't really matter. In the last six to eight months I've dropped 6 sizes and over 40 pounds. If anyone tells me how they wish they could do that I think I will scream. Maybe /you/ struggle to loose weight but /I/ struggle to gain it. At the heart of the matter the problem is the same. It's about being a healthy weight.

My appetite drops off the face of the earth when I get stressed. Of course I loose weight during those times in my life. During one particularly terrible phase I was less that 95 pounds. While doing a job, a career, that was bad for in many ways, I barely managed to stay up to 110. Stress was the culprit. It had to be.

What's the problem now? I'm in a job I enjoy, surrounded by people I like working with. I'm good at my job and when I'm done for the day the work I do stays at work. Those characteristics were sorely lacking in my last job, the one had chosen as my career. Life has stress. That's the nature of life. The level I experience now is nowhere near what it was. Why, then, am I loosing so much weight? Clearly extreme stress is not the catalyst.

 

She Speaks - Washed and Whipped

Hot water slid down my back. I leaned my head against the shower wall using my crossed arms as a pillow. The fissure inside me grew wider. All joy and contentment spurted from an emotional wound, like blood from an artery. Misery and pain slowly clotted the hole. Memories of everything I ever did wrong, real and imagined, played on a giant screen in my mind’s eye and I was powerless to turn it off.

Water washed down my spine splitting at my hips into tributaries that rolled down my thighs and calves. Focus on the water. The heat. I wanted it to help but it did little to carry my distressing thoughts into the drain. Make it stop. I pleaded with the universe which yielded nothing in return.

My mind slipped from the moment and into a space I knew to be imagined and real at the same time. I held a bullwhip in my hand, poised in desperate readiness to use it against my enemies. Who were those foes? I didn’t know. I only knew that I temporarily forestalled their attacks.

The bullwhip disappeared. Rope restrained my wrists and pulled my arms over my head. A whip struck me from the darkness. Confused by the pain and lack of control, I stared into the gloom searching for my attacker. A strap of leather lashed out again, beating me like Jesus or a slave. I cringed.

“I’m not a savior! Or a slave! So why are you doing this?” I cried.

Another crack sounded and the whip landed surely on my back.

“Am I so terrible that I deserve such punishment?”

A woman’s voice in the darkness said, “If you are going to use a whip, you should know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.” She was calm, not the slightest hint of anger in her tone.

Even though an infinite shade limited my sight, I knew the woman’s voice had a body and companions.

A length of leather braid smacked my back and she said, “You never know when they’ll hit.”

Another lash, harder than the last, burned my shoulder blades. “You never know how hard they’ll strike.”

I heard a loud snap in the air to the left above me and felt a strike from the right. “You never know when they’ll miss or where they’ll come from.”

The beating continued from all around and, just as she told me, I could not predict if, when, or where I would be hit next. I could not tell how much pain would be inflicted or who was controlling the whip. My mind, intoxicated by so much pain, held up who as the most important information to have.

The woman provided the answer before my pain-soaked brain fully formed the question. “Sometimes it’s others, people you’ve wronged. Most of the time it’s not.”

A dark haired woman in a long crimson dress stepped into view. The whip reappeared in my hand and I stood outside my own exhausted body. I used it on the tied woman, myself. I couldn’t stop torturing the part of me that a rope still held in place. She rolled her head weakly and looked at me. I helplessly turned my attention to the woman from the shadow.

I pointed to the bleeding woman. “Why are you doing this to me?” Tormented tears dropped from my burning eyes.

“I’m not. You are.” She looked at me through steady green eyes reminiscent of the undisturbed surface of a pond. The woman’s companions gradually emerged from the darkness.

“But I’m not, I couldn’t,” I stuttered. “I wouldn't do this to myself. Something or someone is making me.”

She shook her head, “You are beating yourself, punishing yourself for things you believe you should be punished for since no one else will do it.”

I handed the whip to one of the woman's companions, the featureless person nearest me. It was a shadowy thing, a stark contrast against the brightly lit and blood-striped body in front of me. I watched as the unidentifiable person whipped her, me, further. Others joined it and they took turns beating and abusing me, spitting at me and occasionally kicking me. I looked at the crimson woman again. “Why are you letting them do this to me?”

“I didn’t give them permission. You handed them the whip. You’ve stood here idly watching them assault you.”

Standing beside the woman at the edge of the shadow, I cried from the guilt of persecuting that person hanging limply from the rope. Returned to the delirious body I started in, I cried from the physical pain inflicted on me but stayed without a struggle because of the disgrace I felt. A chill moved down my spine.

My everyday self leaned face first against the shower wall using my crossed arms as a pillow. Cool water washed down my back, burning as it rolled over my spiritual wounds. I slid slowly to the shower floor, my face turned to the wall, and wept.

Normal or Nuts? Or Angry!

Dr. Phil.
Then Brian Williams.
Now Dr. Oz.

I struggle against stigma. I fight it, one way or another, every day. These guys sure are making it difficult!

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