The ABC's of Mental Illness

Am I ever going to get better?

Breaking down the barriers.

Can't get out of bed.

Doctors speak a foreign language.

Ending my life seems like the best thing to do. 

Forget something?

God hates me.

Hallucinations.

Insomnia.

Joking around isn't so funny.

Knowing is half the battle.

Loneliness.

Meds for life?

News.

Only person in my family with this illness.

PMS or bipolar symptoms?

Quit pushing my buttons!

Religions say I'm demon-possessed.

Smoking helps?

Too much info?  (talking about at work, etc.)

Understanding allies are hard to find.

Violence.

What did I do to deserve this?

Xylophone purchase: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Yo-yo.

Zoning out.

Good Enough

I am an insecure person. I always have been. When I was a child I felt like my parents didn't want me. I even believed they wanted to kill me. I guess that was the mental illness already seeping into me. The fact is, my birth mother left me with her cousin and eventually that cousin adopted me. When I learned about this as a young child it made me feel even more insecure. I felt like my real mother didn't want me and that I was an unwanted burden placed on my adopted parents. As I got older my parents' criticism of me made me feel inferior and broken. I just couldn't see why I was even alive. It felt like I couldn't do anything right. I guess that feeling never really left. It has followed me throughout my life.

I'm not blaming my parents for my insecurity. In many ways they were good parents to me. And I have a good relationship with my birth mother now. I understand why she did what she did. I have never held the past against her. And yet I am still so hard on myself.

My first marriage failed because I allowed my mental illness to overtake me. I made a lot of stupid choices. I have lived with the consequences ever since. My second marriage was brief, but horrible. What little self esteem I had was destroyed. I was married to a very emotionally abusive person. I didn't even realize how bad it was at the time. I just felt like I couldn't do anything right and it was all my fault.

My current husband has restored a lot of what was broken in me. I will always be grateful for that. I know he loves me. That is a wonderful feeling.

And yet, those feelings of inadequacy are still a part of me. I don't know how to let go of my insecurities. I am so afraid of losing him. I'm afraid I will ruin things somehow or he'll stop loving me or someone better for him will come along. All irrational thoughts I know, but it's seemingly impossible to set aside those 39 year old insecurities no matter what the circumstances are.

I know I have to think better of myself than this. Most days I do feel more confidant than thisbut this evening I just started feeling really low.

Memoir Coming Soon

Is it just me or are most memoirs about mental illness written by individuals who had the means to get good, thorough psychiatric care? Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books 😂 I have to say my experience has been quiet different. Most of my life I've been too poor to obtain the best care. For the past few years I've been able to get insurance through my husband's workplace, but before that I was limited to the mental health clinic in our county because it was sliding scale pay. And let me say, you get what you pay for. I did have a few good therapists there (and a few really bad ones). The problem with a clinic like that is the turnover rate for doctors and therapists is so high that you barely get acquainted with one before they are off to greener pastures (that you can't afford). And the psychiatrists I had there left much to be desired. The first one and the last one I had there were pretty good, but the ones sandwiched in between were quite awful. Now that I have insurance, it's still a pretty hefty copay to see someone at a private practice, but we have unlimited visits with doctors and therapists for free on Doctors On Demand. The positives are, it's free and I don't even have to leave my house because it's a video call. Negatives, not the most well equipped doctors and sometimes I think I would be able to communicate better with my therapist if I was in the same room as her. But, ya know, get what you can get. I'm fortunate to have ANY care. A lot of people don't have access to mental health care for one reason or another. So far be it from me to take what I have for granted. But there is definitely room for improvement. If I ever complete and publish my own memoir I believe it will reflect the norm as far as healthcare goes. No fancy doctors. No dream come true therapists. Just the typical experience of a lower class woman going through an often debilitating mental illness. It will be raw and gritty and completely true. And the hope found in its pages will be genuine. You have my word. I hope you'll read it!

A Slew of Drafts

I just went through my old drafts and published a few. Many of them need work, hence the reason they are still drafts, but I just went ahead and posted them anyway. i didn't even bother to put the right date on them. Sorry! There was a reason for my journey through drafts. I was looking for some unfinished poems I had written so I could work on them. I found some, but there's one I couldn't find so I guess it got deleted. I've started writing again and am trying to write enough poems to self publish my own book of poetry. I know it won't happen overnight, but it gives me a means of expression, and I feel like everyone needs an outlet like that.

I know I'm not perfect, but I know who I am.  I know what matters most to me, and the lengths I would go to protect it. I can be irrational, overly sensitive, and a slew of other inconvenient emotions at times, but it's because I feel with my whole heart, and I love with everything I have in me.  I am not a half-doer.  I'm all or nothing.  So take it or leave it.

I know my best will never be good enough.  I will always fall into that same trap of living so wholeheartedly for someone, of trying so hard to please, only to disappoint beyond repair at any small slip of imperfection. Was I born to be this way?  Surely not.  And yet, this is me.  Lovable, but only to a certain degree.  I have terrible flaws in personality, in character.  But I also have scars.  Scars of being hurt, of being scared.  Of giving everything and losing so miserably despite of it.  That's why love hurts.  It is never enough.

Vertigo, The Elusive

Step inside a satire.  Make an unfresh pot of coffee.  Consider all to be a kaleidoscope of things to come.  Donate your savings to the breakdown of humanity.  Take a verb and run with it.  Slide down the ferris wheel.  Contradict the terms of living.  Speak with the dead and revel in the life they lead.  


stars turns to clouds.  Pour a cup of tea.  Enjoy a crumpet or two.  Or three.  The world turns as you stand still.  Maybe you should turn with it.  Hamsters on a wheel.  Become a fortune teller.  Predict the past.  Bite off more than you can chew.  Leave the scraps for others.  Test gravity on a balcony ledge. Smoke another cigarette.  Make promises no one remembers.  Lose weight.  Lose focus.  Lose another set of keys.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  It is all small stuff.  Maybe God is small too.  Find the smelliest bathroom stall.  There is no toilet paper.  It figures.  Mathematical delusions.  Try not to look bewildered.  Divert the noise of silence.  Listen how it echoes off the walls.  Paint a picture with the ugliest shade of yellow.  Compare it to stick figures.  It figures.  Pet a dog.  Pet your ego.  Look for new adjectives in the dictionary.  Break a few pencils.  Read another book.  Contradict the terms. Take another pill.  And another.  And another.  There is no hope in madness.  The constant spinning.  The leap of antifaith.  Go outdoors.  Take in a breath of fresh smog.  Light a candle in the forest.  Watch it burn.  Watch it falter.  Watch as dreams turn into nightmares.  Try sleepwalking for a change of pace.  Feel comforted by the hum of a refrigerator. Wonder why there is a “d” in the word fridge but not in the word refrigerator.  Pour a glass of spoiled milk.  Feed it to the cat.  Wonder why there’s no tomorrow.  Wonder if tomorrow was yesterday and you just missed it.  Go ask the doctor.  Again.  And again.  And again.  Take a Sunday drive on Thursday.  Don’t mind the honking cars.  Crash into feeling.  Compare it to numbness.  Realize there is no difference.  Detach yourself from the unavoidable.  Find pleasure in chaos.  Make a cage out of freedom.  Change the locks.  Change the channel.  Dilute the absence.  Create conscience out of air.  Talk to a gravestone and see if anyone answers back.  Turn 30.  And 40.  And 50.  Break a mirror for good luck.  Sift the lumps out of flour.  Grow mold in the frige, minus the “d”, mind you.  Pour out the old coffee.  Go to bed.  Begin again.

                                                         "Coming Back To Life"

Where were you when I was burned and broken

While the days slipped by from my window watching

Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless

Because the things you say and the things you do surround me

While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words

Dying to believe in what you heard

I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time

While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted

Outside the rain fell dark and slow

While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime

I took a heavenly ride through our silence

I knew the moment had arrived

For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride through our silence

I knew the waiting had begun

And headed straight..into the shining sun

Silent Night

It is quiet
I thought there would be noise

thoughts strum on my heart in battle song

between the hollow parts and the echo

I have been broken
I have done the breaking too

It is soundless
fearful
knowing

I made a decision a long time ago to at least try to accomplish a blessing out of suffering.  I am nothing special, and there are many who have endured a lot more than I have, but what I have experienced should not be a solitary battle.  For a long time I thought it was, then I realized, through others who shared their story with me, that I am not alone.  So that is part of my purpose, I believe.  I can't fix it for anyone, but I can let them know they aren't alone.  So I try to be open and honest about mental illness, and about all the wrong actions that occurred due to my struggle with it.  I won't pretend to know what some things are like for you, or for anyone else.  But the things I know, I will share.  Maybe that way, our burdens don't seem so lonely :)