Days like Molasses

It's raining here in this small corner of the world. It does finally seem October-like. There is an expectant hush on the field, and one lone cricket sings, in a drowsy sort of way. There are many unicorns about in the silver air, but the cats are slow to go out in the mornings now. They huddle on perches, looking out before they plunge into the darker dawn...

The grass is always wet when we wake, and it makes the Spaz dog hesitate to go out. So he curls up in the den of the bedroom until a lemon color strikes the maple tree. The zinnia got so tall that they fell, and now rise up again from the ground, proof that there once was a summer, brave proof for the seasons in their neon glory. We have moved from green and blue and yellow and pink to red and purple and lemon and brown. The very dirt smells more provocative now. And I search fruitlessly for a color-name to describe the scent of a leaf changing color. If anything deserves it, the maple tree does.

I spent a lazy morning yesterday with the Saucy Brit in her shop, talking and running my hands through soft pink and silver gray and mossy green materials. Her shop is filled with the scent of candles, as her mind is full of vision and true wisdom and that earthy sense that make me want to spend all day with her. Pearls gleam softly from the wooden shelves, and velvet pumpkins in rust and gold and brown make me want to lay my head on the lavender pillows covered with velvet and mirrors, pearls and braid.

The days now move like molasses. 

There Be Dragons...

Ok. Ok. So the writing of the blog at night didn't work out. The fact is, I am always awake in the morning but may be less so at night...Most of the time after 8 PM, I want to lay prone and concentrate on how good my feet feel when I am not standing on them.

Plus, it's the gathering of the tribe time. Both cats and the dog have free reign on the bed after 8 PM. I mean, they are welcome there all the time. They just all refuse to cuddle up together until the referee (that's me) is working. And this referee can't strike. She is a slave, not a paid employee.

I'm not going to write anymore about politics, mainly because in this stage of the game, it's a big bore. I just wonder what people will post about after the election. They will probably go back to posts about cute kittens announcing it's Friday (guilty), and peace, love and harmony setting the stage for a perfect world. Although I did like the Facebook post about the discovery of a tiny dragon (no kidding!) in Indonesia in 2009. With pics.

We have massive media networks, and the most important discovery of the natural world since Darwin's Theory is kept under raps for 3 years!?! WTF? That's like saying we discovered elves living in the Amazon and not publishing it. Just think of all the poor gamers, fantasy-world freaks (myself included), and members of the Society for Creative Anachronism out there, who have been waiting for something like this to happen since Tolkien first took pen in hand in World War I. It's just cruel, I tell you. Cruel.

 Everyone will want one. I do. I want one genetically engineered to look like the Welsh Green from Harry Potter movies. And if I have 'lost' any faithful readers by now, don't worry. Sometimes, probably once a year, I live in the real world. But now, we have sighted dragon, and it is the real world...don't bust my bubble.

And, if there is any justice in the world, it will turn out that they eat stinkbugs...

Paranoid

Yes. I am blogging at nighttime. It's a bit odd, but I thought I would shake things up a bit. I have been very squirrely the past two days and lost my ability to look at a computer screen. I'm sorry. I missed you too.

One of the unicorn meat eating cats has developed an abscess where a tiny dragon bit him. I know it was a tiny dragon because I have been living in a teeny, tiny place lately and I saw him fly away. I drained the place against Rat Faced Bastard's will and gave him some penicillin and he feels much more perky, but still gets persnickety at times. 

As I say, I have been in a teeny, tiny world just watery with the quality of paranoia. I went to see my psychiatrist but he poo poo'ed the idea of me being paranoid. Apparently to him, I am not paranoid until I am at the point that I refuse to come in to his office and only communicate with him by walkie talkie. He explained it away as something else and gave me another anti-Evil pill. Not that I mind more anti-Evil pills. One can never get too many. One just never knows, does one?

Of course I am being good: taking my pills, eating, and showering...yes, I have done it all in the past two days! And, as usual, my friends have paid, with my need for pep talks, and my enduring critical attitude. For those times, when I feel my head is going to pop off, I have over the counter anti-Evil pills. Specifically, benedryl. Yes, that's the only access to the good drugs that I have, as my shrink is stingy. Did I mention he is fabulously wealthy and sleeps like the proverbial rock? All psychiatrists do, you know. That's one thing that keeps me awake at night...

Departure

It's always heartening to start the day by hearing, "Up, bitch?" but it's par for the course for Vapid. And the truth is, she is saying it from another room because she can't say it to my face.

Other than that, it looks as if it will be a beautiful Saturday, and I hope you enjoy yours.

It's already time to think about pawing through the winter clothes. Do you pack yours up in the Spring, like I do? I have so many clothes, in total, that I have to. And guessing about the delicate moment when the seasons change and will not look back can be an exercise in futility. I always end up being cold in the Fall and warm in the Spring, but I can't figure any way out of it, than to pare the clothes down to the point of being absolutely naked year round...

We are all frightened once again as the Middle East heats up. France is preemptively closing 20 of it's embassies in various countries in anticipation of backlash from a comic strip depicting Muhammad. We truly cannot afford another war(s), either in those lost or killed or financially; which I know, is a shitty way to look at anything, but is sometimes necessary in this material world. The headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, the group responsible for  the attack on the American embassy in Libya, has been routed by thousands of Pro-American protestors and government forces in Benghazi. Of course.

One thing I noticed about living overseas, is that our news media is so very U.S. centered. We hear almost no news from Europe, much less about the countries farther East. There is no replacement for exposure to the world. When seen from overseas, the U.S. and it's 'problems' seem so small. It is a bit like what the astronauts express about seeing the Earth from outer space. And we base our actions on the small sound-bytes that we get...and off to war we go.  That fact is much more frightening than anything happening in the Middle East.

And, if you are wondering where I am going with all of this...I don't know. I just realize all day long what a tiny speck I am in this tiny speck of this town, in this tiny country, on this tiny planet. Scientists say that the polar ice caps will melt completely during the summer in four years. To me, that is much more frightening than anything any group of people can do: it is all of humankind working for our demise. Such thoughts keep me from thinking I am so odd, after all.

Birth Day

The weather is prime for unicorns, and I have to restrain the cats from bringing in 2 or 3 through the window in the morning...


The year is truly winding rather quickly into Fall, and I soak up the weather like it's my last breath.

My therapist, Vinnie, is moving today to his new location, Walnut Avenue. By happenstance it is the same office that I see my psychiatrist at, and where I saw my former therapist, Ted, for 15 years. This occurrence, in tandem with the Fall weather, has me nostalgic.

I suppose the start of the school year in conjunction with Halloween reminds me of the fourth of my life that was childhood. And despite the things I discuss with Vinnie, my childhood in a small town was truly privileged. It was the perfect small town at the perfect time. The time is gone, and the small town isn't small anymore, but a miniature version lives on in my head forever. I am always riding a bicycle, the evenings are cool, and it is always near Halloween.

I can bike from one end of the small town to the other, and there is no house where I do not know someone. And I suppose, in a way, that is why I enjoy Roanoke so much. I have now lived the majority of my life here, and know from friends of friends, and different causes, pretty much everyone here. Everywhere I go, I know someone who knows someone...you catch my drift.

And I hate to leave you in the midst of my musings, but it is someone's birthday, after all.

Just Today

The zinnia have all fallen over, they are so tall, but continue to bloom beautifully. Pink, deeper pink, lighter pink, red, orange and faintly cream colored, they are there at the start of every day and they are there at the ending, as well.

It is cooler in the mist of the mornings in this small corner of the world, and the cats hesitate before going out. It's all to the good because I don't want to face their outrage on the day that I don't open their window at all. I have seen Canadian Geese migrating already and hope we have a cold winter.

Spaz is sitting at my feet. He has been out this morning. It's unusual for him to go out before 8 AM, but he refused to go out most of yesterday, because of the rain. For a rescue dog, he can be mighty picky at times.

Today, I am not so strident and it feels good. I love this weather and want to be low-key enough to enjoy it. Things are settling out and we are looking toward the kindly stepfather's birthday this Friday. He doesn't want anything, even a cake, much less a party. So I am planning a party and had Good Neighbor make one of her specialty cakes, and bought his present 2 weeks ago.

A very ephemeral part of my job is to make his life more interesting. So I bring the world to him as much as I can, to busy his mind. I have brought as many of my friends as I can here, smuggling them past Vapid, and he loves to entertain any religious person who knocks on his door. Of course, Sunbunny visits most often and her presence is a joy to us both. We sit in his room and talk and laugh until the walls shake.

I hope the day stays cool and cloudy; I like a certain gloominess leading up to Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. January and February is when I want crystal clear days, with a cold wind. When I walk then, I love to smell the cold and the scent of leaves and bark underfoot. And pine was invented to be smelled in the winter...

I Consume

Don't you hate it when your unicorn meat eating cat looks at the door (from the outside) and meows? Then, when you open the door, you find they just want to meow to you? This is the same cat, Rat-face Bastard, that sleeps beside the food bowl at night, thereby preventing Minkins from eating...

Well, now that I have gotten off of my chest, crap about the world that really bothers me: see yesterday's blog; I can pick it back up again today. I had to explain to a mentally disabled comrade yesterday that she wasn't a bad person because she is "ill." English has picked words with negative connotations to describe people built like me. "Ill", "disabled" and the mental health field has picked the worst one: we are "consumers".

For someone who leans toward the Left, as I do, that is the harshest cut of all. I support the causes of marriage for all, women's rights, animal rescue, save the planet, etc. The last word I want attached to me is "consumer". When I run that word through my mind, what pops up is a vision of me dressed in puritanical garb covering a corset, burning a plastic grocery bag in the front yard and watching the smoke dissipate to destroy the ozone...

It brings up a vision like this: I once attended the only NIMH meeting (National Institute of Mental Health) listed on the web in town. I thought it would be a meeting of my peers. What I walked into was a meeting of about 30 healthcare professionals and 3 of my peers.

I just really had my heart set on seeing and talking to more people like me. I had no therapist at the time, and really needed to feel less isolated.

Anyway, to then be told the pros referred to "us" as consumers really burst my bubble. Consumers? Like we give nothing? To me, the word "patients" would even be better but apparently that word is used by physicians and their ilk to refer to someone who sees them as a personal doctor.

To me the word Consumer denotes a person who doesn't recycle. I don't know why. It's just a depressing word. Now, there is the word "challenged" which is not used much anymore, "mentally challenged," but that doesn't describe how I feel and how my disorders affect me. I am emotionally challenged. My disorders display themselves in my emotional life, and that is a whole different can o' worms.

Think about all the things that emotions rule in your life (everything) and you will see where the problems lie. There is no escape from emotions. "Emotional Dysregulation Person" is perfect but not very sonorous, and there is that word "dysregulation."

I know I am nit-picking (and gods above, what a word that is! Think about it!) but I don't care today. Being 'wired and tired' as I am, I just do not care. What little care I can scrape up today with be given to the spaz dog as an offering.

Until tomorrow...

Good Mornings

I have smelled the zinnia this morning, and the coffee, and it looks to be a particularly fine day. The spaz dog is outside, after some roughhousing, and the cats are inside, looking out. Why, I do not know. I keep telling them that they will have enough looking-out days in the winter. But perhaps they have declared a moratorium on the hunting of unicorns, because every creature should enjoy this fine weather.


Today is a day for mowing the lawn, cleaning my apartment (as I like to call the defuzzing), and maybe checking out the Greek Festival in our small corner of the world. I have tended to the kindly stepfather this morning, and Vapid is nowhere in sight, although her cats sneak up to me in the kitchen and beg for love. I always oblige them...I can't help it; they are so handsome.

With the Good Neighbor, I will also be making the kindly stepfather's birthday cake this weekend. She is the penultimate baker and we are planning a lemon cake. With her help, it is sure to be a success, and people far and wide will come to sample the cake.

I feel normal again today, with lots of energy and it is an odd sensation. I am hanging on to normalcy as long as I can. Although I would be a bit more laid back, if I could. But "Beggers can't be choosers", as the saying goes, and I will take what comes my way.

I would chime in on what I think of the coming presidential race and the protest going on in the Middle East, but that's not what this blog is about. It is for the silent and unsilent millions who suffer from mental disabilities...it is for my friend who cut herself the other day and is living in agony that she did not ask for. It is for those who cannot get out of bed today, or any day, and for those who are victimized because of their disorders. It is for the highest and the lowest of those who remain untreated because of our sad lack of knowledge of what propels the human brain.

It's time to face the zinnia again...and I hope you can face your zinnia today.

Rant

Thank all the gods I have therapy this morning! I have spent the last hour trying to keep a fellow blogger from cutting or committing suicide. They are not the same impulses, although many people think they are. Cutting has a lot to do with numbness or rage. Suicidal impulses have to do with hopelessness, depression and feelings of worthlessness.

And yes, with Borderline Personality Disorder, it is possible to feel both to the point of being overwhelmed by one's impulses. When you are in those states, it takes every last shred of energy just to get out of bed, much less to make the bed, or walk to the window or the door to get some fresh air. You are simply frozen where you are until the attack passes. If it passes before you damage yourself. Everything in you screams to be relieved of the pain, hopelessness and of the self. There is no past or future. Everything hangs on the edge of a blade.

And, in return, society posts cartoons belittling people on disability and/or foodstamps. I read a rant against Facebook cartoons about those on foodstamps and disability this morning and I agree with her. Invisible disabilities and poverty are punishable by smearing in the public media and in social situations. If you are not dripping lice and wearing rags, you have no right to any assistance.

While those of us at the bottom of the food chain keenly feel society's punitive attitude. We blame ourselves for being poor, which adds to the burden of the mentally "ill". I paid into the system for years, and right now, I cannot get any dentist in the Roanoke Valley to re-do a filling. There are programs for the unemployed, for the employed and low income, and for children. Laudable efforts, all. There is no program for the disabled, invisible or visible, in Roanoke. We are just supposed to drop off of the face of the earth. F**k you and your teeth and your concerns about your health and well-being.

God forbid you should be concerned about your appearance. Because the poorer you look, the more disgusted society is. Yes, "they" deserve having a mental illness, "they" deserve being born with cerebral palsy, or having an accident or a stroke.

That's enough for now. I am trying to fight for the life of someone I have never met and it has me stirred to the point of outrage for them. The lack of drugs for our conditions, the lack of help, the lack even of any kind of concern or compassion is enough to drive one into a frenzy. 

So the next time you feel a need to pass on those cute cartoons on Facebook denigrating those living on disability, in poverty, please don't share.

Zinnia

I feel absolutely normal today. What an odd sensation!

On Tuesday, I took the kindly stepfather to his brother's funeral. I was a casket case. I do not do well at funerals. It is not the contemplation of my own mortality that messes up my head, but the memory of similar rituals in the past, when I was not sane. What the body learns, the body will repeat. It's called muscle memory, and is the biggest hurdle, besides Vapid, in my path right now.

Usually, I don't let noise from the outside world into my blog, but the piggy instincts of NBC bear scrutiny. Actually, pigs are very intelligent and quite sensitive, so I will forgo that description...suffice it to say that NBC has once again screwed up. From it's f**ked up coverage of the Olympics, to it's non-coverage of the Paralympic Games, to it's refreshing coverage of a Kardashian breast job during a memorial moment yesterday, the Powers That Be at NBC have defied description yet again. They are an embarrassment to our planet.

Speaking of the outside world, the news that the embassies in Libya and Cairo were attacked yesterday resulting in the death of the American ambassador to Libya, is alarming. I think the weight of those actions will sit on our shoulders for some time, and I dread the increasing noise from those countries. Save us from another war!

Harry Golden, the noted writer from New York and North Carolina, once remarked on his collection of newspaper articles. After a half a century of collecting the headlines, what really interested him, and what he found most valuable, were the articles on the other side of the paper. The everyday news of goings on in the community. Wars come and go, but a little girl's confirmation is a lifetime event that shouldn't be missed...

I wish I could describe how profoundly the above events have affected me, but the news is too new. In a world that went insane a long, long time ago, all I can do right now is hold onto the life raft of my own sanity. Even in my madness, I cannot make up the headlines in today's paper.

And the unicorn meat eating cats are hunting, but I have forgotten to listen to the zinnia this morning...

The Hunt

It's been two whole days and I missed you so much!!!

I am coming out of mania and a morning's dose of borderline paranoia (yesterday). I was fortunate this time, it was a  pretty mild attack. A conversation with my psychiatrist on Friday was unsatisfying; he wants me to take Depakote, and I won't. It's a very effective mood stabilizer that adds weight, on me at least, by leaps and bounds. I just haven't made it to the point where I can easily choose to weigh 200+ U.S. pounds. It's only when I am at the edge that I mentally agree with the proposition, and by then it's too late.

I got out and enjoyed myself this weekend. Breakfast with a friend on Friday, and a festival yesterday. It's been a positive whirlwind for this little recluse...

I spent most of the day yesterday at a local festival called "Olde Salem Days." Simply put, they close the downtown area of the adjoining town and invite artists and artisans to set up shop on the street. I have never been, and after walking the length and breadth of the festival street, just to say I have done it, I retired to the shop of the Saucy Brit, where my friend Exponential was working. Saucy and her husband promptly took me out to lunch.

I do like being around a lot of people all at once, as I am a people watcher. And since the Saucy Brit and her husband Tom Cat, are both intelligent and well spoken, as well as being kind, the lunch was truly a delight.

We sat in an enclosed garden, separated from the crowd by a cool, leafy barrier. There was a pleasant murmuring coming from the street and the scents of various festival foods drifted with the wind. An hour of shopping had filled my eyes with glitter and wood tones and flashing color until they could hold no more. And so, stuffed with sight and sound and good food, Saucy and Tom Cat propped me up at the shuttle, and bid me adieu. I promptly came home and took a nap, which is as it should be. All the best festivals end that way...

A light dinner and waking to a cool morning have been the best medicine.  Life doesn't get any better.

More Better

The crickets are chirping outside, and the zinnia are faintly humming from the rain we got yesterday. The unicorn meat eating cats are hunting and Max, my spaz, is running from the bed to me and back.

I am more better today because I get to see my therapist today and I got to see my brother, Marc, yesterday.

Marc lives way out in the country, way out, like go forever and take a left at the tall tree, and then go over the mountain, and take the gravel road for 50 miles. You catch my drift. He has 43 chickens, so he has run out of names. 1 Highland bull, Hamish, who he treats as a pet, and Hamish returns the favor. Highland cattle are those red, hairy, cows with horns that you see grazing in the fields in pictures of Scotland. They look like Cousin It's version of a cow and this one is a lovebug. He also has 4 rescue horses, 2 rescue dogs and his German Shepherd and his 2 rescue cats.

My personal favorites are his dog Bubba, and the new rescue kitten, Hope. But Marc went out and brushed Hamish while I was there, and Hamish kept trying to rub his head, complete with wicked horns, against Marc lovingly whilst he was being brushed. Hamish is 700 U.S. pounds now, and will end up around 2100 pounds, so Marc is getting in on his good side while the gettin's good, as they say.

When you put 2 Stewarts of our branch in a room together, the talk naturally turns to death and the family dysfunctions. Or the family dysfunctions of the dead. There is plenty to talk about on our side of the family tree. And laughing at something you fear is always better than sitting home alone in angst about it.

So now I think I can face my therapist today with equanimity while he tells me about his plans for the next 10 years...

Death

I had a brief chat with Death yesterday, and it took all of my anxieties away. The kindly stepfather's brother is passing away from alcoholism and it is a terrible event to behold. The hospital smells, the quiet, waiting family, the minister, the doctors, and the unsteady beeps from the monitors are underlined by the silent death waiting his turn in the room.

I reached out to Death, with my mind, as I am sure countless of people have through all of history. I realized then that Death is with me all of the time. And if I reach down far enough into myself, I can hear the echo of the waiting stillness inside of me. He has been my companion for all of my life. Not just the first time my mother tried to kill herself, but at my grandmother's funeral and then, very closely at the car accident when I was 18.

And so it must be that we are all as close to death as we are to life every minute of every day. No matter what age, death and life are waiting at a moment's turn. And way too many brilliant philosophers have pondered this question for me to come up with anything close to profound.

I simply want to say, that I was struck by awe sitting in that room.

Beginnings

I felt a bit wobbly in my orbit yesterday, which ended up on a phone call to my therapist. He steadied me, but it was a horrifying way to start the day. I could physically feel something moving around in the base of my scull, and it was as if something else was looking through my eyes. Not a good sign.

My Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is in remission right now, and I don't want it to come back. I don't feel stressed and yet I am developing symptoms of stress overload. I have felt a steady leach of my courage for the past week, in particular, and I had forgotten the warrior that I am.

My therapist's answer was to go to the library and check out any book on BPD written by someone with the disorder, and then check out a book designed to make me laugh until I pee in my pants. I got the first one, and it is always David Sedaris for something funny. Now it's time to work on eating lots of green vegetables and walking more.

I can't really do anything else to keep the disorder at bay, except to write about it, and I am doing that here with you.

Meanwhile, I put on my happy face so others will leave me alone to fight this battle. Today, I just don't know anything but that this feeling, like all feelings, will pass, and leave me panting on the beach, holding on for dear life. I will be surrounded by the shells the passing storm has thrown onto the sand to keep me company.

I do not want to alarm anyone with this post. My disorders come and go like tides and I do hang on. But for the first time, I want to document the passing storm, if it comes. A poet once told me that everything that needs to be written up to this point in time, has been written; and we discover more writings each day. Just write it and it will be found by someone, somewhere, where it will be the most beneficial.

Meanwhile, I have actually found something fun to do today, with others of my kind, but I wanted to spend time with you, here, alone, before it begins.