The Quickening Continued

      Sixteen was a crazy year. I met and started dating my ex-husband. I started smoking pot regularly, almost daily.  I tried (and loved) acid. I stopped seeing my councillor at some point, I don't really remember why. Life was one big party. I don't know if the numbness went away, but it was certainly drowned out by all the beer and bong rips. I had a circle of new friends and acquaintances and I was sure everything was going great. For awhile.

       One night we were up to our usual. Pot, beer, and mescaline. I had my first bad trip. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, we were watching movies and I doubt that anyone noticed. It was my first time locked in my head, but it wouldn't be my last. It was the precursor. I was terrified that I would never come down. I know that's a common worry with bad trips, but the thing is, I didn't. Not completely. In the weeks that followed, the paranoia seeped back in. Not that it had ever really gone, but it had only bothered me when I was alone. The fear was back, and I couldn't shake it.

      Seventeen came along, we had a big party and got engaged. But I was acutely aware I was standing at the edge of a precipice. The delusions crept in slowly. My neighbour was a psychic vampire. I was broadcasting my thoughts and everyone around me could feel the waves of paranoia radiating from me. I could hear other people's thoughts. They were judging me, or plotting against me. I kept this all to myself, obviously. I couldn't trust anyone. 

      My now fiance left to go to college, 800 miles away in Pittsburgh. I was sad, everyone knew I was sad, and I guess that's why my pulling away went unnoticed. The voices had started by this point. Mostly just when I was in my room alone at night. Sometimes they came from the Mia Wallace poster on my wall, sometimes they came from everywhere and nowhere. They were incessant, keeping me up at night. We got a letter from my psychiatrist (who knew nothing about the voices or delusions) and I went on a home schooling scheme where I had classes with one other girl at a teacher's house every week. Or maybe it was twice a week. Whatever it was, it was enough to keep my grades up high enough to graduate. My every waking moment was spent just trying to appear normal. I couldn't let on what was going on inside my head. 

      Graduation came, the very same day that O.J. Simpson led the cops on a car chase in his white Bronco. My graduation party consisted of my family sat glued to the telly while my best friend and I sat in my room with a bottle of Jack Daniels she'd secreted in. She was the last person I felt somewhat normal around, and it was a good day. I was finally free of school and the next day we'd pack up my belongings and drive out to Pittsburgh where my fiance was waiting for me.

The Quickening

      When I was young, I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid of falling asleep, not only because of my reoccurring nightmares, but because I was paranoid something was waiting for me to close my eyes. Something unnameable and indefinable, but something that was surely waiting just out of my eye line. I was afraid of bathroom mirrors because I'd heard about Bloody Mary. I was afraid of monsters coming out of the toilet. 

      At some point, this paranoia culminated in what I was sure was an old woman. I mean ancient. There was a hag, following me. She would watch me run down the stairs (I always ran, if I walked the fear would consume me) from the upstairs hallway, willing me to turn around and see her. She would hide in the alcove by the front door waiting for me to get to the bottom step. I have no idea how she could be both places at once, but she always was. She would hover in the doorway of my bedroom waiting for me to close my eyes. She would watch me in the kitchen, from behind the doors that hid the water heater, biding her time, waiting for my guard to slip. She was everywhere, and I was terrified of her.

     I never saw her, but I felt her eyes on me, hateful and patient, always watching. I never looked when I knew she was there, I couldn't bear to see her. I never told anyone she existed. Speaking of her would only make her more real, give her more power. I could not afford to acknowledge her presence, she was too powerful already. This probably lasted 4 or 5 years, until junior high school gave me real life problems and fears. I still ran down the steps overcome with fear, but now the fear was faceless. At least most of the time.

     The apathy and flatness and negative symptoms all came along when I was 15. I felt numb inside, like an arm that's fallen asleep. They diagnosed me with depression when it was discovered I'd been self harming. They gave me Prozac, which made no difference at all. I took it sporadically after the first few weeks. It didn't touch the numbness. I began drinking and smoking pot occasionally. I had friends. I had boyfriends. I had a counsellor I saw every Friday. I went through the motions wondering what exactly was wrong with me.

     I turned 16 and we moved, from NJ to Pennsylvania. I was looking forward to a fresh start. Maybe a new life would make me feel new things. Make me feel anything. It was quiet and different, there was a lake a short walk from my front door, no street lamps, a sky full of stars at night. I slowly made friends and started to feel a bit of hope. And that's where I'll end this post, on a hopeful note. The rest of the story coming soon.

A long Absence

      So it's been a few years. I haven't been very good about keeping up with the blog (obviously) and I'm not entirely sure what to do with it now. Scrap the whole thing? Start a new one? Try to resurrect this? I'm at a bit of a loss.
      Updates! I'm on meds, but I am forever non-compliant. Stopping and starting, adjusting my own dosage. It's not ideal but it's there when things get bad. I always wind up back on them. I've got this idea that things will be back to "normal" when I can get off them again for good. It's hard to get rid of that idea when I had 18 good years without them. But maybe I need to adjust my idea of "normal". I guess time will tell. 

      Last week was Mental Health Awareness week. I made some social media posts and one of them had a good turn out. I really wasn't expecting that, but it felt good to see so many people relate. This week I did the Interview With A Schizophrenic podcast. I was really nervous and I don't know if I said everything I meant to say, but it was an overall good experience. It's available on Apple podcasts and Spotify if anyone wants to give it a listen. Episode 9. I found all the episodes worth a listen.

      I think I want to get into mental health advocacy, but I'm not exactly sure where or how to begin. It's definitely something to think more about though. If anyone has an clue where I should begin, give me a shout in the comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Isolation

       I would like to write again but I'm so incredibly devoid of inspiration. Guess this is me setting the intention and broadcasting it out there into the ether. 

11/10, Please don't ever do that again.

So I've had this realization recently that people can tell me things, (friends, doctors, cab drivers) and it's absolutely meaningless. I mean, it's all just words and I can nod along and smile and say "Yes, that makes sense", but it's all nothing to me until I come to it in my own time. I have these massive epiphanies where it seems like the heavens open up and a choir of fucking angels herald this amazing new insight into my very nature and that of the universe itself, and it's actually the most basic and simple piece of information that has been set before me about a million times before, but my mind just slid past it, wrapped securely in its cuddly warm blanket composed of nothing but pure blind spot.

Case in point, I've been told countless times when seeking help that it is extremely normal to feel as though mental health professionals will think you're putting it on when you show up and start listing your symptoms. They won't, but they know you're probably worrying about it. It's also quite normal to question it yourself. Am I making this up? Have I convinced myself that this is all much worse than it is? Did I decide to be like this? Did I make myself this way? Is this ALL MY FAULT? Again, the actual really real answer is, emphatically, "NO". But it's totally normal to blame yourself and think that it is.

And I've always nodded along, and thought, yeah sure, okay. That's probably very normal. But I don't REALLY think that. I don't REALLY believe that. And then one morning you find yourself  waking at 4 a.m. unable to get back to sleep because of the relentless noise of your brain digging through its own detritus with a goddamned microscope. A silent argument of epic proportions ensues, and suddenly it's almost 3 hours later and you're sobbing on the couch shocked at the realization that you've ALWAYS blamed yourself. You always thought you were SO damned special and different, and that nobody understood you, not really, so of course you grew up and CHOSE to be a bloody schizophrenic, you egotistical fuck, and now you can't even understand yourself, and doesn't that just make you pleased as punch, you absolute fucking wank stain?

Of course, the rest of the day is spent drinking far too many cups of tea, quietly apologizing to myself and promising to up my self care game to levels that it has never actually reached, let alone maintained, whilst having a rousing game of blast-all-my-most-emo-playlists-and-sing-along. I mean, I'm awarding my brain an 11/10 on the fuckery scale. Cheers for that, from one wank stain to another. Let's never do that again. Except I'm sure we will, because if there's one thing I have learned, it's that no matter how many epic epiphanies I have, the amount of actual, useful information I retain is negligible, at best.

So, yes, welcome to 2017. It's going to be a year.

October 2016

Yeah, I know, it's been ages since I bothered posting. The meds really helped me through a rough time, but the truth is I didn't have the energy to DO anything. So I went off them at 6 months, and things have been okay. I don't mean HALLELUJAH I AM CURED perfect or anything, but okay. I'm still mildly positive symptomatic and moderately negative symptomatic, if I'm being honest, but I'm functioning and happy most of the time.

I'm posting more because I've been noticing things, and feeling things lately that I wasn't before. I'm feeling super burnt out by being inundated with "relate able" anxiety and depression posts lately. I must see 20 (at least) each day posted on Facebook, shared each time by multiple friends. I'm glad they feel safe enough to talk so openly about things, and I can relate to them too, to a certain extent, but in the end I wind up feeling detached and othered. My issues and experiences are just different, at their root, so these things are ultimately not "for me", I guess.

But it has had the effect of making me look inward. I'm starting to recognize my natural coping mechanisms, and how they might come off to others. I am constantly on my phone (this is a normal thing for loads of people, I know), and I know that there is a school of thought that finds this rude. I do this to keep my mind occupied. I need to keep a certain level of focus on something going on quite a lot of the time. Time alone with my thoughts can almost feel dangerous. It is far easier to slip into delusional thinking than it is to claw my way back out again, once I'm in it. So I unconsciously (mostly) am constantly finding ways to do that.

Another thing I've noticed is how much socializing actually tires me out. There is a small circle of people I feel comfortable enough with that this doesn't happen, but anyone outside that circle is a completely different matter. Meeting a person outside the circle for lunch means I will have zero desire to interact with people for days or more. I'm withdrawing on line as well. Leaving groups where I feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people/emotions. It's hard to offer up an explanation to people for this. I don't really have one, it just feels like something I need to do at the moment, and I trust my instincts more than I trust my mind.

*insert witty title*

    Yes, yes, I went silent for a bit. I'm very unmotivated at the moment, and it's seeping through everywhere. My 2 week trial of my new med (Quetiapine) is almost over, so I'm once again spending my mornings desperately trying to get through to my doctor's surgery to get an appointment. I'm feeling a bit optimistic about this drug. I don't feel a complete zombie on it, and it certainly helps with the anxiety a bit. I'm on a super low dose at the moment, though, (lower than any dose used to treat anything) so it's not exactly doing the job yet. But it's better than it was, so I guess I'm hopeful that an actual dose will get me somewhere.
     I find myself torn between a desire to run from my delusions and an almost pathological desire to examine and understand them. My head is full of white noise. When the voices are quiet, they touch me. And again I'm torn between wanting to know why and wanting to just not feel things that aren't there. There's a dimness in people's eyes when they look at me, that I interpret as judgement. As if they think I'm making this all up. That I could make this stop if I just tried harder. 
     I worry most, still, about Jim worrying. I feel like he's waiting for me to be who I was, like he can't see that I am, already. I have to keep reminding myself that I don't actually know what it is he's thinking and feeling. My head feels heavy with the burden of reminding myself of what I know to be true. I have to step into the whirlwind of static and list everything I know just to pull myself out, like hitting a reset button.
     
I think this probably reads worse to the layperson than it actually is.

     I can do it. Not only am I capable of pulling myself back into reality, but I remember to do it quite often. That's huge. I mean, that's everything, basically. 

     And while I'm completely unmotivated to *actually* get anything done, I have a ton of ideas for things I want to do. I've been looking up name meanings, as I want to write a story. I'm preparing to take up crocheting (again). I'm reading a fantastic novel, and I've got my learn to speak Dothraki book and cd ready to start. I'm also desperate to top up my art supplies and start painting again. And I've got a new tattoo in the works. So loads to do, if I can just push myself to start.
     Also, I managed not to put back on tons of weight over Christmas. I did gain back a little over a lb, but that still has me 3 lbs from my goal weight. I'm trying a ketogenic diet, as there has been some evidence that it can help with managing symptoms of schizophrenia.
     That is where I'm at, I guess. Slight improvement, still lots of work to do.