Thursday, October 31, 2013

November

Fall is my favorite season.  This year, I have missed so much of the joy I normally get out of it as I deal with all of the things I have been dealing with.  I'm a believer in clean breaks, new beginnings and fresh starts.  I had hoped that would come with the fall.  So far, it hasn't.  I hoped it would come with my birthday and while I had a wonderful, wonderful day, I have struggled through the remainder of the week.  So my next hope is for November to be the new start I need.

I just need a break, a release, a new start.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Day the Police came to my Door

I mentioned that I'd had some setbacks this past week.  Those blew up rather intensely on Wednesday.  I have debated about writing this blog for days, despite Wednesday being one of the more dramatic experiences of this journey.  I've decided to keep writing.

I missed a court appearance on Wednesday.  I believed that the appearance would be waived, as the necessary paperwork had been filed.  The mistake was inadvertent, although significant.  However, some good soul, someone with a well-meant intention, someone clearly concerned for me, read the error as possibly intended.  By that I mean that someone believed I might have harmed myself.  I can't know what was going through this person's head.  I can't know how or why someone I don't "advertise" it to found this blog.  I won't understand the level of concern this relative stranger felt which prompted his action, but I do believe it was genuine.

Wednesday night, as I was bathing my two littles, my doorbell rang.  I was home alone with the kids and the pup.  I left the kids covered in bubbles and went to answer the door.  My heart stopped when I realized two officers stood before me.  What had happened?  Who was hurt?  What terrible news am I about to receive?  They stepped politely into my entryway and asked if I knew why they were there.  Of course I didn't.  They asked me if I had missed a court appearance that day.  My first thought was, "Can they take me to jail for that?"  My second thought was, "Gosh, I didn't mean to, but perhaps I misread what would come of the hearing scheduled for this morning."  I explained that I hadn't missed an appearance, to my knowledge and that I believed the hearing scheduled would have been removed.  It may seem like a simple mistake or a huge gaff, but it sort of doesn't matter what my intent was.

The next question left me both defensive and incredibly exposed.  "Do you keep some sort of blog?"  Let me share the history of my blogging.  I write a blog called This is Me Becoming Mommy.  I started it to keep my sanity while raising two small children while keeping my intelligence from being consumed by Nick Jr. melodies.  I enjoyed it.  It was fun to write and it always let me spin things that probably had me frustrated or uncomfortable at the time, into stories that made even me laugh.  A few years into my fun blog, I began struggling in my personal life.  I started a blog called "Journey of a Highly Unsatisfied Me."  I wrote two posts before a client's spouse emailed the blog to my client, with the malicious intent of harming my reputation, perhaps by making me look bad for having a personal life or a pretty photograph?  I can't know, but I was horrified at what felt like a breach of my privacy (yeah, I know, it's on the internet, it's not private, but I hadn't expected it to be "used" against me).  I immediately deleted that blog and its two entries and removed my name from my other blog, simply writing under "EC."  Even then, the fear, that I might be exposed for who I really was, was palpable.

Imagine my more recent alarm, when another client took it upon themselves to attempt to publicly flog me by writing a scathing comment suggesting that my "issues" had just about ruined their life.  Now, I have taken and continue to take responsibility for how my "issues" have impacted the people around me.  I have been difficult to live with and my mental illness has wreaked havoc on my life.  I was, however, still surprised that someone would be so hostile.  "I will never forget or forgive what you've done," was the closing of the comment, which has since been removed.  Again I was astonished that someone would seek out my personal blog (which does relate to my work in a roundabout sort of way), having to sift through pages of Google search results because it is no longer written under my name, and to use this kind of information in that way.  I felt stalked.  I felt scared.  I felt terrorized, and it contributed sharply to my decline into paranoia.  There is a system for complaining about one's lawyer's work, and this client did exercise that avenue as well, as they should have, feeling the way that they did.  The blog comment, though, that was meant to punish and to humiliate, not to resolve any issues.

And now this.  Again, the intention behind this crossing into my personal life was not malicious.  I do know that.  Frankly, I am reminded again and again that the internet is public.  I know this, of course, and as I have told people for days now, that is the point.  It feels GOOD to be honest in this way.  Perhaps it does expose me to unwanted consequences, but hiding what I have been dealing with has been awful for me and crippling for my recovery.  Hiding allowed me, for so long, to lurk behind a facade that, as it cracked, exposed me for the failure I felt that I was.  At least here I have owned the truth, for what that could possibly be worth.

Back to the two officers at my door, who appeared both very professional and also slightly uncomfortable.  I suppose I understand because they had no idea what my state of mind was when they walked through the door.  They asked if I was a danger to myself.  I said, "Of course not."  We were interrupted by my two small, innocent children clamoring for my attention.  Realizing this was not going to be quick, I brought them to the living room.  Shaking from head to foot, I explained that we had two police officers in the living room, checking in on us to make sure everyone is safe and okay.  Thank heaven my children are as young and largely oblivious as they are.  How scary this might have been for them!

One of the officers remarked that I had my hands full.  He had no idea.  The other officer noted that anyone who was trying to harm themselves might suggest that they were perfectly fine to get them to leave.  I showed them the blog.  I offered my therapist's and psychiatrist's phone numbers.  I gave them my husband's number and explained his absence.  I was afraid they weren't going to leave.  I was more afraid that they might leave and take me with them.  There have been few times where what I am dealing with has really startled me, though none more than that single thought.  The first time I was shocked that this was my life was when I stood in the cafeteria line at the hospital, realizing that I couldn't leave the room without escort.  The second time was when I got sick on the way to my psychiatrist's office because the thought of being so close to my office sent me into a severe panic attack.  This most recent event was the scariest.  Partial-hospitalization, of my own volition, is one thing.  Being taken away and locked up because I can't control my own mind is an entirely different concept.

The officers spoke to the people they needed to to make a decision.  They were doing their job and they felt that had done it thoroughly enough.  I acknowledged, in tears for the first time with them, that it had been an incredibly difficult few months, but I would never leave my children, my family or my friends with the legacy of my suicide.  I was not dangerous to myself, at least not in the physical sense that they might have helped with.  They left, reminding me that if I needed anything, I could call.  I sobbed, in front of my frightened children, for the next three hours.

My heart goes out to the caller whose concern brought those officers to my door.  I know it was a bold and generous effort, and one I'm not sure I deserve.  Despite my reaction, I am grateful to know that people out there look out for each other enough to make a call like that.  Sometimes I forget.  My understanding goes out to the client who commented.  I know their road is a difficult one as well.  I feel for the spouse, so scorned that it felt satisfying to lash out at a complete stranger.  And I will not stop writing, despite the knowledge that people who might feel concern or satisfaction at my words are out and quite possibly still reading.

That was the first suggestion at those close enough to me to hear this story first-hand.  Why not close it to those who haven't been given permission to view it?  Why not journal, on paper, and avoid the risk of someone seeing it that might use it harmfully?  Is it worth it?  It is.  It is the one place that I feel empowered amid all of the distortion in my brain.  The point was to be completely exposed, as I never feel free to do in my real life (and for reasons which are obvious now).  Maybe as importantly now, I know it means something to others who read it - others who, like me, suffer from these kinds of thoughts, who felt alone, who now know that we are in better company than they might have known . . . others who might not be willing to expose themselves by asking permission to view such an intimate and intense subject-matter.  I am so tired of being afraid.  Writing "out loud" is the best thing I can do for myself, despite the possible consequences.  I hate having to take a stand about it or to justify myself to those who question the decision, but it's what I feel is best for me to do.  So I will keep writing.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Setbacks

I had a difficult week last week.  I slept more than usual, I had less motivation than usual, I cried a lot more than usual.  I was short-tempered and sad.  I felt defeated, ashamed and disappointed in myself, from my therapy appointment early Monday (which I almost missed because I was sleeping) to an interview I had late on Friday.  In fact, I had to sit in the parking lot to settle myself down on Friday because I was fairly certain I wasn't going to come off as confident that I would be an asset to just about anything.

Even my blogs were more morose than usual, and frankly, they're not usually very uplifting.  I wrote two on Friday, when I felt completely at the end of my ability.  My therapist insisted we gauge my suicidality this week.  While I maintain that how I was feeling on Friday was, at most, passive suicidality, I was surprised at the reaction of so many people who read those blogs.  I went back and read it myself on Monday, with my therapist, and I think I was surprised at how dark my thoughts had become again.

I have contemplated no longer existing.  I do not believe I'm capable of taking my own life.  My three children would never forgive me or understand how I could leave them.  I couldn't make my family, my husband, question what they could have done differently.  I simply could not knowingly miss the things to come for my babies.  Yet, I have contemplating no longer existing.

What does it mean to be passively suicidal?  If I were being chased through the woods by a bear, maybe I would just stop running and give in.  If I were hit by a car, maybe I would not fight as hard in the ICU.  Maybe I would take risks.  I don't know.  I've never been in one of these positions and I hope I'm never put to the choice....because I don't know what my decision would be.  I want to believe that I am past the worst of this and that I would die fighting for one more second of this life with the people I love.  But that double-edged sword requires that I stay in my own body and own mind as well.

It has been difficult lately.  I thought I was doing so well and yet so many people are so much more concerned than they had been when I haven't even realized a shift in my mood.  The more I talk about it, the more aware I am that this is a setback.  I know the psychiatrist will be concerned.  I know my therapist is concerned.  I know my closest friends are concerned.  Somehow, I'm not concerned, other than it means I'm not better yet.  Trying to get better has just been so hard and sadly, unrewarded.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Stalkings

Lately, I so often feel watched, bullied, and stalked.  This is one of those stories where people will inevitably say "I would have felt the same way," and I believe it.  These things are spooky.  What frustrates me is threefold, first that I have so many of these experiences, second that I react so strongly that I can't breathe or can't talk about it, and last that it makes me want to hide out some place far, far away, not expose myself to the world, despite how healthy it feels to do so.

Is someone messing with me?  Is someone laughing at me?  Or, worse, is someone trying to harm me or my children?  Or is it just the confusion in my mind?

Knowing that it is probably just in my head, I freaked out a little anyway today when I received a prospective client email.  About ten years ago, I had a relationship with someone in another state, whose name we'll say is Jon Smith (this name isn't real).  So, the request I get is from "Jon Smarth" with a telephone number from the same state that Jon Smith was from.  The email address matched Jon Smith's former email, but with the new spelling, so for example, Jon.Smith@domain.com became Jon.Smarth@domain.com.

I have no reason to believe this person wishes me harm.  I have no reason to believe that he's trying to contact me.  I have no idea why he'd attempt to contact me this way.  In fact, I don't know how he would have found me, as my name has changed.  I have no real reason to suspect that someone else is posing as him to mess with me or to cause me harm.  And yet, these are the first thoughts that go through my head.

I've done a little research and the telephone number left matches the name of "Jon Smarth," but the coincidences make me uncomfortable.  This is what my life has come to.  I'm afraid of the very things that could help me start fresh...


Friday, October 18, 2013

Unspeakables

Sometimes there is shit in my head that is so ugly, so paranoid or so un-PC that I feel like it has no place running through my head, much less being spoken.  So I suppress it, and when it gets too bad to do that, I write it on paper, actual paper.  I try not to leave my composition notebook laying around.  I am ashamed at what can be found in there, at what can be found in my head.  But then it builds up and I get shaky and feel crazy.  I repeat scenarios in my head over and over, and I often can't stop until I put it into the world.  That's what writing this blog has done for me.  There's no doubt that the support I have received from most of the people who read it has been awesome.  But mostly I need a place to cleanse my mind and release this stuff.

I frequently see shadows and figures.  It's part of the paranoia, that someone/something is out to get me.  I hardly startle anymore.  A menacing figure might shorten this journey.

I have considered that I would prefer to have a "physical" illness, rather than a mental illness.  What a horrible thing to say, and yet, I wonder if I might fare better if I had a healthy mind to do battle with my broken body, instead of my intact body that continues to lose ground to my broken mind.

Last weekend, I was driving through a parking lot and I saw no less than three cars about to hit my car.  I jumped, yanked on the wheel and realized that the cars were parked.  Each time I had a flash of a moment where I considered that life might be easier if those cars smashed into me.

Last night, long after midnight, Kaia woke up crying.  When I had settled her back into a peaceful sleep, I said, "Sleep well, my angel."  I had such a horrible sense of foreboding that I couldn't sleep for hours.  Had I just condemned my little girl to some horrible fate?  Would she still be here if I slept?  It would have been my fault, I had no doubt.

I have lost all control over my thoughts and what is left in its stead is poison.

Just another never-ending day

...of agonizing thoughts, sadness and fear. How I wish I could end this.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Hovering at the Edge

I've been dealing with some paranoia again lately.  On the bright side, because I know I'm being paranoid, I haven't quite gone over the edge.  But I'm there, hovering.  

Late last night, I went to my office to pick up a fax that had been sent over.  It doesn't help that it was dark or that I generally have panic attacks at the office, but I wasn't prepared for my own reaction.  I walked in, locked the door behind me and turned on the lights.  I went to my inner office and glanced at the empty fax machine.  I thought it was strange, as I had spoken to the client today who had indicated that the fax had already been sent.  As I rounded my desk, I confirmed that the fax machine on my desk was empty and then, to my shock and surprise, I saw the fax sitting neatly in the middle of my chair....two and a half feet to the right of the machine.  I began to shake.  I looked around, picked up the now spooky paper and high-tailed it out of there.  I breathed through my panic attack in the car and wondered why?  Why do these weird things keep happening?  Why does the universe seem determined to knock me off my footing?  And why does it make me feel like someone is out to get me?

I'm a logical human being.  I have no real reason to believe that someone broke into my office (and managed to lock the door behind them) to move things around just to terrorize me.  It is a far more likely conclusion that the fax simply fell of the machine and drifted strangely to my chair.  That is the unfortunate effect of anxiety and paranoia.  I KNOW better, but I am still too easily shaken by the circumstances.  Unfortunately, once it starts, it tends to grow.

Last night, around midnight, I was awakened by the shrieking of not one, but both of my little guys.  It started from nothing, no whimpers, no restlessness, just hysterical crying.  I walked into the room, in darkness, as I normally do.  I tried to calm them, but they were both thrashing about and crying for me.  I'll admit it.  I was scared in the dark.  What could have caused this level of hysteria in my two darlings, at the same time (normally they don't wake each other up in the night), and that couldn't be soothed?  I turned on a night light.  I was immediately startled by a blanket crumpled in between the beds.  I'm embarrassed to say that I couldn't focus on calming the kinds until I had checked that blanket.  Kaia seemed receptive first, so I soothed her until her shrieks were just gulps and fussing.  I moved on to Mikko.

Mikko has night terrors.  Before I knew what they were, they were alarming.  He looks awake, eyes open, staring as far away from my gaze as he can get and he's inconsolable.  Touching or talking to him puts him into a thrashing rage.  Since I've gotten to know the signs, they're far less frightening.  He has them weekly, so it's not a rare occurrence.  I usually go in to make sure he doesn't hurt himself, but he settles down on his own.  

I was already shaken last night when I went in.  He was having a night terror, but because they were both crying, I wasn't sure that was what it was.  He sobbed hysterically for five minutes.  He called for me, which is rare during a terror.  I went to him and he shrank away from me.  At one point, he was running away from me into the various corners of the room.  It was horrible.  Even after he awoke, he cried in my arms for almost an hour.  He kept saying he couldn't stop crying.  I couldn't do anything right.  I couldn't do anything to stop it.  I couldn't help thinking that this was my fault too. 

The more stressed I am, the more difficult time the kids have.  They sense my panicky energy and they tend to get very touchy.  There is more crying and more need (and I'm usually less capable of giving what they need because I'm struggling).  Can they sense that I'm afraid?  Is that why they were so afraid?  Did something happen in their room?  I seriously considered ghosts and poltergeists last night.

In the light of day, I see how silly this sounds.  Yet, I can transport myself back in an instant if I think about how I was feeling, and the panic rises again in my throat.  I'm always hovering on the edge:  the edge of insanity, the edge of panic, the edge of broken.  

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Juxtaposition

These past few weeks, I have been living in a state of juxtaposition, which is a really cool and appropriate word meaning the act or placement of two things, usually abstract concepts, next to each other.  It's a mouthful, right?  It's a head-full too.  I can hardly wrap mine around the juxtaposition of my present life.  Today, I feel as though I have been thawing from a frozen state and my limbs, and more importantly my mind, are coming back to life slowly.  Too slowly.

I have all of these wonderful things in my life today.  I have a family that supports me.  I have a husband who stands by me, quietly, but here not making demands, not asking too hard questions, and not judging me.  I have two children with whom my relationship has blossomed since I'm getting better.  They want to be near me just to feel me close to them and their easy joy is my joy.  I have extended family who check in, hug me, know without me having to say so.  I have wonderful, wonderful friends who, in their varying states of understanding, are simply there for me, no questions.  I have a comfortable home and a comfortable life.  I have laughed more in the past few weeks than I laughed in the last year.  I have felt more in the last few weeks that I have in the past year.

Therein lies the juxtaposition.  I do not understand how this content happiness can live alongside the debilitating fear, the deep, all-consuming sadness.  I am so worried that the answer is that they cannot and that the fear, the sadness, will take over again.  Because I am more alive than I have been in so long, I am doing more to focus on the good, but so much of that effort is spent subduing the terror that wells, rather than existing in a positive place.  That fight, that juxtaposition, saps the happiness I can find and brings back the disquiet, the sad, in my soul that I thought was waning.

It's so hard to get better when the ugliness inside is stronger than the beauty.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

As the Fog Lifts

When I was in the hospital, I used to describe my way of living as having crammed myself into a teeny tiny, misshapen box.  It wasn't comfortable.  It wasn't what I wanted.  I existed only to meet the expectations (or fit into the boxes) of others, even when they had expressed no expectation.  I had to get out.  Some time just before I left the hospital, I felt like I had crawled out of that box.  My work wasn't done.

Recently, I have been describing my post-hospitalization progress as existing in a fog.  Today as I was singing songs in my head, a habit I use to distract myself, I remembered a time when I sang out loud and often.  How I miss feeling that free!  One year, on a late competition entry, I learned an aria from The Medium, called "Black Swan."  For some reason, today, that song came into my head.  "The sun has fallen and it lies in blood.  The moon is weaving bandages of gold. . . . With silver needles and with silver thread, the stars stitch a shroud for the dying sun."  Those words always haunted me a little.  Today, they spoke to me.

As those lyrics bounced around in my head, I realized that the "fog" is perhaps better described as a shroud, one that I climbed under when I felt like I was "dying" and that now I am trying to lift.  A silver shroud stitched by the stars sounds like such a beautiful, tragic thing.  My emotional existence is a beautiful, tragic thing.  Perhaps that was my obsession with the song in the beginning, which I sung, not surprisingly, during my first bout of depression.

I haven't quite been able to free myself from the emotional limitations I set while I suffered from this most recent experience.  I see glimpses, as if the shroud is lifted briefly from my face so that I might see the world I so vaguely remember, so that I might have reason to fight harder to get back there.  The thawing my soul is doing feels so freeing today.  Today the shroud feels more like a blanket, one that perhaps I don't need to use to be safe and warm anymore....

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Swirling

Back when this was all at its worst, I spent a lot of time lost in my head.  I could barely function on the outside and I was functioning even less in my head.  I wasn't lost in thought, I was drowning in a black hole, as if there was no air, no chance for a clear thought.  Sometimes getting better is a double-edged sword, like the skin around a wound that itches as it heals.

My mind has cleared and the fog that surrounded me has lifted.  In its wake is a barrage of thoughts. Too many thoughts.  For some reason, I seem incapable of a middle ground.  Either I'm completely empty or there is too much, even in thought.  Ironically, I think it's just a different version of the same thing.  Before, I struggled to push through, talk about or deal with my depression and anxiety.  Since that fog has left me, I am thinking about it, constantly.  How is it affecting me?  What has changed in the past nine months?  When did I get like this?  How do I avoid it?  Will I see it in my children someday?  Will I be able to help?  Is it even real?

Being able to think and feel is a better place, I have no doubt.  That still, stagnant place was lonely and dark.  This place is twisting and spinning and swirling in a new way.  I look forward to sorting these thoughts out, deciding who I am going to become and feeling the joy of the moments in my life.