The other day in therapy, we were asked to think of some things that we used to enjoy doing, but don’t do any more. I thought about it, and landed on “writing”. I have always enjoyed writing stories (see my blog for some good ones), and also prefer to communicate important things via written word because I have time to think, organize, and present my feelings in a structured way where I feel more in control. Face to face conversations, especially about difficult or conflicting things, can be full of uncertainty, and if not prepared, I feel like I never get my point across properly or in the way I mean it to. For example, I’m not going home for Christmas this year (for a number of reason) but the main one is that many of my friends have new babies that I want to meet and spend time with. Christmas is not the best time for that, so I’m going to go to Vancouver in March or April when timing is better for everyone. I tried explaining this to my mom and proceeded to hurt her feelings and give the idea that “I don’t value Christmas traditions” or that “I don’t value my family” and a whole bunch of other negative stuff gets perceived. I should have just written a well thought out email, and all that could have been avoided. Anyways, I digress…. I wanted to write this as an extension to my other blog that I posted about a year ago about my experiences with mental illness, because as I said in the last post – it is a story that is never over.
I wanted to write this now because I feel like I need to before the medication kicks back in and takes away my creativity again, including my ability and will to write. Yes, I was off medication for a few months (bad me), but now I am on a slow release injection so not taking medication isn’t even an option any more. It’s in me for good, and let’s just say that if I don’t show up for an injection appointment, it will be noticed. One reason I stopped taking medication was the awful side effects that come along with it, one being for me, a feeling of complete dullness and zombie-like existence. My spark was gone; all the things that I feel make me who I am are taken away, and what is left is a shell – a person who looks and acts like Lindsay, and even can joke around and have fun and enjoy things – but the essence is gone. It’s like living in your own shadow, and that was just not for me. So I stopped. Cold turkey. Just like you aren’t supposed to. This was in June. I was going on a trip to Vancouver with a friend in a few weeks and I couldn’t stand being tired all the time and feeling dull and cloudy, and I wanted to enjoy this trip. There was some withdrawal I felt after a few days off medication. Upset stomach, headache, just generally a sick feeling. I threw up a few times. But I knew it would pass (I had tried going off medication one time before for a few weeks and these were the same symptoms that had happened that time, but I felt so awful that I caved and started taking the medication again just to feel better). After about 2-3 weeks, I felt fully normal again. Better than I had in a long time actually. I went on my trip, could stay up to 11pm like a real adult, had energy, and was genuinely feeling like myself again. I was symptom free too! This was great. But it didn’t last. Of course. I started having some symptoms come back after about two or three months. Nothing serious, mostly just intense anxiety at first. My poor fingernails suffered with that though. Then the voice of the little kid spirit showed up. He never says much, but he cries and laughs a lot, and follows me everywhere. Then came back Ivan, and if you read my older posts, you’ll know who I’m talking about. He was pleasant enough at first, but then started up with his usual “I want you to die and be a spirit with me” thing, and he would try to get me to hurt myself, which escalated into him trying to get me to kill myself, etc etc. There was also paranoia that police were after me, and every time I got home from work I was sure they would be there waiting for me. It didn’t help that the police sometimes park inside the gate at work and so I thought they were after me there too. I also started feeling like people could read my mind. Same old same old. It wasn’t long before people started getting concerned, and I admit it, even I was starting to feel my control slipping away. I had another near suicide attempt in one of the bad moments – I won’t get into it, but Tiki saved me from a very bad decision. It was a few days later that I was back in the hospital for the fifth time.
I don’t want this post to be incredibly long, even though it already is getting that way, so I’m going to skip over the details about the hospital and all that (I did meet some characters in there, as usual, and we watched the world series as a whole ward so there was an extra sense of camaraderie with all the patients this time. FYI – I was a one of the minority of people hoping for Houston, and we did it!!). I can do a whole other post about what it’s like in a psychiatric hospital, the “mental ward” if you will. It’s interesting, but not for right now.
What is for right now is the point of why I wanted to write this even though, right now, that is the exact opposite of what I actually feel like doing. I want to run and hide in Mission Trails behind my house and not talk to anyone ever again, especially if they ask “how do you feel today?” I don’t want to answer any more questions, I don’t want to tell any more nurses, social workers, psychiatrists, etc about my symptoms, I just want it all to go away. I went back to read my old posts in this blog, to see what I wrote about because I honestly couldn’t remember, and what I discovered was someone in a good place with their diagnosis and situation. Someone who had reluctantly accepted their fate and that this was something that needed to be managed on a daily basis through medication and therapy, but things were looking up and it wasn’t so bad.
Something happened in this last year because it is not where I am today. Somewhere along the line, I started to feel extreme anger at the situation. A hatred for mental illness and for myself. All these recovery stories just made me mad and bitter, and I hated the girl who so openly wrote about her experiences with the spirits and medications and hospitals. I wanted to un-post that blog and pretend that no one had read it or knew that about me. I just wanted to be me, without all that attached. Me, before anyone knew what I dealt with or became involved. Me before medication. Me before therapy. Me as I was growing up, though sometimes a struggle to do it alone, I want to go back to that. But I know that’s not possible, and that my condition has continually gotten worse as I have gotten older. And that there is no more hiding it now. But I still hate it. And I feel like there is no way out. Medication which makes you feel dead, or symptoms which have the capability of making that happen for real. Either way, there is no good option. No way out of this. If only I could have the ability to control my own brain which so horrifically betrayed me, or to will all of this away, but I don’t. And I don’t know how to deal with it.
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