Alexander McQueen
Mood:  cool
Topic: mental health
The truth will come out. One British tabloid said that he hung himself. My therapist thought that he died of a pill overdose. The death was not ruled as suspicious, so I believe, there was a suicide note left behind. The man was making unhappy remarks on Twitter. Anyone who uses Twitter will be prone to leave a suicide note. You will want to communicate with the world.

I've always wanted to own something by the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. I admire him oh so much. Last fall they were selling a hot pink sweater at Neimam Marcus for a little over $300. I saw it online. I knew I couldn't afford it, but I would have liked to have bought it. Later in a grocery store I saw the cover of Glamour magazine with the bleach blond singer Gwen Stefani wearing the sweater. The reason that the sweater was even remotely within my reach was that McQueen had started a second, mass marketed brand of clothing called McQ. Naturally I would never be able to own any of his couture clothing. But after the sale of a book, if I was flush with money, maybe I would be able to afford one item from the McQ brand.

I had done my writing for the day and I checked in at Yahoo news, see if I have any new email, what I always do before I fold up my computer and put it away. And this was when I saw that he was dead at 40. The news articles mentioned that he was upset over the recent death of his mother on February 2nd, and that he had left Twitter remarks like "life must go on!!!!!!!" and "if I can only make it through this week". He had fashion shows coming up. He must have been under pressure. One article said that there is a pressure on a genius to always come up with rave reviews. His last show received rave reviews.

A suicide means something different to everyone, but to someone who has attempted suicide it is a bit like looking in a mirror. I think "I've taken a forbidden path that not many people have taken" and then here is this man McQueen, who took my forbidden path, yet, followed it all the way to the end! There is a feeling that he succeeded where I failed. In a secret part of me, I am in love with death. The end to suffering. An escape from myself, a self that I at times despair over and loath. The girl who tried to kill herself in 1995 and the woman I am now are not quite the same. I have become a bit more accepting of my illness. I am involved in a relationship that puts no pressure on me to be more than who I am. But there is still the feeling that I am a failure at life, and that if I did not have this mental illness, I would not be a failure.

I always assumed, because of my experience, that at the heart of a suicide was a person who felt that they had failed at life. It is hard to imagine that McQueen felt like a failure. The people in the industry used words like "brilliant" and "genius" to describe him. The Queen of England gave him a medal in 2003. He has started learning his trade at the age of 16 so he always knew exactly what he wanted to do. And he was given by the owners of his label great creative latitude. New stores of his were being planned in the largest cities of different countries. He was on the rise.

Part of what binds me to this world is my creative work. I want to live because I want to see my book completed. I want to live because I want to solve this creative challenge I've made for myself. Also, as I write the story, I am curious to see what happens next. I have set a mountain in front of me and it is my task to climb it. The part of me that wants to live wants to stand on the summit and take a look at the view. How will I feel when I am closer to the clouds? When the book is finished, published or not, I will not feel like a failure. I can only assume, because I know myself, that once this mountain is climbed, I will begin to look around for another mountain to climb next. This is a healthy part of my personality that keeps me involved in the process of life.

It is hard to believe that a creative person who knew great success due to their creativity would want to end their life. There is much joy to life that simply being creative gives you. Sometimes I think how lucky I am to write every day. Some days it is not on the book, it is on the blog, and some days it is true I do not write at all, but the majority of the days I write. I am not dreaming about becoming a writer, I am doing it. I have met people who dream about writing a book. Not that they have written a book and hope to get it published, just that they dream about writing! It puzzles me, what is stopping them. Perhaps not wanting it enough. Their life is busy and they don't make the time to be creative. For the type of work that I do you need empty, very alone time to be creative. But perhaps there is fear about the act of creativity. The worry of "will I be good enough not to be laughed at" and "can I get what is in my head out of my head and onto......." whatever it is, paper or canvas.

So did McQueen feel like a failure? Or did he feel a lack of love in his life, especially with the death of his mother? I suppose that for a suicide life feels empty. I take note from McQueen's death - fame can feel empty. It is something I have had my suspicions about anyway. But this death confirms it. Fame will not automatically make your life feel worthy of being lived.

I have to believe that McQueen was depressed and grieving. I know a little bit about depression. Depression strips life of meaning. Depression severs ties to life. People outside of yourself no longer matter. Activities that had brought satisfaction no longer matter. In a deep depression nothing can touch you. And you can't see the future in a depression. Time compresses down to the moment, and the moment is black and empty. In that moment you have tunnel vision, there is one thing you see before you, and that is death. This is the depression of the suicide. I suppose that you can go toward death with feelings of adrenaline and a type of joy. It is joy without happiness. When you want death you want freedom from life. Committing suicide you act with purpose and there may be some relief that in the midst of so much emptiness, at last you have found a purpose. It is the purpose to go though with some act (involving a belt or a knife or pills); it is an act that will end life. The moment seems pregnant with meaning. You say to yourself "This act will end my life" - and it is exciting - thus the small jolt of adrenaline. So you can actually feel good about what you are doing. Not all suicides are crying buckets of sad tears when they commit suicide. Some feel very resolute and determined. The secret joy of a last act in life.

What I felt first, after I read the meager facts gathered right after McQueen's death, was not grief. Hours later I would feel grief and I cried a little bit. I turned very sad and morose. Distant from my husband when he came home from work. He tried to feed me chocolates. But all that came later. What I felt first was a shock and a thrill. It was not a happy thrill. But it was a high. It was excitement. A suicide of a personal hero! I looked into a dark mirror. I felt kinship. I felt close to death. Death not by car accident or plane accident. Death probably not from a heart attack because then the death would be investigated as suspicious and an autopsy would have to be preformed. No, the police knew exactly why McQueen had died, and this said to me the causes were not natural. This was death by choice. Death by his own hand. And a note to curtail the investigator's curiosity. I could look at a suicide but not touch it. And so, it was, morbidly exciting.

I have felt this odd excitement before when our country entered into war. There was a moment, in the first invasion of Iraq, when we were defending Kuwait, that the American people were told; we are now at war. Some invisible geographical line was crossed or the first shots were fired. And the news people were told; this is it. Diplomacy is at an end. Lives are being lost. We shoot with the intent to kill and in return, we are being shot at. Even as I write these words shivers are running down my arms as I remember where I was when I heard, over a loudspeaker in the library, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now at war." Horror spikes adrenaline. I'm not proud of my reaction. I wish the first reaction was pure grief. But I think that in the few split seconds before grief there is horror. Horror is a primitive emotion. You are shocked into stillness but you are restless. You are sad but you are ready to jump out of your skin. Horror fascinates.

My therapist Jim says that somewhere in Shakespeare there is the perfect suicide. This is how the perfect suicide should proceed.

A blind older man decides that he wishes to commit suicide. He summons his grown son and tells his son that he wishes to be led to the cliffs of Dover so that he can jump off. The son takes his father into a field. He tells his father that they are at the very edge of the cliffs of Dover. The father jumps. He jumps and then he falls flat onto the ground.

My therapist says that the old man got to live through his death. He experienced the intent, experienced the action, and then, I suppose, he was reborn. My therapist thinks that when you want to die, something inside of you wishes to die, a part of you needs to pass away so that there can be a rebirth of something new. The problems with suicides, according to my therapist, is that the body is mistaken to be the thing that needs to die. But always there is a mental existence that needs to be let go.

Jim says that when talking about the self, it is always best to say "the depression within me" or "the genius within me" - not "I am depressed" or "I am a genius". Thus you say not "I want to die" but rather, "Something inside of me wants to die".

I can clearly see the sanity of saying "The God within me" rather than "I am God". And my experience of writing, or drawing, is that I am channeling something. This is because the end product usually surprises me. I think, "I did that? No way!" And then there is curiosity. "Where did it come from? I'll have to try again tomorrow and see what new thing mysteriously appears." It is "the creativity within me". I would be a bit presumptuous, and inaccurate, to say "I am creative". Although, of course, this is the common way of speaking.

So now, because I have been working with Jim, when I feel the pain of being suicidal, I ask myself "What in me wishes to die?" Usually it is an expectation of something happening which did not happen. I feel disappointment and I want to die.

Last week, I suppose because I am mentally ill, I felt suicidal while waiting for the plummer. The plummer was supposed to come in the morning and I felt some mild anxiety about letting a stranger into my apartment and having a courteous conversation with him. When the hours went by, and he did not appear, I felt more and more anxious, until finally I was pricked with a feeling and thought that was familiar and yet like no other; I wanted to die.

I called my mother, who is the landlord, and told her that the plummer she ordered had not appeared. She told me, (being an experienced landlord), that often you must wait for plummers and electricians. She said that people in this trade do not know what they are going to find when they go on a job. It can be a monstrous problem or it can be a little one. They have a hard time defining how long a job is going to take because they don't know what the problem really is before they have arrived and investigated. I must be patient she said. The problem was not an emergency - an emergency would be a cascade of water falling from the ceiling which did not stop. This problem was a leak when the upstairs tenant used his shower. He had stopped using his shower. Thus the leak was dry. She said that she would call the plumming agency (I had tried and no one had answered) again and again until she spoke with someone. Eventually she did speak with someone and a new time was set for the next day. On that day the plummer arrived as planned. And as a matter-of-fact, I got along dandy with him. He was a genuinely sweet man.

Inside of me I had an expectation that was not being met. I had to let it go. My mother's voice was very soothing as she talked to me. It felt great. She assured me that she would take care of the problem, and that she would not stop until a solution was found. The burden was lifted off my shoulders and shared with my mother. The stress of the situation evaporated when it was looked at through a new perspective, that of my mother's. My perspective, whatever it was, was diseased and could be discarded once someone else gave me their opinion. I adopted my mother's view of plummers, and the suicidal pain disappeared.

I deeply believe that Alexander McQueen made a mistake. Whatever his anguished view, by talking with someone skilled, it could have been turned. If it was depression he was experiencing, that could have been lifted (not necessarily abolished though) with the aid of medication. That the man was deeply unhappy I don't doubt. But he had reasons to live, the first of which was the talent that lay hidden within his breast.

It is funny, but as I was grieving McQueen's death I said to my husband, "Am I next?" I meant, will life conspire to take away my reasons for living and cause me to take my own life? Or, will I act like a fool, in some moment of desperation, and do what he did?

Always suicide is a mistake. I believe this with all my heart. But believing doesn't set me free. If a missing plummer causes me to feel suicidal, I will feel it again. It seems to be a condition of my illness for my mind to turn, when it is stressed, in that direction.

Jim and Death
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: mental health
The mechanic heard the noise my husband and I complained of when he drove the car into the shop. Thank goodness. You don't want the mechanic thinking that the noise you are complaining about is happening only in your imagination. He showed me two bolts, one on either side of the car. One bolt was rusty, the other was not. The rusty bolt had rust coming out of the inside of it, meaning that it was probably rusted clear through. The mechanic suspects, though he cannot promise, that rusted bolt is the cause of the noise. The rest of the car on that side seems tight. This rusty bolt, if it comes off while you are driving, is very dangerous. It will cause the whole wheel to come off. So when he offered to fix it, not promising that he had absolutely found the cause of the noise, worrying that I would angrily come after him if the bumping noise continued, I said yes, replace the bolt. I like to drive a safe car.

My therapist Jim says that when I want to die, something inside of me wants to die. He says that feeling suicidal, is a reaction to when a part of my psyche, the inside me, needs to go through a death and then a rebirth. So thinking about suicide, is like taking a metaphor of the mind, too literally. When I hurt there is no need to kill myself, only, a need for some part of me inside to die and then be reborn. According to Jim people go through deaths and rebirths often - sometimes everyday - I suppose it is how people grow and change.

I said that I could understand hating my illness so much that I wanted to kill it. In the process of killing my illness I got caught up with killing my body. I do fight mental illness. Perhaps the fight has gone on for long enough.

I said to Jim that my mental illness is a part of me, so it does feel wrong (in a soul searching, sensitive moment) to hate that which is a part of me. It is like instigating warfare against the self. It is exhausting and self-defeating. You only end up wounded.

The idea to fight mental illness came from somewhere. It came from the psychiatric professionals I worked with in my first hospitalization who hated psychosis and hated depression and hated anything that deviated from the norm. They, and I, hated anything that prevented me from returning to the life I had before the onset of my illness. Mental illness is the enemy, I have never viewed it as any different from that.

I think that the mental health professionals wanted me galvanized and motivated. I know for a fact that for a while they said that I was choosing to be mentally ill as a ploy against taking responsibility for being an adult. They said I wanted to stay sick and dependent and a child. After a while, when I remained sick, they gave up on me and predicted only that I would be able to buy groceries for myself and cook my own meals. The change of plans they had for me was drastic. I was young and impressionable and listened to them. I despaired greatly for what the illness was doing to me. The mental illness was causing all my dreams and hopes to go down the drain. I glamorized being normal. I glamorized not having a mental illness. The fact was that I had become institutionalized. Too much hospitalization is not a good thing. I realized this once I started working at the art museum. I was more free, more myself, saner, happier, and competent, in my job.

When I am catatonic, and cannot move, my fury against my illness is all that I can feel. My fury against being powerless and having a brain that malfunctions leads easily into thoughts of killing myself. Rarely is suicide not accompanied by feelings of utter contempt, of total self-hatred. I hate my illness so much that nothing else matters but the hatred. And the illness. So much about life is completely forgotten and disregarded when you are suicidal.

I am not normal. I have normal ethics, normal emotions, and normal ways of interacting with other people. But I lose energy early, am fragile, and have periods of time, when to preserve myself, I have to disassociate a little from reality. I wonder what it would be like to accept this version of me. A gentler, less impressive, less effective, smaller person than I was before the onset of my illness. It would probably be a big relief.

What is most frustrating about being mentally ill is not being able to earn any money. Without much money, I find that there is uncertainty about the future. Having money makes you feel like you can meet any challenge and over come them. Not having much money makes you feel like you are a child of fate - adrift in a boat, destined to rock with the waves of the ocean - never quite being in control, always doomed to make the difficult decisions in a way that you can't be happy with.

The funny thing is, the difficult decisions haven't yet arrived. We have a car that has 56,000 miles on it and we don't drive it much. I have all my teeth and none of them hurt. I have my physical health and am working on becoming even more physically healthy. Today there is money in the bank to cover the costs of fixing the car. Hopefully this fix is a fix that will solve the problem. I have a long standing job to do tomorrow (return to work on my book) and a dog and two cats that fill the house with love and affection. I have a husband who is a best friend. A husband who, my sister says, adores me. My husband is good at his job and his boss knows it. The company he works for seems to be weathering the recession pretty well. We live in an apartment that is ours for the rest of my life. It is not quite the same as owning your own house, with all the mortgage paid off, but it is close to it. As long as I pay the rent, my mom won't kick me out. My parents love me and do not show any signs of wishing that I had turned out as a different kind of person than who I am. My brother and sister always treat me with the utmost respect. You kind of get used to this being the eldest. Being the eldest is a position in life that never goes away. And what is best of all, what I am currently very happy about, is that I haven't felt suicidal for over a month and a half.

Ever see the tee-shirt with the slogan, "Life is good"? This is how I feel. I was able to go to sleep at an early hour (quarter of 9) so that waking at 7am wasn't too difficult. I was able to arrive at the mechanic's at 8, talk to the mechanic without anxiety, and walk home. I waited for the phone call that the car was ready and typed this essay. I then walked again to the mechanic to pick up my car. On the ride home I heard not a thump or a bump from under the car. I believe fully that the problem is fixed. Since this is our only car, having it in good working order is necessary for peace of mind. We do not have so many friends that we can call to help us if we are in trouble. We must be self-reliant.

I have to believe that accomplishing this small chore of fixing the car is a great achievement. In my small life, it was needful and worrisome. For some other people it would be no big thing. But I can't imagine my life in terms of what it would mean for other people. I have to think about what things mean in terms of myself and my capabilities. I have to live at my own speed. I have to listen to the beat of my own drummer. The rhythm of my life is not the rhythm of other people's lives. On my terms, I was successful. And so, at this moment, I can honestly say, "Life is good."

I'm Not Lazy
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: mental health
Had a short spat with my husband yesterday. The name calling and yelling rose in pitch, I called him a swear word, he controlled himself and did not swear back. It was an old issue, one we have fought over before.

I object, strenuously, to being called lazy.

I have no problem with my husband calling himself lazy. But do not include me in that statement. I do not want my husband saying that "we" are lazy people.

The first time we fought over this issue my husband's daughter called on a Saturday evening, and over the phone, asked her Dad what he was doing. My husband said that he and I were both being lazy. Hadn't left the house all day. Hadn't gotten any exercise, were still wearing our pajamas. We had been working on the computers all day. He said that for both of us, it was a lazy day.

I remember that that day I had worked on my computer and wrote. I probably wrote for my book. Book writing is intense, tiring, and usually difficult to start. I was exhausted by what I wrote. And I was suffering from symptoms of my illness. I had to take things slow, not because I was lazy, but because my mind was malfunctioning. I was, at the time that my husband said over the phone that we were lazy people, suffering from my mental illness. And there is, as far as I am concerned, a big difference between being lazy and suffering from schizophrenic symptoms. That day, when my husband called me lazy, I felt that I had been valiant in accomplishing something creative, and was riding the effects of being riddled with mental pain afterwords.

Often, about half of my day, my activities are difficult to do. In order to accomplish things I must push myself. I believe that with the schizoaffective illness I have symptoms of amotivation - the scientific term for lack of motivation. In order to do something the act is often initially accomplished by a feeling of anxiety. I often force myself to move. I force myself to think. I force myself to make a phone call. I force myself to do anything that involves getting out of bed or using my brain. The alternative is just to lie in bed and read a book or watch a movie. Sometimes, when I'm really sick, I just want to lie in bed and close my eyes. Not to sleep, but to rest. No music, no books, no television, no physical movement, I lie under the covers frozen in place. It can be boring. But when I am sick I am often up to doing nothing else.

The problem with my husband telling his daughter that I was a lazy person is that once, she made comments to the effect that judged her life as more significant, and worthy, then my life. She summed up the activities we both do during the day and said that based on how much each of us got done, she deserved to be on my husband's health insurance policy more than I deserved to be on his health insurance policy. At the time she was busy, going to school full time and working at a grocery store. No doubt about it, she was not a lazy person. What was I doing? At the time I think I was working on oil paintings. My creative period is short, about three hours in the morning. Usually after I create, either painting or writing, there is a time of suffering where my brain is very weak and I am capable of little. In other words I spend time paying a penalty for thinking too strenuously. Most sundry activities are strenuous - painting, writing, walking to the library, cleaning, going grocery shopping, etc. Normal activities are strenuous, simply living and being active is strenuous.

Knowing that my step-daughter has shown contempt for my lifestyle, and contempt for the value of my life itself, I did not want my husband characterizing me to her as being lazy. I do not characterize myself as lazy. I am, within the confines of my illness, very driven.

There are very few schizoaffective people who have the creative output that I have or are capable of the level of quality that goes into every creative project I do. I do not feel like I am dancing or floating through life. I feel like I am walking into a stiff wind that is blowing against me. I slog. I am in a swamp wading through mud, muck and mire. I am sometimes in the dirty, befouled, trenches of a battlefield. And sometimes I've been shot. Oh no, I am not lazy.

My husband apparently feels some slight embarrassment over the amount of time he commits to his creative projects, like his comic book making. I think he calls himself lazy out of guilt and self-abuse. He is astonished at how selfish he can be with his time and get away with it. He can literally do nothing other than work on his computer for eight to twelve hours on the weekend. There are no children demanding his attention. Housework does not get done. Chores do not get done. Conversations do not happen. Friendships are not practiced. He is solitary. His hair is unwashed and oily. He does not eat. He does not move from his one chair.

One of the ways that my marriage is a success is that I let him have this time to himself to do his solitary pursuits. He wakes at 4:30 am, I wake at 11 or 12 noon. See how he has the house, and the time, all to himself just by the differences in our schedules? And after I wake, it is my time to practice my creative pursuits. So he is left alone, to do what he wants, for even longer. Basically he does not want to be bothered until 3pm. This is when he feels burnt out. Then he is open to some different type of activity, like walking the dog or doing a household chore or taking a shower.

Yesterday my husband was talking to our dog when he called us lazy. It was 3pm in the afternoon. I had woke, spent some time on the internet, and then wrote for several hours. I had been productive. After I finished my writing I suggested we walk down town and look at a thrift store and an antique store. I felt like I was pushing myself to do something physical and get dressed, get moving. I had not, since waking, spent a moment not using my brain. This was when he turned to the dog and said, "Aren't mommy and daddy lazy?"

The dog does not care whether or not my husband calls me lazy. The dog was, in fact, mighty distressed when mommy and daddy started shouting at one another. She ran and hid under the bed.

Part of my husband's argument, and his belief that no apology was needed, is that "normal" people talk to one another this way. He was making "normal"conversation. I had to suck it up and just accept that "normal" people prattle on and say things that make no sense, but that are accepted by other "normal" people. Apparently he comes by the information of how "normal" people act by his vastly superior experience of having a full-time, job - at which he learns this "normal" pattern of discourse. I, who stay at home, can't understand "normal" interactions between people who don't have a mental illness. I, who have a mental illness, am being too sensitive. One of the hallmarks of the difference between "normal" people and the mentally ill is how sensitive the mentally ill person is to meaning, and how insensitive and inauthentic the "normal" person is when it comes to the way they talk. As far as I can tell, at work, "normal" people lie and exaggerate all the time. No one really takes each other seriously. I am trying, at home, to hold him to too high a standard of behavior.

I think, because of all the noise I made, my husband will not soon be calling me lazy. But because my husband really feels that "lazy" is an innocent, innocuous word, and because he does harbor guilt and self recrimination against his lifestyle on the weekends, I will hear the word "lazy" again. My only hope is that when he uses the word, he calls himself lazy, and leaves me out of it.

Grey Roots
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: family
This weekend I'm dying my hair. I buy the color at the drug store and do it myself to save money. I try to go for as long as possible without dying my hair in order to preserve its health. The ammonia and other noxious chemicals they put in the hair dye can make the hair brittle and dry. My hair is long, so its state of health isn't hidden, its obvious to the viewer. I've seen older women with long hair that they dye themselves that looks horrible. I feverishly hope, (here you can see how wide my streak of vanity is) that I don't look like some of the women I see siting in the psychiatric health center I use.

I got my first gray hairs back in 1990 when I was hospitalized in a psychiatric institution for two years. I was only twenty. Know that old story about the mental shock that turned the man's hair white? Well, I suppose that living in that hospital, and weathering the onset of a mental illness, turned a couple of my hairs white. Stress can make you prematurely gray, this I know is true. President Obama, after a year in office, apparently has more gray hairs. There was an internet article about it. Some of those hairs might be old age, but I am certain that trying to lead a country out of a depression (I'm not going to sweet it over and call it a recession) while it is at war in two countries, and develop national health care, has given him stress related gray hairs.

Dying my hair is a complicated affair. First of all, during the winter, I can only do it on the weekend. This is because during the week we only heat our bedroom, but on the weekend we turn up the heat for the whole apartment. On week days outside the bedroom the apartment has a little propane heating, but the setting is low, only enough so that the cats stay alive and the pipes don't freeze. Usually the bathroom is very cold. And it is in the bathroom where I sit, naked, with the chemical dye in my hair for approximately 25 minutes. It has to be the bathroom because I don't want the dye to ruin anything in the apartment. Every room in the apartment is covered with Oriental rugs. (I know one woman who collects teddy bears, another woman who collects light houses, but I have collected, over the years, Oriental rugs.) Inexplicably, I have noticed that once I got brown hair dye on the white bathroom wall. I know I get dye on my shoulders and forehead. So I do not underestimate that it is a messy process.

Once, a women told me that she puts her hair, wet with hair dye, in a plastic bag, knots it shut, and then walks around the house. This is a sensible habit. And perhaps a necessary habit for her because she has three children, two of which are young. But I can endure the discomfort of sitting in the bathroom naked. I usually pass the time reading a book.

I don't mind that a little bit of my natural brown hair, streaked gently with gray, should show at the roots. This is part of my punk sensibilities. I used to be punk when I was in my twenties. Punk says "Who cares if you show some artificiality?" Punk says "Don't let the pressures of conventional society mold your behavior." Punk says, "This is who I am so fuck off."

The dye I use is the same color every time. And it is one shade lighter than my natural color. So that is why my roots are dark. I like the lighter shade because when the sun shines on it there are glints of red and gold. If I had my hair professionally colored they would put in it unmistakable streaks, whole long locks, of blond or red. I am slightly saddened that I cannot afford my hair to be professionally colored. A women in my peer support mental health group that meets Wednesday night has long hair - she is post menopausal, and treats herself with a professional dye job. She has glorious, sophisticated hair that appears to be worthy of a girl many decades younger. She told me last visit the price was $108. I believe this was before a tip.

I dream that if I publish a book I will treat myself every other month with a professional hair dye job.

Realistically I could go for another month without dying my hair. But I have an event to go to next Thursday. It will be in a place where I hope to look as young as possible. I will be going to a strip club.

I've never been to a strip club and I have to admit I am glad of the opportunity. I prefer not to go to my grave and never have been to a strip club. My curiosity is unchecked. My husband's daughter specifically invited us. She will participate in a pole dancing contest, with a thousand dollar prize. She has been practicing complicated moves. She will have a costume on that will cover her breasts. We would not go if her breasts were uncovered. Still, after she competes, we have to immediately leave because then her real job begins. She will change into a thong and she will pole dance and give lap dances mostly naked.

I believe that what my step-daughter is doing is about two steps up from prostitution. She teases her customers with sexual fantasies, and enhances the sexual fantasies by very sexual behavior. She flaunts her practically naked body and manipulates men's minds with flirtatious conversation in order to get as much money as she can out of them. I used to wonder, would it be better for this girl, after she had just lost her high paying job, to go into the army or become a stripper? She had only a couple of college courses to her credit and two years experience as a customer representative at an internet company. The economy was in a depression and nobody was hiring. When my husband was young, inexperienced, and at a cross roads in his life he joined the air force. The discipline was really good for him, he traveled widely, and he got training that lead to a job with a police force when he became a civilian again. Oh, he disliked it while he was serving, but now older and wiser, he looks back and says that he made enormous gains of character while he was in the military.

I know, with my personality, that I would join the military rather than be a stripper. However, my step-daughter has a different type of personality. She can handle the emotional strain of sexually selling herself. She dances three nights a week and goes to college full time. When we saw her last she had just signed on for another semester of school and told us that she wants to get her Master's Degree in computer science, and eventually, start her own business. There is nothing stopping her from making these dreams a reality. Unless, perhaps, she accidentally becomes pregnant. She makes more money stripping, three nights a week, than my husband does working a 50 hour week in manufacturing. His daughter is apparently a very good stripper and out earns the other girls. She drinks a lot of coffee for energy while she dances, drinks "fake" drinks that are really just fruit juice with no alcohol that the patrons buy her trying to get her drunk, and has told us that it is no use making friends with the other strippers, most of who are alcoholics and drug addicts and prostitutes. The owners of the strip club are really happy with her and she is secure and proud that she is making them, and herself, a lot of money. All the other jobs she has ever had she complained about. She complained they were unfair at the grocery store. She complained that they were making her work too hard at the internet company. We hear no complaints about stripping. She has the job figured out. Probably she is a very, very smart girl.

As far as I'm concerned my husband and I are going to see his daughter in a play. She's an actress. And I really hope she wins the big prize. Her boyfriend has not committed whether or not he will come to the contest. He thinks it is enormously wrong that her father is coming into her work place to see her perform. Well, I know perhaps a little more about this family. My husband used to walk around his house in the nude. He used to sunbath in the back yard nude. When his kids got old enough he dropped the habit. But he and his daughter are related, they have the same genes, they have some of the same emotional make up. They both are very sexual, sensual beings with very little (at least compared to me) sense of shame. If his daughter can succeed in her job, how much of a stretch is it that her father would not support her in her job?

I call the love that my husband has for his daughter "Jesus love". I don't know much about Jesus, but what I do know is that he seemed to have a bottomless pit full of love and compassion when it came to the people around him, the good and the bad, the holy and the sinners alike. My husband has a bottomless pit of love for his daughter. She could be a murderer and he would forgive her and visit her often at prison. She literally, can do no wrong. Oh, he calls her a diamond in the rough too. He says that she has some sharp edges that times needs to wear away. He isn't naive. But I think, when it comes to his daughter, there are two forms of judgement. There is the quick judgement, a surface judgement, and then beneath this an ocean of pride and acceptance.

I don't think that I will dress sexually at the strip club. I'll try to look nice, obviously I'm dying my hair for the occasion. But I don't want the men looking at me, I want them to focus on the strippers. I'm debating wearing a pair of black heels or my beloved blue canvas converse sneakers. I don't know if I'll wear some big gold earring, and flash some bling, when in real life I prefer to wear the little diamond stud earrings that my sister gave me. I may curl my hair and make it big and fluffy. I could wear the clingy wrap around dress with fish net stockings that I wore one Christmas, or I could wear my favorite pair of jeans with a gray sweater. I think that the environment will be so scary, and such a new experience, that I will opt for comfort over all else. Probably I'll get to the strip club and just hope to be invisible.

The Mermaid and the Sailor
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: art in progress

Haiti
Mood:  cool
Topic: mental health
It is Sunday, and churches in Haiti are holding services. I have just returned from my church in Vermont. I opened my wallet and all that was in there was a single dollar bill. This is what was left after we bought groceries this week, put money away for dog food, got my husband a hair cut, washed the car, and put money in the pledge envelope. We were encouraged to give to a church relief fund above and beyond our pledge money. I took a plain envelope and wrote on it "Haiti" and put my one dollar in it.

I read this in an article on line;

At the cathedral, the Rev. Toussaint described his own near-miraculous survival.

"I watched the destruction of the cathedral from this window," he said, pointing to a window in what remains of the archdiocese office. "I am not dead because God has a plan for me."

"What happens is a sign from God, saying that we must recognize his power - we need to reinvent ourselves,"

Others, however, were angry.

"It's a catastrophe and it is God who has put this upon us," said Jean-Andre Noel, 39-year-old computer technician "Those who live in Haiti need everything. We need food, we need drink, we need medicine. We need help."

I don't know where God was in the earthquake. I do not believe that God punished the Haitians. I do believe that all the deaths from the earthquake, falling ceilings and falling walls of concrete, were innocent deaths. God kills the innocent and the good alike. He kills through cancer, he kills through earthquakes, he kills through automobile accidents. He killed off a portion of my brain through a brain disease. I certainly did not get a mental illness because I was a bad person. I do believe that the mental illness challenged me, and perhaps, I have learned from it. I have learned from being powerless and in pain. The survivors of the earthquake are now all learning through their struggle to stay alive. Their courage is tested. Their ability to do good or evil is tested. Their faith is tested. My mental illness tests me every day. I believe in a God that challenges and tests. And yes, I suppose, I worship a God who has the capacity to cause great suffering.

This does not mean that I believe in a God who does not love or have compassion. I believe that God gives his companionship through all tests and challenges, and that this companionship brings healing. I feel loved by God. I feel that in his eyes I am special, even though in the eyes of society I am weak and ill. I am one of the meek who Jesus had special words for.

Sometimes, when I am feeling blessed, having a roof over my head and food in my refrigerator and people who love me, sometimes I get scared that it will all be taken away from me. If you believe in a God, like I do, then you feel that your life is somewhat being carried or being guided. I suppose that the priest who lived, and thus feels that his life was spared for a greater purpose, definitely has faith in his God. Not faith because he lived. He doesn't believe in God because God spared him. He believes in God because he believes that a greater power is shaping his life. He knows very well, in his gut, that he could have easily been killed. But he attributes the fact that he lives not to luck, but to God's choice. God makes some choices, like the deaths of children, that are almost unfathomable to the parents of those children. Yet all life must come to an end. It is just that some endings are bitterly too soon for those who stay behind and survive. For those who die, their end may have been decided before their birth. I certainly believe that my illness was genetic, and decided, coded in my DNA, before my birth.

I feel that it is God's choice that I have my blessings, but I know, in my gut, that it could be God's choice to take my blessings away and test me a little more. I dearly hope, that should I be tested, I will be worthy and graceful. I could get a physical disease. My house could burn down. My husband could die. If God were to take my blessings away I would probably cry a great deal. I might take prescription drugs that would lift me up and numb me. Currently I am probably already taking prescription drugs that are lifting me up and numbing me. My anti-depressants and anti-anxiety and anti-psychotics. I am such a fragile creature that psychiatric medicine is trying to keep me alive. The drugs enter my life as good people would. As good people are like angels walking this earth, so the psychiatric drugs are like angels ministering to the suffering.

If a void entered my life I might turn to prescribed, psychiatric drugs, or, I might pray a little more. I could foresee that if the degree of suffering increased, so would the fervor of my prayer. I would pray until my ego was obliterated and all that remained was the mental ground upon which God makes his presence known. If I suffered more, I would die more, so that the God in me could better live. I do foresee in my life more tests, more challenges. Old age brings infirmities. Nothing remains the same forever.

Already, this last year, one route of my survival was threatened. My anti-depressant Prozac lost its effectiveness. And this led directly to two things. One was to my joining a church. The other was to find a therapist. I had gone about three years without a therapist. Didn't need one. Had gone for about 6 years without going to church. Didn't need a church. But when the anti-depressant failed, and nothing as good medically could be found, I reached out - to God and to my fellow human being. While the Prozac was failing I became very suicidal. Now, I sometimes feel despair, but I am relatively free of suicidal fantasies.

I doubt people who have survived the earthquake in Haiti will be killing themselves. They may die from thirst, hunger, and exposure, but they are trying their best to survive. Maybe some will be so grief stricken and traumatized that they will take their own life. I hope the help agencies that are raising money get aid to the nation to rebuild. I hope the UN can do something. I hope the people of Haiti continue to cooperate with one another, in brotherhood, and that the place does not descend into lawlessness. For those that live, I have a prayer, that may seem like a strange prayer. I hope that they feel as the priest does, that their life was spared for a purpose. That they are the agents of goodness and change. For those that live, I hope that they can value their lives and not give in to despair. If they must suffer, and they will suffer more, I hope that this does not make them turn away from life and God. God does not reward the good and punish the evil in obvious, self-evident ways. He is almost, but not quite,beyond our ability to understand.

Those that hate God do not understand God. God is not human. He is life, but he is also something which is beyond life and exists in the realm of death. There is the life that our senses observe; taste, touch, hear, see, smell - all in time that flows from past to future, all in a pattern that is comprehensible. But there is a curtain that separates the logical phenomena that we observe from something that is beyond logic, beyond rational, that is supernatural. Oh, I believe that the supernatural is real. I've had too many close encounters with it. I've heard stories from people who have had close encounters with it. And there are famous prophets from history whose consciousness expanded and touched the supernatural. Buddha was one, Christ was another. To me these people were not crazy, they were instead super sane. They felt God so keenly that they transcended their own humanness. They moved away from being human when they moved toward God.

If death has any meaning it is to love one another better, and closer, and with more passion. The meaning of the death in Haiti is not that God has turned his back on humanity, or that he is vindictive and punitive. Death in Haiti is not proof that God does not exist. Death and suffering is never proof that God does not exist. Those that think this way are merely hurt and angry. I've been there. I've been full of hurt and anger and outrage against God. It is merely a place to rest, a temporary attitude on a much longer path of evolving consciousness. I should know, I had my mind taken away from me. This is not quite as drastic as having your life taken away from you but it is close. Almost every day my mind fails me and I fall into symptoms of mental illness. I have reason to hate God. But I don't. And I am coming to believe, that the more I love God, the better I am able to weather the mental illness. I'm not crazy in love with God, my feelings are mixed and tepid, but there is a direction, slowly, I'm being pushed along toward.

I have a feeling that when I'm a little old lady, probably frail and alone, me and God will be friends at last.

Recovery Prognosis
Mood:  not sure
Topic: mental health

I recently read a short New York Times article about an artist living in New York City who has paranoid schizophrenia. He's been homeless. He's attempted suicide. He hears voices. The article ends in this way;

But Mr. Smith, who continues to receive counseling from FEGS, understands the future he faces.

“You have to come to the realization that this is the way you’re going to be for the rest of your life,” he said. “I never met one schizophrenic go back to their regular life. It doesn’t exist. That person is dead. This is a new person in there. I will never again be the person that I was.”

His voice grew softer. “That’s the sad reality that I live in,” he said, looking away. The voice became a whisper.

“That’s the way it is.”

One doctor predicted to my family that I would make a full recovery. I don't know if this was when they gave me the diagnosis of "depressive with psychotic traits" or after they changed the diagnosis to "schizoaffective". This is like going from mild to serious. The doctor who told my family the optimistic forecast liked me a lot. Did he think "she's got guts, she'll tough it out?" Idiot. As if my drive, my motivation, my character could compete with a brain disease. Many days the brain disease wins.

Yesterday was such a day. Consciousness simply wasn't that strong. I woke with a headache from sleeping over 12 hours. I do this if I don't set my alarm clock. My medication makes me sleep 10 to 12 hours every night, but some nights, this is too much and I wake with a headache. I try with my alarm clock to cut short my sleeping. Consciousness is groggy and doesn't feel good, but at least, I'm awake. Drugged consciousness is not fun or psychedelic or cool. Its horrible. To have a mind but to be unable to use it fully. Its like having a penis that is impotent. Its like having a car that will only drive 20 miles an hour. Its like having a pet dog that always growls at you. Its like visiting friends knowing that your hair is oily and your face is covered with pimples.

Let me make myself clear. I love the power of the mind. I love books that have been written and art that has been painted by people with glorious minds. I think that the power of the mind is the most fascinating, enchanting, sparkling power in the universe. Sometimes I feel I have it. Sometimes I don't. And when I don't, I mourn. Oh, how sad I am when I am symptomatic. Sad and angry.

Yesterday I woke but I woke from sleeping too long and I couldn't attain clear consciousness. I think maybe I did too much the day before. I had a good day Friday, was proud of what I wrote. Had fun visiting my therapist. Had fun going grocery shopping with my husband. Watched a movie and then watched old episodes of "The Office". The show made me laugh. I suppose that in many ways on Friday I did not rest, I did not pace myself - I just flat out lived. Used my mind up living. Normal people don't use their mind up living. They simply get tired. Me, if I use my mind up living I get symptomatic.

Yesterday I "coped" with my altered and abnormal consciousness by eating chocolate and other foods. I sedated myself with food. Bad strategy. I'm supposed to be on a diet. But large amounts of food takes the strain off the brain. Excess food floods your brain with feel good chemicals. I've never seen a paper written about coping with a schizophrenic illness by eating too much. I've seen research that drugs for schizophrenia will cause out-of-control hunger and craving for poorly nutritious foods. But what about the schizophrenic that uses eating as a drug? Bulimics use eating as a drug. Some morbidly obese people must use eating as a drug.

Went to see a movie in the movie theaters "Sherlock Holmes" - the new movie with Robert Downey Jr. directed by Guy Ritchie. Kept on closing my eyes near the end of the movie. Was I bored because of the movie or because I was symptomatic? Don't know.

Came home and tried to read. Kept putting the book down and closing my eyes. Reading Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility". Not her best book. Written in an old english style of prose, what I suppose most people would find boring. Was I bored? I don't know. I know that I had trouble concentrating. Nearly finished with the book, so I guess my tolerance for boring old literature is high. Sleep found me early, before my evening medication hit.

The day only had one bright spot, wrote several pages of rough draft for my book. I suppose the only real moments during the day that I had clear, clean consciousness. It was a character study. What did the character of Sue Gerber look like, talk like, act like. Will continue over the next several days doing character studies. This is all leading up to a scene in the book where there is group therapy going on in a psychiatric ward in a hospital. Writing group therapy is a bit like writing a party scene - many people taking turns talking. Want to know about each patient in group therapy, want to know their looks, their diagnosis, their peculiarities, their back story, before I put them together in a room and have them interact. Must not forget the nurse and the social worker. The "sane" people in the group who steer the conversation.

Oh yes, speaking of sane people. Talked to my paranoid schizophrenic friend R. yesterday. She doesn't think that sane people exist. She thinks that all people are in emotional pain and they are desperately trying to hide it. Most people, in her opinion, are wearing masks, pretending to be happy and sane. I told her that I have met sane people. That most people are sane. She didn't believe me. For some reason she likes believing that all people are flawed and mentally in pain. It seems to be one step away from describing a world view where most people are mentally ill yet somehow superior to her in hiding it. She is like a fish in a fish bowl that thinks the whole universe exists of other fish. She can't think outside her water. The water of a paranoid schizophrenic.

To back up her assumption that most people aren't sane she gave me several examples from television. For instance, the model whose boyfriend threw a cup of acid at her face. After much reconstructive surgery the woman is happy, looks like her old self when she smiles, and is a model of recovery for us all. But, the television investigative journalism tells us, there were dark days when the model thought of suicide. Happily therapy helped her through this. My friend's conclusion - therapy has to be widely used. Because so many people desperately need it. My skeptical question - how many beautiful people have acid thrown in their face? My friend is getting her reality from television and the Evangelical church she attends. Something about a steady diet of television and talk of the devil makes us believe that suffering is the common condition. And of course, being paranoid schizophrenic and hearing voices telling her that people want to beat her up and that she is a whore, perhaps, suffering is her common condition.

No Place For Tears
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: art in progress

Mail
Mood:  irritated

Yesterday I bugged Mike about his daughter's mail.  I said to him, "Are you trying to teach her a lesson?  Do you want her to experience bills unpaid or perhaps go into debt?"

Mike said no, and he got the phone and called her that very minute.  The phone call did not go well.  Sometimes while she ranted and raved Mike held the phone away from his head, not wanting to hear what she had to say.  After the phone call he said, "See, this is why I don't call her."

Apparently this semester in school there is a repeat of an incident that happened last semester.  A teacher pulls Mike's daughter out of the classroom to have a private chat.  The teacher tells the daughter that she is not doing the classwork the way that the teacher wants or that she is not participating enough in class.  The daughter tells the teacher that the class is boring, she already knows everything, and that the teacher is wasting the money she paid to take the class.  Recently she also told the teacher that the teacher is teaching the class the wrong way.

Teachers don't like to be insulted.  The last time she did this the teacher gave her a "C" despite her perfect attendence and having done all the classwork.  Mike suggested that his daughter do the classwork the way the teacher asks and take an easy "A".  That advice made his daughter very angry.  She said it was bad advice.

Mike said that it is a mistake to view a relationship with his daughter as anything more than the process of "cutting the apron strings".  He said that his Dad gave him good advise that he didn't want to listen to either.  Mike sees conversations like the one he had with his daughter as important to her becoming a separate, independent adult.  "She isn't an adversary" he says.   

Her behavior with the teacher is puzzling.  I think something more than immaturity is at work here.  I see an over inflated ego probably compensating for low self esteem.  Is that what immaturity is?  Or is this behavior genetic?  Does Mike's daughter have no choice but to act this way given the personalities of her parents at her own age?  Is the drive to disagree with authority built in?  Ah.  I know.  Both these teachers that she is picking fights with are females and she had a very poor relationship with a former step mother when she was young.  She is transfering her aggression toward the step mother onto an older female with authority.  It is rebellion 10 years too late.

I'm curious what her grade in this class will be.

Puzzled
Mood:  quizzical

It is sometimes hard to be a stepmother.

Mike's daughter has not been over to our house to pick up her mail in a long time.  She temporarily went to live with her boyfriend.  I certainly haven't opened up any of her mail but there are bills and what looks like official state business.

I told Mike last weekend that he needed to call his daughter and tell her that it looks like she has some important mail waiting for her.  Mike told me then that he wants a divorce from his daughter.  He wants them to part ways and that she go live her life separate from him living his life.  It was his decision as a parent not to call her and to let her suffer the consequences of not picking up her mail.  I have to abide by his decision and not call her myself, it wouldn't be my place to do that.

So I worry that she isn't getting her mail and what might be the consequence of that.  I am worrying far more than her father is worrying.  I wish I could quit worrying.  Obviously her father isn't worrying.  The reluctance to calling my own flesh n' blood isn't the kind of relationship I would want to have with my own daughter.  But her father makes up the rules of how we are going to interact with her.  Apparently at this time he feels the need for distance more than I do.

We joke that we will hear from her when her car breaks down and she needs money to fix it.  It isn't a funny joke, it is a sad joke. 

This spring Mike and I are going to fix up a car that was given to us by my sister.  It has sat in a garage for over eight years.  It has very low mileage and we are going to offer it to his daughter for her to buy.  We had an episode where she owed us money and was paying it back bit by bit when suddenly she stopped paying.  She was expecting a baby and wanted to save her money instead of paying back Mike and I what she owed.  The decision was never discussed, we just stopped getting money.  Eventually we dismissed her debt, losing $800.  Now, because of that experience we will request that she get a car loan from the bank if she wants the car.  The irony is that because she is young and earns little probably Mike will have to co-sign the loan.  But the important thing is that she will be obligated to the bank and not us.  Mike is betting that she won't want the car because it doesn't have four wheel drive and isn't cool looking enough.  I think that having his daughter come live with us has damaged his opinion of her.  I don't know about Mike, but I certainly had a better relationship with his daughter before we became close.  The closeness ended up in her saying hurtful things to me that I can't forget.  Does the past sometimes keep me up at night?  Yes.  I get a shot of adrenalin re-living memories of the last fight.  I don't doubt that the daughter has moved on and spares little thought about me.  I hope time heals wounds.