Mood:  celebratory

This is the final part of the essay that will be published in Schizophrenia Bulletin.  The beginning of the essay is in the previous blog entry.  As part of the legal agreement I signed I can publish it in it's pre-print form on my personal website.  Eventually this essay will be published on my main website, schizophreniaandart.com.  Now that the publishing bug has bitten, I'm thinking of writing an essay for Schizophrenia Bulletin titled "Portrait of a Marriage" about what it is like to have a person with a mental illness married to a person who doesn't have a mental illness.

Ability and Disability, Part II

A small gallery owner and I once had a friendly acquaintance that lasted several years. He professionally framed several of my painted canvasses. When I visited him in his shop I was always at my most attractive. Showered, rested, and a paying customer. The new car I parked in his lot had been bought for me by my husband. This man couldn't "see" anything wrong with me.  My creeping rate of artistic production baffled him. And I think he was curious about my new marriage, why would a man willingly take an unemployed, sick woman as a wife?            

One day he said to me, "You have a nice personality. You would interview very well.  Why can't you get a job at the kennel down the road?" What the gallery owner hoped to do was to prove my status of being disabled wrong.  His theory that I was strong enough to become a contributing member of society, earning a wage, was intended as a compliment.  In an attempt to find a normal place in the world for me he had thought of a menial job that required no education and minimal intellect.  What I would be doing at the kennel was vague, but the implication was that I should clean up after caged animals.    The intent was to prove that my psychiatric disability could be overcome by simply finding the right task for me to do.  He imagined that a job that was purely physical, washing excrement off concrete floors, wouldn’t tax my brain or invoke the disability of schizophrenia.             

Perhaps for several hours every day I could use my best hours of clear thought and concentration working at a kennel.  Here my acquaintance was also challenging my resolve for recovery.   If I declined to apply for such a job then the fault must lie with me and my personal values and not my illness.  But the assumption that physical labor somehow bypasses my thought disorder is incorrect.  In my world of pennies and necessary cost, the act of directing my body in coordinated movement is just as mentally fatiguing as sitting in front of a computer and typing.  Bending language, as I have done in this essay, and bending my body are two very different tasks but they both involve my person as a whole.              

A good friend once said to me, “Karen, you become the book you read.”  It often seems that my mind is like a light switch that can only be turned on or off and it is seldom able to roam in-between.  Sometimes I wonder if the main feature of my illness isn’t just an abnormal intensity of experience.  I am too much in the world, concerned with the world, and consumed by the world.  In my household I am the slowest dishwasher and the slowest with the vacuum cleaner and the dust rag.  However, I am also the best dishwasher and the most thorough cleaner of every nook and cranny.  One might say that I take life, and everything in it, too seriously.  But to be more accurate, perhaps I burn out so fast because I am not splintered into parts, lacking the agile ability to project or withhold concentration.  My existence isn’t filtered out into more important or less important parts, and so, I am vulnerable to life’s abundance of stimuli. 

My choice is to use what limited mental power I have to the utmost.  I have chosen a career in making art because I find painting to be a joyous wedding between the concrete and tactile and the abstract and intellectual.  As if I were conducting a musical symphony, when I work all parts of my brain are engaged, connected, and coordinated.  There is nothing, ever, boring about making art.  Technical problems concerning color, shape and the painted surface are very real to me, and the adventure to solve them is exhilarating.  Some of the pictorial mysteries I’m involved in, by studying what other artists have done, will take years to unravel.  Don’t many people secretly dream that they could one day find work that they feel passionate about?  The balance of my life is fair and good because in the midst of disability I have found moments of ability that are sought after, cherished, and repeated from one day to the next.

Posted by dignifyme at 9:01 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 16 September 2006 9:05 AM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

This is going to be published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, a medical journal published by Oxford University Press.  I have to chop it up into two entries on this blog because it is so long. 

Now in our household there is a competition; who is going to be first to have their book published?   Mike, London and I are all working on book manuscripts.

Ability and Disability

By Karen Blair            

It is difficult to explain to people how my schizophrenic illness makes me disabled.  I tell people that I am an artist, a nice thing to label myself because it implies a lifestyle of indeterminate work hours and an indeterminate income. In short, no one can tell just by looking how successful or unsuccessful an artist is. And since artists are stereotyped as being a bit odd or fey, the eccentricities of a schizophrenic personality are attributed to a creative, rather than diseased, mind.  If a stranger is kind hearted then they imagine the best and are comfortable in conversation, treating me as an equal.  Needling questions about my lifestyle are usually passed by for more exciting topics - the immediate favorite is always "What do you paint?"  Few try to ascertain my productivity or scale of talent.  Because of my illness I can only make 4 or 5 paintings a year.  And because of my reclusive nature promoting myself socially is a difficult and almost abhorrent task.  I do make a little money as an artist.  But most of the money needed to buy paint, brushes, canvass and frames is donated by family members.            

My commitment to making art is strong.  Naturally, like any artist I would like to be sought after and sell paintings.  But like most artists, all I can do is my quiet best and quietly hope for a better day.  Over time I discovered one hard fact about being an artist with a schizophrenic thought disorder.  My disease stunts creative growth.  A person can be born talented, but without hours of practice and hard work that talent most likely will not become significant. The artist will not stand apart and above the crowd.  If a mental disability limits the hours of peak mental concentration every day, then natural talent matures very slowly.  The production of complex, sophisticated artwork creeps along.  Without emotional discipline the alternative of making quick, simple artwork is very attractive.  It is my observation that non-disabled artists have better opportunity for creative experimentation, art education, and giving a gallery the number of paintings needed for a one man or group show.  Art dealers and collectors want to view talent that is mature, style that is cohesive, and work that has conceptual, or labor intensive, weightiness.            

While it is difficult for the disabled person to be commercially competitive with non-disabled artists it is not impossible.  I believe that the best hope for a schizophrenic artist to make money and gain recognition lies in the use of modern technology.  Art reproductions, on posters or cards, compensate for a slow production rate.  Also it helps if the schizophrenic is aware of their inherent limitations.  For instance, I compensate for my slow production rate with the general rule of painting every day.  Like the victorious tortoise might have said once to the defeated hare, “slow and steady wins the race”.  And since I am mostly self-taught, the library has become a favorite place of study.  In books and magazines I am introduced to artwork from around the world.            

 My husband is a gentle, average man who works full time and was for many years a single father.  He has no psychiatric troubles.  We are matched with so many gifts and abilities: creativity, intelligence and humor.  How then, to explain the differences that schizophrenia is responsible for?   For me, normalcy and mental illness has nothing to do with good people vs. bad people, or talented people vs. untalented people.  The first, most basic judgment that I would make about a person with a schizophrenic thought disorder has to do with raw brain power.  Between my husband and me it is not so much what we do with our time that is mismatched, but how much time we are each allotted to do with as we wish.  My productivity is always at risk from my illness while his is productivity is steady and strong.            

The two of us explain our differences in ability and disability with a metaphor about pennies.   We say that in the morning when we wake we are each given a different amount of pennies to spend throughout the day.  A single penny is a measure of mental clarity, a little burst of coordinated energy that will see you through the accomplishment of one small task.  People like my husband who are rich with mental health are blessed with 100 pennies, while I, having a thought disorder, only get 20 pennies.  During the day my husband can spend his pennies far and wide, enabling behavior that seems smooth and effortless because he has been gifted with a wealth of brain power.  From my point of view, when someone has been given the gift of 100 pennies to spend, they live life full of extravagant emotion and activity.  At the end of the day when we lay our heads on a pillow usually we have spent all our pennies and are tired because the mental bank is empty.  A good night’s sleep will magically restore all penny wealth for the next morning.              

 My disability is real because I don’t have the same abundance of clear, focused thought as a non-disabled person.  One of the simple differences between me before the onset of schizophrenia and after is just power, or, a number of pennies.  The consequence of having less mental endurance does eventually trickle down and cause changes in personality and identity.  But theoretically, since a penny is a penny, I have a lot of access to normal behavior.  The only question is, “can I afford to pay the price to get done all the activity that I desire?”            

In the morning I can take a shower and spend my penny.  Or I can skip the shower, have hair that is a little greasy, and save a penny.  If I cook a breakfast and read the newspaper than I will lose more pennies.  An alternative is to eat cold cereal and stay ignorant about world affairs.  Often there are small, ordinary chores that I do not do so that I will have more time to work and make art.  Before I commit myself to almost any sort of action I often silently calculate; how much will this activity drain me?  Every sundry task costs.  My endurance is quickly eroded as I pay the price for each distinct place I direct my concentration and will.  In one evening I can drive to the grocery store, listen to music, make a phone call, get angry at my husband, make love to my husband, watch a movie and walk the dog if there are enough pennies in my account.   Usually an extensive list like this is only possible if I have taken a several hour long nap beforehand.  When I show reluctance toward certain behavior and pull back or slow down the basic reason is almost always fear.  I am afraid to run out of pennies.              

So, what happens to a person when there are no more pennies left?  The answer is familiar to both the abled and disabled.  Exhaustion.  Vulnerability to stress.  Loss of control over emotions and logical thought processes.  A lot of my schizophrenic symptoms are just a magnification of what happens to a normal person when they are tired. You know that you are stressed and low on mental power when you get emotional over something that is small and silly, or if you lose the ability to count your change, forgetting basic arithmetic.   When we are mentally drained we turn into different people.  A weaker person.  Spend all of your pennies and different part of the self emerges, one that is not very much in harmony with the world.   When a person feels that they “just don‘t have much left in them”, that is when damaging things happen.  Bone weary people say things they don’t mean to loved ones, they misinterpret social signals, get mad, paranoid, inappropriately silly, overly critical, or simply want to give up and hide.             

If I’m not careful I can spend all my pennies by twelve noon.  Frequently I experience the shift of Karen who is capable, to a Karen who barely exists.  My identity goes from feeling real and solid to someone who is made of mist, a silent ghost.  When I am completely drained my physical movement slows and it becomes very difficult to talk or make eye contact with people.  At this low point my general outlook on life changes.  The world turns dark and threatening and all my earthly delights and good fortune are forgotten.  This type of irrationality, it is so foreign, strange and lonely that it hurts.  Subjectively, becoming overly symptomatic is very uncomfortable.  So I pace myself throughout the day, saying “no” to a lot of people and opportunities as a form of self protection.  This disease makes me reclusive by choice, and that is difficult for some people to understand.  They mistake my withdrawal from social and worldly activity as being anti-social, or worse, laziness.             

Posted by dignifyme at 8:45 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 16 September 2006 8:54 AM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

Sometimes I go really slow and careful through the day.  I have to do whatever I can to push myself forward and not give in to despair.

Yesterday I walked to the library and did some writing there.  Then I started to have anxiety and came home.  After Mike came home from work I asked him if we could go for a walk before it got dark.  We strolled through the town and Mike got a little money out at the bank for milk.  He intended to buy us coffee too at Mocca Joe's, a funky little coffee house.  But I didn't want us to spend the money on something so frivilous.  Mike said that we have to live like ordinary people and treat ourselves.  But I'm starting to remember more and more the days when I lived on disability, and remember how careful I was for many years.  For our family to live safe and sound we have to be very, very careful how we spend our money.  Mike said that he is going to work an extra half an hour every day and several hours on Saturday so that our monthly earning will be greater.  We have to do that because soon we are going to be paying for propaine heating gas and extra electricity to drive the fans on the heater.

I need a new pair of pants.  But I don't want to spend any money for a new pair of pants.  If I can lose weight then I have a bunch of clothing that I can fit into.  So I have to lose weight, and fast.  I've never lost weight because I was running out of clothing to wear before.  There are two pairs of jeans that both have big holes in them.  I'm going to cut up one pair to patch the other pair.

My show at the library starts in October.  It is a pain in my ass.  But, I guess it is something to focus on.  There is artwork that needs to be put into frames and I have to hand print a banner with the words, "Schizophrenia, Art & Recovery."  One thing Mike and I talked about on our walk yesterday was wether or not to frame my latest artwork, "The Lady and Jumper".  It requires a thick, sturdy frame, something Mike can't make himself with wood from Home Depot.  I hate to bring the painting to a professional framer, but the picture is really quite good and would look great in the show.  It becomes a point of pride to have it hang.  It was the decision to frame the piece that prompted Mike to offer to work over-time every day.  I made the commitment to this show back at the end of last summer when I was still not yet married and was still receiving alimoney.  Now that that money has stopped I am completely dependent on Mike.  The way I feel now, I wouldn't commit his money to putting on a show for myself.  But, who knows, maybe I can sell an artwork or two and get back the money spent on the show.

Part of my trouble is that I am in-between projects.  When I was 23 years old and trying to finish college my best friend said to me, "Karen, I hate it when school breaks for vacation.  You don't do well when you are on vacation."

On September 22nd I start an art class at River Gallery Art School.  I won a scholorship for the fall semester.  It will be 15 weeks of classes, and the class I picked meets for two hours on Friday.   Last time I asked for a scholorship I emailed them a letter and I think the request was lost or forgotten because after a short return email promising that a commitee would review my request "asap" I heard nothing.  So this time I wrote a letter and printed it out.  Then I printed out three pictures.  I showed them what I did last spring semester (The Orange Tree Grove), my latest piece, and the work "Cinderella" that I wrote in the margin I needed help with.  I hand delivered the packet and heard about my scholorship grant the next day.  Here is Cinderella but she is not yet finished, the flesh tones are too pale and some of the objects in the room are not properly subdued.  You can't have too many bright objects shouting in a picture, "here I am!".  But the fireplace looks great.  You only get a fireplace that that by painting thin layer after layer of color.

Posted by dignifyme at 10:00 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 13 September 2006 10:46 AM EDT

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Mood:  quizzical

Yes, the idea of having London cart the dog around with her has been bothering me too.  I'm new at being a parent and making up rules.

What went through my head today way, "What if London goes out to a club dancing in a city and someone steals her dog?"  Or, "What if the temperature in the car is freezing and the dog gets cold?"  What Mike and I want is for London to take responsiblity and keep her promises.  When she arrived to live with us she arrived with a puppy who she claimed was "her best friend" and who she would take everywhere with her and for whom we would never have to be responsible. (As I write this Cerberus is lying at my feet.  London is in school.  We take care of the dog a lot.) 

My husband has never had a dog, the dog he carted around when he was homeless was London's dog named Coco.  Eventually Coco found a new home with a recently divorced Dad who was missing both his kids and the dogs who now lived with his former wife.  When a child has a dog you can expect the parent to end up taking a lot of responsibility for the animal.  But London is 21 and she felt it necessary to get a dog at this time even though her life was very unstable.  Now that she has the dog, if Mike and I always end up taking care of it she basically ditches the consequences and responsibility of her decision in our lap. 

I am having a change of heart about the dog, though.  My mind really was shocked when I came home today from my Museum volunteer job and saw that London had done the dishes.  She didn't have to, I think it was my turn.  It was a very "family" sort of thing to do.  Taking care of the house without being asked.

From my view point London has been searching for safe, secure family her entire life.  It is like a core theme of her life, not of her own creation, but from the situations that have been imposed on her by the adults around her.  What Mike and I are offering her here now in Vermont is very stable, and growing more family orientated.  We three ARE growing into a family.  So then, doesn't family take care of the pets together?

Telling London that she needs to tote Cerberus around with her, I think, was a ploy to stop the integration of the family.  It was a sign saying "Don't take advantage of us!" and "Our lives are separate from yours!"  "Remember, your living here is only temporary!"  But the more I think about it, the more I want to encourage emotional reliance and bonding.  There is that old image of the mama bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest, forcing it to fly.  Mike and I have felt that that that was our job with London.  And yet, the lure of family life is strong.  Tomorrow night is "London night" where we cook what she wants for dinner and watch togther whatever movie she choses.  Tomorrow we will probably eat steak for dinner and watch the Walt Disney animated movie "Pocohantus".

One night recently l said to London, "Let me tell you a secret.  If I let myself care for you, and you reject me, I will be devistated.  It takes a long time for me to make a friend and I don't trust easily."

London had tears in her eyes and she said, "I don't trust easily either."

I've been thinking about the strengths of family, and I think that family always gives you a second chance.  They let you make mistakes.  That is where the permenence lies.  You don't have to be perfect, just as good as you can be at the time.  My family never, ever gave up on me.  Maybe Mike and I should focus more on giving London a family here instead of temporary shelter as she tries to get her college degree.

Posted by dignifyme at 6:27 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 11 September 2006 6:41 PM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

I think I messed up my medication this morning.  I think I took too much Geodone and not enough Prozac.  One of the two has double pills and I think that I doubled the wrong one.  Took an extra Prozac because I despirately need the effects of that drug, even if it is a little too much for the day.

Mike and I climbed the mountain again.  Again, we failed to reach the top.  Everyone we passed had been to the top or clearly was going there.  We shake our heads in wonder at the fit Vermonters.

Mike and I had a difficult decision to make last night.  We are asking London to take her dog with her when she goes out to socialize.  Last night she went bowling after work and we would have liked to have had her take her dog and leave him in her car.

It seems a bit extreme given that the dog is very easy to take care of.  The problem is that Mike and I were promised a dog that would be totally London's responsiblity and who would be going everywhere that London went.  The point isn't wether or not we want to take care of the dog, we are perfectly willing to do so while London is at work or at school.  This we are doing already.  It is just that this dog is a big responsibility and one that London willingly took on.  He changed her life, narrowing the possible places where she could live that eventually brought her to Vermont, and Mike and I see that the dog will continue to influence her life to a large degree - just as if he were a human child.  There are many young adult women who hand over their child to the grandparents so that they can go out and play. 

Probably Mike and I are hard when it comes to personal ability and responsibility because we have both been homeless in our lives.  Mike lost his house and lived in a tent in the woods.  I was kicked out of an apartment that I shared with a roommate and went to live in a women's shelter run by the YWCA.  I actually ended up homeless using the facility twice.  What happens is that you get a sense that you can make it on your own without any help.  It is a hard lesson but ultimately empowering.  Mike had London's dog with him after he lost the house and he took that dog everywhere with him.  At first the dog had anxiety about being left in the car and he chewed all the seat buckles off and tore at the seat cushions.  Mike didn't get rid of the dog because he didn't want to disappoint London.  Owning the dog and being homeless was a really, really, hard thing but he managed to do it.  I guess this situation with the daughter parallels the earlier situation with the father.

Posted by dignifyme at 10:13 AM EDT

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Mood:  irritated

I've just been asked by a family member to deleat a blog entry.   If you read what I wrote, and you now see it missing -  well, you can guess why.  I know that at least you read it Pam. 

It is too bad that criminals get the kind of protection that they get. 

Sometimes it is important, when trama has impacted on your life or the life of a loved one, to talk about the reality of the crime and the consequences that it has had for the victim and the victim's family.

I'm afraid, at this point, the criminal has too much power over this family of mine. 

Stories of fear and horror need to be voiced, not silenced.  How else are we to understand the kind of world that we live in?

Posted by dignifyme at 10:38 PM EDT

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Mood:  sharp

"Everyone knows that Karen is the head of the household." - London

I got two comments from the last post about having a gun in the house.  The first was an email sent by a worried family member who pointed out that right now I have been having increased depression and I have a history of one suicide attempt.

The second comment you can read, it is by JSR, and I have to say, I'm really honored that he is reading my blog.  My webite and this blog might not exist except for several internet pioneers who had a schizophrenic illness and put up websites all on their own.  JSR is one of the few who first self-published information on the internet that was honest and helpful to people with the disease, their families, and psychiatric workers.

Recently we have been taking unusual precautions with the gun.  It is stored empty and locked in a large, strong, wooden box.  The ammunition is stored separately in our barn in a smaller but also locked box.  After we got the first email we had a serious family discussion here in Vermont with London, Mike and myself. 

It isn't so easy to simply get rid of the gun.  It originally belonged to Mike when he was a policeman many years ago.  Thus, he has sentimental attachment to it.  It was promised to pass to London on her 21st brithday, which, just this July she celebrated here.  She is living with us for the next several years while she finishes college.  Then she is planning to become a private detective and I believe that she wishes to carry the gun her father once carried.  There are my needs to be concidered, but there are also the needs of the two other family members that I live with.  That gun represents a father-daughter legacy.

Currently, the large box that the gun has been locked in is being used as a coffee table.  We decided to lock it in another location which isn't so obvious to me.  Then, London put the key on a necklace on her neck.  Only a 21 year old foxy blond who works in a grocery store and goes to college could get aways with such a fashion statement.  She is a little punk, wearing a dog chain along with two watch bands buckled together as a choker all the time, even when she showers.  So for her, perhaps a key around her neck is no sacrifice.  For me it is very sweet, it seems like she is ready and willing to stand guard over my life.

Then London and Mike went into our large, junk stuffed barn and hid the ammunition box Lord knows where.  I personally voted to pass the gun off to another family relative but we would have to carry it in the car and pass through different states with different laws about carrying a gun in the car.  At times moving the gun would not be legal.

All my life history with guns are mostly stories of watching drunk mischeif and near misses.

I lived with a boyfriend in my late 20's who was a rifle marksman.  He also collected antique WWll japanese rifles.  He had started out squirril hunting in Georgia with a gun and a dog as a boy.  I remember watching him early one morning stealthly opening the back window of the bedroom.  He stood totally naked with a rifle in his hand.  In the garden was a wild rabbit eating his lettuce.  Carefully he aimed, shot, and killed the animal clean with a single head wound.  There were trophies that he had won in marksmanship competition displayed on a shelf in the kitchen.

People with guns usually want a hand gun in a drawer right next to their bed, loaded, where it is instantly available if a night intruder should enter the house.  My boyfriend lived that way and so did my husband for a long time.

One evening my boyfriend and I were having an argument.  He had been drinking whiskey and was pretty drunk and depressed.  He went into the bedroom and told me he was going to shoot himself in the head.  I stood in the hallway talking to him because I didn't want to enter the room and perhaps have to witness a suicide.  Eventually I heard some clicking with the gun.  Not knowing anything about guns or the gun culture, I assumed the clicking was him loading the gun with ammunition.  I steadied myself and got ready to hear a shot.  What my boyfriend was in fact doing was unloading the gun.  But it certainly was a terrifying moment. 

What JSR intimated about alcohol and guns being a dangerous mix is very, very true.

My husband's second wife was an alcoholic.  One day his brother came over to visit.  My husband opened the front door, admitting his brother, and then his very drunk wife appeared at the top of the staircase, angry, waving a loaded gun at both men.  They felt like they were bargaining for their lives, convincing her to relinquish the weapon.  That same loaded gun was also "played" with by his young daughter when no one was home and she accidently shot a chest of drawers with it.

I have, unfortunately, one gun story about myself.

While I was living with my gun collecting boyfriend I did overdose on Klonopin, a tranquilizer, and whiskey.  I called 911 after ingesting quite a bit and they took me to the hospital and pumped my stomach. 

A little while after I got out of the hospital I wanted to try again but this time with a gun.  I had this strong idea that I should drive my car down a country road, pull over, and shoot myself in the heart.  The same place Van Gogh shot himself.  This thought was repetative.  One quiet evening I was alone in the house and I felt like I was being tortured.  I really didn't want to die, so I put the loaded gun from our bedroom in a knapsack and rang the doorbell of the nice old couple who lived across the street.  The man had once said if I ever felt blue I could come over and have a cup of tea.  He was alone too that evening and my intention was to give him the knapsack.  We sat down for tea and he begain talking to me about how tough life can be sometimes.  He had years of experience of surviving life, like I think all elderly people do.  The gun sat in the knapsack on the table next to his wife's homemade blueberry crumb cake.  Eventually I realized, as I sat there, that if I told him what was inside the knapsack, it would come as a great shock to him.  He was unprepared for the bizarre thought problem I was having.  I wasn't hearing voices but I did "see" the image of myself shooting myself over and over again and it was very compelling.  It then felt so wrong to burdan this ordinary man with my mental illness and possibly frighten him badly.  What if he initially thought I wanted to shoot him?  He opened his house to me and I walked in with a loaded gun - that was something he might get mad about.  Eventually I thanked him for his stories and tea because they had truly made me feel better.  I took my knapsack back home.  Probably the next day I went into the hospital again.  I was in and out of the hospital frequently with that particular boyfriend.  No amount of medication could counter the fact that we were both people with a dark view of the world, and our darkness each enhanced what was in the other.  When we finally broke up and I left his house, that was only when the frequent trips to the hospital finally ended.

Posted by dignifyme at 11:43 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 8 September 2006 1:12 PM EDT

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Mood:  lucky

I'm in love with my husband.  Yesterday he woke me before work so that I could go and climb a mountain.  I climb up with the dog as far as I can then turn around and come back.  The path is steep and sometimes very rocky.  My heart thuds in my chest and I breath loudly.  As I go the mountain feels like a symbol.  And if I can conquere the mountain just a little bit then the rest of the day can be conquered too.

Before Mike left for work he said seriously, "Would you feel safer if you were packing?"

"A gun?"

"Yes.  I have a case for you to transport it in your car."

"Oh.  In case Plum doesn't bite who she is suposed to bite and instead runs away.  Mike, would you feel safer if I were packing while I was hiking?"

"Yes."

All the times I've gone walking through the woods I've never imagined carrying a gun.  Too bad my husband wasn't born a cowboy.

Posted by dignifyme at 9:31 AM EDT

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Mood:  cool

The morning seems to be the only time of the day when I'm free from the depression and can write.

My hope is that it won't come back and hit me like it did yesterday.  No tears that time, just a complete lack of energy and will.  Sometimes I didn't even have anything in me to speak.  Normally I paint standing up, but, yesterday my body was like lead so I pulled a chair up to the wall and painted while sitting down.  The paint session didn't last long.  Too tired to move the brush.  I also lacked interest, or mental ability, to watch a movie. 

I know what depression is because I've had it before.  When I was 19 through 21 with the onset of schizophrenia I was very depressed, and in fact the doctor thought my trouble was only depression, an atypical depression with psychotic features.  It seems that when you feel really, really low your grasp on reality can get loose, same way that when you get really high and manic you can float off into psychosis.

I didn't mean to, but by "fixing" my painting yesterday I think I ruined it.  I don't want to waste anymore paint on it.  But all will not be lost because now I have a wonderful theme to work with, a volcanic eruption with people and animals trying to run away.  I guess I could start a new painting, but, my mind is so weak right now that I want to retreat to the artistic medium that I know the best and that I have the richest history with; oil pastel drawing.

If this depression is going to persist, even with medication, I'm going to need a reason to get out of the house and be with people.  I think I'm going to request that scholorship from the River Gallery Art School again.  They simply never answered me last time.  I think this time, instead of requesting a scholorship by email, I'll write a letter and hand deliver it.  I also need to ask in a nice way if they should reject me to please tell me. 

Today's activity is going to be writing that letter, and the plan is to deliver it tomorrow.  Right now though, since my mind is clear and my body has energy in it (yesterday I stayed curled in bed for many hours), I'm going to go for a walk in the woods with my dog Plum Pudding and my husband.  Oh, how that husband has suffered!  Need to spend quality time with him while I am able.

Mike thinks that once I get my period I will feel better.  I am going to hope so too, but, the depression was so bad that I'm taking it as a warning.  I need to pick up my life here in Brattleboro with people and try to make it as healthy as possible to ward off depression.  Depression is a lurking danger that I had forgotten about, being free of it for so many, many years.

Posted by dignifyme at 8:31 AM EDT

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