Mood:  happy

Hopefully by now this blog site has worked out some of the bugs that were bothering me before.  My substitute blog site was elegant but I ran into worse bugs there than on this site. 

I need to blog.  It is something that releaves pressure in my head.

I've been spending many days applying for "A Room Of Her Own Freedom Gift award", which is a $50,000 writing grant taking place over two years.  If you win the award you are morally committed to a writing project, and I have offered to expand www.schizophreniaandart.com to include other artists and writers as well as finishing my book.  Can you imagine, a website where schizophrenics publish their creative writing like a literary magazine and display artwork like in a gallery?  I can do it only with the grant money, money nesessary to hire a web designer.

The AROHO foundation asks for answers to more than four essay questions and detailed financial information.  The essay questions had a limit of five pages and you know that I am using every single page available to me proving that I can write intelligently and extensively on every topic.  You have to prove that you aren't scared of a little work and that you can write prolifically.

Today I printed out the first two essay questions for my husband to read tonight when he gets home from work.  I'm excited because he will be my first audience.

The chances of me winning the award are very, very slim.  I looked at the profiles of the other winners and they all had more education than me and more experience having published their writing.  One was a writing teacher!  I feel like a cavewoman compared to the other women.  I practice my writing and that is my only education, me toughing it out with myself.  I don't have a graduate school professor giving me feedback on my writing, correcting the grammer and telling me what "works" and what doesn't "work".  The uncertainty over the quality of what I create is enormus.  Happily I've gotten several emails that bolster my spirit.  Here they are;

Hey, Karen, I found your site while doing a search on Schizophrenia and art.  I’m a nursing student and was curious about schizophrenic experiences and “source material” as you say.

I love your site and wanted to tell you that your prose is amazing.  You are a great writer.

I’ll share your site with the rest of the students in my class.

Take Care

Mike

Hello Karen,

My name is Evette. I am a student at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania. I was given your website address by my professor because I am doing a paper on schizophrenia and art. My professor showed me some of the art work you have on the website and you amaze me. I started to read about your life and you are truely are an inspiration. I want to read the rest of your life story so I have submitted my email address for when your website is complete I can finish reading. I was wondering if I could interview you for my paper? Maybe by phone or in person? I would like to know more about your art work and about how you have changed your life to work for you, your mind and how you bring such life to your work not only in art form but in your writing as well. You have touched me in a way that I can not describe. I hope you consider the interview and I look forward to hear from you soon. Take care of yourself.

Sincerely,
Evette

Posted by dignifyme at 1:18 PM EST

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My new blog site is www.schizophreniaandart.blogspot.com.

I tried to set up a new blog on tripod because I like all their custom features.  Well, truth of the matter is I got attached to how the tripod blog looked and felt.  But when I went to set up a second blog on tripod I had many of the problems that I'm encountering here on this site.  Occationally I would get a screen "about blank" which is a virus that I think tripod might be infested with.  Hackers are bad people.  Leave a comment on the new site and tell me how you like it!

Posted by dignifyme at 11:58 AM EDT

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I am having difficulty logging into my blog.  I think there is something wrong with the tripod service.  Am thinking of switching to a different blog site.  Will update you if there is a move.

Doing well.  Maximum dosage of Geodone is doing the trick.  Be well.  Blessings to you all.

Posted by dignifyme at 6:38 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Last Friday night was a full moon.  Mike and I had a Wiccan ritual, a first for me.  It was conducted in the dark by candelight.  There is the forming of a circle, drawn on the floor with the sweeping gesture of a branch of an evergreen tree. There was a consecration and annoitment of each participant with a pentacle on our forehead. There is a nod to the four elements of air, fire, water and earth.  A smoking piece of inscense, the candle flame, a cup of wine, and a bowl with sea salt and the herb sage.  There was the burning of relics, little bits of paper towl that had been soaked in Mike's blood, his tears, and his sweat.  I pinched off a bit of my hair and added that to the cauldren too. And all that was preparation for the part where you pray with all your might.  When I went to church as a kid I always loved the silent prayer portion of the service.  It is the point where you talk to God.  Not sing, not listen to little soulful lessons, not ritual, but one on one.  It feels pure.  It feels holy. 

Christian prayer and Wiccan prayer are a little different.  The way Mike advised was for me to imagine the circumstance that I wanted changed, changed.  It is a little less a humble asking and a little more a willful telling.  The will of the person is thrown whole heartedly into the praryer.  For instance, I wished for help in writing my lecture speach and creating a new painting.  So I imagined myself doing these things and doing them well.  I asked for help from God for my future accomplishments, but I put a great deal of burdan on myself, what I really asked for was the ability to simply do my best.  If you aren't religious then what is pschologically happening is clear.  You are aiding yourself to do something by visualization means.  If you are religious then what happens is that you are asking for a blessing.

While I silently prayed I held in my hand an authentic silver dollar, old and made out of solid silver.  Mike held in his hands a small pyramid shaped piece of the natural mineral rock hemetite.  These talsimans were intended as a link to the natural world of the earth. (Because in Wicca God resides not in heaven, but in the earth and the things of the natural, living world.)  If we had been praying outside with our bodies touching the earth then we would imagine our thoughts going directly into the ground.  But since we conducted the ritual in our apartment bedroom these talismans were the focus for our prayers, I my prayer in a very pagen way, was directed into a silver dollar.  After everything was done I buried both talismans in the ground in our back yard.  Before the next full moon we will dig up our talismans and use them again.

Posted by dignifyme at 9:25 AM EDT

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The cold had moved down and settled in my chest.  My cough is mighty big, but at least I don't have weakness or a stuffed up head.  Yesterday my husband came home from work in the middle of the day.  I let out a little lady like shriek!  Poor man was sick not with what I have but with chills and a fever.  Occationally one particular tooth becomes infected and his whole body reacts.  I have to get the man to a dentist.  We need to make a pack that we will see the dentist together.

Art class today!  My painting is almost finished.  I'll bring it to class but don't think I'll get much done on it - the paint is still wet.  The final process on my art is always glazing, rubbing a small amount of transparent color on highlights and shadows, thus giving things a better 3D look, yellow where the light hits at high points and dark color where there is recession and shadow, rounding out the objects.  But the glaze has to go on top of dry paint.  If the paint isn't dry then it just blends with the color and spreads.  Eh, I'll probably be dumb and paint on it anyway.

I did a naughty and wrote on my canvass.  I wrote about the newly impregnanted virgin Mary, "You will be Holy whether you want to or not".  I don't think the virgin was given much of an option, just a Holy decree.

If I had planned the painting better then there would have been no blank space in which to write the words.  So my next painting is going to have no blank space what-so-ever.  Even the branches of the trees are going to interlace and knot around one another, blotting out the sky.  And I'll put birds in the trees.  And I'll put a lion carrying a turtle on it's back.  And there will be three naked ladies.  And there will be fiddlehead ferns growing.  And there will be garlands of flowers falling from the trees.  And there will be a man with the head of......of.....well I don't know for certain.

Posted by dignifyme at 7:24 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 6 October 2006 7:55 AM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

This question was emailed to me yesterday from a graduate student.

How are you coping?

Posted by dignifyme at 8:25 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 4 October 2006 8:26 AM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

I'm sick with a cold.  Had to call in to the museum on Momday to be excused from volunteer duty, was feeling weak and sounded bad too. 

Sunday night the cold started with strange feelings, I couldn't tell if I was getting physically sick or mentally sick.  I've had so much mental suffering lately that physical trouble seemed to be something all in my head too.  I love my life, I hate my life, all I can do lately on this blog is whine. 

Painted today, mostly sitting in a chair.

Reading a juvenile fantasy book.

I'm scared that people are looking at my artwork in the library, I'm scared that nobody is looking at my artwork in the library.  Tomorrow night there is a big lecture in the library and hopefully some of the people attending will come to my lecture as well.  Have to go back to the library tomorrow before their lecture, on Frank Lloyd Wright's later architecture and put little sticky numbers next to my artwork that makes it correspond to a title and price sheet.  Right now the numbers are on little purple dots.  I want to buy white stickers and cut them up into small white squares and write the numbers on that instead.  It is a small detail.  But white will be more inconspicuous than purple.

I wish I could drink a bit of red wine to combat the cold but I don't dare.  Geodone is working now, must not upset the chemical soup in my head.   Not feeling suicidal during the day, just a bit at night.

Answered a question today emailed from a graduate student.  The student is very nice but I felt dirty discribing what it was like to be a sick person.  I'd like to shut down the website and the blog and just paint.  It is just a temporary mood.  But I think I'm tired of the illness and being an ill person.  Tired.  Tired of being a cheerful educator.  My nose won't stop dripping and my throat hurts.

I'm going to have that bit of wine after all.

Posted by dignifyme at 9:57 PM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

I like using the color red for shadows in my painting.  It works especially well around green leaves.  I'm contemplating putting some writing on the painting that I'm working on right now.  It is a scene of the Annunciation from the Bible and God is saying to Mary "You WILL be holy."  It is pretty obvious from the pregnant woman's shock and uncomfortable posture that she didn't have much say in the matter.  It is rather horrible to muss up a perfectly good picture with words but I think in this case the choice was to put words around Mary's naked pregnant body or else shooting rays of light.  Stirickly speaking, shooting rays of light are rather visually boring.  In writting you get the loops and curls of my cursive hand writing, a little more horizontal as well as vertical strokes.

My goal is to finish the painting by next week.  I work on it every day.

Yesterday I hung my art show in the town's public library.  There were rules about how many works could be hung (8) and where they were to be displayed, but the woman in charge of the art show broke some of those rules in favor of flattering and highlighting my artwork.  Oh, there is a chance the show could run for an extra month as well, hope so.  Mistakenly I arrived with 14 works of art to be displayed.  Mike and I spent a hectic night putting together artwork and frames and wire hangers.  Although some of our effort was wasted, actually the 9 works that were finally hung in the library were just the best of the best, so it is a tight, impressive show.

I just re-wrote a press release for the town newspaper.  Hope they do an article on my show and lecture for publicity.  At any rate, there will be an item in the monthly calendar section of the newspaper.  Now the last thing to do for publicity is to tack the little posters I've made in area coffee shop's bullitain boards. 

I've got a tooth ache which means I need to see a dentist soon.

After I talked with my therapist we increased my Geodone to the maximum dose of 160mg and now I no longer feel suicidal any more.  I don't like myself very much, but I can live with myself.  Mike says I need more time taking care of my mental health then trying to paint and make us money.  I've been feeling very guilty lately that he makes all the money and I make hardly anything.  I'm inviting two gallery owners to my lecture. 

My therapist said that my laughter sounds different on Geodone.  Great.  My art has changed along with my laughter.  I didn't bother to ask her what is different. 

Posted by dignifyme at 4:41 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 1 October 2006 5:33 PM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

The emotional tempest has passed.  Mike had a marathon talk with London on Tuesday and both emerged relaxed and happy.  Mike says that our little family in our little apartment is going through "growing pains".

In his heart what Mike wants more than anything is for London to live here for a while.  He suffered a nervous breakdown when she was sixteen and wasn't able to help her much during the next two years.  Now he is in a position to offer her a safe roof over her head.  Although, as Reflection pointed out, she does have to put up with living with a crazy person.

I'm not a mean crazy person.  But I am fragile.  I can only imagine that during their talk Mike said to London, "If you are mean to Karen you can make her psychotic."  And it is true.  For several days I feared the anger that was in the house and I withdrew behind thick emotional walls.  It seemed like I was cold and emotionally distant but, as Mike explained, I was trying to preserve and protect myself.  I did long for London to ask me a happy question or engage in lighthearted banter - but fear made me avoid being the one to break the ice.

The day before everything was settled was disasterous.  London's boyfriend came over to visit, invited inside by Mike.  I was in bed resting when he said to me, "Throw some clothing on, we are going to meet Justin".  Mike had forgotten the rule that before someone comes into the house I am to be given a day's notice.  Not something that a normal person would need, I know, I know.  But, as my therapist has said, "schizophrenia is primarily a social disease."  What I think she means is that medication can control many symptoms but the person's maladjustment in social situations remains untouched.  People, their simple presence, affect a schizophrenic more than any other object.  People are our greatest challenge and our greatest fear, because they have the power to greatly aggrivate our illness.  I am not a shy person but this illness makes me behave as if I were indeed very shy.

Justin is a great kid who has a fast mouth and agile mind.  His most flattering quality is self confidence.  The visit went well although, according to Mike I "looked like a deer caught in the headlights".  I was stiff and frozen saying almost nothing.  After London and Justin left I became psychotic talking about "blue boats", "black ants" and "red turtles".  Mike felt that if he could just get me to bed and hold me that the physical contact would snap me out of it.  Apparently physical touch grounds me and returns me to a more logical state.  Luckily I also asked for his help in giving me medication as well, and took a bit of my narcotic and a fast acting old school anti-psychotic Trilifon. 

Mike said my reaction would not have happened while I was taking the anti-psychotic Seroquil, that it is because I am on the weaker Geodone that I am so fragile.  My greatest problem on Geodone has been feeling a mild pain of being suicidal that comes and goes every day.  I'm certainly not psychotic every day but at some point I do feel as if I wish to die and there is something wrong and abnormal in that.  Happily, the day after I took the emergency dose of Trilifon I was steady as a rock and had no suicidal feelings.  So last night when they started to return I took another Trilifon and this morning feel pretty strong and even tempered.

In several hours time I have an appointment to see my therapist.  I'm going to request that we add Trilifon to my drug cocktail.  I did once have a bad reaction to the drug where I couldn't focus my eyes, and honestly, all this morning I've been worried about it, testing myself to see if the focus is normal.  Something is a bit off.  I think the trick is to take the drug in the evening once every two days, and if there is a side effect it will only appear in mild form on the first morning.  I've got to also tell my therapist that since we've last met I've added 20mg of Geodone, doubled my anti-depressent, and now need Trilifon too.

Last night London was with me in my bedroom while I was painting.  On the wall there are two artist's easels.  She pointed to the painting that was created from when I took Seroquil and said, "new style" and then pointed to the painting I am currently working on and said, "old style".  Meaning, my art now is resembling the first artwork I ever made while on Risperdal.  I played the game and pointed to the dry Seroquil art and said, "strong medication", then pointed to my new wet painting and said "weak medication".  Mike says that I have lost all desire to make three dimentional space, everything is flat and two dimentional.  I just shake my head and look at what I'm doing and think, "brain damaged".  It is weird beyond weird to change medication and see your art change.

Posted by dignifyme at 8:04 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 September 2006 8:25 AM EDT

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Mood:  lucky

Karen; "I want to die."

Michael; "That time will come sooner than you want."

Karen; "I feel like I am in Hell.  I am in a cage."

Michael; "Once when I was 4 or 5 years old I was sitting between my parents in the front seat of a car.  We were driving through an industrial park and there were rows and rows of warehouses lit by blue mercury vapor lights.  I didn't yet have the words to say how the bleak landscape made me feel.  But I remember it made me feel depressed, even dispair.  So, I think I know how you feel." 

Karen; (nodding yes)

Michael; "But while I was feeling that way I remember that I was with my parents and they were gaurding me on either side.  When it comes right down to it, it is just you and me.  We have each other and I'm here for you, holding you."

Issues with London are making me sicker.   After a week when she only slept in her bed once or twice in seven days, we had a family meeting and put down the rule that she was only allowed two overnights at her boyfriend's apartment per week.  Mike and I tried to explain that we were feeling used, like a doormat, and that the sense of the home being a cohesive family unit was becoming badly fractured.  I needed to point out to Mike that London has been living pretty much free and on her own since she was sixteen.  We simply do not know what kind of lifestyle London is used to. 

For Mike and I there both came a time when we knew that we never wanted to live at home again.  Our need for freedom was too great.  Mike said that when he was living on his own in college he loved to listen to music.  But when he came home on breaks his Mom wouldn't let him listen to his music in the house even if he wore headphones.  The radio and record machine needed to be stored in boxes in the garage.  She objected because the music Mike listened to wasn't Christian.  In her Christian household she wanted rules of conduct that made her feel comfortable.   But it really steamed Mike.  After Mike's sophmore year it looked like the only way he could afford to continue going to school was to live at home for a year and work and save money.  The best work available in their small town was at a meat packing plant.  After a summer of working with dead animal carcasses and no music he was so unhappy that he quit and signed on with the airforce for four years.

If London's need for freedom is so great then she will have to live on her own.  Mike is worried that if she does go she then won't be able to afford college.  The effect of Mike never getting his college degree has been enormus.  In manufacturing he gets paid less than someone who has a degree to do the same job.   It doesn't matter how many years experience he has doing a job in manufacturing.  He is taken less seriously.

What happens to me is that when I anticipate a confrontation with London I can feel my adrenalin spike and the symptoms of my illness get worse.  Then I'm thinking to just stay steady and stay out of the hospital, and I take extra medication.  The type that works best in a crisis is a narcotic, and I have to be oh so very careful not to become dependent on it.   I definately do not want to Foster Parent, at least, not on my current medication.  My great hope is that newer medication will be invented within the next several years.  I am staying on Geodone because my appetite is now normal and I feel nausous when I over eat.  I have lost a little weight but am certain that I can and will lose more.  I am afraid to push my anti-psychotic higher because while I might then be strong enough to deal with London, I will start having side effects of sedation and maybe akathesia. 

Karen and stress is a bad, bad combination.

Posted by dignifyme at 8:28 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 24 September 2006 9:04 AM EDT

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