Stupid

So much of my memory is in pieces.  I can remember the tiniest detail of some while other are hazy bits that are stronger to my senses than anything else. 

I can read a page and have a perfect picture of it in my mind.  But ask me what my favorite food is and I will have no way to answer that. 

I'm not really a stupid person but most of the time that is exactly how I feel.  That and embarrassed.

I wake up to find crayon colored pictures scattered all over the floor of my closet. 

I have clothes that I hate and have no idea where they came from. 

I come into conversations midstream desperately trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say.  My husband calls it my "no one's home look" where I stare off into nothing only to come back having no idea what's going on.

My husband calls me when I'm home alone and asks me what I'm doing... I have no idea because I haven't been around at all so I make up something dumb.  Like giving the dogs a bath for the third time in a week.

I have curly hair but I prefer it straightened.  Still others love to wear it curly and will do so whenever they have the chance.

I have to concentrate really hard to keep from referring to myself as we, us, our, etc... .

Each day I feel like I wake up watching a movie started in the middle that I've never seen before.  If I pay close enough attention I can figure out most of it but I always have this nagging feeling that I'm missing something.  Probably because I am.

As a kid I can see how this worked well.  I could wake up, brush my teeth and go to school and function having no memory of the hellish night before.

But now it just leaves me stupid.  Like when others decide that they don't want to take our medication.  They spit it out, hide it or now, they throw the bottles away. 

My choices to fix it: call my shrink and verify that I'm absolutely nuts; get new prescriptions filled that will cost me dearly because of how my insurance is set up; or go through the bitch of withdrawals until I can get them filled again at a normal cost.

I rarely cry but this one reduces me to tears.  It shouldn't be this hard to take care of myself.  I shouldn't have to be baby-sat, watched and followed up with.  I'm tired of being embarrassed and I'm tired of being stupid.  It shouldn't be this hard.

Ummm...

So, I'll just start out by saying that I'm not a very good blogger.  I get busy.  I get tired.  I get overwhelmed.  Or in this case I just do my best to ignore it hoping that it will just go away.

But it doesn't go away. 

What started as ignoring turned into not giving a fuck.  And then not giving a fuck turned into the worst depression I have wandered into in more than 7 years.  And then that turned into some tears followed by a near trip to the hospital.

In all my mess I've had one absolute no and that is a no to ever going inpatient.  I don't like hospitals; especially the kind that my mother spent time in.  But last week I was one car ride away from crossing that last no off my list.  It's like a genetic bucket list for me.  Crazy... check  Medication... check  Self harm... check... Breakdown... check  Hospital... check.

Why am I here now?  Honestly I'm not really sure.  I still feel awful but I feel better than I did.  Because I finally got some help.  You see, I skipped out on therapy for nearly a month.  All my fault.

I'm the master of shutting people out.  I turn inward and if given enough time I can easily get lost in my weird little world.  But in shutting caring people out I also keep secrets.  To me that is no big deal considering how I grew up.  But now the secrets are hurting me.

Probably my biggest secret; I went off my meds.  All of them.  We have had some financial struggles as of late and I determined I was not worth the cost of the Dr. appointments or the medications themselves.  The money could be spent for better things that did not include myself.  I told no one of my decision and I told everyone inside of me to shut up.

Are you amazed at my stupidity?  I certainly am. 

But amazed isn't really the correct word.  I'm ashamed.  I'm embarrassed.  I'm angry at myself.  I'm frustrated because I can't just be better.  I'm scared to ask for the help I need when I need it.  And then I'm back to being ashamed because I had to ask for help.

I have taken some steps in the right direction.  I went to therapy and I'll go again this week.  I  said no to something that wanted to conflict with this week's appointment... I feel guilty about that.  I called to make an appointment to see a shrink.  I've stopped keeping recent secrets.

Small steps but steps nonetheless.  So read while you can; it's not often that you get a glimpse of me un-medicated.

Brown

As far as colors go, brown ranks pretty low in terms of beauty.  It is drab.  It blends in.  It is a non-color.  It is certainly not in the rainbow.

Dead plants are brown.  Rotten bananas turn brown.  Brown is what comes of all the colors when they collide together.  Paper bags are brown.  And these bags are meant to disguise a secret.  An embarrassment.  The guy on the corner who drinks all day... he hides his bottle in a obviously discreet paper bag.

I carried a brown paper bag today.  It didn't contain my lunch.  And no, it didn't carry beer, wine, or liquor either.  It's the see-you-in-six-weeks kind of day.  The day where I go sit in my shrink's waiting room and pray that I don't look as crazy as I feel.  Today is the day that I rate my mental state by the bag I carry.  Am I carrying my favorite handbag or am I carrying a loud and awkward paper bag stuffed with meds?

My psychiatrist is a nice man.  He is fairly intelligent as well.  He is the first of his profession to treat me with kindness and respect.  It's refreshing.  I don't say a lot.  I smile at least once so I do not present flat.  I answer his questions with single words if at all possible.  I am not having a good time of it and that must show.  When he starts his shrink talk with "I'd like to talk to you today about..." I know that my meds are being tweaked or changed.  Yippee.

Thirty minutes later I've paid my bill and I walk the twenty five feet across the waiting room full of people and I'm holding that damn brown bag.  Any chance of appearing normal is wiped away when people see that crinkly bag full of she's-not-quite-right samples.

I skip the elevator to avoid riding in a closed space with someone who would clearly know they were confined, for a one floor descent, with a crazy girl.  I make it to my car and I dump the bag out and cram the samples into my black leather handbag.  Much more presentable because crazy people don't carry professional messenger bags, right?

The snarky humor is here but beneath that is my anger.  I'm angry that I have to do this charade every six weeks.  I'm angry that I'm a walking stigma.  I'm angry that I pay good money for appointments and medication to help me function and unfuck what they did to me.  I'm angry that I have side effects from the cocktail of meds that I take.  I'm angry that the medicated me is better than the can't-get-out-of-bed me. 

I'm still struggling over the events with my mother in law for reasons that some may not understand.  I will try to put that into words shortly because I need to find a way to express in words what is churning in my mind.  My husband's advice has been, "just be yourself", which I always inwardly smirk at because the thought of an un-medicated "me" attending a family dinner is something I'm almost certain he never wants to encounter.

Flat

So today is a new day and I'm trying again.  I must sound like a wreck because when readers start asking me if I have a therapist, it's then that I realize how bad I sound.  And for my newer readers, yes, I do have a therapist who I have been seeing for quite some time.  At least once a week.

Reading over my post from yesterday, I did sound depressed and I was.  I still am.  And once again I am at the point of retreating to the hills of my head or sticking with the present.  I am learning that this is a choice.  It is a hard choice too. 

But in making that choice I am learning a lot about myself.  I don't do stress.  I don't do pain.  "Flat" was the word that kept coming up in therapy yesterday evening.  I've given it a lot of thought between then and now because I argued last night that flat was easier than feeling. 

I was wrong.

Flat really is hard.  Exhausting.  And I think I create a lot more stress and pain, the very things I try to avoid, for myself in trying to be flat.  I really thought that this was how people wanted me to be.  However, as I look at my emotional responses to others, I can see that my flat response was the last thing they needed or even wanted. 

I do not know how to change this overnight.  Flat used to my safe.  If I showed no emotion, the chances of being hit a lot or worse went down.  Flat let me mirror the emotions around me and let me remain invisible.  I focused on other's feelings instead of my own.  I thought this was safe.  But in doing so I added layer upon layer on my own pain which seems to fester into depression.

I have one assignment for the next week.  Cry.  And cry some more.  When I am in the car I am supposed to cry.  That is a long way from flat and I am scared.  What if people don't like my emotions?  My trademarks are levelheaded, calm, logical, a rock... all a nice version of flat. 

My next step: call my shrink and tell her that I don't have any of my meds nor have I been taking them because "someone" threw them away.  I've been too embarrassed to make that call but I need to.  I also need to do some housekeeping in here and figure out "who" threw them out.  And after that...

Cry some more.