1-800-273-TALK

These past 2.5 months have been brutal since my son has gone down to visit my family. Without the responsibility of him around my therapist has been pushing me to dig deeper into the recesses of my cluttered, dark mind.

And there are emotions in there.

So many emotions.

Some emotions welling up are so new, frightening, and overwhelming that my chest physically aches. So much so that the one night I found it necessary to make a phone call to help me get through the night.

Source: http://wonderbandalice.deviantart.com/

Not all self-harming is obvious to the naked eye. I've struggled with this illness for over 24 years and up until 2 years ago, I've never had the courage to admit this problem openly. Over the past three months I have worked extremely hard with my therapist to develop cognitive behavioral coping skills and calming techniques that I have used successfully to stem the tide of crazy that swirls in my brain at times.

But that night, the night before Robin Williams would end his life, I had so many painful emotions bubble to the surface that for the first time in years I was scared of myself. Each coping skill I tried to implement failed to have a desired impact; I grew more anxious. I couldn't breathe.

All I could think about was hurting myself. Badly. Really, really badly. I wanted the trapped pain to be outside of me. The pain was so bad this time I wanted to drive a knife in my thigh. Stab and twist. Because a twisted wound can't heal on it's own.

I've never had feelings that intense before.

I had no desire, no intention, no plan to end my life.

I just didn't know how to cope. It was 1 AM and I needed to talk to someone. I just needed to say the words, "I'm in a lot of pain right now. My therapist is helping me work through some difficult things and these feelings make me feel like hurting myself. I'm not suicidal, I'm not going to hurt myself. I just need to tell someone I'm having these feelings."

And the voice on the other end of the line, Noelle, listened patiently to me. I rambled for a few minutes and felt so much of the tension flow out of my body. It was as if allowing myself to say these things out loud took the power away from overwhelming feelings. My pulse returned to normal and I thanked Noelle for her kindness.

I sent a text to a couple of friends letting them know that I had been feeling harmful, but I had made a call and was feeling better. One night owl friend called me within minutes and kept me on the phone for the following hour and a half. We spent the time criticizing and deconstructing The Silver Chalice, Paul Newman's debut film. (If you are sad and need a laugh, I highly recommend this film. From the Sharpie drawn sets and bending metal swords to the costume department's liberal use of drapery tassels, there is not one part of the movie that isn't hysterical.).

Today is National Suicide Prevention Day. If you or a loved one needs help please call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or online at suicidepreventionlifeline.org. I am so fortunate that there was a voice on the other end of the line.

I've Seen the Devil and He Looks Like a Camel Cricket

Send help! 
I repeat, send help!
This is not a drill.

 I am currently trapped in the bathroom by a cricket from hell. My smashing shoe is on the other side of the house.



In the meantime I'll be doing my scaredy-pants-bitch-dance

I think my subconscious is planning a murder

I find that when I go old school and write out my thoughts on paper I find my groove a lot sooner. Otherwise, I can sit and stare at the screen for hours, distracting  myself every 45 seconds to take a Buzzfeed quiz or see if there are any Facebook posts where I can leave snarky comments.

So the other day as I was not working on my novel, I came across this image on Pintrest and realized it captured a lot of issues that I have when I find randoms scraps of paper I have scribbled on. And even though I was in the middle of cleaning my living room not 15 minutes ago, when I found this paper I decided it's both hysterical and disturbing that I had to share it.

Maybe I was trying to write a one-liner opening for a murder mystery hidden in the depths of my brain or maybe it's a Hemingway six word story entry.

• Depression era dancer winner takes all.
• Be sure to grind the bones.
• Her body entwined the lobster trap.
• His dying speech was sesquipedalian.
• The gallows, hungry for another neck.
• Henry died; the psych ward silenced.

Not too sure where to go with that. 

No One Addresses the Pope as Frankie

Being Bipolar can be so weird and frustrating.

On the upside, when I'm on a creative roll nothing can stop me. Not the endless chatter or pleas from my 8 year old nor the prospect of watching an independent movie staring my favorite actor while sipping on a hard cider. 

The downside comes when my brain won't turn off and let me go to sleep. My eyes are sore, achy, and dry. My wrists have feel spikey and my butt has become one with the kitchen chair. I've taken to writing in a yellow spiral-bound mini notebook, words spilling out of my head, and pages rapidly filling up.  

I desperately want to sleep but fear that if I put down my pen in favor of slumber I'll lose the muse.

I have the plot story-boarded across my bedroom wall, so I realized the other day that I could write chapters independent of each other. While soaking in the tub or as I like to call it the "Writer's-Block-Away-inator" I came up with the name and back-story for an integral character.

So for a exerpt into Chapter (Number TBD) "No One Addresses the Pope as Frankie"

    I woke up days later. Or was it hours? I tried to piece together what had happened. It turns out when you come into a hospital unconscious with a head injury standard protocol demands that all clothing is cut off ensuring your last shred of dignity won’t stand in the way of all the diagnostic tests to be run. Sticky monitoring pads are Krazy-glued to your chest, neck, and scalp while various tubes are inserted to either pull out or push in fluids.
   I appeared to be in a private room. The shades were drawn but a dull light filtered under the door. A toilet flushed and the running tap suggested that someone was in a bathroom connected to this room.
    The light extinguished and the door swung outwards slowly. This person was taking great pains to be discreet, but the shrill squeal of the hinges gave it away.
    “I’m so sorry. I’ve woken you.”
    “No. . .it’s. . .it’s. Wait, am I dead?”
    “Why would you think that?”
    I looked at the man standing next to me. His voice was like warm butter, sliding across the top of a fresh baked biscuit. Stubborn auburn curls tumbled across his forehead. He attempted to tuck a stray ringlet behind his ear, but it bounced free like a naughty child escaping the confines of a smothering hug.
    His eyes. Those eyes alone I could talk about for hours. Magazine articles said that his eyes were slate blue. In TV interviews his eyes seemed to be green. But as I stared up at him, I realized his eyes were like the color an angry sea. I thought about the summer afternoons I would watch the afternoon showers roll in across the Gulf of Mexico. As the waves churned and pounded the sea wall, I could see colors of grayed sand, purple bruised waves, silvery minnows, and green mermaid foam.
    What?
    What the what?

Sending the Enemy Within, Out

Over the past two days I have worked out a lot of stuff with my therapist. I cried a lot in session yesterday, sobbed myself to sleep, and proceeded to cry a lot in session today. I'll probably cry a bit more tonight, but it's a good thing.

What I've been working on is this: For years, more than I can count, I have viewed myself as a burden to others. I have convinced myself that friends, family merely tolerate my presence because I believe that I bring so little into their lives.

Time to move out, Dwight.

I have always felt like I've been in debt, that in the balance of life I was severely in the negative. To most everyone. Not that anyone has ever told me I'm in their debt. It's my messed up head telling me that I will never be able to help out as much as others have helped me.

Up until about 5 this afternoon, I had convinced myself that in the race of life all my friends were winners, with their happy families, steady incomes, settled emotional issues, and me, well I was the big loser.

But I found peace today, as I sat in a stuffy room pretzeled up on a chair that was probably swiped from the waiting room of Purgatory.

There's no monetary measurement in friendship. And with my shrink's help, I have realized that I do bring some good things into others lives.