From Wednesday, October 15, 2014

It's 3:59 pm and I'm sitting in my vehicle in front of my home. The sun feels good on my face. My students are testing today so my poetry class is off today. This free write will be choppy and probably not make much sense at times. Oh well.

I need to write. Writing is my therapy. Last night was a hard night for me. Why do I write about hard nights and good nights and mania and depression and the crazies that come? Well, when I see my emotions all spelled out in little black letters I honor myself by defining myself. Also I gain a sense of being bigger than it. Whatever it is. I will not protect another one of my abusers with my silence. I might have manic and depressive stages, but they will never have me. Also, I wish there was a blog I could go to where someone with bipolar 1 (specifically) was listing intimate details of her (specifically) day. It's a lonely disease because people don't want to tell. And I get it. I don't want to tell most things. But, as Audre Lorde said, "Your silence will not protect you." My silence did not protect me. My silence does not make me feel better. It does not make me feel brave, or protected, or happy no one else knows. My silence eats at me. It controls me, or it would if I let it. My silence makes me feel ashamed. My silence alienates me from my friends and family and health care professionals. My silence hates me. Only something that does this, hates.

Besides, my voice is balm. My voice through writing, my speaking voice shedding light to stories that are hiding in the lining of my stomach and breasts. Writing helps me feel better. Writing helps me fly. There is not just one way I have to tell my story. I can take as long as I want to get to the point and then I never have to get there at all if I don't want. Am I alone? Does writing do this for you? Do you have something that does? What helps you fly? I want you to fly.

Sharing here on this blog gives me power. I feel like if I can share it then nobody holds it over me. Whatever it is. My mental health is not my dirty little secret. I can't live that way. Sharing is my way of telling you that you aren't alone. I don't believe that I'm the only one on this roller coaster.

I stay out late at night. On purpose. I like late dinners in cozy restaurants. I like Merlot in long stemmed wine glasses. On purpose. I like easy dinner company with people who make me smile, laugh, let me be quiet, comfortable. I have that.

After my appointment has been postponed three times now, by the medical facility, I have another appointment on Friday morning.

I have been off of my meds for about four months. I went off of them as responsibly as I knew how. I said Fuck it, and stopped taking them. I needed a break. My left hand needed a break from shaking so much. My body needed to feel SOMETHING. I needed to be able to wake up and feel alert before 11:30 am. I needed to not draw a blank so much. I needed to feel like myself again. I needed that to not be such a big thing to ask for.

From day one, I never felt my doctor. I hated the way she talked to me. The way she looked at me. The way her office was always, ALWAYS, all of the ways looking like a lightweight episode of Hoarders. I hated the way I had to stand my black body on her white scale and listen to her lecture me before she would give me a prescription. I hated the time I excitedly told her I bought a bike and she told me I needed to walk. This bitch had no give. Hated the way her LSU diploma hung crooked on the wall. Hated her German accent. Hated that she had a calendar on her wall that was seven years old. And that was crooked too. Even if the artist was Charles Bibbs. She didn't deserve his art in her trashy ass office with the dusty bookshelf and books laying all shoddy. I hated seeing her dirty lunch fork and framed pictures (plural) of her dog. No partner. No children. No colleagues, just Rex (or whatever). Hated the time she looked at me as I sat across from her and she said, with her arms spreading wider and wider, "Have you always been this way?" They way she talked at me like I were six thousand pounds. Let her tell it, I was a walking, breathing miracle. And even if I were, I wouldn't have deserved that. Hated the way she rolled her arms and hands down the contour of her rail thin body as she told me what I should be eating. I loved the way I started referring to her as that body rollin' bitch. I'm fucked up. Whatever. Oh, and I hated the way she said my name. "RRRRrrrrrobin." Hooker, it's Robin (Jaha if you nasty).

I began to feel anxious hours before seeing her. I started treating her like I were in my twenties and she were some dude I was fuckin'. Sucking in my stomach (although my stomach game in my twenties was mad sexy - fuck y'all). Checkin' my outfit. Doin' last minute walks around the block. Trippin'. When enough meds were in my system and I was sick enough of seeing Dr. G. and feeling the side effects (from her and the meds), I told myself it was a good enough time to take a break. So I did. Was eating better and walking more and out to prove to the world that those pills could stay in the bottom of the flood control.

As time went on I felt myself returning to me. Waking up earlier and earlier. FEELING. My hand stopped shaking. Life started being funny and awful again. But then I started crying again. I started talking too fast and being all jittery again. I started being way too happy again. Like going up so high on a roller coaster, the quick fall was soon to follow. Then the depression again. Then the self medicating again.

Currently I'm in, I can't do this by myself no mo'! stage. I have audio and tactile hallucinations of rats late at night. I'm constantly waking up patting my legs and feeling under my pillows. I need some movie on or I will hear the scratches from under my bed and pillow. My room is on the second floor yet I am uncomfortable with the windows open (but they are open) because of course rats have nothing better to do than crawl up to my hot ass room and torture me. Funny thing is, I've never seen a rat or mouse not so much as a lizard in this house. But still doe.

I got home last night about 11:30. I don't take naps anymore in effort to save up my sleepy, maybe you understand, 'till the end of the night (early of the morning). Thankfully I was sleepy enough as I crawled into my bed. I finally dozed off but then kept feeling my leg twitching. And a twitch is just a twitch, but I damn near lost my shit because in my mind, the rats were crawling into my skin and running up and down my leg bones. Because you know, rats do this. I guess. Then every single time I closed my eyes I saw an ultrasound of my brain and there was a big rat moving around in there. So I stopped closing my eyes and spent most of the night (early morning) fighting sleep. Like something was mad I was gon have the unmitigated (somebody look that up for me) gall to have a good sleep.

Off subject a little bit here, I thankful for a good sleep in my gratitude logs everyday now. My way of defining my night by the good rest, however short. I get to say.

Anyway, I was scared again last night. The first phone call I got this morning was from one of the directors at the medical facility confirming my appointment for Friday (today is Wednesday). I asked her if I could please be seen today. "No, Friday is the soonest. It's not that far." It's not that far pissed me off. They know about the rats too. It's not that far. How she know how the fuck far it is?

I went to see V and talk for a minute. I called a doctor friend for some advice. Got a referral from him about an emergency facility who would give me meds same day. I drove through crowded ass Culver City (I'm such a hater) and they were closed. Not just closed, but shut down. How did I know they were shut down? Because when I walked through the doors with the same address but a different hospital name, and I told the security guard at the information desk the place I was looking for and he did a quick side glance and whispered to me, "That psyche place? They closed. They shut down." I guess the whisper was to preserve my dignity. I dunno. They didn't shut down though. They just moved. Because there is another facility with the same name in east Los Angeles. I know because I've been there before. The wait is forever though and they don't give meds after 4:00. It was already like 3:30. I'm gonna be cool.

I haven't eaten all day though. Thankfully I have zero appetite. Every time I think about eating something I imagine rats inside of my stomach eating the food. It grosses me out. Somebody tell my brain to shut the hell up for a minute.

I'm going to go to The World Stage tonight. I'm not reading though. It will be good, listening to words and stories from other folks.

Until later y'all.