Crazy-Ass Welcoming Committee

This blog is not entirely solopsistic, though it might seem so. But truly -- beyond wanting to bash my head into a wall -- I am putting this down for posterity. Because no one invites you into the Bipolar, unemployed, uninsured, disability club. And frankly, someone should. There should be a full-blown, crazy-ass welcoming committee. And in it, there should be information on FMLA, the American Disabilities Act, the EEOC, and your local Department of Health and Human Resources. Because you will never see Oprah touting the latest diet craze: The Poverty Diet.

Department of Health and Human Resources: Your state has one. It is like the DMV. No one will explain anything to you. Checkmark anything that might give you money. They would be very happy not to give you any resources at all. They are helpful like that.

SSDI/SSI: Whether you are truly disabled or not, you will not get this. If you even apply for disability insurance (i.e. the government's money), they will reject you off-hand, and if you truly want to be stubborn, you need a lawyer and copious notes of dates and days before the government will let you pry any money at all from their cold, dead hands.

Hospitalization: There are good and bad mental wards. Your PCP probably knows something about this, as might your therapist or psychiatrist. Ask. All mental wards are not the same, but they are a little like prison. Keep juice boxes and fruit to trade for other useful items.

Food Stamps: Do not be fooled by the rhetoric. If you want your SO to be able to use the card, he can. No one checks who it belongs to. Do not, however, put their name on your application for food stamps unless you are married. If you do, you will not receive enough money to feed a gerbil.

The Poverty Diet: When the DHHR determines that, though you've been fired and have no money of your own, you aren't eligible for emergency food stamps, become religious. Religious charities are the number one place to receive donated food. Humbling, yes, but your stomach ain't rumbling.

Temporary Disability Assistance: There is such a thing, but you aren't supposed to know. This is why you check every box when you are in the DHHR. This can be hidden under something called Temporary Cash Assistance. Do not be fooled.

FMLA: Yes, you can take nearly 12 weeks of leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. Your employer, however, will not like you, and most likely, they will find another reason to fire you -- if they don't force you into a voluntary resignation.

EEOC: You will spend half your day waiting for the three appointments they have available that day. In your appointment, they will listen very kindly, then tell you they cannot help you -- unless you wish to make your employer conform to the American with Disabilities Act.

ADA: The American with Disabilities Act does, indeed, protect your right to certain accommodations within reason. Your employer, however, has a much different definition of "within reason" than you do.

Unemployment: If your doctor has signed a paper telling the State that you are unable to work for a year and if you receive temporary disability from the state, you cannot get unemployment. Unemployment is only for people able and willing to work (i.e. though the body may be willing, the mind is not; your mileage may vary).

Medical Assistance: You can apply for this, too, from your local DHHR. While you're virtually guaranteed some sort of declaration about your food stamps and temporary disability within 30 days, medical assistance is a totally different beast. The medical assistance board is always backed up, and apparently, no one has -- or will divulge -- their phone number. You will rot for three months or more before you hear anything about this. Once you do, you'll understand why it's worth the wait.

Medicaid: Your medical assistance has been approved. If you're lucky, you get a nice shiny packet explaining things. If you're not so lucky, you get a phone call telling you that you have two days to find a Managed Care Organization and a PCP. However, once this is achieved, you will realize that when politicians talk about the Health Care Crisis, they are not talking about Medicaid. Medicaid is what it must be like to live in Canada. Your prescriptions are $1, your visits to your psych, therapist, dentist, and doctor are free. As are a host of other disasters.

Bankruptcy: It happens. You can't get unemployment, the state barely pays you enough to eat, and it could be months before you get medical assistance. In the meantime, you are accruing debt and medical bills as if you can afford to. Call your Credit Counseling Service. Then call your local Legal Aid office. They will waive all fees for their assistance. Go figure.

Psychiatrists/Therapists: Believe it or not, the title does not always fit the figure. Psychiatrists and therapists, the ones with the shiny credentials, may suck wombats. Most nurse practitioners and licensed social workers are far more caring. It can leave you dumbfounded when they actually listen to you.

Seriously, these are all things I wish someone would have told me. I learned it all the hard way, and not everyone wants to self-educate. These tidbits are valid, however, and have been learned through harsh real life experience or from other patients in the mental ward.

Big Mistake

HBO had Girl, Interrupted on their OnDemand channel listing, so I told myself I'd watch it, when Jb wasn't home. And it's not me, it's not what happened to me, or where I went. It's the 1960's for Christ's sake. But there's so much there that rings true, and when the head nurse dumps Winona Ryder in the bathtub... I had to stop the fucking movie.

Valerie: You know, I can take a lot of crazy shit from a lot of crazy people - but you... you are *not* crazy.
Susanna: Then what's wrong with me, huh? What the fuck is going on inside my head? Tell me, *Dr. Val*. What's your diag-nonsense?
Valerie: You are a lazy, self-indulgent *little girl*, who is driving herself crazy.

Is that all I am? A lazy, self-indulgent "little girl?" Because I don't fucking feel crazy. I don't talk to myself, I don't cut myself, I don't lose complete touch with reality. But I can't stop crying, and part of me wants to be back in the hospital, back where I had friends, where I knew people, where seeing someone get discharged was enough to blow you over so that you were lying in bed all day. And each day new people rotate in and out, in and out. But you know the score, and when you snap, the staff is paid to deal with it, not like your boyfriend, not like the ones you love. And every day gets harder and harder.

Jb and I had a fight last night, and he walked out on me this morning--without even a word. Got dressed and left. And it's my fault. It's my fault. I feel like I'm going to explode. Like that game you played with dandelions, singing, "Mama had a baby and its head popped off." At least in the hospital, you all spoke the same language, and when someone broke down, you understood. No one judged you, no one asked anything of you, no one cared what you did as long as you took your meds and showed up for meals. But now things matter, and I can't even commute to the therapist without feeling like I'm going to throw up.

Everybody's Comin' to Get Me

Last night, paranoia hit me hard. It's been hitting me on and off for a long while, though it gets stronger and weaker at times. But it's only last night that I think I started seeing it for what it is. Half the time it manifests itself in the usual ways: thinking people are always watching me, talking about me behind my back, thinking mean thoughts about me, conspiring about me at work. Now I'm starting to think it manifests itself heavily in my relationships. I start thinking things about my significant other like, "Oh, he doesn't really love me. I just want him to admit what I already know: he doesn't actually love me." And there's paranoia about what they're doing, thinking, mostly in regards to me or how it affects me. Are they cheating? Would they ever? Do they want to? What are they hiding on their computers? What are they hiding in their lives? Why don't they ever want to spend time with me? The computer/tv/object must be more important than I am. Maybe I'm not capable of being loved. Etc., etc.

My thoughts were on the mental downward train last night because Jb was on the computer most of the night, watched a tiny bit of tv with me, then zonked out. I immediately started in with the whole, "He never wants to spend time with me anymore. He must not love me. The computer and tv are more important than me. This is just like my last relationship. I'm losing him. What if he cheats on me? He probably doesn't love me anymore. He probably hates me and thinks I'm crazy." Which he should when I think things like that. Because, you know, he couldn't possibly be tired because he's had a long week at work in 90 degree weather, which would be enough to sap anyone. So this becomes just another symptom to bring up to my psych doctor.

Also, I willfully didn't take my meds last night. I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to be taking meds, and certainly not so damn many. Most of the time, I'm extremely faithful to the idea of being med compliant. But last night, I was so down with the paranoid thinking that I didn't see how it mattered if I took meds or not. I didn't care. I didn't care about me.

On a better note, I did take my meds this morning. Lamictal and Wellbutrin down. As far as my sleep schedule, tried to go to bed around 10:30-ish. Not sure when I actually got to sleep. Slept until about 10:30-ish this morning. 12 hours. A little too long, maybe.

Running: An Essay in Five Parts

I

"I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town.
It hovered in a frozen sky,
then it gobbled summer down.
When the sun turns traitor cold,
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row,

I get the urge for going,
But I never seem to go.
I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown;
Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in."

Joni Mitchell, "Urge for Going"

Spring and Fall always bring The Runaways. But other things can trigger them: a song, stress, a show on tv, an argument, lack of sunlight and activity, anything that overwhelms me emotionally or physically. Jb has told me more than once that he finds it hard to understand me because I don't let things go. But for me, it's not that I don't let them go, or that I don't want to; it's that I can't. The wanting, the emotion, the physical embodiment of that emotion, and all I have is the thin layer of my skin to keep it all in. And sometimes it sleeps, and sometimes it wakes, and when it wakes, it starts off with a soft whimpering, then a mewling, then a bawling, until with tiny fists, it's battering for my attention, to do what it would have me do, and I know this: by now, I am half mad with the need to be up and gone. Half crazy with the itching of it, as if it's a rash you'd scratch and scratch until you were bleeding, and still not care that you were. All that matters is the itch, and somehow, you have to quiet it.

II

"Now the warriors of winter,
They gave a cold triumphant shout,
And all that stays is dying,
And all that lives is gettin' out.
See the geese in chevron flight,
Flapping and racing on before the snow.

They got the urge for going,
And they got the wings so they can go."

Joni Mitchell, "Urge for Going"

When I'm stuck, when I can't up and go, whether for lack of money, a job that ties me down, responsibilities to some Other, I become claustrophobic. The world closes in around me, trapping me on all sides, squeezing in on me until the walls of the world have locked me in, and I know I am dying, and that everything around me is dying for lack of air. Madness to go is screaming and pushing at a vacuum-sealed vault it can't escape. But sometimes, blessedly, it does, and when I had my first taste of adulthood and freedom, when I had access to money and means, I ran away, desperate for the running. Even as a child, I stood, face pressed to the glass windows of an Oasis in Illinois, watching the cars speeding by below, and envying them with a hunger a child shouldn't know. And even now, there's nothing I like better than being on an open road, going somewhere, going anywhere, the allure of truck stops and rest areas foreign and enticing, a mere stopping point on an exodus of Biblical proportions. And that's what it always feels like once I break away: as if the world was made for only me, and only I can truly appreciate it. What was dull and dingy is now Technicolor in my world, and the trees flash by in their glowing blur, and I count hawks, but never the miles.

III

"I'll ply the fire with kindling now.
I'll pull the blankets up to my chin.
I'll lock the vagrant winter out and
I'll fold my wandering in."

Joni Mitchell, "Urge for Going"

I haven't been able to be up and gone in nearly three years, and it's a bit like going cold turkey. When the madness takes hold of me, I lock it down, repress it. I learned early as a child that society and mothers expect quiet children, so I kept it all in, as the Beautiful South song goes. And then, free of home, I began to let it all out, acting out as I never could when I was young. In college, though, everyone ran away, and they called it Spring Break. So, there was Cancun where I couldn't be bothered to be dragged around the markets and the bars, where I maxed out my credit card to become a certified scuba diver, leaving my friends to drink themselves merry or stupid. Every day, Klaus ran us 5 miles out and 150 feet down, and all that mattered was the running. And there was the time I met my husband, flying into the unknown with $100 in my pocket, and no guarantee this boy I'd met online would be there at the gate. When I finally married, I could count the times I ran away on two hands. There was the cold feet of my engagement, the sudden trip up to Milwaukee, and my best friend whispering that he could never made me happy. And there was my bachelorette party: a trip up to Madison, Madtown, me and my best friend and a toilet that wouldn't work.

IV

Of course, once I was married, there was the money, and Saugatuck, MI. Something there staved off the hunger longest, and I went back, again and again, staying in a hidden cottage off the main street, set up in such a way that the craziest of travelers could pretend to set up house there, behind the wine store, and buy plum wine and cream sherry, and walk down the street for Framboise at a British pub or peanut butter soup at the coffeehouse. Saugatuck called to me in such a compelling way that I once drove through a blizzard to get there, spinning out six times on the Michigan freeway. And then there was the summer, when Saugatuck was just a starting point for a week-long birthday run up to Petosky, where I was determined to camp, alone, in the state park, then further up to Mackinaw to spend my birthday with wine and chocolate covered strawberries in a claw foot tub, then further still to the Upper Peninsula and a town called Paradise that had one hotel, and one restaurant, and a convenient store that never stayed open. Dar Williams sang "Traveling Again (Traveling I)" the whole drive up:

"Have I got everything? Am I ready to go?
Is it going to be wild, is it gonna be the best time?
Or am I just a-saying so-o-o-o? Am I ready to go?
What do I hear when I say I hear the call of the road?

I think it started with driving.
More speed, more deals,
More sky, more wheels,
More things to leave behind.
Now it's all in a day for the modern mind.
And I am traveling, again,
Calling this a ghost town, and where is the heartland?
And I'm afraid, oh, was there any good reason, that I had to go?
When all I know is I can never come back.

Traveling, I made a friend.
He had a trouble in his head.
And all he could say's that he knew that the bottle
Drank the woman from his bed, from his bed.
He said, "I'm not gonna lose that way again."
But sober is just like driving.
More joy, more dread,
someone turns her head,
And smiles and disappears.
He's gotta take it like it is, and it goes too fast,
And he is just like me, caught in-between.
No sage advisor. Does weary mean wiser?
And someday will I sing the mountains that carried me away
From home and hometown boys like you?

Yeah, but what about us? Was it really that bad?
Oh, it's hard to believe I want a highway road stop
More than all the times we had, on little dirt roads.
What am I reaching for that's better than a hand to hold?

It really was about driving.
Not fame, not wealth.
Not driving away from myself.
It's just myself drove away from me.
And now I gotta get it back, and it goes so fast.
So, I am traveling again.
Sitting at the all-nite, picking up a pen.
And I'm afraid, oh, was there any good reason
That I had to go? When all I know is I am all alone again.
And you are the ghost town, and I am the heartland.
And I can say, oh, that's a very good reason
That I had to go, but now all I know is I can never come back.
And I will never go back."

I made it up to Whitefish Point on Dar Williams that summer, to see the bell of the Edmond Fitzgerald, and everything that was mystical and new, from the way Gordon Lightfoot's "The Edmund Fitzgerald" began playing softly over the museum's speakers right as I stepped up to view the remains of the American lake freighter, to the way I lived out Stan Roger's song, "White Squall," by touring the Soo Locks along the Canadian borderline. It was the summer of my greatest Runaway, and everything shined clear as Lake Huron.

V

"Baby, let me set you down.
You look so troubled, and I think I know.
Just when you think you've come around,
There you go.

Now, I know the business of the heart,
And it'll get you anyway it can.
You need someone to walk with in the dark. Well,
I'm your man."

Shawn Colvin, "Trouble"

And then there was Jb, who caught me up when I ran away to Knoxville -- and from my marriage. There had been other boys who had tried to catch me, and some boys that I had tried to catch. One even spoke about me as if I was a bird in the hand, ready to fly at the slightest provocation, and at the time, he was more right than he knew. But Jb caught me and twirled me around and set me back down on my feet, and for the first time in ten years, someone insisted I stay. And there I was: in a relationship with a man who would not tolerate my runaways, who claimed we were "in this together," and strangely enough, something in me sighed, as if I suddenly realized that all that running had left me exhausted and footsore. And that should be my happy ending. But the whirl of bipolar never quite goes away, and there are nights, like last night, watching Firefly, cowboys in space, laconic and always on the move, that brought the Runaways back. And the move is closing in around me, suffocating me, so that there is no air, no air. I can't breathe. And all I can think of is a run to the water.

But Jb knows how to deal with my runaways. I'm not sure he knows that he knows how to do this thing, but like a dog kept on a short leash, because of bills or poverty, he makes it possible for me to slip off that leash, if only for an hour or two, and he lets me run. Short trips into the "country," long drives to nowhere and anywhere that a quarter of a tank of gas can get us. And we roll the windows down and turn the music up, and I'd put my head out the window and push my face up toward the sun, just to feel the warmth and the wind, if I didn't think I'd look as crazy as I sometimes feel. But we sing along to every song we know, and we sing loud, and off-key, and we shoot each other laughing looks, and for that little while, I finally feel unfettered and free, and miracle of miracles, Jb's saved me from myself.

The Crazy Card

Get this: Jb pulled the crazy card on me the other night.

We were arguing over something that I was so obviously right about that I wouldn't budge my position, and Jb's arguments had devolved into pitiful character assassinations.

Jb: Maybe in your little world in your head, where everything's weird and not normal like here in the real world, where everyone else understands reality.

-blink-

Me: Seriously. Did you just pull the crazy card on me?!

It's a good thing we're able to joke about this and that I have a sense of humor, or I'd have likely been offended.