Ha-ha!

Today, I am uber productive. I have called the unemployment, um, place and been told it's best to wait for my job to dismiss me, which I doubt they'll do. I see myself forever trailing on in this unpaid leave of absence state, arm thrown across my eyes like a melodramatic actress

On a yay note, my medical assistance determination went through, and I'm eligible for Healthchoice, which provides free doctor, dentist, ophthalmologist, psychiatrist and therapist visits, as well as cheap pharmacy costs. Jackpot! Whew. I can waive my right to insurance through JHU now and feel safe in knowing that I can get the help I need.

On an anxiety-producing note, I'm under review for food stamps, and other county programs, no doubt, on the 14th. Jb's making more money than he was, but we're still so strapped for cash. I don't know how this is going to affect their decisions. Also, I'm not sure how getting into Medicaid will affect the money I'm getting for Temporary Disability Assistance.

Both my PCP and my psych is in the managed care organization I enrolled in as well, which makes it easy to continue treatment without having to start over with someone new. I've even left a voice mail with a therapist. Now I just have to wait for her to call me back. As always, the waiting is the hardest part, to quote Tom Petty. But it's also anxiety-producing. I worry about this or that, going through every scenario in my mind, obsessing about worse-case scenarios.

Regardless, I went through all my bills, got all my medical bills sorted and ready to show my case worker. Everything else should already be on file, except for Jb's pay stubs, the new rent, and a bank statement. I'll have to talk Jb into going to get that, which he won't like. And I have to remember to tell the guy that what Jb makes annually includes a 2 1/2 - 3 month lay off period due to seasonal work. Because that makes a huge difference in whether we qualify or not.

Lot of time spent on the phone. Now, it's the waiting. And despite it all, I feel good. I have that stupid assurance that I'm fine, everything's fine, and all this medical stuff is useless. I feel like I'm fine, I don't need my meds, that going to my psych isn't necessary, that I've nothing to talk to a therapist about. Truly, I feel ... good. But put me in a situation where I'm required to do something, put me in a doctor's office, and I'm a blubbering mess of emotions. I still can't sleep at night, and I even woke up several times last night: 1am, 3am, 4:45am. I'm restless. Maybe it's the increase in the Wellbutrin. I have this "do something right now" energy and restlessness, but my eyes are so tired, my brain is tired. It feels very strange. Like part of me is sedated and part of me can't stop thinking, doing, planning, worrying, typing, on and on and on.

Monday

I always go into the week determined to do better, do more, feel better. The past several nights I've had problems getting to sleep, staying up as late as 3am. Not surprisingly, I'm sleeping later in the mornings--until almost 11am. When I wake up, I'm still groggy for several hours. I've read more than one article in the past that directly links insomnia and hypersomnia to episodes of depression and mania, so I think it's important to be noting this change in my sleeping habits. For example, right now, I could really use a nap. I slept until 11am, and at 3pm, I'm already tired.

Having said that, I started off on the right foot for once on a Monday. I spent much of the morning fleshing out characterizations for the series I'd like to write. I think I've done enough characterization to actually start writing. On a side note, one of the reasons I think I'm staying up later is the books. For some reason, at night, once the lights are out and the tv quiet, I start hashing over the plot and characters in my head, imagining scenes, narrating them to myself. It's an important process, though, and I hate the idea of curbing it, as these characters are real to me, and they talk to me and reveal themselves to me during these times.

I have also found the paper for the printer and envelopes. That means I can begin typing up a letter to HR telling them to shove it, as they've given me no further documentation of my unpaid leave of absence, a bill for the amount they overpaid me while on FMLA, information about Cobra, or a copy of my file, all of which I asked for back on May 9th. Cutting all ties makes me nervous, though, as I'm still able to get insurance with them for roughly $100 a month. I'm terrified of not having insurance, of being unable to pay for my prescriptions or the necessary doctor visits. Hopefully, unemployment and Cobra will help with that. I also plan to send in an application to the county for their adult pharmacy care program.

On top of that, management is bringing in inspectors to check out the apartments tomorrow. Ours is really fairly clean. I need to do dishes, pick up some trash. But overall, far more clean than our old apartment. I attribute this to the fact that we've actually tried to keep the place clean and to the fact that we now have hardwood floors. With Jb's dirty, outside work, there was no hope for keeping a carpet clean, add to that a sick cat, and well, good luck. Our new cat, however, is so low-maintenance, we're stunned. She leaves no mess, except right around her litter box. But that's very manageable.

I am, I admit, starting to feel a little overwhelmed by all the things I need to do. And the anxiety and IBS is there in spades. I'm due for another appointment with my PCP for blood work and with my gastro doc for a check-in. I really don't want to do either. And I've an appointment with the county to reassess my need for county assistance on the 14th. And a class on bankruptcy at the end of the month. In the meantime, we get by as best we can, and Kat Eggleston's "One More Step" is my theme song:

So you walk like you've never faltered
So you move like you still had faith
Head down and a turned up collar
Through a string of long, hard days
Walking through the darkest passage
Though you saw no light ahead
And your greatest act of courage
Was in taking one more step.

So you raise your voice in sorrow
'Til you heard no other sound
Saw nothing but your own shadow
With your eyes turned toward the ground
And when at last some kindness found you
Then it was as though you had slept
And the crowd in the dark around you
Were all taking one more step.

Oh, the warmest of standing water
It may some day come to freeze
So you'll tell your sons and your daughters
How to live with times like these
Tell them when their hearts are frozen
To trust their feet instead
When there is nothing left but motion
And taking one more step.

When we find that we are laughing
And we're running in the sun
Then we know that we still are breathing
And the longest night is done
And finally resting from the battle
Wondering where our feet have led
Amazed at how we traveled
By taking one more step.

Good Day

Today is a good day. It's strange to write that and know that what should be normal for most people is extraordinary for me. I am . . . happy today. I say that tentatively, as if I might jinx myself. Today, I can access my emotions, the love I feel for my boyfriend, the fondness, the affection. I had been withdrawn lately, unable to participate in our relationship, less than affectionate, and it had left us at arm's length from each other--a painful thing when you know, logically, that this person is someone you love, someone who is supportive, someone who is, in fact, special. But I can still remember back to being in hospital and how, no matter how much I knew he loved me, I also knew love wasn't enough to make me better. It's strange to be so solipsistic, so self-absorbed. I dislike having to be so focused on myself, how I feel, how I'm acting. In all honesty, I don't feel as if I deserve that much attention.

Fireworks

The 4th was mostly rained out. I caught a few flashes through the window, and Jb said if I wanted to try to find them, he would love to take me. "Love to take me." He's generous like that--in ways I could never be. So we went out driving in the rain, saw no fireworks, but rolled the windows down, turned the country music up, and watched the lights flash by and reflect up off the road. At a stoplight, he leaned in and said the sweetest damn thing to me. So sweet I'm going to keep it to myself, and horde it in my heart, and feel, for the first time in a while, the bliss that used to mark my highs. Maybe this is happiness, this quiet, glad, contentment that fills the chest without being so extreme that you can't control it or feel as if you can't hold it all in. Who knew there could be too much happiness, and who knew that a baseline could feel less like a loss and more like a gain.

Exactly!

“'So the loss of memory applies to the later part of your service in France, but the early part - the first six months or so - is comparatively clear?'

'Ye-es.'

Rivers sat back in his chair. 'Would you like to tell me something about that early part?'

'No.'

'But do you remember it?'

'Doesn't mean I want to talk about it.' He looked round the room. 'I don't see why it has to be like this anyway.'

'Like what?'

'All the questions from you, all the answers from me. Why can't it be both ways?'

'Look, Mr Prior, if you went to the doctor with bronchitis and he spent half the consultation telling you about his lumbago, you would not be pleased. Would you?'

'No, but if I went to my doctor in despair it might help to know he at least understood the meaning of the word.'

'Are you in despair?'

Prior sighed, ostentatiously impatient.

'You know, I talk to a lot of people who are in despair or very close to it, and my experience is that they don't care what their doctor feels. That's the whole point about despair, isn't it? That you turn it on yourself.'

'Well, all I can say is I'd rather talk to a real person than a strip of empathic wallpaper.'"

Pat Barker, Regeneration

Lost

There's a Firefly quote that's coming to mind today:

Inara: (to Simon) You're lost in the woods - we all are, even the captain. The difference is he likes it that way.
Mal: No, the difference is the woods are the only place I can see a clear path.

I feel like I'm lost in the woods these days, like I can't see my clear path. I stumble around my days, the apartment, looking for things to do, but unable to focus enough to do them. Jb's on my case again about not doing anything around the apartment other than cooking, bills, and groceries. These days, that's a lot to me. It's difficult enough for me to sit down and write up a list of groceries for 13-14 days worth of meals, but now that our budget's so tight, I have to add in the math, the coupon/circular, the adjusted cost, how many meals I can stretch one pound of meat. I know useless things, like eggs cost $2, milk $3.50, butter $4.50, cheese $5, unless you find a 2 for $6 sale. Sales on meat are deceiving, and unless you get there early, they're gone. It takes me all day to create a list.

I'm also lost as to what to do with myself. I once saw a clear path: Master's in Writing, writer. Then that diverged and I threw a possible PhD in Rhetoric in there, afraid I couldn't write. Then even that branched off to library work, my job at the library downtown, thoughts about a Master's in Library Science. But every time I saw a clear path, it split on me, until I had no path, only the woods closing in around me, and the knowledge that I was scared and unhappy. Now, I've lost everything: all direction, any clear path. And shouldn't that be freeing? But now I'm pigeonholed: "unstable," "bipolar," "irrational," "emotional," "depressed," "anxious," "unemployed." It's a loss of control and power, and I'm floundering. I can't see the tress for the forest.

I re-read those first two paragraphs, and they don't even make sense to me. Everything is disjointed. I'm starting to sleep more, later. Napping. I am swinging back down into a depression. In one of McMann's web pages he talks about going into the doctor to talk about his moderate depression, or his major depression, or the minor depression on top of his major depression, as if depression were a house of blocks that could be built. It's like a Dave Carter song:

One fine morning when my ship comes in
Gonna pack my fortune, take it home again
Stack my sorrows like stones until
I've built me a mansion on a high, high hill.

Depression is so full of metaphor. And sometimes I wonder if that isn't why while depressed and even manic, I've read that so many of us turn to music, poems, lyrics, like magpies, constantly murmuring others words in our heads, over and over, as if they could speak for us when we can't even speak for ourselves. It's like the butterfly in Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn:

You know better than to expect a butterfly to know your name. All they know are songs and poetry, and anything else they hear. They mean well, but they can't seem to keep things straight. And why should they? They die so soon.

And this is where it begins to get tragic for me. This whole post--useless. Rambling. Incoherent. I can't remember my point, I can't remember my metaphors, all I hear in my head are lyrics, poignant quotes, and all I feel is this upwelling need for meaning, somewhere, somehow. Sometimes I think the only thing that mattered to me was the stint I spent teaching. Peter S. Beagle again:

Only reason I've lasted this long is I had this stupid job teaching beautiful, useless stuff to idiots.

And what writer would depend on every other writer to supply her own words? But I can't use them now, and I fumble. Everything is subject-verb-object with a conjunction thrown into the mix, usually the same conjunctions. So I might as well end this with one last quote from The Little Hours by Dorothy Parker:

I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

And that's my mind these days. That's me.

Psych Check-In

Hiked my Wellbutrin to 300MG. Having problems going to sleep at night, sleeping late in the morning. Tired in the afternoons. Don't give a flying shit about much.

Total psych drugs:

Klonopin 1MG X 2
Wellbutrin 300MG
Remeron 30MG
Lamictal 100MG X 2

The psychiatric nurse practitioner -- who, by the by, is ten times nicer and a much better listener than either the psychiatrist or his wife the therapist -- thinks I am still unstable and asked if the psych had mentioned the hospital to me last time. That's the last sort of talk I want to be getting into with them. I am not going back to the hospital. I don't care how flipped out I am. It's non-negotiable.

The nurse practitioner did hassle me about seeing a therapist, and agreed with me that the psychiatrist's wife is probably not the sort of therapist I should be seeing. She gave me numbers for Vesta and NAMI. And she wants me back in 10 days, which I tried to fight her on, as what the fuck does she expect the drugs to do in a week. She said, "Well, you're not stable yet, and who knows, you might feel better." How do you tell your psychiatrist that you never feel better when you know you have an appointment, and that said appointment often makes you feel worse?

Yet again, a bastardized version of Dorothy Parker comes to mind:

I hate psychiatrist.
They make me impatient.