Diary of a Quitter

Thirty-five trips around the sun, completed today. That’s right, it’s my birthday, and everything feels a little off.

But I’m here, and I’m feeling relatively sane. I took the whole day off to hang out with my family. We just watched The Golden Compass and ate some delish cherry-cheesecake. Later some friends are coming by, and I rented Juno for me and J to watch.

I think I’ll have more to say later, but right now I’ve got that b’day melancholy thing, and J is helping C clean her bedroom which is giving me an anxiety attack.

Woo. Celebrate!

Catch ya later.

I have a new post up at Suboxone Blog celebrating the fact that six whole months have passed since I started Suboxone treatment.

I’m at work right now, but I will post some more words soon. In the meantime, I’d deeply appreciate your support over at Suboxone Blog.

Thanks, all!

Hallowed Ground

they are buried here

where the earth swells like the body of a woman, gravid

but without expectation, in this womb full of secrets

among the roots

under the tree, umbilical

coupling heaven and earth

conduit of energy, of light

here that which separates each from the other

is breached

what was complex becomes elemental:

bodies that once danced, ran, fucked, played, loved, fought, lived

are rendered back to the Mother

earth, soil

and their souls reborn as

leaves, branches,

the very air above the distant city.

-bottlecappie, c2008

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Link to bigger version of this weeks image here.

This is my first time participating in the collaborative poetry project over at Rick Mobb’s blog, Mine Enemy Grows Older. I borrowed the title of his painting for the title of my poem (hope that’s ok!) Rick has generously offered up his wonderful paintings as inspiration for anyone who would like to participate. Check out his site for more information, more art and to see the poems and stories that he has collected so far.

Though I have long loved both reading and writing poetry, this is the first poem I’ve written in well over a year - possibly close to two. I didn’t realize what a loss that was until I started writing today. Hours slipped by while I contemplated the painting, thought, wrote a little, took breaks to read or engage in other tasks - but all the while I could feel my mind engaging with the subject at varying levels of consciousness.

I used to do that all the time - poems would come to me in a flash, whole or in fragments, all the time. Poetry informed the way I approached everything in my life, making it more beautiful, more intense, more profound. I lost that as my drug use/addiction became more the focus of my life. I was content to accept the surface of things and I stopped looking for the mystery.

Hopefully the fact that I was able to squeeze out a poem this week, after looking at the prompts but chickening out every week for the last several weeks, means that I am moving toward including more poetry in my life again on a regular basis. Hopefully, this will be another means for me to grow and become stronger in my recovery. And I hope you will try too. This kind of creation and expression feeds the soul, and I think Rick’s idea to make it a collaborative process is wonderful.

I’d like to thank everyone involved in this project for creating a space that feels safe and supportive and thereby encouraging me to write and take the risk of posting. Big fat special thanks to Prester John, who told me about the project and jumped right in, inspiring me to follow.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering - I’m doing fine. I’ve just been really busy and I was a little burned out on my blog. I’m feeling recharged now, and should be back to more regular posting again. Thanks for bearing with me.

COLUMBUS, OH. –Jake and Mandi Donaldson were overjoyed when they learned that their dream of building a family would soon be realized. That joy rapidly turned to concern when the fetus began to exhibit bizarre behaviors that kept Mandi Donaldson awake late into the night. Doctors could not explain these episodes, despite numerous ultrasounds and maternal serum testing. The expectant couple finally found answers to their questions when the fetus was diagnosed with Fetal Bipolar Disorder.

The fetus, who Mandi Donaldson has named Piper, demonstrated extreme mood swings as early as 20 weeks. “Sometimes she would just lie there for hours, and other times she just couldn’t be still. She was completely erratic.” The symptoms worsened as the weeks went by with Piper’s agitation growing progressively stronger. “She started kicking me in the kidney over and over again. I knew something was definitely wrong, but I never suspected mental illness.  I thought she was just a little shit.”

Dr. Matthew Pearson, chair of the newly developed Fetal Psychiatry Department at Johns Hopkins, says this type of behavior is characteristic of Fetal Bipolar Disorder. “These fetuses are very sick and very difficult to care for. They rapidly cycle between depression and mania, causing extreme distress for their mothers, including heartburn and frequent urge to urinate.”

Read the rest here:

26-Week Fetus Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder « Superlative In All Things

Hat Tip to Furious Seasons

From Postsecret.

I’m cautiously thinking that things might be getting better for me on the depression front. I’ve started doing this kind of triage on my shit-to-do list, cutting it down to only the most essential of items so it’s not so overwhelming. Like last night, I knew I needed to get some stuff organized for the morning because I had to get to class. Instead of freaking out about the chaos that is my current state of housekeeping, I just got a load of my clothes in the washer, emailed my prof to get the reading assignment, took a bath and washed my hair, set the alarm clock, and let the rest go.

This was pretty successful, up till the point where I somehow knocked my glasses off my dresser and into a shopping bag full of my bath-salt-making supplies. Whoops! I was all ready to go, and running around on the verge of freaking the fuck out because I didn’t want to be late, but just when I was about to lose it (I was actually standing in my room looking up at the ceiling yelling WHY? WHY! WHY?!?!?) I looked down and saw my glasses in the bag. Perhaps this was an answered prayer, but we’ll never know.

Anyway, I made it to class and it was good. I really liked this professor last time I had her. She does this great thing where whenever someone asks her a question, she answers with a question - which usually bugs the hell out of the person asking the question but I think it’s awesome and definitely makes for some interesting light-bulb moments in her classes. She’s from Russia and has a PhD in Philosophy - I think her thing is Russian existentialism or something - and she’s just not like any other teacher I’ve ever had. It’s like she has this way of making you realize how much of an idiot you are, but without shaming you about it. She’s great, and I’m looking forward to learning about Logic too.

After school, I went to the co-op and stocked up on vitamins. My doctor is hoping that loading up on D will help my body absorb the extra calcium that’s floating around messing up my kidneys. I added a B-vitamin stress-formula as well, and I do think I felt a little zip from that today. Worked today and got caught up on stuff there. I stayed busy and it went by pretty quickly. After work a little rest and then a nice long walk to the playground with C. Now, I am really tired but in a good, got-a-lot-accomplished way. I think I will sleep well tonight. I definitely think I deserve that.

Yesterday’s visit to the doctor confirmed that I have a kidney full of calcium crystals, too small to be stones yet, but as the nurse practitioner put it: we don’t want those crystals hanging around and making friends with each other.

The gravel in my kidney is irritating it and causing it to bleed, and it hurts too, but not like passing a stone. And then there’s the collateral damage from the antibiotics I’m taking, blarg. I’m hoping that this kidney thing is just an unlucky coincidence, and doesn’t have anything to do with being on Suboxone. I can’t seem to find any info that correlates the two things - but that doesn’t mean much, really. Other than that, I think I’m on the mend from the infection.

Now for the good news! Through a strange twist of circumstances today, I found out that I don’t have to take a certain math class that I’ve attempted to take two times, and withdrawn from two times already in my illustrious college career. Seems that my school has long had a policy that you can only attempt a class two times, and if you need another try at it, you must petition for permission. Well, lucky me, they decided that this year they would actually begin enforcing this policy - forcing me to petition to take Intermediate Algebra yet again.

Well! The big-cheese who was in charge of that petition process pointed out to my adviser that I could just use my high-school math to satisfy that requirement. Whoa - what?!?! Why has no one told me this before? So, with one conversation today I eliminated the need to take two math classes, and signed up for Intro to Logic - which is the last class I need to complete my associate’s degree! I could very possibly graduate this summer!!!!

Yippeee!!! Well, this is all contingent on my school accepting all the various credits I’ve earned at my previous schools - but that really shouldn’t be a problem, if I can keep my head out of my ass long enough to actually order all of my transcripts and have them evaluated.

School started Monday, and though I just registered today (and paid off my past-due day care bill and returned a year-overdue library book and ordered my textbook, whew!) I will have my first class tomorrow morning. For this, I am utterly unprepared, and I really should be doing my laundry and whatnot. I’ll be a couple of days behind, but still - I’m almost there, the finish line is in my sight….and I’m not locked in my bathroom crying!

Four years this has taken me - at this particular school anyway. I actually started college in 1991. So this feels like a really big day for me, and I pushed through a lot of anxiety and dread to get this done. It’s been a year since I last attended any classes, and quite the fucking year it’s been. It feels so good to be moving forward again, to have tangible evidence of the hard work I’ve been doing to put my life back together. 

Just to make the day even better, I got to spend a couple of hours at the park with my kid. We played on the beach where a creek runs down to Puget Sound, built a sandcastle and turned over rocks looking for crabs. It was sunny and windy and cold and being there filled my soul with peace and happiness. The whole first hour we were there I was fighting anxious thoughts about everything I have to do to get ready, and all the things that might go wrong - but then we started working on building a stone wall around the castle and finally my mind let go and I was just there.

Sometimes that is the greatest thing of all, just to be present, to just be.

I am sick with a kidney infection, but I will try to post later. Right now, I go nap.

Easter Sunday, on the way home from A&J’s house, I had a purely, amazingly, lovely, Velveeta moment.

My head was resting on the passenger-side window, the sun shining warmly on my face. None of us were talking, and I shut my eyes. We were rockin the oldies on the radio and (wait for it….) Tiny Dancer by Elton John came on. This happy confluence of music, light and relaxation transported me back to my mom & dad’s old, puke-green station wagon, driving home from an outing to the beach, basking in the S. Florida sunlight.

For those few, brief minutes I felt like myself again. All the bullshit dropped away - even the last vestiges of pretension to hipness which might have stymied my enjoyment of such a schlocky song. I didn’t care. I felt wrapped in comfort, safe, and at ease. It was like I got this little glimpse of who I used to be, and who I really am, underneath all of the anxiety, pain and neurosis. I remembered what it was like to be carefree, to be happy.

There is a danger inherent in being too self-focused. Maybe it was needed, for a time, when I was more in crisis. Now I’m realizing that all the analysis, the searching, the thinking - it isn’t really doing me right. The one thing that consistently helps me is contact with supportive people. This blog has enabled that for me, in a big way - but it also enables my sitting around the house way too fucking much. I need to get myself out in the world, and get busy.

And I also think I need to reframe the way I think about myself. I am not broken, or fucked up, or in need of fixing. I’m still the same person I always was - but I’ve gotten twisted up in my head somehow. But I’ve noticed that when I just let go, and just be - I’m absolutely fine. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle of those two places, struggling to find my way back to  the girl who knew how to go with the flow. I’m starting to think that I’m making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

Easter Sunday, on the way home from A&J’s house, I had a purely, amazingly, lovely, Velveeta moment.

My head was resting on the passenger-side window, the sun shining warmly on my face. None of us were talking, and I shut my eyes. We were rockin the oldies on the radio and (wait for it….) Tiny Dancer by Elton John came on. This happy confluence of music, light and relaxation transported me back to my mom & dad’s old, puke-green station wagon, driving home from an outing to the beach, basking in the S. Florida sunlight.

For those few, brief minutes I felt like myself again. All the bullshit dropped away - even the last vestiges of pretention at hipness which might have stymied my enjoyment of such a schlocky song. I didn’t care. I felt wrapped in comfort, safe, and at ease. It was like I got this little glimpse of who I used to be, and who I really am, underneath all of the anxiety, pain and neurosis. I remembered what it was like to be carefree, to be happy.

There is a danger inherent in being too self-focused. Maybe it was needed, for a time, when I was more in crisis. Now I’m realizing that all the analysis, the searching, the thinking - it isn’t really doing me right. The one thing that consistently helps me is contact with supportive people. This blog has enabled that for me, in a big way - but it also enables my sitting around the house way too fucking much. I need to get myself out in the world, and get busy.

And I also think I need to reframe the way I think about myself. I am not broken, or fucked up, or in need of fixing. I’m still the same person I always was - but I’ve gotten twisted up in my head somehow. But I’ve noticed that when I just let go, and just be - I’m absolutely fine. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle of those two places, struggling to find my way back to  the girl who knew how to go with the flow. I’m starting to think that I’m making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.