Rerun:Memories Of The Way I Was

A year ago, when my parents sold the house my sister and I grew up in, and moved into one of those new Over 55 retirement communities that are being built up around here, my mother asked me to come over to the house she found somethings she would like me to have, and if I didn't want them, she would toss them.

I went over the next day, where she handed me a large Macy's bag with my childhood memories. Everything was neatly collected. I was amazed.

Mom had kept all things bright and beautiful from my childhood, K-12. There were finger paints, coloring, cut outs, reportcards, extra wallet sized photos, You name it, it was there. Writing exemplars when you first learn how to print, and then in 3rd grade when we learned script.

Stories I had written. It was really wonderful and weird at the same time.

I saw somethings that were amazing and strange. In first grade the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up.

I wanted to be a mommy. And an astronaut. I was fascinated with the whole NASA program from about 67-69 or so.

Then in 3rd grade, the teacher asked us what we wanted to be.

I of course, still wanted to be a mommy. I drew a picture of me with my favorite dolly at the time.

But I wanted to grow up and write books.

it stayed like that for the rest of my life. Motherhood and books.

Strange. Well, motherhood is out of the question unless when and if I ever meet my soulmate and he is patient and wants to go for medical assistance and en vitro and things like that. Or adopt, or has children of his own already.

My mother was the perfect 60's-70's mother. A combination of June Cleaver, and Mrs. Brady. And she was the hottest mother in the PTA. I admire her so damn much.

It is from her I have nothing but respect for anyone who is a mother. Juggling work, a house, children (or child) and hubby is hard work.

I'm crying now. Bare with me.

I realize I, as someone who has not been blessed yet with children should or should not make the next comment.

It's true I don't know what it is like to be a mother. It is true while some part of my brain can only imagine what it must be like to do the 3 am feedings and diaper changes, I've never done it. I've changed diapers in my life, yeah, and I have been "christened" by several friend's baby boys.

I know I would honestly die for my friends' son who will be 2 in September.

But I do know in the animal kingdom, baby birds are kicked out of the nest by their momma and they have to fly or they go ker plunk on the ground. That is nature.

Human beings usually don't experience this until they are about 17 or 18, graduate high school, and then it's either work or college.

I imagine cutting the cord is a hard thing to do.

I know that parents never stop loving their children, no matter how old they get,, and how many mistakes they might make.

By making mistakes only can we grow.

But some day love is... love is.... I always found this to be what I wanted love to be.

From "The Fountainhead"

I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breath air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I've given you not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself-and so you would not love me long. To say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I'. The kind of surrender I could have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I'd destroy you. That's why I won't stop you. I'll let you go to your husband. I don't know how I'll live through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you'll remain in the battle you've chosen. A battle is never selfless. [...] You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn it. I can't help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you'll come back to me. They won't destroy me, Dominique. And they won't destroy you. You'll win, because you've chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the world. I'll wait for you. I love you. I'm saying this now for all the years we'll have to wait. I love you, Dominique." [Howard Roark]

I need to find my I. I need to be incharge of my life again, captain of my destiny.

If I fail it was not from something you did. You gave me the bike,and the training wheels. It's time to take the training wheels off. I realize you did that once before, before my diagnosis, and even during my diagnosis until it became abundantly clear in my 30s I was and always will be bipolar.

But it's time to take the training wheels off now. And like the momma bird, baby will be fine and soar beautifully.

See, mom and dad gave me beautiful wings to soar with.

And I love them with every breath I take and am grateful to have been blessed by them.

Psychiatry Tales or I don't want to go back on Cymbalta!

I’m sitting in my psychiatrist’s office in an overstuffed beige wing chair. It reminds me of Archie Bunker’s chair. My mother is near me sitting on an overstuffed red pattern that reminds me of William Morris. I wish my mother wasn’t here. This is the downsize of my bout in November with shut kidneys and bladder- she is treating me like I am 16. It’s getting on every last nerve I have, and like a teenager, I want to rebel. Smoke or drink, or do something to irritate her. 

My mother is talking to my doctor; I cannot get a word in edgewise. Something about me sleeping the day away. I try to tell her it’s from the kidney/bladder medicine, but she isn’t buying it. Not now. I’m lazy. 

She’s talking pills. The only pill she recalls me taking is Cymbalta, and she wants the doc to put me on that. I get upset. I don’t want to go on that drug. I was on it three years ago and the side effects after the first 2 months were horrible. It's because of Cymbalta I developed agoraphobia, not to mention a dozen other side effects like severe bloating, confusion, twitching in my arms and face, impossible to read a book, constantly thirsty, itching, a feeling like bugs were crawling over me (I had that one with Prozac too), and the worst, when I went off cold turkey on the doctors suggestion, I had brain zaps for the first time in my life.

The doctor says she will look into it, call my kidney doctor and get back to my mother. Mom is adamant I need to be on something. I’m depressed. 

“I’m not depressed mom, I am sad, in pain and frustrated”, I tell her. My father doesn’t want me to be on any meds. But my father is going downhill. My mother is calling all the shots now in their marriage. In any marriage there is always a dominate partner, even if it’s 50/50 it’s always 51/49. 

My mother looks at my psychiatrist. “She needs to be medicated. She needs to get out of the apartment more.”

I look at my psychiatrist. She’s the most petite woman I have ever seen, doll like at 4 8”, and exotic since she was not born in the States, but in India. As a person, she’s nice, she even gave me a recipe for a vegetarian korma. 

I will give her props. She asked me a month or so earlier to give her a list of every med I have ever been on. She called the kidney doctor to check which one(s) I should be on. And she knows I do not want to go back on any psych meds, and respects me for that. 

Only now it’s my mother telling her, begging her to put me on something. Begging for a script for Cymbalta. Not understanding why I cannot be on an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer. 

The doctor does her best to explain I do not need to be on both, and right now, it’s all about the kidneys. My mother goes back on her tirade all I am doing is sleeping and crying. 

Yes, I am sleeping too much, but I found if I miss a dose of the kidney/bladder pills I sleep 10 hours a day opposed to 18. I cry because my gynecologist is saying I am perimenopausal and anything and everything turns on the waterworks. I wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat like I am bringing off a fever, and find for some reason it’s easier to sleep during the day than the night, even with a fan blowing directly on me. 

I’ve been on psych meds for about 5/8 ths of my life. I’ve been off them now since November, and I am noticing some things happening to my body, all-amazing. Physically, my body is a wreck. But my brain, the brain that had the photographic memory, the brain that could read a poem once and have it committed to memory, who never forgot a book from the first one I ever read “Pat the Bunny”, to the last one I read, “The Noonday Demon”, when I had ECT. I am watching “Jeopardy” at night and actually can get more questions correct. 

There seems to be two camps both on line and in real life. Those who are pro meds and anti meds. Let me state this here and there. I don’t know where I am. I don’t think, any of the psych meds I have ever taken have helped me, and two came close to killing me, one actually had me flat line. Personally, I don’t think they did anything for me, but I stayed on them all these years because of the propaganda; doctors telling me it was like diabetes, I needed these drugs to stay alive. Playing Monday morning quarterback, I don’t they did anything for me. I might have felt good for a very slight time when they started working, but after a couple of months, they always made me feel worse. I was always told to cut the drugs cold turkey and start another one. I was a good girl, I took the drugs, blindly like a sheeple. My parents believed I should be on these drugs, and I wanted to be a dutiful daughter. And I believed the PR, the promises, because all I wanted was to be the person I was when I was first diagnosed. 

That person is gone. “She’s dead and gone lady, she’s dead and gone”- but unlike Ophelia I don’t think I am mad. I pray I do not succumb to suicide like she did. Gosh knows I’ve been in her shoes. But I am older and wiser. And I know the only Dane to die for is a Danish. (Preferably Apple Cinnamon). I want to rebuild my life again. True, the dreams I had at 22 are gone, but maybe I can make new dreams, and have a good life for how ever long I stay on this big blue ball called Earth. 

ETA: Here is the video I posted a few years ago on Cymbalta and the side effects. I will be showing it to my psychiatrist on why I hate Cymbalta. It’s a keeper. 

Watching TV, Family and other Musings

I have to admit when I am blue some things just cheer me up. The little things that remind me of childhood. Watching half an hour of Spongebob Square Pants in my bunny slippers. A cup of hot chocolate in the wintertime, with little marshmallows. Playing in the snow. I really love this time of year.


One of my guilty TV pleasures is a British Comedy called 
“Red Dwarf”, and another is an Adam Sandler comedy movies. Both these things take me away for a bit out of the present and into a funny place where I can laugh and feel safe. 


So this weekend I rented an Adam Sandler movie, "Click",  on DVD.  I had wanted to see it when it came out in theatres, but never got around to it. The story in a nutshell is nothing new, stressed man gets a universal remote control that makes him fast forward the boring parts of his life. Unfortunately, he also used it to fast forward the good parts of life, like the entire weekend, so he could work on a project and get that promotion. So while he is working in real time on the promotion, he is living his life on fast forward. Stick with me, the movie does work! 

Of course there is the standard epiphany, straight out of something an angel like Clarence would give- Adam Sandler realizes he has fast forwarded 30 or 40 years of his adult life up to the moment when he dies. (you cannot fast forward that!). And he realizes he has missed out on his children growing up, his wife becoming dissatisfied and subsequently divorcing him. (In hindsight, maybe it’s a GOOD thing not to recall your divorce!). 

His dying words to his son, who has become just like him, another work-aholic, is “Family comes first”.

Of course, there is a twist, and I don’t want to ruin this for anyone, but this movie, much like my favorite holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, is that something happens to you to show you that you really do have a good life and are valuable. 

But believing it is another thing. And realizing that your family does come first again, is another thing. 

Over the years I have whinged at psychiatrists, therapists and support groups that I wish I had an angel like Clarence who would show me I had a wonderful life. That every time I was on the brink of ending it all, Clarence would say “Susan, don’t! You have a wonderful life!”

Have I? 

This illness has robbed me of one thing- parts of my life. Like the Adam Sandler movie, I have chosen to fast forward when my life has gotten to hard for me to handle. My fast forward is called SLEEP. I have been guilty of hyper sleep, and when I don’t know what to do, I will seek the comfort of a good 4-hour nap. And by doing this, I believe I have slept more than the standard 1/3rd of my life away. I think I am up to a higher fraction. Maybe 40-45 percent. Life I cannot get back, life I have lost by not living it. Time I did not spend with my parents. Time I could have been doing volunteer work, going for walks to loose weight, reading or taking adult ed courses to keep my brain active. Even a second job when the money was tight. I chose the easy way out, by sleeping. 

Don’t get me wrong. Sleep is important. But not when you don’t need it, not as a mean as escaping, not when it is taken over spending time with your family because you don’t want to. 

One of the things  someone I use to know said, that once we feel better we need to take control of our lives, then we MUST work on recovery. We cannot think the meds, whether you take them or not,  are going to do all the work.  I am a member of AA- with a 14th anniversary sobriety date as of this past September. I know every day I must work at this, and recovery from my bipolar is just the same. I cannot wait for Clarence to stop me and say I have a wonderful life. I have to eliminate the middleman, and live it myself. It's hard. I just want, I just want Clarence at the end to tell me I did have a wonderful life.  But you know, in the end, Clarence isn't going to tell me that. The only one that will tell me that is me. I have to believe I am wonderful again. 

Fragile

Gratitude. Dad came home from the hospital yesterday. We came so close to loosing him,  had things gone slightly worse by a few hours and they had to operate, we would have lost him for sure. Grateful he is still here, and that he watched baseball on TV today, and was almost able to yell at the umpire. Thank you all for the well wishes. It meant so much to me I don't know what to say. 

I feel fragile, like I am in mourning somehow, and my dear friend Mary is in mourning over a friend who died the same way... the world just seems to be going topsy turvy and is making no sense. Maybe it was always this way. There is so much I want to write and I cannot. I'm sterile. I have ideas, but they dry up after a paragraph or two. This has never happened before. It's like the egg gets fertilized but doesn't implant. Yet you feel like you were pregnant. Maybe in time I can pick up what I have been writing and finish it, but right now, it's unusable, unworkable. Dry. 

I'll remind you all I am on Twitter, trying to learn it, and would love to have people follow me. I just posted the following quote on writing on my Twitter feed which is "Going Through Hell". 

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

Some childhood memories, I am getting older or why can't they make TV like this anymore?

I've been nursing the same cold now for 3 weeks. Temperature fluxing from 100-101 daily, won't go down past 100.  Cough bad- phlem balls, yeech.... I have not left the house in over a fortnight, which explains why I am in such a bad mood.

This morning my mom took me to the doctors office- while we were waiting in the waiting room, she was telling me she has been glued to PBS' new Ken Burns series on National Parks. She was asking me if I remeber the summer I was 12 and my sister was 10 and we drove out west to "show the kids America". Gas was 35 cents a gallon she told me. I didn't realize that.

I remember the car we drove in a 76 Pontiac  Bonneville, brown, with a tan padded roof. My sister and I sat in the back - my parent's nightmare , as we subjected them to 2,000 miles of "Are we there yet?", 'MOOOOMMMM!" , and the ever famous "I GOTTA GO NOWWW". Needless to say, it wasn't a very good trip for all involved, and we turned around and came home quicker than dad wanted.

One of the things my mother wanted to see was the Old Faithful geyser. She was a city kid- so this really appealed to her. We stopped at a hotel overlooking the park, signed in and went to KFC for dinner. The next morning, my mother woke us up at 4:30 am. My father wanted to sleep, mom said the geyser went off at 6 am. "You're getting us up at 4:30 am to see a geyser piss?" said my dad.

Exit stage left. Two little girls laughing so hard at their father they both had accidents and had to get new shorts on.

Now, thirty some years later, my mother is watching TV with my dad- seeing Old Faithful on TV- and laughs. Dad asked her what she is laughing about.

"Do you remember the time you said you didn't want to get up at 4;30 am and see a geyser piss?"

No. No recollection. As he ages, more and more memories are being wiped from his gray cells- like the brain is saying "You are in your 80s you don't need to recall this anymore".

I've been thinking of my childhood. One of my most favorite memories was watching the Sunday Night Movie- Dad in his chair,  Mom on the couch, each daughter under one arm. And children silent for once-glued to the TV because we loved this show.  I loved this, I felt so safe and secure snuggled with my mom.


Here is the opening. Henry Mancini in all his glory.  For the life of me, I cannot recall the show "Hec Ramsey'.  I can recall the other ones clear like I saw them in last night, but not this show I wonder if anyone remembers it.

And one more view- I didn't realize that Jack Klugman as Quincy was also in the line up. Check out the music. It's slightly higher in octave, and a bit livelier.



Ah, take that 70s show! This was great 70s TV!!

Dazed, Confused, and Gobsmacked

Several weeks ago, I received an email from a Mr. Tom D'Ambrosio, with the play "Next To Normal". Since I live 12 miles away from the Outerbridge Crossing, might I be interested in attending a matinee?


I did yesterday with a friend. And I have spent most of the entire day working on a review for this treasure on Broadway. It is nominated for 11 Tonys. I hope it gets them all. It was the best play on Broadway I have ever seen, and I have seen over 30 of them in my life, many with original cast members and i never, ever thought anything I have seen on Broadway would top some of them, but this play did. I had no expectations for this play, I purposely read no reviews.


And like i said it was the best play I have ever seen on or off Broadway.


But it has hit me so close to home, and left me exposed like a raw, wet wound that is not healing. A family, two generations torn assunder by mental illness. Pills, drug changes, problems with the pills, side effects and ECT.

Not a play for the faint hearted.

I left the theatre shaking, and during the play I blubbered like a baby. And now, as I have been trying to write, I am still overwhelmed by it. I cannot get it out of my head.

I will have my review up shortly, when I can think better. Meanwhile, I will keep my fingers crossed this play gets all the Tony's it can, and any readers nearby can see this.


Photo taken by P. Dearstyne on June 3, 2009 in front of the Booth Theatre, NYC.