Great therapy session the other day and I kind of feel like exploring some of these thoughts a little bit further, so bear with me. Or don’t. I’m going to keep writing whether you are reading or not, so just know that and deal with it in your own online journal.
(A lot of the stuff I say here is going to sound really obvious to you. But it wasn’t to me, or at to be fair, the difference between intellectually recognizing the way things should be and emotionally registering a change in perspective are two very different things).
I am not the same girl I was a decade ago.
Okay it sounds stupid, but something in me hadn’t changed my own mental image for at least 7 years, and probably closer to ten or twelve. I have been seeing this image of myself as this broken teenager who couldn’t get her shit together and couldn’t do anything right, and gave up without ever really trying.
I am not the same girl I was then.
I think it took me 9 years to get home, and then the last three years have been spent learning what home means.
I am comfortable alone. I am comfortable with my own thoughts.
I am learning to exist in my own body, without judgement, without hatred.
I don’t need to hate myself any more. Whatever that reaction protected is part of a picture of myself that is no longer accurate.
I can stop blaming myself for constant pain I am no longer in.
They told me ten years ago when they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder they were pretty blatant about there being no cure and no sure fire help. Old people in hospitals told me that it never got better, (one even suggested that I just kill myself to avoid the future pain he lived in. Old people rock).< br/>
But here I am, and I have wicked coping skills. I can shorten depressions, and not get suicidal anymore. I can bring down mania without resorting to drinking binges. I can maintain the tiny mood swings that make me who I am without fear of over medication or the white on white of a state run facility.
I can start here and move forward, and leave those fears behind.
Moving to Brooklyn is a chance for me to rebuild my life, and only take the shit I want or the shit I need.
I can finally stop seeing myself the way others saw me. People long exercised from my life, whose words still linger over what I can or can’t do.
In the past three years I have parred down my circle to the most amazing supportive family of friends on the planet. It’s time to listen to them and not to the ghosts of enemies and lovers long dead.
So I guess I’m so excited, because I finally get that I’ve spent way too much time, especially in the last three years, hating a girl who’s already long gone.
So I’m going to try to stop that now.
I’m not promising anything, but this intense self-loathing that keeps me up at night, with wordless self-hatred and doubt, is old. Not only old as in I’m done with it, but old as in I can’t even remember why I started hating myself to begin with.
And while I can spend the next thirty years with a therapist arguing whether or not I ever deserved that kind of loathing. I think I can now see that it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need that defense any longer.
I’ve been trained by 30 disgruntled psychiatrists not to trust any emotion I feel that is positive. I’ve been trained that anything that isn’t gray is a symptom of my disorder and not real.< br />
This may be mania.
I mean, it doesn’t feel like mania, and classically I still always hate myself while manic. But sure, what the fuck do I know? I may be losing touch with reality even as I type this out. I may be so crazy that I can’t even tell I’m losing my mind. < br />
But Maybe it’s not.
And maybe the first real step to changing my life, and not hating myself, is to stop thinking that I’m going over the waterfall in a barrel every time I think something positive about myself.
So this isn’t the nitty gritty details of my life since my last blog, but this is a giant emotional truth that I have spent over two and a half years in therapy working towards. (She’s really proud of me and says I’ve come a long way this year). And you’ll get plenty of detail blogs about my new rooms, getting ready for grad school, and so much else that has been occupying my time and thoughts. < br />
But know that while all that is going on, I’m also giving this a try.
I’m still fucking bipolar.
There isn’t a cure.
But what I think I learned this year, and really realized this week is that:
I’m Not Fucking Terminal.
The intensity of emotions when the switch begins is so strong that I have trouble controlling them. I guess that sounds silly, because bipolars have trouble controlling emotions. But not me, I’m fairly good at just seeming somewhere between slow and grumpy and fast and bitchy on any given day regardless of actual mood. But for this transitional period, as I swing up, I’m swinging from everything being cast in the same shades of gray to everything having vivid color. I’m going from not caring a whit for anything, to caring deeply about everything, and being amazed at so much of it. If I was ever to cry for the beauty of a plastic bag in the wind, it would be during this highly volatile part of the phase where reality always seems so fresh and so full of possibilities.
It is the place of ideas, because everything seems foreign and intimate at the same time.
And it is the time where I miss my race the most. I miss all the bipolars I’ve ever known, because I feel so far from human, that only they could really understand what I’m feeling and experiencing right now.
It’s such a harmless thing usually, to want to be surrounded by your own kind. By your own family, or friends, or species. But it’s something so dirty when you are mentally ill. To be surrounded by your own people is always frowned upon in medical communities. Largely because we make each other feel normal, and then tell each other that everyone else is the problem. Doctors, especially doctors trying to get you to take your meds, don’t like that idea. Fair enough. Very little good, regardless of truth, has ever come out of that idea.
A lot of fun, but very little good.
I’m fed up. I’m irritated. I’m actually pretty heated over this Philadelphia Pride that I’m supposed to have over the Phillies winning.
I’ll give you my street cred first. I’ve lived around and in most parts of this city and surrounding area for most of my life. I love this stupid city with all my heart. And as a native, I can talk shit on this city. Those not from around here, can not.
I was psyched we won the world series, bringing a championship title home is something that’ll hopefully boost morale and put us in a positive news story that the rest of the country sees. We need that.
That mild excitement (sorry, just can’t get fired up over baseball) lasted less than 5 hours. It lasted until the stories of destruction and vandalism began to come across my computer screen the following morning.
This is how we show our excitement? By trashing the city that houses the world champions of Baseball? You want to yell at me for not wearing my Phillies shirt and not ditching work to get drunk? Why don’t you yell at the asshole next to you turning over the SUV?
Have some pride and don’t smash some windows.
But the problem is, that these assholes aren’t from here. If they were they wouldn’t do this. They are the same tourists that make us hate going to Old City on the weekend and South Street anytime after 8am.
These people have pride in our win, but not in our planters along Broad Street. They have pride in our teams, but know nothing of the tax money that goes into trying to maintain some small aspect of beauty around this city.
In short, these people are from Jersey and the suburbs. They are not your friends, they are not your neighbors. These “Phillies Fans” are the same people who you hate when they are “Irish” in March and half naked groping women walking by for “Mardi Gras”.
You hate these people.
I hate these people.
And labeling these people as Philadelphians is slander against everyone else in this city.
You know what makes me smile?
Old men in lawn chairs trying not to cry with joy that they saw us win two championships in their lifetime.
A woman in my office becoming a grandmother for the second time moments before we won, and her knowing that the two are very much related. Plus she gets to buy World Champ series baby schwag.
People having a reason to talk to their neighbors about something other than who stole their parking space.
People celebrating in their neighborhoods, because we are a city of neighborhoods. And leaving Broad Street to the drunks and the tourists.
Do you want to take pride in this win? I can tell you how to do it. Grab your favorite baseball bat, put on your favorite Phillies shirt, and go stand a sober guard over something along the parade route and don’t let these assholes ruin our moment as a city.
I finally finished draft two of the story I’ve been trying to tell for months. It’s gone from 7 pages to 14, and from first person to third, and from present tense to past.
Halle-fucking-lujah!
If it’s half as good as I think it is, it’ll be my final piece of my portfolio. If it’s not, I’ll be fucked.
I also wrote a piece of flash fiction today that might end up as a scene from something longer but might not.
This is on top of a mountain of homework that mocks me at every turn.
This might be the beginnings of a manic phase, but god damn if I ever needed one more than this October, I can’t think of it.
Finally, I can sleep.
“If McCain wins this election, I’m shooting myself in the head.”<— My mother
“Well, you can’t.” <— Me
“Why Not?”
“Because we’re Democrats living in the suburbs, we don’t believe in owning guns.”
“Fine, I’ll jump off the balcony.”
“Fine, but it’s only three floors up and you probably won’t die. And thanks tot he economy, you are drastically underemployed already, and if McCain has won, there won’t be universal healthcare in the future, so that doesn’t it seem like it’s a good idea either.”
Which brings me to My Ridiculous Prediction portion of this blog:
If McCain wins, their will be a plague of dis-enfranchised democrats without health insurance limping into ERs everywhere. Without good jobs they will not be able to pay these bills, and the before McCain is even inaugurated he will have helped ruin the country just a little bit more.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m not sure who these undecideds still are, but I think there should be a deadline on decisions. Not that you can’t change your mind after that, because flexibility in ideological is a good thing, but to show that you are paying attention.
Decisions should have been due back from the majority of people in the first couple of weeks following Hillary’s concession. Then people began to see what was shaping up and they would have an opportunity to make informed decisions based on what is important to them. But a week following all V.P. announcements, at least some fucking preliminary idea of who they are voting for should be rolling around their head.
This is easier than the primaries, these two guys don’t sound anything alike. In the republican primary, I wouldn’t blame them if them couldn’t tell the difference between any of the old white men, and in the democratic I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t care.
But you see, I don’t believe there really are any undecideds. I think that for whatever reason these people are exercising their right not to tell you, you arrogant, piece-of-shit pollster. And you know what, I respect that. I respect hanging up on pollsters. I respect lying to pollsters. I respect egging pollsters houses and cars in retribution for ruining politics in this country.
But I don’t think you should have to look stupid making them look stupid.
So from now I suggest the following format for all polls (we’ll use this campaign as our example) :
Which statement would you say most accurately describes yourself?
- I am favoring Obama currently
- I am favoring McCain currently
- I’m not sure who I’m favoring currently
- I could care less about this election
- I’m Albanian and only in your country to see Mt. Rushmore
- I am implying you have inappropriate relations with yourself right now.
I think with this new format and the historic accuracy of polling data we’ll soon find that 79% of people are Albanian tourists.
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