More clues.

If it weren't for the rain it would have been an uneventful afternoon.

I was a bit on edge.

The elephant in the room was fucking huge.

"Hold onto me or I'll punch myself until my face is blue. Cater to me or I'll punch my eyelids blue."

I had a spring in my step.

I doubt life could have been any better than I felt that night.

What do all these things have in common?

-Trumpet of the Swan
-Professional Wrestling
-Asphalt Wars
-Owen Wilson
-Photography
-Charlie Brown

The answer will be clear next week...

This is Fucking Ecstasy

It comes at night and it can hit me even when I am at my most optimistic.

“I think I am going to bed.” She said.

“Me too. I am actually just finishing up typing the last thing I have to work on tonight and then I think I am going to call it an early night, myself.” This was at eleven at night and by my standards anything before one is an early night.

I finished my typing and immediately fell into a hole. I was literally happy and smiling less than ten minutes ago.

“What do you think you have accomplished? What do you think you have done?”

My face soured and I knew it was going to be one of those nights. The kind of night where my brain keeps telling me I am fucking everything up. Not in some sort of voice other than my own. It’s my own and no one knows how to better kick myself when I am down. All my supports had either gone out for the night, gone to bed, gone on vacation, or were just plain missing in action. I just kept telling myself not to get desperate and not to let things get out of control. Remember what your therapist said.

“Centre yourself. Place one hand on your stomach and the other over your chest. Close your eyes and tilt your head back. Allow you mind to go blan...”

“What have you accomplished?”

“...k. Slowly begin to bl...”

“So fucking proud of yourself, aren’t you? Look at what you have done.”

“...ock out anything that could possibly ha...”

“You are such a fuck up. Pathetic. You should just give up.”

“..rm you. Remind yourself that you are within your own...”

“You only hurt everyone around you. No one reads this shit anyway.”

“...mind. You make the rules and nothing c...”

“Boo-fucking-hoo, my life sucks, I can’t do anything about it. Waaaaaaa.”

“...an harm you there. Then focus on your bre...”

“Remember the shakes you had? Those pills came so close that one time.”

“...athing. Short, slow breaths, focusing on the in...”

“Remember how everyone felt? Oh boy no one will let you forget that one.”

“...haling and then the exhal...”

“You have put everyone you loved through hell.”

“...ing. Just keep repeating this until you are able to focus on no...”

“Look at what you have lost. LOOK AT IT!”

“...thing else other than the sound of your breathing...”

“And here you write all these things and for what? For healing? You are fucking useless.”

“...and how your chest feels as it rises...”

“You aren’t even that good. Resign yourself to your fate and just walk around like the fucking bum you are. You had your chance and you fucked it up.”

“And falls.”

“I fucked it up because of you. Stupid fucking brain.”

I woke up from my mini-meditation on the couch. The thoughts were gone and my head felt a thousand times lighter. The problem is that no matter how hard you silence it, the harder it wants to try and attack again. It will change its tone to the fantastic aspects of life.

“Hey, do you know how cool it would be if you had fifty billion dollars? Like, that is a good amount so that you would never run out. And just think of all the good you could do with it! Everyone would love you again!”

“I’m not falling for that one.”

“You are fucking useless and always will be.”

“Whatever.”

One of the drugs I had suggested for me was Ativan. “This is only to be used in case of an emergency. The way you make it sound you seem to be prone to some pretty crippling anxiety attacks and I want you to have something strong in case you need it. I warn you, though. Ativan is habit forming. You will only get 10 pills and no refills. You should never need more than that. Consider it something that you would break the glass in front of in case of an emergency. If things are crazy enough to break the glass, you probably need it.”

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to either pick up the prescription or even been able to get in touch with her since she left for a family funeral. I could call whoever is standing in for here, but by this point I am already sitting up at 1 in the morning trying to watch “Crank” to better appreciate how shitty it is, but I can’t stop thinking about everything.

All that I have ever done comes flooding over me like tidal waves. Some of the memories are even happy ones, but they only exist at times like these as a form of psychological torture to provide context for further self flagellation. Some are of things that were simple mistakes on my part that I paid dearly for or put someone else through grief. Then, like coming upon the final circle of hell, everything that I have ever done while I am surrounded by hundreds of disappointed faces.

I stop thinking that I am capable of being loved yet that is all that I yearn for. At times like these I pray for some sort of interaction that ultimately never comes. I shut down and begin to almost babble in the event that someone witnesses one of these episodes (which in truth can be staved off by the drugs I can’t fucking afford). Tonight, I took off my sweatshirt, freshly laundered and pleasing to smell, and clutched it as tight as I could as if it were a security blanket.

I got off the couch and shut the movie off; my train of thought was gone. I gripped the sweatshirt tightly and curled up in the foetal position on the part of the floor that was exposed hardwood. The intention was to have the cold wood caressing my arms and shoulders so I could snap back to the now, but it wasn’t happening.

Should I wake anyone up and tell them how I am feeling?

“None of them care, and besides waking them up is just an inconvenience to everyone anyway. It just further proves you are a fuck up.”

I rushed to the computer and turned it back on. I signed onto MSN and no one was online to talk to about anything.

“Because they are either sleeping. Or they are well adjusted and have social lives you dumb fuck.”

I quickly ran through the bookmarks for the number to the 24-Crisis Helpline that I haven’t needed to call in months. I fear this means my body might be getting too used to the depakote already. I tried several times to dial the number, but I am oh so tired that my vision is going blurry and I keep punching in the wrong numbers. I am now on my knees with the phone in hand listening to the busy signal drone on and on and on and on and on.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Actually, only once after midnight had I ever gotten through and not had a busy signal. The woman I talked to last night said it wasn’t uncommon to not get through. She had her “regulars” that seemed to call every night for everything from suicidal thoughts to just being afraid of the dark.

Every sound in the house from the phone to the ticking clock in the kitchen two rooms away was amplified. As was the voice:

“Typical. Just fucking typical. You can’t catch a break can you? Take a hint. Everyone hates you and could give a fuck less whether you lived or died. Fucking pathetic piece of fucking shit.”

As corny as it sounds I ran upstairs for my childhood teddy bear, Matilda, but not even she could help me now. I had gone too far and the only options left were to act on the impulses to harm myself, give in to a delusional fantasy to make it all go away, or ride it out like a junkie in the first stages of trying to go clean.

It is now almost three and I am exhausted. I have ridden it out yet again. I think I am going to be OK. I know that what I just wrote is sort of tough to read, but I didn’t want to let this feeling go. I wanted everyone to know exactly what it is like. And more importantly, I wanted to put it into words once and for all.

Wishlist (Drug Money)

I was supposed to have a therapist appointment today, but it was cancelled due to a death in her family. My heart goes out to her, but part of me is still relieved that it has been postponed until later in the week. I could have seen someone else in the office since the meeting was ostensibly just to get some more prescriptions and not even a real session. Once I found out how much medication my doctors wanted to put me on, I was taken aback and filled with anxiety and conflicting feelings.

The laundry list of drugs (6 that they say I should definitely take in addition to my shot every two weeks, 2 that are in case of emergency, 2 that are interchangeable depending on the length and severity of any manic episodes I might have and 1 that isn’t even really a prescription since I can buy it for eight dollars over the counter at any pharmacy or health food store) is extensive, but the doctors did an excellent job explaining how they fit together and what each of them does. My problem isn’t with the vastness of the treatment prescribed since much of it has to do with the fact that there is so little choice in what I can take because of my depakote shots.

My problem is that it will ultimately cost me $447.25 to have all the prescriptions filled... each month and eliminating the 2 emergency drugs and the one drug I can get an infinite amount of sample refills for will still only save me about $120. That’s just Canadian pricing, too. In the states, I can expect that to increase to five times as much in the case of some drugs and I won’t be covered by any sort of prescription assistance programmes. I have never even had to pay that much money in rent in a given month let alone on medications I am told I need to stay sane and happy.

The price of such medications and treatment could be a huge part of why a majority of people with bipolar disorder do not receive proper treatment. These people, like me, are simply priced out of the market completely. Mental problems aren’t seen as a life or death situation even though depression can lead to a litany of heath problems from diabetes to cancer to heart disease to unhealthy weight gain and so on and so on. No one really pays attention to mental disorders unless it leads to some sort of an addiction or a suicide attempt. Even then it seems like help only seems to go as far as getting someone stabilised in an emergency situation and then letting them figure shit out on their own. Therapy can help, but it can only go so far. Once drugs are prescribed it is up to the individual to put themselves through even more stress in trying to figure out how the hell they are going to get everything covered.

My agent said originally that she would help me out with money for prescriptions if I needed it, and I do since I am now totally broke after not having any steady work in the past month (not for lack of trying every single day) and having to pay $45 every time I get my shot. I was even $4 short last week for my shot when I forgot the price was going up and neglected to include the hospital fee itself into my budgeting. I still got the shot since my doctor said she would cover the extra money. My agent, however, politely told me that there was no way she was going to shell out close to $450 for drugs, especially since she is already giving me a place to stay this summer and because nothing I have sent out over the past two weeks has sold yet and probably won’t for a few months at least. Even then, all the money I make would just go back to paying back everyone I already owe money to and then I would have to buy more drugs. In a severely fucked up way, it almost makes perfect business sense for me to become a drug dealer by selling my first supply of pills so I could afford two more sets just for myself. I would never do that because that is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas, but it is still frustrating.

So now I have a decision to make before next Thursday as to what I can afford to take and what I don’t need. My agent said she really can’t afford to spot me more than $250 without having any steady work, and it seems like a pretty achievable goal. I’m just not a huge fan of having to make such decisions, especially when I am deadly serious about making this treatment work any way that I can.

Despite the lack of heavy medication, I do feel better these days. I just find myself slightly distracted and wondering where all the hours in the day are going. I took Thursday night through Sunday off to visit Jenna and partake in Toronto’s Doors Open festivities (reviews and thoughts on Doors Open can be found over at my other blog). Monday was kind of a blur and other than some heavy bathroom cleaning I can’t think of a single progressive thing I did other than reading books due back at the library the end of this week and making a to-do list that I did nothing with. Tuesday I attempted to write but was thwarted by both internal and external distractions. The new kitten at the house is pregnant and her constant whining for food during the day was bugging the crap out of me. I took off to the library where there was a brigade of small children running rampant through the stacks so I ended up just reading the newspaper and leaving. I attempted to write by the gazebo outside the library (oddly enough funded and sponsored by the Optimists Club) but other than writing outlines for this and my Doors Open entries I was distracted by watching about ten skateboarders enjoying the nice weather and one man chugging Listerine as he emerged from the pharmacy next door before hopping into his brand new pick up truck.

Doors Open was well worth the trip, and has been both times I have attended. I kind of needed the break, but lately more and more I keep feeling like I almost need more of a break; not out of laziness but out of need for some sort of cathartic release. Our first stop on Sunday morning, which we were slightly late for due to Sunday morning bus schedules, was a tour of a wall surrounding Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. I find it both sad and amusing that I identify with these people and that I understand the subtle nuances of how these people act after having been hospitalised along side many of the same types of people. A woman carried her two packs of cigarettes in a plastic bag with her name on it while waiting for the streetcar; the name to show the doctors and nurses behind the desk whose cigarettes they are since you can’t smoke anywhere in the building. Several people shuffled their way around the hospital grounds staring into space and trying desperately to go unnoticed. Some slept on the lawns of the grounds because they either don’t have any place to go or just because they don’t have the wont to do anything. A man who had suffered a head injury waited for a bus while wearing one of those things that looks like a cross between a bike helmet and a rugby helmet. I don’t know what they are called exactly.

The wall itself is the earliest example of patient/inmate labour in Ontario, built by patients to help keep them confined and away from the public eye. Portions of the wall were bricked up where windows clearly used to be because patrons of the CNE behind the asylum used to stop and gawk at the patients with disdain and morbid curiosity. The wall has interesting symbols and writing in places, including “born to be murdered” carved into the side of a maintenance shed incorporated into the design of the wall. We were told that the poorer and crazier patients were relegated to the back of the building where they were pretty much forced to look at the wall and the more well-to-do patients were located at the front of the building and sometimes had their families buy their way out of the hard labour required to build and maintain the wall.

Needless to say, the wall is now more symbolic than anything, but it is still a stunning piece of work when you consider how well put together it is. The wall has stood since the mid-1800s and with only minor damage to the western section of the wall because of adjacent buildings. It didn’t hit me until after we had left that had I lived in that time, I would have been in such an institution. I wouldn’t have had any freedom at all whatsoever except for maybe parole of the grounds since I was white and male, but that would only even come when I was old, feeble, and no longer a flight risk. It helped put things into perspective. Things could always be worse.

It didn’t depress me at the time thinking about it, but now as I struggle to create some semblance of a normal life for myself, one free of the dependence of others merely for survival, it all feels bigger than me. I can tell myself to keep fighting on no matter what happens, but at times it is hard for me to see them on anything more than just words in my head or on a piece of loose-leaf. I have come too far and fallen too hard before to give up now. There are so many things in this life that I want to be before I die. I just hope that one day, life will let me.

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In the past week I have written my heart out. I have written 118 pages of new material; original stories, essays, one poem, and criticism. I have written query letters and proposals in hopes of earning an advance from an interested publisher or at least getting some work from someone who doesn't accept unsolicited manuscripts. I proofread everything as closely as anything I had ever edited before. I looked at each individual word no matter how slight or necessary that might have been; making sure each punctuation stop sounded the way I wanted it to sound.

I finished the last of it today and sent it all off to my agent to attach cover letters to them and send them on their way.

I cleaned the house over the past to weeks to a point that I haven't seen it in a long time. That was a lot of work in itself.

I have a stack of blog posts in various degrees of completion. Most need quite a lot of work.

I have posted ads on craigslist for work every day to keep them fresh and current, making sure that they don't get lost in the shuffle under the hundreds of other ads that get posted when I don't seem to be looking. I don't know why I still try; I haven't gotten any offers or found any work on there in over a month. It is all I really have right now that even seems to connect me to the outside world other than these blogs. I am almost broke and after my medication session this week, I pretty much will be. That isn't even taking into account that I am probably going to be given prescriptions for more medication I won't readily be able to purchase.

When I finished all that I had been working on this afternoon, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction was fleeting. I wanted to try to write about how proud I was that I had accomplished a massive to-do list just to see if I still had it in me.

I sat down to work on a blog where I happily recounted what I had done and to work on another entertainment related one that I got bored working on. I sat blankly staring into space and the words just didn't come to me. I proceeded to lay my head on the pillow and cry for two hours without realising how much time had passed.

I wanted so badly to be proud of myself. I want to be the best I can. Sadly, I won't believe I am worth much of anything until I see some results.

I took a long walk. Still nothing.
I took a shower. Nothing.
I am sitting here now and this is the best I could come up with