About Me Monday: To Sleep Perchance?

 

Image by jay Clarke from Pixabay

This is a response to a post by Kendra about writers and sleep.

https://taintedtrinity.ddns.net/wordpress/2021/02/03/iwsg-sleep-and-writing/

Sleep and I have never seen eye to eye. 

My mother delights in telling people what an awful baby I was because I would, apparently, never sleep for more than two hours at a time. 

I learned much later in life that I had ADHD, which accounted for my being "scatterbrained," a "space cadet," and "flaky". 

However, my son also has ADHD, and while his sleep patterns are all over the place (sometimes he goes to bed around 6 PM, sometimes at midnight, sometimes not till the wee hours of the morning) he always slept well as a baby. In fact, I had to wake him up every 2 hours to feed him because his blood sugar was prone to crashing.

My son thinks that he may have a 25-hour circadian rhythm. It makes sense to me. He's high-functioning autistic, which may affect his sleep as well. Outside of his issues with anxiety and depression, his sleep issues are a key factor in why he has never been able to hold a "normal" job.

Back when I was still working, I had problems with not being able to fall asleep at night and, conversely, falling asleep during the day. Unless, of course, I wanted to. I had trouble falling asleep when I got home after working a night shift. However, I had to fight to stay awake while driving home. I would roll the window down to let the cold air blast me in the face. I would pinch and punch myself. I would blast music and sing at the top of my lungs.

The inability to sleep if I had to work in the morning may have been partly due to anxiety. I didn't really want to go to work and was afraid of fucking up. I got sent home from one temp job for being sleepy. Even now that I'm on disability and am usually able to fall asleep by midnight, I still have issues with daytime sleepiness, which was one of the issues that led to my being approved for disability. 

There is a huge stigma on people who aren't the "early to bed, early to rise" type. All you have to do is get to bed earlier like the Good and Saintly do. Easy enough, unless you just aren't wired that way.

~Sleepy Cie~

FOAD Thursday: 21 "Harmless" Comments

Found in this post on The Mighty.

1. “There are so many people worse off than you.”

I heard this one a lot. One of the times I really remember was after our neighbor had died at 35 from leukemia, leaving behind an 8-year-old son. I know now that my bipolar disorder onset when I hit puberty. Back then, I was just seen as weird and hypersensitive. I was distressed because a fellow I liked didn't even know I existed. As the coroner took our neighbor's body away, my mother said to me: "there, you see, you don't have anything to be moping around about. Just think how much worse "Sandy" has it. She just lost her husband!

2. “You’re just like your mother/father.”

I think my mother may have said this to me at times, but it wasn't a real sticking point.

3. “You’re too young to be going through that.”

I heard this a lot. "You're too young to be tired all the time." "You're too young to be this sad." Turns out my thyroid was killing itself and I had a major mental illness coming on. So, I guess I wasn't.

4. “You’re pretty for a ‘big’ girl.”

When I was younger, I would get the "you have a pretty face. If you could just lose weight..." comments. Now that I'm older, people don't even bother with the "pretty face" thing. Maybe they can see by my chronic bitch face that I'd rip them a new one.

5. “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?”

My brother was always the favored child. Since he was a boy, he didn't have to do chores. He always showed more promise.

6. “I’m sorry your feelings got hurt.”

The day my father died, my mother was trying to think of a song that he liked. When I said which one she might have been thinking up she told me to stop talking. I sat there with my hand on my father's arm looking at her like "what the actual fuck?" She said, "I'm sorry you got your feelings hurt." I just muttered, "Yeah, whatever." My father was dead, and I was her verbal punching bag at that point. My phone wasn't working properly and she had left two voice mails before I realized she had called. In the second one, she informed me that my father had passed, that I needed to get to the hospice center, and followed this up with: "you're never there for me." 

7. “You need an attitude adjustment.”

Usually, this took the form of "stop looking for attention."

8. “You need to try harder.”

"Stop being so lazy."

"If you'd just try harder..."

9. “Don’t be selfish.”

Ah, yes, I'm well acquainted with this old chestnut.

10. “Are you sure you want to be [occupation]? That’s a lot of hard work.”

This one too.

11. “Everyone gets sad sometimes.”

I felt like saying, "well, 'everyone' doesn't want to kill themselves." But I didn't say it, because I didn't want to end up in the psych ward again. That place was hell, and I made a resolution that I would literally die before going back there. I've kept that resolution for the past 38 years. I have had some really bad crashes, but I will die before I ever set foot in a psych ward again.

12. “OK.”

Usually followed by "so, what do you want me to do about it?"

13. “Well, life isn’t fair.”

I'm very familiar with this gem.

14. “It’s all in your head.”

Whenever an anxiety attack would come knocking.

15. “I’m disappointed in you.”

My family was perpetually disappointed in me.

16. “You were an accident.”

I never heard this, but my mother did tell me that she never wanted children.

17. “You won’t be able to get a job if you don’t get good grades.”

I generally got Bs with a few As and the occasional C thrown in, so I didn't tend to hear this. I did hear that I wouldn't be able to get a job if employers knew that I'd ever seen a psychiatrist, so I needed to keep that shit a closely guarded secret.

18. “I don’t want to be seen with you looking like that.”

My clothing choices tended to be a source of contention.

19. “You have no idea what it’s really like to struggle.”

I know this one well.

20. “We were doing fine financially before you kids came along.”

They never said this directly, but I always felt like I was a burden.

21. “You’re so shy.”

This took the form of "you're too shy," followed by the spectacular advice that I should just be more outgoing. These days I can make small talk with clerks and such, but I never approach anyone I don't know unless I have to.

Carpe Diem #1779 Cliffs of Moher ... a tribute to Jane Reichhold (monody, Senryu)

Image source

in that last moment

I hope that you were at peace

may you now fly free

~Cie~

Notes:

I was previously unaware that Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016) had committed suicide because the pain of her fibromyalgia had become unbearable. Please click the Fishy banner to find out more about Jane's story.

We will never learn how to reduce the rate of suicide if it is a stigmatized, taboo subject. If people are afraid or ashamed to discuss suicide ideation, then their struggles will remain internalized. The ways that suicide ideation and attempted suicide are currently handled are ineffective and the unthinking and unfeeling diatribe that the surviving family members of a person who committed suicide are subject to are simply shameful.

Any time a celebrity commits suicide, there's always someone sanctimoniously spouting about how "selfish" this person was, and I want to take them aside and shake them and shout: "Hello, you insensitive twit! Did it never occur to you in your moment of self-righteousness to realize that anyone listening to you could have a loved one who took their own life? How dare you be so thoughtless!"

When I was in high school, I had a friend whose brother had committed suicide when she was eight years old. She said that people would come up to her on the playground and tell her that her brother was in hell for what he'd done. I say there ought to be a special spit in hell reserved for mealy-mouthed marshmallows who make such unkind assertions.

I leave you now with this banner that I use as my Facebook avatar anytime a celebrity takes their own life because I just know that the ignorant spoutings are going to elevate at such times.

Fat Friday #16 + Real Cie Reviews: Breakwater

Genre: Fantasy Romance

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Disclosure:
I received a free promotional copy of this book for review purposes.
If the book is purchased through the featured link, I earn a small commission.
This review appears on Amazon, Goodreads, and my review and writing blog, Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood.

Breakwater is the second book in Errin Stevens’ Mer Chronicles series. Errin’s impressive storytelling skills make this book a fantastic, can’t-put-it-down read. Errin excels at world-building and character creation, and I really enjoyed getting to know more about the Sirens’ society. Breakwater deeper into the relationship between sirens and humans as well as into the Sirens’ archaic and sometimes draconian politics.

Breakwater offers plenty of mystery, intrigue, and surprises. I enjoyed learning more about some of the secondary characters. I had an affinity for Simon. As a “black sheep” in a Catholic family with strict ideas about right, wrong, and an individual’s “correct” role in life, I related to Simon’s distress at feeling that he was letting his family and community down as well as his resentment at being told what to do.

A startling revelation by Seneca throws the Blake family’s stable lives into upheaval, and a new, power-hungry antagonist is revealed, complete with nefarious ideals and a delightfully wicked demeanor. Duncan is a villain that readers will love to hate.

For those who enjoy intensity in their romance, Breakwater delivers. For my own part, I prefer the political intrigue aspect and find the romance to venture too far in the overly possessive direction. Although I like the sirens and found myself particularly resonating with Simon and his internal conflict, I find the male sirens’ interactions with human women controlling and coercive, more like a vampire compelling his victim than a would-be lover courting the object of his affections. Rather than cheering for the woman in the pair to get her man, I find myself thinking: “eek, no, run away!”

I really like Errin’s female characters, who are self-assured, driven, competent women. They are well-rounded, well-written, and realistic. Unfortunately, too much of their energy is spent dreaming of catching a man and lamenting not having a man to complete them.

Overall, the female characters are companionable and supportive of one another rather than being backstabbing and bitchy, a trope which is entertaining if one is watching reruns of Dynasty but tiresome otherwise. The women truly care about one another and embody what sisterhood means.

Breakwater is an exciting and inspiring story, and I truly wish I could give it five stars.

The main thing that stops me from doing so is the scene between the women at Sylvia’s café, where they discuss being “fat” (translate: pregnant), not wanting to “look like a beluga,” and other such unfortunate diatribe regarding any physique which is not slender and toned.

As a person who became bulimic at twelve due to fear of becoming fat, who developed a myriad of endocrine disorders which sealed the deal that I would become fat regardless of how much I restricted my food intake and engaged in orthorexia, and who spent the next 33 years trying to hate myself thin, I am well aware that this type of conversation takes place between millions of women every day. Women bond over size-shaming self-deprecation rather than encouraging one another regarding traits and skills unrelated to their physical appearance. The conversation is realistic, and it is horrible.

As a genuine, actual, bona fide fat person who fights to be at peace with my body multiple times a day every day, I can tell you that reading or hearing such a conversation is hurtful. What these conversations sound like to me is: “being fat is the very worst thing a person can possibly be. Being fat is ugly, disgusting, undesirable. Being YOU is the very worst thing a person could possibly be. I would do anything not to be like you.”

Writers, your larger readers, like all your readers, are looking for a moment of escape, not to be reminded that people see us as The Very Worst Thing A Person Can Possibly Be. We realize that we are unlikely to be portrayed as heroic and/or desirable in most stories but would appreciate not being represented as Things That Shouldn’t Be. Eating disorders are rampant. Let’s not waste our wonderful female characters reinforcing diet culture. Let’s let them be the amazing badasses they are, regardless of their size.

My other wish is that everyone would ditch the phrase “off their meds” immediately. Most people who live with mental health issues are not dangerous and do not stand out in any way. People with mental health issues tend to suffer in silence because of the unfortunate stigma surrounding mental illness. Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of whatever “meds” they take, whether their meds are for strictly physical or psychiatric conditions.

With those bones being picked, I rate Breakwater an overall compelling and well-written read and look forward to the next book in the series.

~Cie~

How Not to Write About Neurological or Psychological Differences

Definitely, don't include the above statement in your piece. However, the points I'm discussing are a bit more subtle.

I recently read a review of a book about a woman with bipolar disorder. I have not read the book myself at this juncture but am taking it on myself to do so for the reasons stated below. 

The reviewer made this statement:

"Individuals affected with this disorder, eventually take up the nature of a 'zombie' because of the effects of the drugs given to control it. They are also known to be suicidal."

I left this reply to the reviewer.

As a person with bipolar disorder, I would suggest doing further research on bipolar disorder before making blanket statements regarding how people who live with the disorder behave. There are several types of bipolar disorder: type one, type two, and cyclothymia. There are also a variety of medications used to treat it, and some of us who live with the condition do not take medication.

There is an increased likelihood of suicide ideation with bipolar disorder, however, this does not always manifest in the same way. Speaking for myself personally, I have frequent suicide ideation but it tends to be situational. I have learned coping techniques to deal with it. I never "become a zombie" because of medication because I refuse to take medications which allow me to become a zombie.

As I have Kindle Unlimited, I feel the need to take it upon myself to read this book because if this is the sort of picture it is painting of people with bipolar disorder, that is troubling indeed. We already face enough stigma. We do not need the world viewing a varied population in an extremely negatively stereotyped fashion. 

As this book appears to depict a single case and one person's manifestations of bipolar disorder, please do not stereotype all persons with bipolar disorder as behaving in the same way. We are as varied as any other population of individuals. Your review was concise, but the sentences stereotype an entire population of people. Instead of saying "people with bipolar disorder are known to...", personalize the review by saying "Geraldine experienced feelings of lethargy due to the side effects of her medication" or "Geraldine was suicidal."

I would also avoid using terms such as "suffering from" when referring to neurological differences such as autism or psychological aberrations such as bipolar disorder. Such a description can be offensive. Persons with these conditions often are not suffering due to the condition itself, we suffer because of the negative ways in which we are treated. I have told people that if I could have a cure for my diabetes, I would take it in a heartbeat, but I would not take a cure for my bipolar disorder. Having bipolar disorder disappear would change the way my mind perceives the world, and I would not know how to function in the world. I am not going to say that bipolar disorder is a "gift," but it is an oversimplification to say that bipolar disorder causes suffering, implying that eradication of bipolar disorder would eradicate suffering. Many things cause suffering. Bipolar disorder simply causes a shift in the way a person perceives the world, which may or may not cause suffering.

Cheers.

Cie

Tan Renga Challenge 2019: Day 6: In Shadow

Image Source

autumn moonlight--

a worm digs silently

into the chestnut.

presenting a sunny face

though my brain feels full of worms

Basho & Cie

Notes:

The Hokku (Haiku) stanza of this Tan Renga was written by Matsuo Basho. The Akegu (closing stanza) was written by me.

Matsuo Basho was born in 1644 and died 28 November 1694. As a point of coincidence, my father died on 28 November 2010.

As Chèvrefeuille explains, Basho's Haiku references his desires for a man. Basho was a Samurai, and, as with the warriors of ancient Greece, homosexuality was considered normal and acceptable. Relationships between older men and adolescent boys were also considered acceptable.

I do feel that homosexuality is normal and acceptable, but I think it is better not to have sexual relationships between adults and youth.

My portion of the poem does not refer to my sexuality. Being heterosexual, I never found myself in the position of keeping my sexuality a secret. It refers to living with mental illness in a society which stigmatizes people who struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. 

Some people think that in this age of readily available psych meds, no-one should struggle with psychological problems. Many people do not respond well to psych meds, and not all psychological problems are chemical in nature.

Inspire Me Monday #224 + Spread the Kindness #119: Real Cie Reviews: Eighth Grade

This post is a duplicate of my review of this product for Amazon.

4 out of 5 stars

Elsie Fisher does a marvelous job as the insecure, likable Kayla and Josh Hamilton plays his role as the sweet but sometimes irritatingly out-of-touch and overprotective dad perfectly. Kayla's high school mentor Olivia is adorable if a bit clueless. There is the eye-roll-inducing stereotypical pretty mean girl Kennedy, and Kayla's crush Aiden has all the personality of wallpaper paste.

The movie does a nice job of addressing sensitive subject matter such as Kayla's panic attacks. I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and was unable to discuss my psychological issues with anyone for fear of being placed on a psych ward or dismissed as "seeking attention" or being "overly dramatic." When I read about bipolar disorder (then called manic depression) in my junior year psychology class, I recognized myself in a lot of the symptoms. I approached the subject with the teacher and she told me I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis and I wasn't psychotic. I would not be properly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old.  If nothing else, movies such as this one approach issues such as panic attacks without pathologizing the person suffering from them.

The movie also does a good job of addressing the pressure on teens, particularly teenage girls, to be sexy and sexually active. Olivia's creepy friend Riley attempts to pressure Kayla into removing her shirt during a game of Truth or Dare when they are alone in his car together, and Kayla's crush Aiden is rumored to have broken up with a previous girlfriend because she wouldn't send him nude photos.

The movie is appropriate for teenagers. Kayla is a relatable character, an ordinary and likable if socially awkward young woman. I found myself thinking that it was a shame for her to waste any time or energy on a shallow, self-absorbed twit like Kennedy or a limp dishrag like Aiden. 

Teens struggling with feeling like they don't fit in and those of us who used to be (and sometimes still are) the odd one out will feel a kinship with Kayla and be proud of her as she learns to stand up for herself.

~Cie~

Also sharing to the Spread the Kindness blog hop on Tuesday April 23, 2019.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 19 + Poems in April Day 1 & 19: Aprils Ago

Per Ohlin

17 January 1969 - 8 April 1991

Death by a self-inflicted gunshot wound

Aprils ago a

Broken spirit

Chose

Death

Empathy

Found me

Grieving

His passing

Impotently

Just thinking

Kind thoughts and holding

Love in my heart

Made

No difference

Protecting a soul

Quite so

Raw and

Sad was

Terribly

Unlikely

Vain regretting

While wishing that

Xolotl would guide

You to the spirit world by a gentle

Zephyr

~Cie~

Prompt 1

Prompt 19

Notes:

Seldom have I encountered a more troubled soul than Per Ohlin. As my lovely friend, the late Walt Cessna would have said, he was fukt 2 start wit. 

(This was the title of Walt's autobiography. He said that I inspired him to actually sit down and write it. I have always treasured this knowledge. Walt died from complications of AIDS.)

I sometimes become overwhelmed and try to bury my empathic nature. It doesn't stay buried for long. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour, rarely more than a day, and then, as Per once wrote, up from the tomb it comes. I can't ignore the soul calls for long.

I wish I had known about the phenomenon of soul calls when I was younger. It could have saved me a lot of grief, but it's too late now. Anyone who is of a metaphysical mind is welcome to read about this issue here. For anyone who is not of a metaphysical mind, do us both a favor and don't bother. This isn't the high school debate team, I'm tired, and I have no desire to bend anyone to my own particular set of beliefs. 

I am utilizing the Poems in April prompts again, but I am not joining up with the Linky in order to prevent another barney from brewing. Instead, I will comment on a few poems from people who have been kind and supportive along the way. Bit of a shame as I was getting a kick out of having so many visitors, but I find confrontation stressful, so best to keep that gate shut, I think.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 16 + Poems in April 2019 Day 16 & 5: Poetry As the Place Where the Spirit Within Hemorrhages Truth

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

You return whenever I write poetry

Troublesome little ghost

Not sugar and spice and everything nice

You mournful, shadowed thing

Troublesome little ghost

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

You mournful, shadow thing

Needing to bleed out your words

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Needing to bleed out your words

"The poem is the way," I say

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Offering truth a way to be set free

"The poem is the way," I say

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Offering truth a way to be set free

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honesty

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Or so it is that I have always believed

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honestly

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

Or so it is that I have always believed

But there are those who disagree on poetry

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

You need not present as light when you are shadow

But there are those who disagree on poetry

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You need not present as light when you are shadow

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

Bleed your truth as freely as you need

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

You mournful, shadowed thing

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You return whenever I write poetry

~Cie~

Prompt #5

Prompt #16

Notes:

The poetic form is Pantoum. Fortunately, a Pantoum need not rhyme.

The Poems in April prompt #16 was to create a poem with a title starting with "Poetry As..."

The Poems in April prompt #5 was to describe a supernatural creature who is a troublesome housemate. I can think of no more troublesome a housemate than the child I once was who each day laments that the big dreams she had for her life slip further and further away from her grasp, fading into the impossible.

I think the NaPoWriMo prompt ended up eating the dust of the other two prompts.

A couple of years ago when I was doing OctPoWriMo, I almost ended up ceasing participation in poetry blog hops for good when I allowed the troubled spirit who will always be a part of me to express itself and was admonished that my poetry was "catharsis" and I would one day become "a beacon of light in the world" or some such thing.

To me, these well-meaning but inaccurate statements showed two things.

First, that people who are not happy by nature are unacceptable as they are and must become, or at least pretend to be, the sort of person who is "a light in the world." 

Second, that dark poetry (and depressive people) are not as valid or worthwhile as happy, well-adjusted people writing poems about the joys of life and how grateful they are to live under the rule of a benevolent deity in a happy and joyful world where there are no Debbie Downers or Negative Neds messing things up with their dark ickiness.

To me, poetry must remain the domain where you can TELL IT LIKE IT IS, not like other people think it's supposed to be.

Poetry must remain the place where one can hemorrhage one's soul all over the damn place and not have people constantly trying to slap smiley bandages on their spiritual wounds.

Poetry must be allowed to be dark and filled with pain.

During the final years of my nursing career, a statement had been popularized that "PAIN IS WHATEVER THE PATIENT SAYS IT IS." 

I greatly advocate for this belief. It is so much more helpful than awful epithets such as "drug-seeking behavior," which had previously been the dismissive go-to whenever a patient requested pain medication earlier than it was scheduled. 

People who experience high levels of chronic pain do not respond to pain medications the way people who do not experience chronic pain (or who experience chronic pain of lesser degrees) respond to pain medication. A person with high levels of chronic pain could ingest enough pain medication to knock out a large horse and be perfectly coherent, and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

FYI, low-grade chronic pain (such as I have) isn't a walk in the park either. I'm tired all the time and have a tendency to experience brain fog and disturbed sleep. My pain levels aren't such that I require narcotics, but NSAIDS don't really help. 

I experienced intense chronic pain for about six weeks when I initially injured the median nerve in my left arm. I couldn't sit up for more than about 45 minutes before I had to lie on the arm to try and numb it. Intense chronic pain is no joke, and anyone who says things like "people need to just push through the pain" or fail to understand why people become so desperate for relief that they obtain medications through illegal channels because the medications they've been prescribed legally aren't cutting the mustard need to get off their high horse. 

At this point, my left arm constantly tingles. I've gotten enough sensation back in my left hand that it no longer feels like a lump of clay, but I was damn grateful for "lump of clay" as opposed to constant searing pain up and down the arm. Physical therapy saved my life, literally. I would need more P.T. to get rid of the constant numbness and tingling, but Medicaid will only pay for 12 sessions per injury. Better than nothing, but ridiculous to put a limitation on the sort of thing which doesn't tend to behave in a predictable fashion.

In any case, just as pain is whatever the patient says it is, POETRY IS WHATEVER THE POET SAYS IT IS.

My poetry need not be "catharsis." It need not lead to me becoming "a beacon of light in the world" to be absolutely 100% valid. The wounded inner self is allowed to express its truth without expectation of transformation.

People with depressive personalities are valid as they are. They need not be drugged into compliance. For some of us, the drugs don't work anyway, or they make things worse. Drugs are not the answer to everything.

I don't need to be like you. 

I am valid just as I am.

Apologies for jumping on ye olde soapbox, but some things cannot be said enough.

PTSD and Delayed Reactions to Trauma

Second Parkland school shooting survivor commits suicide

We don't take PTSD seriously enough. I will go for long periods of time where I don't consciously think about the things that have happened to me, and then they will hit me all at once. My reaction is usually not to be kind to myself, it is to become furiously enraged and want to destroy myself. This may not seem logical, but PTSD isn't logical.

Telling people to toughen up, to not be weak, to be a winner, not a loser does not help. There are a lot of people walking around with wounds you can't see. It's kind of like secondary drowning. A person may appear to have been salvaged, but, in fact, there is more trauma beneath the surface.

Much of the time I am stoic and am unable to cry even if I wanted to. Sometimes I find myself bursting into tears at what would seem to be nothing.

Reactions to trauma are not logical.

People who commit suicide are not "weak," "selfish," or "cowards."

They are the wounded souls whose despair overwhelmed them.

~Cie~

I don't take kindly to people who express the garbage opinion that suicide victims are "weak," "selfish," or "cowards." If you insist on subscribing to that opinion, I have something for you.

Big Bad Missus Sour Mash and Cheap Wine

Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay

 I first started blogging in 2006, some 13 years ago, and I've seen a lot of blogs since then. I've also seen what I think is a positive change since I first started blogging, and I'd like to think that it happened in part because of people like me standing up and saying "we're not gonna take it anymore."
Back in those days, I saw a lot of posts which went a little bit something like this:
"I'm soooo happy! Life is soooo wonderful!!!1!! Every day is a gift!!1!!1!1 I just don't understand the kind of ungrateful people who are soooo negative and only see the bad things when life is soooooo goood!!1!1!1"
Admissibly, I hadn't come into my own yet, so to speak. I'd just been diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder a couple of years earlier, and I was still at the point where even though I was transparent about it, I felt the need to explain myself at every turn.
I initially tried to gently explain to people that some people have mood disorders like depression and bipolar disorder which may not allow us to always see the world as a wonderful place. It can be hard for people with mental health issues to hold a regular job, and many of us end up living in poverty. This creates a downward spiral. So, while it's wonderful that you're happy and life is great for you, it isn't great for everyone and a little empathy would be nice.
Some people got it. There was this nice fellow who worked as a bus driver in Hawaii who said he wished everyone could have a happy life, but he liked people just as they were, including people who couldn't be happy.
Then there was this one particularly dreadful individual, who referred to herself as "little miss sweet tea and sunshine." Well, if that wasn't enough to make you puke in your corn flakes to start with, it gets worse.
She literally said all the awful things I wrote at the beginning of this blog, and, as I recall, also used odious terms like "Negative Nellie" and "Debbie Downer." Just out of curiosity, do people like this think that all depressive people are women? I mean, are there no Negative Neds or Danny Downers?
She made further untrue assertions, such as "being happy is a choice," and so all the Negative Nellies need to do is choose to be happy, and then they can be a Good Person (TM) instead of a bad old Polly Poopy-Pants.
At that point, I was done with being gentle. This chick was so full of herself and her head was so deep in her Happy Crappy screed that I pulled out all the stops and told her that people like her needed to develop some understanding and empathy for those who were not able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and force themselves to stop that "stinkin' thinkin'," that mood disorders and poverty were real things, and that some people would do well to educate themselves rather than making odious assertions such as "happiness is a choice."
These days I tend to adopt the tactic of educating the ignorant rather than letting everyone have both barrels first and ask questions later, but I don't let people who are inflexible and intolerant hang around. Anyone who thinks I'm going to be grateful if they try to "fix" me and who continually implies that I am "lesser" because of my mental health issues will be removed from my sphere, just like any concern troll who sees the need to admonish me to "lose weight for your health."
As far as the weight loss thing, anyone who sees the need to give me that particular bit of advice can step on a scale, note their weight, and fuck off. I've just lost however much they weigh, and I feel fantastic!

~Cie~

The Cheese Grates It: Ending the Stigma: Hoarding Disorder

This is a response to a post on The Mighty about what gifts to give and what gifts to avoid giving to a person who is struggling this holiday season.

Do not give a person who struggles with hoarding disorder (a subtype of OCD, NOT laziness, and if you think it is laziness please unfollow me now) things, unless it is something like socks which everyone can use and which are going to wear out. I appreciate money (helps to pay down debt or maybe buy some yarn for my craft projects), gift cards, and socks. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't mind some organizational bins either.

I don't know why I wear out socks so quickly, although, admissibly, some of them do fall victim to the Sock Gnomes. I have a whole bagful of socks which have lost their mates, and I've never figured out where they've gone.

My son and I are working on getting rid of the huge amount of stuff that I accumulated through my years of hoarding disorder which was only treated with blame and shame by those around me, and thus became even worse because it made it a bigger source of anxiety and so my reaction was to stuff things away and not deal with them. We have the storage unit about halfway cleared out and are aimed at having it entirely gone by early next year. 

This has been an enormous struggle for me, and it has pretty much destroyed my life. I'm trying to get my life back so whatever I have left can be spent doing things that are worthwhile rather than struggling with a surplus of stuff.

I still have a shed full of stuff and three spare rooms full of stuff.

I've known people whose hoarding disorder, probably combined with depression, was so severe that even doing basic cleaning was impossible for them. I've been down that low a few times. What didn't help one bit is hearing things like "lazy," and "disgusting." These television programs that exploit people with severe problems for the entertainment of assholes wanking to schadenfreude make me sick. To me, it's like watching someone being tortured or raped to watch those programs. It's disgusting the lows to which people will stoop, where instead of trying to help someone who has a serious problem we point fingers and ridicule them.

Many years ago, I rented out a townhome to a woman who had severe hoarding disorder. I was getting Section 8 payments from the government for allowing her to stay there. She wouldn't allow the inspectors in, and the HOA eventually wrote me a letter threatening to have me thrown in jail if I didn't evict her because there were huge numbers of flies in the windows.

When I got in, the place was beyond a nightmare. There were a few bags of things which were salvageable and which I took to give to the local thrift store to sell. Other than that, everything was trash and there was also dog feces everywhere. For reasons unknown, she had disconnected the pipes under the sink and had slime-covered dishes soaking in two basins in the sink.

This woman had two sons. One had a predilection for violence and eventually ended up in the Fort Logan state mental health center. The other one wasn't violent but he seemed totally "at sea." 

I never hated this woman for what she did. I felt sorry for her. I knew she had a serious mental illness. There was a housekeeper who was sent by the county to help out. (I did have to pay her, but it was at a reduced rate.) She was very disdainful, said she'd been here to help the tenant before, and that all said tenant did was "lie on the couch on her fat lazy ass and apologize for the condition of the place.) The tenant had a heart condition, which is why she was on section 8.

Being disdainful and hateful and exploiting rather than assisting people with a serious disease helps no-one. It is a barbaric society which turns people who are suffering into sideshow entertainment.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 28: Schism

Copyright Didgeman

Demanding that one

Who has been repeatedly broken

Must make the choice

To appear whole and happy

In order to bridge the chasm

Between rejection and belonging

Only serves to foster

A life built on a lie

The schism remains

And the least misstep

Means falling back into the abyss

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 24: Out of the Attic

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

Outside

She stumbles out into the sunlight

No longer will she hide

Fling 

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

The people hide in the shadows

To see her in the open is quite a shock

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

Fling

How dare she try to approach the good people?

She's such a hideous thing!

Gape 

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Surely she doesn't fancy herself equal to us

Who does she think she is really?

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

~Cie~

Note:

I have type 2 bipolar disorder which was not properly diagnosed until I was 38 years old. I first noted symptoms of bipolar disorder, then termed manic depression, in myself when I was taking a psychology class in high school. I approached the teacher with my thoughts, and she told me that I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis, and I evidently wasn't psychotic.

Bipolar disorder has since been recategorized as a mood disorder rather than a psychosis.

Bipolar type 2 can be difficult to diagnose because it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Bipolar 2 does not have psychotic features. Bipolar 1 may or may not present with psychosis.

I have experienced mania and psychosis when they were triggered by SSRI's, the darlings of the psychiatry field. It was terrifying and upsetting. While taking Effexor, a patient in the long-term care center I was working for at the time asked me why I was so happy. I wasn't happy, I was manic as fuck and felt completely out of control. I never experience mania if I don't take SSRI's. 

Just another reason why people suggesting that I should "try medication" makes me want to go all Norman Bates on their ass. I did, and the cure was worse than the problem. Having a psychiatric anomaly does not make a person stupid.

I realize that sometimes it can be difficult when dealing with people who do improve with use of medication and who then feel as if they have been cured and quit taking the medication. Psychiatric dysfunctions are not one size fits all. 

I do best using a low dose of Lithium Orotate. It short-circuits the irritability that is part and parcel of my condition.

I once had a doctor tell me to "just stay on" a medication (Zoloft) which made it feel as if my brain had developed tiny hands and was trying to pick its way out of my skull. To this day, I would like to know how the fuck he thought that was an improvement. That was a psychotic reaction to the medication. I normally do not experience psychosis. I knew it wasn't really happening, but it sure as fuck FELT as if it was really happening, and who the hell knows what I might have done to stop it if it kept on. 

These medications are not "happy pills." They change the brain chemistry. Some people are helped by them. For some, they don't work at all. For others, the cure is worse than the disease.

I think that one thing which desperately needs to change is the idea of making people who live with neurological or psychological differences into "normal" people, and to stop acting as if those of us who live with these conditions are "broken." 

It would have been nice to learn how to live with a brain like mine from the time I was in my youth rather than being told that I had to be "fixed," to be "normal." 

I will never be normal.

I will only be me.

Stop the stigma.

Haiga copyright The Real Cie

You are welcome to use it with a credit back to me.

The Cheese Grates It: The Not So Great Unfriending and Empathy Deficits

PERSONAL:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTION OF WEIGHT LOSS, SUICIDE 

I recently unfriended someone that I had been online friends with for 12 years. I encountered him through blogging and a mutual love of the horror genre. He was the coolest guy until his life became all about weight loss. Then the cracks started to show.

I tried to give him a break, even though I found him becoming more and more confrontational. He wasn't friendly anymore, but I hoped maybe the characteristics that made me like him in the first place would resurface.

 I never could be his weight loss cheerleader, and he seemed to resent that. He was always posting pictures of himself next to a pair of his old trousers, announcing how much weight he'd lost, and want people to stroke his ego. 

The only comment I ever made on one of his weight loss pictures was that I thought he was a cool guy regardless of what size he was. He went off on a tangent about how much better he felt and looked and so on. I tried to be sympathetic because I knew he'd gone this route because he'd been bullied, and I didn't blame him.

The straw that broke the camel's back was actually not about weight loss. I was doing my thing, trying to raise awareness and end stigma where suicide is concerned. He wrote this long comment about how he didn't feel sympathy for people who committed suicide, he felt sympathy for the people they left behind. He felt that people who commit suicide are weak and cowardly, and then he went on a tangent about how he had been bullied and molested but he forgave his abuser and he never committed suicide, so why could these people not do the same and realize that whatever higher power they believe in has put them here for a purpose.

And then he went on about how he has lost 368 pounds and his health is sooo much better (except it really isn't, he still has the same underlying issues, he's just thinner so he doesn't get the same ration of shit from the doctor anymore.) I had to hold back from saying "ah yes, your weight loss. Great. What do you want, a cookie? Oh, I'm sorry, that's probably not on your diet. So, I'll eat it for you."

I said that I was sorry that he had endured such a hard life and it was good that he was able to overcome his adversities, but everyone is not wired the same and I was distressed that he seemed so unable to muster any sort of sympathy for people who were unable to go on. I said that I did not feel that my cousin was a weak person for committing suicide after many years of fighting severe depression with no relief. I said that some people are better able to withstand adversity than others, for a variety of reasons. I then said that maybe he was somehow superior because he had come through adversity without attempting suicide, but that doesn't mean that people who aren't able to do so are lesser.

Initially, I didn't unfriend him, but then I realized that I always dreaded interacting with him since he began his "weight loss journey." After about an hour of deliberating (okay, wrestling with myself) I made the decision to cut ties with him. I told him that I felt no animosity towards him but I couldn't be friends with someone who could not muster the least bit of sympathy for people whose despair led them to a desperate act. 

I opened up about a gruesome suicide scene which was burned in my mind and gave me years of PTSD. I said I never hated the person who caused this memory. He was autistic, had brain damage from an incident where he was so severely beaten by his bullies that he nearly died, and had other serious mental health issues, including severe depression. This guy fought on as long and as hard as he could, but eventually, he couldn't anymore. I was angry at him for a time, yes. But I never for even a minute thought that he was weak or selfish or cowardly.

I've lost several people to suicide. I'm willing to realize that people are ignorant about this issue and to educate them, but when you express that much vehemence towards a person who was obviously in a great deal of psychological pain, there is too much of an empathy deficit, and I can't maintain a friendship with people who hold such beliefs.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~