Friday, October 31, 2008

Trying to write on a difficult subject


Today is Halloween. One year ago I was being admitted to the hospital in a bout of acute psychosis. I am trying to write about it, but it is hard, and difficult, so I am taking it slow.

In the mean time, have a Happy Halloween, be safe, and may the Great Pumpkin visit.


And if anyone wants to discover a new blog, I have a good one for you. I found it yesterday and spent a good chunk of my evening last night reading it. It's been a while since I have really enjoyed a new blog so much.

http://ambibextrous.blogspot.com/

(It's also on my blogroll as "Ambibextrous"- I really gotta learn how to do hyperlinks!)

The author is a fellow Beeper, and has a unique spin on how to deal with it and live with it. And I think he has a cat.

ETA: No cat, but a dog. A yellow Lab

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Talking Baseball


What does the final game of the 1980 World Series have in common with the final game of the 2008 World Series?

It was the only time in my father's life, where he, a die hard Yankee fan, wanted the Phillies to win the World Series.

My father grew up in Brooklyn. And like all pre-teen boys, he lived to play baseball. Baseball was his passion. When he wasn't playing, he was with his friends at Ebbets field watching the Brooklyn Dodgers, or the Polo grounds. It was a treat when his mother, the woman I was named after, took him to a game at Yankee stadium when school was out. Dad rooted for the Dodgers and the Yankees, and to this day, will tell you what he was doing when Bobby Thompson fired the shot heard around the world.

He played ball every waking moment as a boy, stopping only for a stretch when he was drafted into service during WW II. When he came back home, he settled down in NJ and played locally on a softball team, as pitcher. He was so good, that in the early 50s, he was approached by the local Negro league, as a reverse Jackie Robinson, to be the first white player on their team.

Dad was humbled and accepted the post of pitcher for this team as well.

Eventually dad met mom, they got married, and had a nice two bedroom house with a back yard in the suburbs of NJ. My mom, a Brooklyn girl, was thrilled to have a back yard to garden. She has, and still has, a green thumb, as does my father.

But you can take the boy off the baseball diamond, you cannot take baseball out of the boy. My father became my father, and from the moment his girls were old enough, he bought us mitts, bats, (painted pink) and taught us how to throw and pitch softballs. My sister excelled at this, it was more difficult for me. But the time with my father was priceless, since dad often worked such long hours, time with him was wonderful. If he wasn't playing with his girls, he was sitting on "his" chair, watching the Yankees on WPIX. I use to crawl up and sit on his lap, smelling his Old Spice as I would watch the game with him. I had to be perfectly still and not move until commercials, but it was lovely.

When the girls got a bit older, a client at my dad's laboratory, had season tickets for the Phillies at Veteran Stadium. My father would go 5 or 6 times a year with the whole family; mom, and the two girls. It was a treat. Dad was at his element, first bundling the entire family in one of those monsterous Pontiacs with white walls he use to drive. My father was a Pontiac man.

We would get to Veteran's stadium early, so dad could see the players practice. He would get a score card, and mom would have one too. Dad taught mom how to fill out a score card when they were dating. Dad would point out the players to us, like the King entertaining his court. One time we saw Willie Mays warming up. Dad walked down to the fence with my sister, watching in awe. Mays saw dad and my sister, waving to him, and (this is a true story) picked up a baseball to throw at my sister to catch. Dad caught it, whipped out a pen, and asked Mays to sign it. Mays came over and said something like "I don't like signing autographs, but my sister was way too cute and he signed his name and handed her the ball.

In Junior High my father was down sized and lost access to the games. There were no more live ball games until I went to college and would drive out to Yankee stadium with a friend.

But in my Freshman year in college, dad was not only following his beloved Yankees, he was closely watching the Phils. Maybe because their line up was so fantastic, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Lee Mazzalli, Tug McGraw. I had gone to bed early that night they won the World Series, the dorm was quiet, and I had spent the evening studying. The next thing I knew i was in the fountain in front of the dorm. Seems like the guys were so excited (and drunk) that the Phils won, they went into the all girls dorm and raided it, dumping every girl they could find in the fountain. I had gone to bed that night as my wont, in a t shirt and panties. I woke up in the fountain, soaking wet, and when i raised up, one of the Frat boys, drunk as a skunk, said " First prize wet T shirt" and handed me a medal.


Those were the days. I will let Terry Cashman take it from here.

Well, now it's the 80's,
And Brett is the greatest,
And Bobby Bonds can play for everyone.
Rose is at the Vet,
And Rusty again is a Met,
And the great Alexander is pitchin' again in Washington.



Baseball. Fast foward to 2008. Phils are once again in the World Series. Rose still isn't in the Hall of Fame. Veteran's stadium is long gone, but the Phils are once again great, and the fans- let's put it this way. No other city has fans as devoted as Philadelphia, whether it's the Eagles or the Phils.

As I start to write this, some high school boys are in my apartment complex parking lot setting up fireworks. They weren't even conceived when the Phils won in 80. The players, from that year, are ensconced in Cooperstown. The players of today will be there soon. And these boys, someday, will take their sons and daughters to the game and tell them what they were doing the last time the Phils won the Series. And have a drink and reminisce. Like I do when ever I hear about the players from the time I came of age in the 80s.

I'm talkin' baseball!
Like Reggie, Quisenberry.
Talkin' baseball!
Carew and Gaylord Perry,
Seaver, Garvey, Schmidt and Vida Blue,
If Cooperstown is calling, it's no fluke.
They'll be with Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Wonky meds and a sick cat




The last 24 hours have been - for lack of a better word, frantic and worried. I had seen my P-doc on Monday and she said my lithium level was way too low, something I suspected as well. I had been on 3000 mg of lithium prior to my illness in March. Since Easter i have been on 600 mg. And since May, I have been ultra- rapid cycling faster than Lance Armstrong.


So it wasn't a surprise to find out my lithium has been doubled, as of yesterday I am on 1200. I seriously believe by the time of my next blood draw- around the 10 of November, it will be upped again.

Cymbalta, currently at 60 mg a day is staying as is until the lithium gets to the right level. I was really hoping to start tapering down to 40mg.

Yesterday, I took a nap for about 30 minutes, cat resting against my left leg. I woke up and she continued to sleep. Nothing new there, cats spend a good chunk of their lives asleep. It snowed, and was cold. I turned the heat on for the first time this year, and had the electric blanket on. Kitty loved nestling up against electric blanket.

I noticed she hadn't touched her food bowl since the morning, and hadn't used her box, nor touched her water bowl. I went to collect her, and she meowed a strange, plaintive meow I never heard before. it was small and hardly audible, like a kitten's.

She was up the entire night, sitting on the couch in a sphinx like position, looking sort of like the Sphinx, and the lions at the NY Public library. But she was staring into space and if I tried to get near her, she would meow, hiss, spit. Then go back to staring.

I was afraid to go to sleep, and i kept trying to coax her to eat, opening a tin of tuna which she wouldn't touch ( Her favorite), and putting some whipped cream on my finger. Again, she wouldn't touch it.

This morning I called the vet. But she must have had her kitty ESP going, because she ate a few hours earlier, used the litter box, drank her water, and batted her catnip mouse. But still won't let me hold her or pick her up. The vet said it sounds like she might have a cold, but if she was eating and using her box, there was no discharge from her nose, and her breathing is clear, keep monitoring her for another day and if there is no improvement or the same, bring her in tomorrow.

I was walking to put the phone in the cradle, and next thing I know I am on the floor. I was feeling light headed all morning, but did have some breakfast. I must have fainted. i put the phone back, and went to the bathroom. And saw my face. I must have hit the floor hard, my face was bruising badly, and my wrist and hand were swelling too.

I sat back down on the couch, reading a book I have to review, and a few pages into it everything gets blurry. Then I wake up on the floor. Fainted again.

Twice in one morning.

No sleep, fainting, I feel slightly manic, and need to take care it doesn't progress. So I am logging off the computer for the rest of the day, listen to a bit of music and read. Watch the World Series tonight and get some good sleep.

Hopefully by tomorrow both the cat and i will be back to our old selves again.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

For Koda


It's snowing! It's snowing!

Really Hard! It's the first snow of the year!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Recovery success! - I took a bath!


I took a bath last night between innings of the World Series.

Doesn't seem like a big deal,, until I say it was the first bath I have been able to take since Easter.

This year I have been so sick, first with pneumonia, then the reaction to the pneumonia meds interacting with my psych meds. I lost control of every muscle in my body, and was unable to attend to any type of personal hygiene for a very long time with out assistance.

I had started taking showers by myself in July, and could only stand in them for about 1 minute at a time. Eventually it went to about 3 minutes without feeling like I was going to fall, and now it's about 5 minutes.

But a bath had alluded me. I just didn't have the upper body strength to lift myself out of the tub. I tried once a week for months, going into the dry tub,, and it would take me a long time to get out. it sounds silly. But I love baths, they relax me and comfort me. And sitting in a dry bathtub, in my sweats, trying to twist and turn around, and try to lift myself out of it, with the phone next to me in case i really couldn't get back out- was humiliating. But I kept on trying, kept on, kept on.

And last night I sat down in the tub and tried to lift myself out. And for the first time, since March, I lifted myself out in a matter of seconds. So I tried it for real. Put some water in the tub, donned my clothes, tied my hair up in a scrunchie, stepped in the tub. Lowered myself down, and squirmed down against the back of the tub, feet resting by the faucet. It was heaven, sheer bliss, to feel the water all over my body and soak. Just close my eyes and soak.

Eventually the water got cold, and I could hear the TV in the other room announcing the scores. It was time to get out.

I was hesitant. I hit the stopper with my big toe, and the water began to go down the drain. I lay in the tub a few more moments, hedonistically enjoying the last bits of water against my skin. When the water had mostly gone down the drain I put both my arms out on either side of the tub, raising my palms down and counted to three. Then tried to lift myself out of the tub.

And did it. I was able to stand up in a matter of seconds and reached for the fluffy green towel hanging from the shower curtain. I wrapped it around me and stepped out of the tub, on to the bath mat, and proceeded to dry off and change back into my clothes.

And I felt like I just climbed Mt. Everest, only without a
Sherpa.

A bath. A simple thing. But the biggest accomplishment I have made in a very long time, since I had to re learn to walk again.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Samhain (re-post)

I wrote this a few years ago, and it is currently being adapted for an Off Off Broadway play for Fall 09.

Enjoy, and happy Halloween.

********************************************



Samhain- definition. S A M H A I N (October 31st -Nov 1st)
The Last Harvest. The Earth nods a sad farewell to the God. We know that He will once again be reborn of the Goddess and the cycle will continue. This is the time of reflection, the time to honor the Ancients who have gone on before us and the time of 'Seeing" (divination). As we contemplate the Wheel of the Year, we come to recognize our own part in the eternal cycle of Life.





I know why I am here. They think I am crazy, don’t they? They want me to be normal. Don’t people realize normalcy does not exist?

You want me to lie down on your couch. No. Why? I do not want you, Mr. Viennese Head Thumper to get in my head. You want me to lie down and spill my guts, to tell you a nice story like Holden Caufield, or David Copperfield. You want me to say something wonderful, so you can write a paper, present it at your next Head thumpers convention and win some kind of Freud award. A silver cigar, or something.


Please.

I am here because people want to kill me. You know if I lived 400 years ago, I would have been burnt. For the very thing that I am about to tell you. I have died that way in the past. Can you not smell the smoke if you get too close? What they don’t tell you when you are burning, is that there are 2 ways to burn a witch. You didn’t know that? One is the humane way, not done so much for witches but for political heretics. You put a sack of gunpowder around their neck, so they die from that before the flames touch them. Or you burn. It’s painful. Do you know why witches were burnt? Because someone got the idea, it’s better to burn for the ten or 15 minutes it takes you to die on earth, than have your soul burn for all of eternity. Bloody Mary, Mary Tudor believed that. That is why she burnt so many Protestants at Smithfield. To save their souls.

Well now hers is burning. She knows how it feels.


So I am here because someone thinks I am crazy. I am not. If I was on the ”X files” I would have tons of fan mail. Do you think I want to see the things I see? Do you honestly believe that?

Oh my, then you need a shrink more than I do.

Is it a crime to see auras? No. To see past lives in people as you look at them? No. To see how they die, yes. That is a crime I am punished for continually. But am I breaking any laws? No.

Well, I can see how they will die in this lifetime. I can only see how they died in past lives. I can see they will be come back in the next life, unless they progress. So why am I here? Because of these visions?

Auras? What do you want to know about Auras? How long I have been seeing them? Since I was three or four. Good people had shiney ones. Bad people had dark ones. The dying have dark ones. I could not tell the difference until I was in my late twenties. I met someone, and he was a mess. I thought he was a God, he had a silvery aura, but it was black and silver. He followed Alistair Crowley. We walked down a street in New York and the dogs barked at him. I never saw anything like it. It scared me. One time a waiter didn’t wait on us correctly, he took out a match and said some horrid things on it. And lit it. I found out later the waiter died a few months later, his car flipped over , he couldn’t get out and he burnt to death.

I couldn’t save him. I wish I knew. But I did not know my powers then. I thought what was prophesized will take place. I did not know that some prophesies are warnings. I have since learned how to reverse magick, but it’s hard. Good fights evil, but … sometimes good does not win. Sometimes it’s a truce. Sometimes evil wins because good does not have the tools or knowledge to fight.

And sometimes evil recognizes good and wants to take it for itself. To claim it. Have you ever met a practioner of the black arts? I mean a real follower. It’s scary.


He tried to take my soul. I could have let him. I really could have. I was so tired then, and I wanted to die so badly. But my soul was not mine to give. It was promised to another. And you cannot give what you do not have. Can you?



Who has my soul? Oh that’s easy. My soul belongs to my twin soul, my best friend. . We swapped souls eons ago, and when I meet him again, we will reclaim them. The angels didn’t want us to swap like this, but we thought it would make our lives more difficult, therefore our karma would be better, and when we met again, it would be – my heaven.

They told us we might never meet each other again. One could evolve higher than another. Or go the other way. But I do not want anything to happen to his soul. I loved him so much. I miss him so much it tears me asunder.

I just am having problems with humans. This body does not work. I unzip myself out of it in the evenings, so I can fly to the moon and soar among the stars. Its so hard to come back. This reality this plane of existence is really limited. It’s so much better in higher dimensions.

And they send me to people like you because I see things.

What can I see in your aura? Well for one you smoke way too much. You stress. You drink too much coffee. It’s a muddy brown. You are not happy. You chose this field so you could try and make sense of your problems and your inadequacies. Your ticker is not working properly. You have a relatively new soul. You haven’t been around much, yet. So you listen to people’s problems and you are not in a position to make judgments. But you do. Someone who does your job should be around the reincarnation block more than twice you have. I don’t understand new souls. They judge too much. They expect things and do not understand the great universal laws. But you will. What goes around comes around, and every evil action you do will come back to haunt you 3 fold.

How many times have I been around this block? How many stars are there in the sky? I am sorry, for laughing. I lost count. I could have finished awhile ago, but for some reason, my soul is a bit sadistic. I have already achieved angel status, I want to keep learning more. So I keep coming back. Alternating lives. Male once, female the next. Sometimes I have been children, not progressing. Once I was an infant who died in labour. I wanted to know what that felt like. So I came back both as a mother who died in childbirth, and then immediately after, as an infant who died in childbirth.

But the last 500 years or so, I have to help other people. To save them from the darkness. It’s been easy, you radiate life, you give life. But now… I don’t know. I still do not know why I was burnt like that. I was a young witch, not a crone. I saw things. I don’t want to see things. Oh help me, I do not want to see things.

Do you know what it is like to be in the fifth grade and see in a math class your grandfather will die the next day? And the death before that will be a goldfish? And the next day you wake up and your goldfish, Lennon and McCartney are floating on top of the bowl. One of them anyway. Paul was ok, John was floating. And John got flushed down the toilet by my mother, with a rest in peace prayer.

So, since my fish died I knew my grandfather would also. I went to school knowing this. The sky was ominous that day, the air smelled of ozone like it does after a good rain. There was no rain. None.

I shivered. I can still remember how still the sky was , and no birds singing. The clouds looked like they had been torn apart by a jagged knife. It was macabre. And that was the first time I ever heard that word. Macabre.

I went to school that day, and saw the death as it was a movie happening to me. I went home that night, and my mother got the phone call, and it was like seeing the movie again.

The worst is seeing people’s aura change as you watch them. You can see them before they will die. You can see if they are cancerous or not. What I do not understand, is if you see that someone will die suddenly, do you tell them so they can try to cheat this? Say for example, Julius Caesar. He was warned to beware the Ides of March , by both the soothsayer, and his wife. He chose to ignore it. Free will. Can it then be considered free will to cheat death if the warning is heeded? Free will. It’s a marvelous thing.

But I digress. Back to auras? I have a friend who has the most marvelous one. Bluey green with silver sparkles. Gorgeous. Oh Gorgeous! He is my teacher, and a good friend. I thought he was my twin soul, but I think he is a soul mate. Maybe I am wrong. A psychic sees things for others, there whole life they look at like a horse in Central Park- with blinders. Do you know the difference? I cannot explain. Someone who is your best friend someone you are even closer to than your soul mate. I wish my aura was as brilliant as his. Mine is light pink. No sparkles.


No I will not lie down. How do you know I am wrong. Let me ask you something. Just because you cannot see something , that does not make it false. I hear my heart beating, but I do not see it. Does that mean it does not beat?

I see the beauty in the world. Does that mean that if I see it and others don’t, that the beauty is not there?

Why do you write everything I say in that book? You know you really shouldn’t smoke those cigars. Did you know Freud died from those? He had part of his tongue cut out.

Oh you knew that. You are really upsetting me. I see your aura withdrawing from me as you write, getting darker. What are you writing? Can I see it?

“According to the DSM IV, this patient displays several personality disorders. She experiences delusions that she believes to be visions of the future. Client also details further delusions of seeing auras around people based on her perception of these people’s attitudes and personality. These colors manifest in her mind to suppress childhood trauma. A pattern of schizophrenia or possibly bipolar disorder (to be determined by testing and by drug treatment) exists in that she attributes other personalities to be those from past lives. An obsession of good vs. evil exists as client attempts to gain control over or emancipate self from schizophrenia – especially during moments of transition to different personality. These transition states manifest as client perceives a “being” trying to “take her soul.” Client has chemical imbalance – possible lack of seratonin. May need to be placed on Prozac, Zoloft and Depakote. CONCERN EXISTS as “evil” personality may manifest and thus exhibit homicidal behavior.

Recommendation: Drug therapy to inhibit bipolar disorder (or schizophrenia). Strict care and observation. Client should remain under chemical treatment until potentially dangerous, delusional behavior subsides. Immediate treatment necessary.”
One slight paranoia. She believes she hears things talking to her, and that people want to kill her. She believes in past lives. She sees auras that are not there. Obsessed with concepts that are alien to me, like good vs evil.
Recommendation, severe hospitalization followed by ECT to calm down, and frontal lobotomy to bring her back to a level where she can be with her family and friends and once again be a vital member of society. Slipped through the cracks as a child, must be fixed now and retrained. Immediately”.



No. That is not right. You can’t do that to me. Oh you are. Please. You don’t understand my abilities. You don’t understand what you’re doing. Please!? Don’t. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want you to do that , I don’t want to be like everybody else. You will take away my soul, I will die. Please Please…Tell those men in the white coats to leave me alone…. Don’t come near me, Oh why can’t you help me? Please? Can anyone please help me? Does anyone hear me? This life was not supposed to happen this way. I’m not ready to die. Please. I am not ready. ….

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thank You Psych Central

Pxych Central came out yesterday with their yearly ten best bipolar blogs. The list is very impressive. No, i did not make the list, but was a runner up. I feel honored about that.

Take a look at these blogs, all are very good, and worth reading and putting in your RSS feeds.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/10/22/top-ten-bipolar-blogs-2008/

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Psychiatric Service Dogs


I want to thank my dear friend Edge for bringing this to my attention. I am currently working on getting a psychiatric service dog, much to the consternation of the kitty.

I would be interested in anything anyone has to say about these dogs. I think I really need one, for in my darkest depressions, I need someone to help me get out of bed and do the small things that need to be done. I think this might be the answer.

Here is an article put out by SAMHSA about psychiatric dogs.
Let me know what you think?


Quote:

Guest Speaker: Psychiatric Service Dogs Are Helping

By Leslie Quander Wooldridge

Editor’s note: Each year, SAMHSA staff members are invited to hear guest speakers present information on a variety of topics of interest.

At a recent in-service at SAMHSA, Dr. Joan Esnayra introduced one of her psychiatric service dogs. She described how these dogs may help people with mental illness navigate their daily lives.

Anna* has schizophrenia, and Paxil helps her to discern whether she is hallucinating.

But Paxil doesn’t refer to the widely-known medication for anxiety—Paxil is the name of her service dog.

Many people are familiar with the images of seeing-eye dogs that guide their owners across busy streets. Others may be familiar with service dogs that alert their hearing-impaired owners to sounds such as doorbells and phones.

But a new grassroots movement is bringing forth another class of service dogs—a class that may not be instantly recognizable to members of the public.

Psychiatric service dogs are supporting owners who are disabled by mental illness, and these dogs are trained to do therapeutic work and perform daily tasks.

“When it comes to mental health disabilities, we’re usually talking about invisible disabilities,” said Joan Esnayra, Ph.D., founder of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society in Virginia.

Recently, Dr. Esnayra visited SAMHSA to present at an in-service event for Agency’s Center for Mental Health Services. She is a trained geneticist who founded the society in 2001. As the owner of two psychiatric service dogs who help her manage bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, she personally has seen the benefits that service dogs can bring.

Lending Support

Just as traditional service dogs assist owners by performing physical tasks such as guiding, retrieving, and pulling, Dr. Esnayra explained that psychiatric service dogs also help with physical tasks. These dogs can be trained to interrupt dissociative episodes, provide timely medication reminders, and create safe personal boundaries for their owners.

They also perform “work” for their handlers through therapeutic functions.

Psychiatric service dogs may bark or nudge handlers who suffer from panic disorders in order to alert them to oncoming panic attacks, detecting these attacks perhaps through an olfactory cue. These animals also can help ease dizziness by bracing or leaning against handlers.

“When physiology changes, dogs notice,” said Dr. Esnayra, noting that when dogs exhibit uncharacteristic behavior, such as pacing, staring, or vocalizing, the dogs may be ”alerting” to an incipient episode.

“With reliable canine alerting, you have choices in how to manage or subvert the episode using cognitive skills, risk reduction behaviors, or PRN [given as needed] medication,” she explained. “Canine alerting behaviors facilitate the development of insight in the client, and this makes all the difference between functioning and not functioning.”

In addition to providing valuable alerts to handlers, these dogs also provide support for everyday activities. For example, service dogs have helped people with agoraphobia venture out in public again.

“This is a 24/7 human-canine partnership,” Dr. Esnayra explained, as her two ginger-colored Rhodesian Ridgebacks looked on. “Even if someone doesn’t fully comprehend the mechanisms of this intervention, they can still benefit from it.”

Training Tasks

In general, there are three aspects of service dog training: basic obedience, public access skills, and disability-related tasks or therapeutic functions (work).

Owners of service dogs are not required to obtain professional training services, but Dr. Esnayra noted that the assistance of a professional can be valuable. “The law allows you to train your own service dog,” she said, also recommending that handlers join the listserv of the Psychiatric Service Dog Society to obtain expert guidance that can be passed on to a professional dog trainer.

Dr. Esnayra said there are about 5,000 psychiatric service dogs throughout the Nation, and handlers should expect to train their dogs for about a year before dogs can begin working.

Dogs of many breeds can be service animals, but Dr. Esnayra warned against high-energy breeds such as Dalmatians and Jack Russell Terriers.

Although many people may want to rescue dogs from shelters and prepare them for service dog training, Dr. Esnayra says purebred puppies from show breeders offer the least risk medically, as the ancestry of these dogs is known and training can begin early.

She added that training is an ongoing and essential process, so handlers should be prepared to invest the requisite time and money.

She also pointed out that psychiatric service dogs are not pets under the law and are permitted in restaurants, for example. However, even though service dogs legally can accompany handlers into public areas, handlers may face some resistance, especially because they are invisibly disabled.

So, the society founder said handlers should learn about service dog access laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and their own state laws.

“This is a do-it-yourself situation, and it takes a long time,” Dr. Esnayra explained. But as her two dogs watched her with rapt attention, she continued, “I happen to think the human/canine partnership is a sacred honor.”

For more information on the Psychiatric Service Dog Society, or to read the related literature, visit www.psychdog.org. For more information on mental health, visit www.samhsa.gov.

* A pseudonym

Monday, October 20, 2008

Philly Phanatic



Go Phillies!


(After the Yankees, my second favorite team).

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Back soon.






I have been having problems with my current anti-depressant Cymbalta most of the week. If it isn't diarrhea, it is copious amounts of vomiting. If it isn't that, it's brain zaps. Today it's migraines and brain zaps.


I am finding my family doesn't seem to understand how sick I really am. Believe me, the leaves are just starting to turn, and it's my favorite time of the year. I have so many things I want to do. But on a bad day I can get out of bed, change the cat's water and then feed her, and clean her litter box. Take some ice water, and my meds. Then go back to bed, with the shakes, and the bucket.

On a good day, it's the same thing, but I can check the news on several US and British websites, and a few bloggers I love to read. Maybe comment before my head is back in the bucket, and I am back in bed again.

I haven't seen my parents since Yom Kippur, and my mother is hurt. I don't blame her. Yesterday she told me that she saw her mother in Brooklyn more than I am seeing her. Brooklyn was about 50 miles away. My parents are 2 miles away.



I cannot help but wonder, especially since it is October, and every where I look I see pink ribbons, that if I had cancer, they would understand why I feel sick now most of the time. But when I tell people I feel sick from a med, I am told "It's all in my head", and "Get over it".

Maybe that's why I don't go into a lot of detail about the problems I have had with a lot of the meds I have been on, either now or in the past.


I don't want sympathy. It's a fact of life. I don't want to be a victim either. I just want to be able to live with the least amount of side effects and be able to do the things I use to be able to do.


I have been jotting down ideas on a pad next to my bed, and a microcasstte recorder, and hope in the next few days I can be able to sit long enough to write something coherent and post it. Or I will have a few really good days without brain zaps, migraines, and other side effects. Maybe it's just a bad week. i hope next week i don't have anything other than some mild discomfort from this.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Writer's Block


(Thanks To Immi, who turned me on to this site.)

But i really do have a writer's block. My BIC is dry. Words escape me.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Yom Kippur

To all of my Jewish friends and readers, may your fasting be meaningful, and may you be inscribed in the Book of Life. May this New Year bring everyone happiness, and peace.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

I need chicken soup

Just letting you all know, yes, I have been very very depressed, and find writing almost impossible, something that hardly ever happens, but I also am running 101 fever and feel sick as a dog. (Sorry Koda) I hadn't gone to the gym in a couple of days and my muscles started to atrophy, I fell in the shower the other day and can no longer lift my arms to do simple things like brush my hair or put my hair up in a scrunchie.


I should be fine in a day or two... just wanted to explain the reason why I am not here.

On a lighter side, the cat is fine. She recently fell asleep on my tummy.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

STEPHANY'S SERENDIPITY DOG



Stephany, of SOULFUL SEPULCHER blog, has started a new blog, about her dog, Koda. Koda, for those who don't know, is a regular dog, and a therapy dog to Stephany's youngest daughter.



http://lifeasithappenstomeandkoda.blogspot.com/


It only has one post but it's sure to be a winner, and inspirational, just like Stephany.

If you aren't familiar with Stephany, just go to either of her blogs and tell her Holly The Cat sent you.

Friday, October 3, 2008

this one is for merelyme who adopted a kitten


This one is for Merelyme, who adopted a kitten, little Mew Mew recently. But it is also for all those readers who have cats, love cats, and Koda, Stephany's dog, who is such an awesome dog, he should be an honorary cat.

(Click on image to bring it up full screen).

Thursday, October 2, 2008

From a personal letter

You once told me you don't feel like you don't exist.

I feel that way right now, for the last couple of days. You don't SI do you?

I've wanted to throw myself against the wall, do something to feel something so I know I exist. I lie in bed for days and cannot stop crying, and the cat shares the bed with me. I can hear her heart beat, and her purr, and I know she exists, but I don't think I do, even though I must on some level to hear her purr and her heart beat.


I hope this feeling lifts soon. Sick as a dog from Cymbalta......migraines, brain zaps... the runs,


I just wish to be normal, even for a moment.

Take care,

Susan

I am on a poetry kick

"Every shooting star that is seen
from Earth is an angel who has just
received his wings"
Popular Folk Myth






When surrounded by vast
nothingness-
a black sky
that is nothing
but a
cosmic wasteland
illuminated by light
from starry nightlights


Do astronauts
really pass
dead souls
on their way
to the moon?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Words
like daggers
cut
destroy
erase


my life
runs between my legs
in a pool of bitter bile


I swallow hard
to stay afloat.
Related Posts with Thumbnails