15 Years

Apparently, even after 15 years a person can still experience Crumple Neck. Crumple Neck is a phenomenom i first witnessed and named after my brother Mike died. He was an immensely popular dude. There were a lot of people coming and going to offer comfort and to pay their respects. That moment when it hits you that someone is gone, after the shock wears off and reality sets in - that's when it happens. I saw it happen to each of my siblings and my dad and countless of his friends and family. The hands cover the face, the head falls forward like neck has given out under the enormity of sadness filling the brain, the whole body quivers for moment and then down they go. The body just collapses as if their bones have crumbled. All the times i watched it happen, the Crumple Necker was caught and mad hugging and sobbing ensued. It was horrible. I didn't experience it, or perhaps part of it is not realizing it is happening. I guess that could be.

I've been feeling not entirely like myself for about a month. I feel offended and slighted by completely innocuous things. I feel like i'm on the defense at all times. My brain gets fixated on stupid shit and won't let go like it normally does, like lakes and harmless off hand comments or a not-prompt-response from someone. My inner dialog and even what comes out of my mouth has been a nonstop stream of hateful bitchiness. I've been worried constantly about nothing in particular and seem to look for something going wrong to focus on. But everything is awesome - there's no reason for this. I love my jobs, my home, my friends, my city. My parents are moving back soon, the school year is about to start and the program this year is going to be bigger and better than ever and i get to work with two of my best friends, my art has been selling a little. All these things are great. So why do i feel impending doom? My anxiety has been getting progressively worse for a week straight.

Yesterday i realized that this is the exact way i was feeling in the weeks before my brother died. I kept having panic attacks and thinking everyone secretly hated me. I went to my doctor 3 times in the month leading up to Michael's accident. Every time all i could do was cry and tell him over and over that i felt like something bad was going to happen. I couldn't explain why or what, i just felt doom. After he was hurt, he was improving for two weeks and had one week left in the hospital before getting transferred to a care facility for therapy...and then he just died. He was fine, burnt but fine, and then he was dead.

When i felt that yesterday, that i was back to that place i was in before that all happened, i panicked. For real panic, worse than i have experienced in 15 years. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and i'm absolutely terrified something terrible is going to happen again. Everything could go to shit again. I Crumple Necked. There was no one there and i went down like a ton of bricks. I went to the doctor, poor guy. He was only a general practioner, but he listened and was encouraging. He let me know that even if i watch for this stuff and do what i can to twart it, sometimes depression can get in there so intensely that before you know it you're bawling your head off, hiding in your bed or becoming a defensive über bitch and start having panic attacks. That is how my depression presents, and that way sucks because panic attacks can happen if i'm worried about having one or i remember ones i've had before. It's a sadistic disorder.

I miss my brother and i miss feeling normal. I hate my stupid brain for not knowing what chemicals to produce and when. I hate feeling like a fuck up when i'm doing the best i can. I hate feeling like i can't talk to my friends when i feel this way because i don't want to seem weak or bring them down.

This shit was supposed to be under control.


UPDATE: I didn't find this out until 3 days after i published this post, but on the day i had my freak out and went to the doctor, my oldest brother DJ was on a farm during a grain dust explosion. He was not hurt, thankfully, although there was a casualty at the site. Weird, huh?

I can smell it sneaking back - smells like chocolate chips and peanut butter

So depression and anxiety are trying to make their way back into my every day life. I noticed it the other night when, after the 4 hour nap i took when i wasn't even tired, i chose to eat peanut butter by the spoonful with chocolate chips stuck in instead of cooking the food i had bought. I noticed it last night as i was getting grilled about Riot Fest and, once again, made to feel as if my opinions about music are wrong (how many times do we have to go over that OPINIONS - even yours - are not FACT, so quit trying to act as though because mine differ from yours they are wrong) and as if my financial woes are anybody else's business and as if i'm a criminal for taking a night off work. I further noticed it last night during a discussion which was somehow deemed an argument into which i was only barely allowed to inject my perspective. And i noticed it today when i wanted to punch the face off of everyone i work with. Everyone.

This could just be my period coming on. I'm tired, i have a low threshold for bullshit, and the dullness of domestic work makes me want to scream and light shit on fire. Sounds like PMS - only this is beyond. I wanted to yell at a five year-old today for eating and talking at the same time. Talking with a full mouth is my biggest pet peeve in the world. This kid does it constantly. I politely remind him to chew with his mouth closed, finish chewing, and swallow before speaking. He doesn't get it. I finally convinced a teacher earlier this week to face his chair away from me, so that i at least don't have to see it, though i still hear it. So i'm hearing it today and i'm humming and trying to ignore it so as not to lose my shit when my boss comes into the kitchen area to get a burger, half of which she shoves into her mouth. And then...she starts talking. I'm standing there, knife in hand, watching globs of food fly out of her mouth and on to my food prep station - the station that is currently housing the food i prepared for the children to eat. Watching this grown-ass woman eat with no plate, standing in the middle of my work space, yelling to be heard over the kids, projecting the pure example of the heathen behavior we are trying to eliminate in the children, and spewing masticated food all over the freshly prepared plates of food i just spent 3 hours making. Slack-jawed i stared, loosely gripping my chopping knife, and over walks another teacher, mouth full of food, to converse with my boss. I put the knife down and left the room. I paced up and down the hallway chanting, "I hate this place. I hate these people. I hate my job. I want to die." for about 10 minutes.

This is not how i do. I love that job. My coworkers are mostly tolerable humans. I certainly do not wish to die. The kids are my favourite part. I may get frustrated, but i have never felt the concentrated hostility i did today. And now i am ashamed of myself, which makes me even more angry for some reason. And tomorrow i will be sad for thinking the things i thought and the shitty attitude i had toward people i really do like. Then i'll just want to sleep, which means i won't get things done, which means i'll get anxious and overwhelmed and i'll start being even shittier to the people i care most about. I am so sick of having to be hyper-vigilant  about my emotions. I wish i could have a couple days in a row where i'm just fed up and it's okay. But i know how fast this shit can sneak up on me and how quickly i can lose control of it. And i think i know why it started.

I went to Colorado two weeks ago to attend the wedding of a friend. I had a great time. True, i only went swimming once and that was in a pool and i didn't get to explore as much of the Denver area as i had hoped and all of the touristy things i wanted to do were impossible with the chaos of the wedding details. Not a big deal. The wedding was super fancy and i had a good time hanging with my friend and her family. Camping was a bust. For reasons outside my control, i only got to camp for one night instead of three. While it was the most beautiful night sky i had ever seen and the mountains surrounding us were breathtaking, i was disappointed to leave immediately in the morning without doing any hiking or even site seeing in the car. But i quickly got over it and enjoyed what was left of the trip. Since i've been home, though, i have stared for hours and hours at our campsite on the map of the Rocky Mountain National Forest. Just within 3 miles of where we were, there are a dozen little hikes that lead to mountain lakes - lakes which only a handful of people ever get to see. And i saw none. I had to pack up and just walk away from all that splendor. I realize that i am devastated and it is making me bitter and intolerable.

I suppose i should suck it up and figure out how to move past it or i WILL be battling depression because of my shitty attitude. No more peanut butter and chocolate chips for dinner. No more four hour naps. No more rants in the hallway. Time to hike up my big-kid underpants and move on.

The Second Unnamed Month

A quote to start:

"They say that February is the shortest month, but you know they could be wrong.
Compared, calendar page against calendar page, it looks to be the shortest, all right...
However more abbreviated than its cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that quickly grows old.
February is pitiless, and it is boring."
- Tom Robbins

Um, yes. Exactly. I hate February. And not just because it is the dumbest jerk of all time, even though it so is. I hate how cold it is. I hate how i have to wait four weeks for this turd of a month to be over so it can be my birthday. The only reason to be glad it exists at all is so that March isn't bumped up the line and made to house this bleak weather and all over shitty clump of days. It has never been my favourite or even close. Also, giant sports day for maniacs is usually in February. In 2004 it was on the first. Exactly 10 years ago today Janet Jackson's nipple popped out. I remember it perfectly - not her nipple, the moments it happened in. I had a fever, a very high fever, and was sitting on a couch in a basement in McHenry, techincally Volo, Illinois.
The sportsing was over and musicing was on. My fiancé had gone to do something somewhere while the ball was still. The was why i was awake; i could only sleep if he was holding me. So i watched that back street guy and Michael's sister doing their thing. I was so out of it - sweaty, tired, miserable. The nipple appeared and i sort of thought, did that happen or is my fever spiking again? When Jason (that's not his name) came in i mumbled about the boob thing and he was all, "You're weird." And then i was all, "Hey man, i think i peed." And he's like, "It doesn't smell like pee. I think you're sweating a way lot. That's just, like, a lot of sweat. You should go to bed." So, he came and laid down with me.
That was the last good time i ever had with him. Shit hit the fan hours later. Hospital, puking, catheders, lost fluid, pain meds, 3 days, induction, epideral, delivery, surgery, recovery. Funeral.

Depression, infidelity, anxiety, anger, hatred. There was no wedding. There was nothing anymore. I didn't know who i was. It started in February and by May, who i was was gone. I get scared every year that it's going to happen again.

So fuck that ground hog and that super bowl and super fuck Valentine's Day. Fuck leap years. Fuck tricky moons and ice and sunshine. The whole month is a crap shoot.

The Creatures Shall Not Defeat Me

I live in a big house. Well, I live on the first floor of a big house. 2 bedrooms, lots of closets, living room AND dining room, plus 2 porches. I also have a garage and a big backyard. I am very lucky. However, I am also an artist, so that means there is never enough room for all my shit. Perhaps if I lived alone...alas, I live with Cousin Roommate who is also an artist. We have a lot of shit.

I have tried many arrangements in order to allow us both enough space in this incredible shrinking apartment. First we confined all the art stuff to the dining room. The hoard laughed at our efforts as it spilled into first the living room, then the kitchen, and finally my bedroom. After that I decided that since A) Cousin Roommate is sort of a recluse and B) I haven't been having many indoor parties lately, we should each have our own room for arting in. I took the former living room and Cousin Roommate expanded into the entire dining room. Also, at that time, several of our friends joined us in an adventure wherein we rented a huge studio space downtown to try and get the ball rolling on something (something some of us lost sight of, or never had, or whatever - that's another topic).

With the duel studio rooms going on, the hoard grew much more slowly and I was actually able to move, art, and breath in my space. However, recently, the downtown studio space became a thing of the past. Suddenly the hoard was back, with teeth. My "studio room" looked like 6 episodes of "Hoarders: Buried Alive" all smooshed into one colourfully lit area. Even breathing became hard.

I cannot art in those conditions. When I cannot art, I became restless, then angry, then depressed. Also, it's winter now and I have to fight against punching the stupid out of people harder than the rest of the year as it is. Something had to be done.

So I have moved into the one room in the basement that doesn't necessarily scream NIGHTMARE. All the other rooms are pretty terrifying. There is even a Murder Shower.

I used to have a "lab" down there when I first moved into this place with my former roommate. But a series of very soggy events led to everything I had worked on being ruined. I cleaned the room out but before I got my shit situated, I decided to let the place be used by some very cool people who were running a pirate radio station because fuck the FCC. The room has been abandoned for a very long time (ever since my paranoid landlord thought the antenna on the chimney was a bomb) so I'm back, baby.

Now here I am in a conundrum. You see, the spiders and other disgusting critters in the basement don't understand that I pay the fucking rent. They've been squatting on my dime so long that they are understandably pissed at me now that I am making them leave the only place that isn't a dank hell hole. But fuck 'em, right? They can have the whole rest of the cavernous, dark basement. I'm not going into the Murder Shower, even on a dare, so it's yours, assholes. Oh, that's not enough space for you relatively small monsters? How 'bout the haunted coal room where the light from 4 LED flashlights cannot penetrate? You'd thrive in there, you beasts. But, no. They keep coming back to my area. And now they've called in reinforcements.

It's my fault. The other day I got tired of nicely explaining to these stupid spiders that they could go over there or over there or even over there and I wouldn't tear down their webs or shoo them with paper or anything at all. Plus, they eat silverfish, I think, so I don't even kill spiders that have bodies smaller than my thumbnail as a rule. One spider, bigger than the ones I had tried reasoning with a million times, startled me. I noticed it out of the corner of my eye coming straight for my face - i'm assuming it wanted to get in through my eye to my brain so it could take control of my body and make me leave. At the time, I was working with my heat gun so I did the most logical and instinctual thing, which was burn it with a 700degree blast. Not nice, I know. And when I was 19 I caught the curtains on fire at my apartment killing another spider using a lighter and hair spray. I should have learned my lesson because this time the consequences were much more serious than flaming draperies. . .

The spiders have let bats in the basement. I'm not joking. Or a bat, anyway. There is no other explanation for that bat's arrival mere minutes after the spider's death. The survivors rallied in support and called on the creature of the night to frighten me. What they don't know is A) bats are one of my spirit animals and B) I've been inoculated against rabies. Bring it on, shit bags!

Actually, it scared the shit out of me. I've even been having dreams where I'm trying to give one of my friends an artichoke and I notice that there are flies on it but the flies are actually little tiny baby bats. So I don't give her the artichoke which makes me sad because, for some reason, in my dreams she really likes artichokes.

They've invaded my studio and they've invaded my dreams, but they shall not defeat me.

Fine. Fuck it. Yeah, add it to the list.

So maybe i have some tendency to hoard. Or maybe i'm lazy-feeling a majority of the time when i'm at home. Possibly both. Anyway, the time has come for me to do something about it. Recognition is the first step.

I am a hoarder. A hoarder with anxiety, prone to depression, and with a history of panic attacks, who has had one minor psychotic break. Awesome. And single. Can you believe that?

I know there shouldn't be 11 dirty dishes that i can see from here in my bedroom. Honestly though, 4 of those things are cutlery so it's not that bad. Oh shit! I didn't count cups - add five. Twelve....so not that big a deal. Yeah, 15 is my limit anyway. It's fine.

Beers cans? Strew about a bedroom? Ridiculous. Well i'm rollin' 12 deep. I go for a solid 18 before that's a thing. It's fine.

My roughly 80 square feet bedroom has precisely 6 square feet of clear floor area? So? At its cleanest it only has 30 square feet. Why do i need five times as much space? What am i, the Queen of Sheba? It's fine.

And the rest of the place? It's full, yeah. There aren't like tunnels or shifting mounds of stuff (except two places where it's supposed to be like that). I'm certain there are no dead cats buried anywhere. Mainly because i won't let the evil monsters in my home. I mean, gross. Anyway, i live with Cousin Roommate who is also an artist and artists need stuff, man. And since it's not all mine to control, why bother controlling any thing? Even myself. . .

...

I think we've made a break through here today.

...

Yeah, whatever.

True Dreams of Anxiety

So now I'm having panic attacks in my dreams.

Last night I watched a number of bizarre movies: "Black Sheep" (hilarious horror movie wherein genetically modified sheep turn people into sheep-zombie-monsters that eat your face off), "Poolboy" (just watch it - it's horrible, i can't explain. Danny Trejo is in it though, so that's rad), and "Upside Down" (a sci-fi dystopic fantasy with really beautiful imagery and a hokey love story).

This combination of films led to a night filled with some of the craziest dreams i've ever had - almost. Here are a few fragments:

First off, i dreamt of a group of people playing a D&D-type game. The DM found a spell that brought the game to life, so the players were actually manipulating people in a tiny world that they had to protect. Since the characters were real, they continued existing and doing stuff while the DM and players were away. This led to the players spending more and more time on the game so it could go their way. The DM's daughter (who was about 8) grew more and more resentful of her dad being so engrossed and also believed that what the players were doing was wrong. She learned the way to break the spell was to kill her father. So she poured drain cleaner in the mouth pieces of all his french horns - he had like 10. Anyway, i woke up before he used one but he was going down for sure.

Another little snippet involved "Up top" which was one of the worlds in the movie "Upside Down". There was a nightclub where rich people went to do drugs, get hookers, and dance. The drug they did was a type of liquid hallucinogen that was absorbed through the skin. This was administered to patrons by having them enter into a plastic tent where the drug was rained down on them - hence, getting wet. After getting all fucked up they would go find themselves a prostitute. The prostitutes were all naked and divided into 8 gangs. Whenever a girl stole a trick from another hooker clan, an eyeball-shaped tattoo would appear in one of eights colours. If a trick went back to the original hooker clan, the skin would split at the tattoo and bleed the colour out. The hookers with the most tattoos were the most highly sought after.

The final one i feel like sharing involved nearly all my friends at some point. We were on the top of a super tall building having a dinner party - OUTSIDE the building, mind you. On one end was a high brick wall and a partial roof. Two sides had a metal railing, but the fourth side was open. I was sitting at the open end. Most of the dinner went well and we were all delighting in the rushing wind and the horses, manta rays, and sea turtles we could see flying through the clouds above and around us. Then i realized how high we were and i asked my friend Sarge to switch with me so i could be by the railing. Then i got too scared to move and had a full-blown panic attack. I laid down and scooted on my belly to the brick wall and freaked out about the ladder i knew i'd never survive. I closed my eyes and when i opened them i was at my favourite ex-boyfriend's house. He had a new baby girl with his wife and i wanted to play with her. As i sat with her, she grew up. I was so sad that i wasn't her mom that started crying and the whole basement filled up with tears.

I woke up actually crying and decided it was time to get the hell out of bed.

I'll take none of those and I probably won't call you in the morning

So i have a pretty lengthy history of mental disorder. The diagnoses started rolling in when i was 14. First it was mild depression. Then depression with anxiety. Then Major Depressive Disorder. Then depression-inducing anxiety. Blah blah blah... Until the whopper at age 19 - Panic Disorder. Panic Disorder fucking sucks. It ruins everything, all the time, forever. It makes me angry to have panic attacks looming around every corner. So i get mean. Then i get sad for being mean. Then i remove myself from everything and everyone under the guise of getting my shit together, but really i'm sleeping all day and staying up all night, manic-insomnia-style, worrying about how much i'm screwing up and when will i "wake up" four months or six months later, 60 pounds heavier with no job and sleeping on someone's couch or in their guest bedroom or in their basement wearing sweatpants with fucking elastic hems...

And writing epic run-on sentences.

The bottom line is i haven't had any issues since 2008. That's FIVE YEARS, mang! Before that? 2004. I was certain i had a lid on this crap - without therapy and without drugs (since 2004). In 2000 when i was 22, after i had had my most major episodes (including disassociative amnesia fugues - whoa! My brother died, so sue me.), i started college. My first class was PSYCH 101. My teacher was awesome! I got the tools i needed and learned how to treat myself fairly successfully with cognitive behavioral therapy. I went off anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills for the first time in 6 years. I faltered briefly 4 years later after giving birth at 18.5 weeks. It was fucking traumatic, okay?

I wasn't on drugs long in 2004 because they took away my sex drive and made my ears ring so loudly that i couldn't sleep. It was ridiculous. I lived alone, in a new city where i only knew like 4 people and i couldn't even pleasure myself? Torture. The endorphins you get from sex or masturbating are irreplacable - drugs can not give you those. Not the ones the doctors give you, anyway.

Fast forward to 2008. One panic attack on a severely shitty day. I was on it! No drugs - just good ole fashioned making myself smile for five minutes and not letting myself stop doing all the stuff i normally enjoy. Plugged. No probs.

But NOW? Now i'm so far into this spiral i can't believe it. I'm barely making art, my diet is all kinds of fucked up, i can not fall asleep at night without booze and i catch myself being an uber bitch all the time. I don't even drink coffee in the morning anymore which is one of my favourite things in the world. I've had 3 panic attacks in the last six days! I'd rather sleep than do almost anything during the day. I quit a perfectly good job for virtually no reason. I'm so broke i'm hiding from my landlord.

This shit is getting sneakier. I am not amused. But now that i've caught its scent, i know just what to do. Sleep - that's the first and most important thing. Sleep AT NIGHT. Coffee in the morning, smile for 5 minutes, take my allergy crap and iron pills and maybe some St. John's Wart and art, art, art. Oh, and i need a mantra. . .