This victory for mental health DELIGHTS ME!

It's not a total victory, but it IS satisfying and will hopefully lead to good things.

I live in NH, a state in which funding for community mental health support is scarce and only getting scarcer thanks to the proposed budget from our currently "insane" State Legislature. Because of the paucity of outpatient mental health resources in our communities, it is not uncommon for people who don't need to be institutionalized, to be institutionalized. This is not the 1850's. This is the State of New Hampshire, in 2011.

Many people are unhappy with the current proposed budget from the State Legislature. The reasons are many, but it is fairly clear that the budget was crafted 50/50 from concerns about the budget...and partisan, ideological shenanigans. You have to remember that NH is a state ripe with Free-Staters and other assorted stripes of Libertarian. And while I, personally, actually agree with many of their ideals, I am a practical person who is willing to bow to certain realities. Institutionalizing people who don't need to be there is beyond wrong. "Families" and "churches" aren't going to make people sane again. (I should add that there's a weird neo-con element at play here that has gotten all mixed up in the Libertarian ideals...it makes no sense but hey, maybe I just don't get it because I'm a "liberal". Hmm. Wait, nope, it actually doesn't make any sense, lol.).

If the NH Legislature has its way, we will lose funding for all kinds of things that make many people's lives worth living, including significant funding for community mental health support-- support which was already lacking.

I'm delighted this morning to read that the Federal government agrees! I'm not given to delight over Federal government intervention, but in this instance I am--why do we even have government if not to protect the weakest among us. We are all only as strong as our weakest citizen.

Per the Concord Monitor, The AG's office has gone so far as to state that they will be compelled to sue the State of NH if the lack of community mental health resources in our state continues to be a problem.

As someone who currently utilizes these services (because I have only intermittently had insurance in the past several years) and who has seen friends suffer needlessly because they cannot get access to either the money, the insurance, or the availability of these services, I have never been more in love with Federal government than I am right now.

Hyperbole? I have ADHD, I do everything emphatically.

Let's talk about what "as is" means...

Someone left a comment about just being myself "as is", and that's really an important concept to grasp. It's a comment with sincerity, simplicity and value, and when I am able to do so, this is what I really strive for.

It gets tricky though on the days where, for whatever reason, me in my natural state is in inherent conflict with everything else in my life. And I am not a person that seeks conflict.

This is where "being yourself" starts edging you into the territory where conflict with one's surroundings can be defined as a disorder.

There are mornings where I am truly too depressed to get up and I do anyway. There are mornings where I am so anxious that I feel like my innards might explode but I still have to go to work or wherever else I need to be that day. There are days where, for whatever reason, everything makes me want to cry, but I still need to do some laundry and help my husband with the kids. There are days when I am exuberant and unable to sit still but I still have to get the boring stuff taken care of. There are days where I feel simply at peace. Every day, at some point, inability to "focus" becomes an issue. And I have had to learn to temper various types of reactivity. At least one to two of these issues is at play every single day and it's not something I can choose.

I am the first to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these states of being. But no matter what I think of them, I have to think about how my behavior will help me to mesh or not mesh with whatever it is that I need to do that day. I cannot choose what my body chemistry is doing. I cannot choose how I "feel". But I CAN choose what I will do and say as I move through the day.

My dog doesn't think about what and who he is like I do and there's charm to that. But frankly, it's gotten him into big trouble on occasion. You can't just bite people when you're feeling insecure and expect no consequences. You can't just pee on the rug every time you feel like it, because you don't feel like going outside.

Happily, my dog now sees the superiority of peeing outdoors (he gets a lot more freedom now that he does). My natural, unaltered state with no behavioral intervention involves a lot of behaviors and vocalizations that are simply not appropriate in settings where functional adult humans exist in their daily out-of-the-home-routines. Many of them would not be appropriate in my home either, really.

We with ADHD (or any other "disorder" that takes us out of the normal acceptable range of behavior) need to take responsibility for ourselves. So yes...we DO need to accept ourselves. But we also owe it to ourselves and every other creature we share space with during the day, to find that line between "us being us" and "us being assholes". This is not neurosis...this is necessity.

How many depressed people does it take to change a lightbulb?

Are you kidding me, there's no punchline, that's just not funny! What can you really say to that "none, because they can't get out of bed to change it" or "you have to care to change it and depressed people don't have the energy to care". Ouch!

I was thinking, on my way to work today, about how there are some REALLY great jokes out there about ADHD. I love ADHD jokes. None of them are mean (that I've heard), they're just hilarious. When ADHD isn't kicking your ass it's absolutely stand-up comedy worthy.

There's a lot of jokes out there about a lot of mental health issues...some of them ARE mean, but really, come on, some of them are hysterical and some aspects of many mental health disorders are fairly humorous in a dark comedy kind of way. In thinking about this though, I was trying to think of some funny ones about depression.

But depression just isn't funny. I was thinking that the next time I'm feeling horrible I would whip out some "here's why depression IS hilarious" jokes to cheer myself up but I couldn't even think of any. If you know any, please post them. Don't worry, you won't offend me, it's nearly impossible, lol.

In the meantime I'm feeling so much better. Maybe the changing season is getting me back on track? I don't know what it is but I am grateful. I have known many whose battles with depression feature prominently in their lives and though I had some rounds with it when I was young (9-14) I haven't had it stick around long enough in my adult life to really disable me. I have been disabled by it this winter, and it has affected every aspect of my life. And when I'm not firing on all cylinders, it begins to affect my husband's ability to keep up with life too.

Or maybe it's more like this...

...maybe I could be doing any old job, but I need to remember to take breaks that involve physical activity.

HUH. There's a thought.

This morning, because I was actually able to sleep last night, I was able to get up early enough to go for a walk with the dog, do a little bellydancing, and then ride my bike to work. And I feel pretty darn good.

Self-Sabotage 101

I repeatedly pick jobs that are below my intellectual capabilities, because busywork satisfies my need for movement and I'm afraid of getting in trouble for not "looking busy".

That can of worms I just opened this week really makes me sad. But it's true.

Jobs that ARE appropriate to my intellectual abilities make me uncomfortable. I would rather stuff envelopes for 5 hours than have to do a thinky-thinky job where I feel like I'm not doing anything because I'm not moving.

But then those jobs get boring. Meh, go figure.

This becomes very interesting when you think about what kids with ADHD do in school all day for 12 years: they get in trouble for being disruptive, for daydreaming too much or for being lazy.

My teachers trained me to be afraid of looking "not busy".

I'm not blaming them. I'm just having a moment of realization.

Also a moment of mild panic because I don't know if I'm ever going to find a job that I love that also lets me "be" in a way that feels right, that doesn't involve washing dishes, being a janitor, or preparing food...or making $9/hr.

I feel I've been coming to this crisis point/realization for a long time. I've been knowing I need to deal with it, indirectly, for years.

But now I really need to deal with it.

Ugh.

Fucking self-discovery, it's painful. I think I'll go stuff some envelopes while I think about what to do with myself, lol.

152 + 156 +25...no 26...

I just read the amount of blog posts I've written. Add one year to another to another and HOLY SHIT!

That's a lot of blog posts, some better than others of course. That's a whole book (if all of them were worth including, lol).

I'm fascinated that in 2009 and 2010 I wrote almost exactly the same amount of blog posts for the year. Although 2010 was a full year and 2009 was not...

Anyway, I'm here now. Yes I am. What a trip.

Yes I'm here and I don't know quite what that means right now. But I'm here. This winter has been awful.

The only way I have been able to begin to pull myself out of this is by asserting myself in small ways.

The other night, instead of leaving "kids shows" on in the livingroom, where I sat within sight of step-daughter doing her homework...I put Dancing With The Stars on. When she finished her homework, she came to watch it with me for a few minutes before bed.

When I was 6, I adored the Solid Gold Dancers. I remember going to daycare after school and telling the teachers that I wanted to be a dancer and they said "oh, what kind" and then I got shy, so they assumed a ballerina. We had to draw pictures of whatever we'd decided to be when we grew up and I drew a ballerina. It was clear that the teachers thought that someone who wanted to be a dancer wanted to be a ballerina, so that's what I drew, but I really wanted to be a Solid Gold Dancer.

Step-daughter and I watched Dancing With The Stars and the first dancer came out in a bright metallic gold bikini. She was stunned and a little appalled. I pointed out that this was no more shocking than average swimwear on the beach. She conceded that point, but thought it inappropriate for appearing on television. The next dancer came out in a long dress that covered her body. I said "see...you never know what these girls are going to wear". By the third couple, she was critiquing the dancers like a pro "I think that was a 7".

Right now it's the little things. I'm a little afraid to come back to life all at once. But I might like to do it in a gold bikini.

Sargasso Armada

I don't want to beat ye olde Sargasso Sea metaphor to death here...but here goes:

I'm swimming in fucking kelp. I have spent much of the past three months unhappy to be stuck swimming in kelp...I feel strangely much more peaceful today, though not in the creepy suicidal way. I seem to be slowly accepting that I am indefinitely living a metaphor that, once romantic, is now tired, old, and yet still totally applicable. Accepting it in a way that might allow me to appreciate the relative luxuries of my current life.

The key words here are tired and old. I feel as though the life and soul have been sucked out of me. I recognize the value of many of the fixtures of my new life...but nonetheless I am struggling to keep myself firmly upon the shelf. Many times in my life I have felt like I was in freefall and been able to reassure myself the eventually the side becomes easier to grab...or that eventually I will hit some kind of bottom and then buoy back up to the surface. Truly, though I have had many emotionally trying periods in my life, I have never felt before like I do lately. I have never fallen so far and for so long. And endurance, under these conditions, becomes trying.

We have a large glass of beer and a Broadway show to thank for my current state of candor.

About a month ago, I stepped on my own glasses and broke them. In another time where I might be feeling more resilient, this would be a laughable tragedy. This echoed like an amputation. The glasses issue came to a head the other day as a symbol of everything else that's been bothering me. I finally couldn't stand it anymore. I work at a theater and couldn't even see the shows I was working, from the back of the theater...because I CANNOT SEE. The other day I went to Wal-Mart, a store that literally shits on everything else I work for in my life...to see if their vision center might have something I could stand to wear. I went because I am currently living in a state of financial disrepair that I have never before in my life experienced and financial instability terrifies me.

Financial instability that, because I live in New Hampshire (dundundunnnnnn) where our current legislature doesn't give a flying shit about human beings, could realistically morph into something more like homelessness sometime in the somewhat near future. But I digress. (See...you waited this long for a new post...there had to be a good reason...let's hear it for becoming almost unmanageably depressed...).

I ate what felt like the last tiny piece of my soul for lunch and drove to Wal-Mart. I found a REALLY cute pair of glasses. The price was right, but truth be told, I can't afford anymore more than a $5 pair of glasses at the moment so that fact that they were only $68 was almost meaningless. It wasn't totally meaningless until I was told that by law, I cannot get a new pair of glasses, with my "old" prescription, without paying for an eye-exam that, even at Wal-Mart, costs more than the frames I'd chosen.

I got my first pair of glasses at 18. My prescription has never changed. I am 35 years old now. So let's see...I could have a child graduating from high school this year who would be the same age as my fucking prescription.

I looked the poor sales dude in the eye and said "I need you to be totally honest with me. Because I am literally going to have to choose between feeding people, and getting an eye exam, if what you are telling me is true.". He repeated what he'd said before. I walked out, went to the parking lot and sat crying on a bench outside of Wal-Mart. And I called out for an order of sanity. First I called Sonny...it wasn't the most helpful conversation right then, but not because he was being a jerk, because he wasn't, I was just inconsolable. So I called my mother. I called my mother and sobbed and dropped f-bombs on her for a good 5 minutes. I couldn't think. I couldn't form a coherent, logical thinking process. I finally grabbed onto the only piece of wreckage in my mind that made any sense, and remembered that Sonny needed stuff at the grocery store. I would get in the car and go to the grocery store. With mom still on the line, I went to the car...the car...DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?!

As if sobbing in the parking lot outside of Wal-Mart wasn't pathetic enough, I couldn't find my fucking car! I wandered around looking for it, mom still on the line as I evolved quickly from hysterically sobbing, to a robust laugh-cry.

I hung up with mom, called Sonny back, apologized that I'd lost the car (and finally found it) and was running so late and he reassured me that it was not worth freaking out over. Went back in the store. Deep breath. Went back in the store. Apologized to the extremely nice man that I'd walked out on before. And ended up having a great chat with him. He also made a list of everything I needed to do, how much it cost...and absolutely confirmed for me that a bunch of no good lobbyists were the source of my eye exam misery...it was like he read my desperation and knew just what I needed to hear...like a stripper...but selling eye-glasses. Thanks Dennis.

So...I free-fell and the bottom seems to have been (please, God, let that be the bottom) on a bench outside of Wal-Mart.

Then I saw an amazing musical at work that made my heart soar. Just for a little bit. Those moments have felt so infrequent. I used to feel like that every day, no joke. Either soaring up, or soaring PENSIVE or soaring BIG or small, or soaring...with big feelings...somewhere...in so many directions that I was constantly engaged in feeling something. Engaged and full of creative energy. That's my default setting.

So often this winter I have felt nothing. Or like I'm dying. Or like everything in my life feels like too much. I am afraid. I am afraid. Afraid because everytime I rally and gather the strength to push forward, kelp tangles around my legs and water fills my lungs or something unexpected happens and throws me for a loop. Every time I force myself to rally beyond my exhausted energy, life sends a curveball to punch me in the face. Many of them are curveballs that, in the past would have been easily rebuffable. I used to shake these things off but I'm so spent that I haven't been able to. To be perfectly frank it's a living death, although it constantly redefines my will to live. I don't WANT to feel this way. I want to feel better, but the territory that I'm wandering is one I've never previously entered. I know I'm not the first one here, but finding the bones of others is hardly comforting on the path to wherever the fuck I'm going next.

I've been trying to find comfort in very small things and I think the cumulative effect has been beneficial. Want a cannoli but have no money? Get a fucking cannoli. See a new consignment store in town? Go in. Look around. Enjoy looking around at stuff instead of going somewhere to DO work of some kind. Hang out with the dog for an extra few minutes. Kiss the husband. Just sit with the children. Go to bed late sometimes instead of unnaturally fighting to sleep.

It feels like I need an armada to navigate this water and emerge the victor. But there's only one of me.

I can't control the world around me.
I'm surrounded by crazy people.
I'm struggling with the routines of daily life.
The usual mental tricks for refocusing on the brighter side have not been working.
The "at least you're not terminally ill" strategy is usually fairly effective.
The practice of gratitude acknowledgement too...

All of my usual strategies for "fixing" myself have failed me, repeatedly and I don't know why. New life challenges? Maybe my body chemistry changed? Who knows.

But today...for whatever reason...I felt like I started to turn a corner. A corner where I started to be able to forget how terrified I am of additional potential curveballs. For months I've had a pit of self-doubt haunting my belly as I've absorbed probably too much responsibility for life's unpredictability. I've put on the appropriate face over and over, like never before, only to feel like I am faking it to a degree I've never had to before.

I wish I was more certain about how to preserve this feeling and cultivate it...but...I don't have to decide that right this second I guess.

I think you can probably see why I haven't wanted to write. I haven't been able to. It's been too much in the living, I couldn't re-live it in the re-telling. So much else I could write to illustrate it but I've probably already written too much.

Cheers to beer and Broadway.

And a small life-jacket to the tiny otter that rose up to float among the kelp today.