blade

atramental life
this absence of all color
sanguine streams scream hope

© paperflowers 2007

about a six weeks ago my psychiatrist was running some tests on my thyroid, and other blood work and the lab ran the wrong the test and it came back with some terribly low score. the score was 150 on a scale of ~1300 to 300 (not sure of the top number due to my poor memory).

my psych explained this indicated that i was unable to metabolize vitamin B-12, and showed me the symptoms of this condition. almost all of them fit the more severe symptoms of my depression or the atypical ones. because i have been treatment resistant to over 60~ meds (in combo), talk therapy and even shock therapy, he considered this a breakthrough find. he didn't seem to sympathize with my worries that it would take at least 6 months for the treatments (there is no cure) to really give us an idea of how much this was contributing to my depressive symptoms.

because he is in a city 5 hours drive from where i'm living, he handed the treatment/long term care over to my primary care physician. my PCP who has taken care of me since i was a child, until i left my home town for 10 years to work in another state after gradutation from college, and i still have care about deeply as a friend, has become part of a crappy medical care facility where he doesn't get to call the shots anymore though. i'm lucky to get an appointment with him after a 2 week wait and even then to get 15 minutes uninterrupted because the strain the insurance company and healthcare system he works under has put him under. he simply couldn't keep his own practice, in our small town with the way US healthcare is broken.

so when i took the instructions and test results from my psych to him, he started me immediately on treatments for something he is calling "pernicious anemia." oh how that first word scares me. i tried so hard to corner him to ask him what it all means because its difficult to get more than 10 minutes at the most out of any doctor's undivided attention, but he just gave me a quick explanation and basically told me it was going to mean injections the rest of my life but any damage was probably reversible. he said it was a great catch. and then got paged off to some emergency while some member of his nursing staff came in and asked me what i was there for all over again. *sigh* she had to look up his notes and the prescription he'd called in for the injection stuff.

they had enough in the hospital, which is connected to the medical facility (its a small town 10k) to give me the first injection but told me its cheaper to just bring my own.

i looked it up online and its an auto-immune condition and often comes with other conditions. joy.

i'm left frustrated that no one caught this before, seeing as how all the symptoms lined up with mine, it was only found because some lab performed a test it wasn't supposed to. i'm scared because the doctors both candy coated the condition for me, after reading up on it at the Mayo Clinic and many other resources, symptoms are not always reversible, depending on how long the condition has existed undetected. i'm also scared at how lightly everyone seems to be taking this, my psych is telling me to just wait 6 months of the treatment, that this could be the huge breakthrough that helps me to get back on my feet again. well, i've heard that from so many doctors. thats what they said about the SSRIs, the SNRIs, the ECT, Cognitive therapy and the VNS pacemaker, which my insurance company decided to not let me have at the last minute.

meanwhile, to them i guess waiting 6 months shouldn't be any big deal to me. but i've been feeling crummy for 14 years, and especially the last 4, where my energy and mood dropped so low i couldn't even work part time. neither doctor wanted to hear me tell them "waiting 6 months" is like some huge, long, scary, iffy, and unknown. when i started to cry, they both told me that if i wanted to get better i had to be patient

well is 14 years not patient enough? maybe they could show some bedside manner. i know they can't hug me and give me a lollipop and make it better, but i'm really getting upset with health care. i mean, my mental health care is largely not covered by the high insurance premiums i have. and i wait for hours, for 10 minutes of distracted attention to see doctors about non-mental health issues.

i'm getting to where going to the doctor is just making me feel worse.

i am just stumbling through the days. between my failing health, some really painful personal losses and what i perceive as a messed up world right now, its all i can do to survive. there are days that i only get out of bed to eat and use the restroom. i can't handle the news.

my friend comes in and turns on comedy central to try to cheer me up, because Lewis Black is on the other night. it was the first time i'd watched tv in ages. i managed to laugh, but then i get all laden down with guilt because i'm laughing about how messed up things are. is that okay? it doesn't seem okay.

i know from a decade+ of severe depression that laughter is one of the best ways to boost my mood. it always works, but i'm so messed up right now i don't know whats okay to laugh about. i mean Black wasn't being intolerant to anyone, other than his language which is bleeped out. this is how i know the depression has me in its grip. i'm feeling guilty for laughing over Lewis Black and The Daily Show.

i just want these days to end or ease up. i don't need some candy-coated world, but i'm in survival mode and its so hard, i've been there so long. i'm so weary. /whine off

A____:

I know you can't read this, or haven't seen the anime tv series it is from to understand why I chose it. If that you could hear it, the singer has such a beautiful voice. Also, the relationship it tells the story of is very meaningful to me.

Just like there are words from one language that we can't put into another, our friendships--even the best of them we sometimes stumble through--there are feelings from my heart that I can wish to share with you. As humans, we do our best. When we fall, we have one another to pick each other up, and you showed me that more than anything else in our time together.

You are no longer with me, but a part of you is still in my heart. The tears fall and don't seem like they will ever stop, but I think that one day our happy moments, our light, will shine again. I will see you again in the next life.

Love,
me


romaji lyrics and english translation courtesy of animelyircs.com

composer: Yoko Kanno
lyrics: Iwasato Yuuho
singer: Maaya Sakamoto
from the Anime TV Series: Tenkuu No Escaflowne
copyright Sunrise


Hikari No Naka E


nigiri shimeta te wo hodoita nara
tabun kore de subete ga ima owatte shimau

shiritakatta koto kizutsuku koto
sae mo nanihitotsu yarinokoshita mama de

anata ga deau shiawase wo
negaitai hazu na no ni
dekinai mijuku na jibun ni
fuite mo namida ga deru

sayonara
aishite-iru
anata wo dare yori
sora yori mo fukaku

nakanaide
mata aou ne
demo aenai koto
watashi dake shitte-iru no

konna unmei wo eranda koto
itsuka anata ni mo hontou no imi ga wakaru wa

futari tsukutta kioku no takara
zutto kokoro no kakure ya de ikite'ku yo

kireigoto da to omotte'ta kibou to iu kotoba wo
kurushii kurai dakishimete
anata wo miagete-iru

arigatou
aishite-iru
anata wo dare yori
yume yori mo tsuyoku

dakishimete
hanasanaide
dakedo hitokoto mo
tsutaerarenaide...

nakanaide
aishite-iru
tooku hanarete'te mo
anata to ikite yukeru



Into the Light

If I let go of your hand clasped in mine,
with that, it would all probably come to an end right now.
What I wanted to know, and even what hurts me-
even those were left undone.

Even though I should want to wish
for you to find happiness,
I can't, I'm too immature.
I wipe the tears, but they still keep flowing.

Sayonara.
I love you
more than anyone else.
Even more deeply than the sky.

Don't cry.
We'll meet again, right?
But not being able to see you
is something that only I know about.

This fate that we've chosen...
someday you too will understand its true meaning.

The treasure of memories that we've made
will always live on deep inside my heart.

I thought it was a beautiful thing,
the word called hope.
In an almost painful embrace,
I'm looking up at you.

Arigatou.
I love you
more than anyone else.
Even more strongly than dreams.

Hold me.
Don't let go.
But don't utter
even a single thing...

Don't cry.
I love you.
Even though we're separated far apart,
I can still live with you.

Sticks and stones will break my bones and your words will break my mind.

I'd rather have broken bones then the way you people are lashing out against my mind. I do the best I can with what I've been given. I'm so sorry its not enough for you. Nothing will ever be good enough for you. I leave you alone and you chase after me picking fights. I ignore you and still you find ways to scream your poison back into my mind. Until, no matter what I do to tolerate you, I'm always the bad person. You'll always win, because I refuse to hurt anyone so deeply, to wound their soul and drag them down exploiting weaknesses.

Fine. If thats the way its to be, then I'll retreat into my silence and isolation once more.

I'm tired of being the chicken, the one who gives up in the name of having a conscious.

Ibsen wrote "The strongest man is he who stands most alone." and I believe it now--I understand it. I can survive loneliness, isolation. I don't have to be a human, I can be a robot that doesn't need love and caring. I'll find the way. Anything to stop the pain that greets me every single time I trust someone.

F*ck humanity and socializing. Everyone lets you down. They all have an agenda. I was born without the part of the brain that makes you fight to survive in that way. I'm better for it.

I'm gone. Done with the mind-games of cruel people. Leave me alone. ~pf

I wish for a miracle cure for depression to be found: even if it occurs too late for me.

I wish this so that no one, not my loved ones, not perfect strangers, not beautiful children, not lonely aging people, not even terrible intolerant people that have done horrible things, and those that have hurt me the most will ever have to deal with this disease again.

I wish this on my falling star. May it become a miracle for future generations, or even tomorrow. Regardless of if it saves me from the disease, that is my wish, that no more humans or their loved ones will feel pain from this selfish disease.

~looks to the sky~ ~whispers her wish~

I don't know what tethers me here to this earth beyond a naive promise and a missing symptom of a lonely disease.

There is an emptiness that can not be filled with the Stuff of Earth*, and it is as if this disease allows it to usurp my soul. I must ask myself, is it the disease that allows it, or me?

I'm usually the last one to shrink away from questions that either have hard answers. I'm also usually the one that jumps at the chance to ask a question with an answer that we simply do not want to hear, and figure out why until its ok to hear it. Neither of these efforts appear to be working.

I'm so scared, because I feel stuck. Between, not a rock and a hard place, but between the resources I have to heal from this disease and losing my loved ones supporting me through it.

I am not selfish enough to put my health first. But my loved ones are the ones making me sick right now and they are the ones supporting me. They are the only ones willing to put a roof over my head, pay my medical costs. To be fair, supporting someone with depression and PTSD as severe as mine is probably harder than going through what I'm feeling. Getting well isn't worth losing them. I just can't be that selfish. Even for my own health.

I don't want pity, I don't want to be "poor me". I just haven't solved this complicated, conflict of interest treatment situation I'm in. Mostly because I'm in withdrawal from 4 drugs, three narcotics (legally prescribed and unabused) and one anti-depressant. My horomones are far worse than PMS for I don't feel like biting off anyone's heads. I feel like crying everytime I breathe. I have a broken foot in two places and can't use crutches because of a severe back injury which both hurt to the level of what doctors describe as white pain whatever that means. To me it means if my emotional pain isn't worse, I try to hit my hand with a hammer to distract the back/foot pain to another area. I refuse to take narcotic pain meds, because they're addictive and don't relieve my pain. They just cover up the problem, which no doctor seems to want to get to the bottom of! They are also depressants and I'm already depressed. Yeah--I'm fscked up. My insurance doesn't cover mental health or experimental pain treatments.

Any prayers, thoughts, advice, kind words would be appreciated. Any flames would be really mean cause I'm beating myself inside already.

Thanks to my friends here at /. if they happen to read this, and have a thought for me in silence. ~pf


*"the Stuff of Earth" reference comes from part of the title of a favorite album by Rich Mullins: Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth.


Rich, I hope you don't mind me borrowing that, I so look forward to meeting you at Home someday. Your life, your music--they were such an inspiration to me and so many. I was saddened that you left us sooner that we were ready, but your legacy remains! Save me a spot nearby, I can't wait to hear you play that guitar live. a long time fan, ~pf

So i'm almost 3 weeks into my second SNRI--Cymbalta. as much as i loathe the big pharmaceuticals, duloxetine was developed by Eli Lilly. They are the Rx giant that discovered the first of the SSRI generation of anti-depressants, fluoxetine--you'd know it as Prozac. Cymbalta was not the first SNRI, Effexor (venlafexine) was, its made by Wyeth. Still, Prozac helped for a while, several years before they declared me treatment resistant.

Then after trying all the other SSRIs, I suffered through a year of cocktails made of trycyclics, antipsychotics, anti-seizure drugs, mood-stabilizers, thyroid drugs, some other anti-depressants like Wellbutrin that are new but aren't considered SSRI. They tryciclics were horrible, and paired with the new antipysicotics that had helped some depressives gave me horrid side effects. I ended up putting on so much weight. I used to ski double black diamonds. The depression alone had cut my energy to 1/3, but you put on weight, you have no appetite, and no energy to exercise. I didn't put up a fight when they put me on Effexor. It was new, less chance for weight gain and other side effects. It worked for a year and half. I even managed to lose the 100 pounds I'd gained from those meds. I lost it in 6 months. (Not ONE doctor that had been whining at me to lose weight said anything positive to me about that...no "care" in health "care".)

A TRD patient knows that hope is short lived. Effexor quit working by the time my worst severest episode of depression ever hit, right before 9/11. Cymbalta was still in trials and I couldn't get into those trials. MAOIs were too dangerous because of the migrained meds I needed. Gaining more weight was too dangerous, it depressed me more.

9/11 dropped us all into despair, how could it not...24/7 coverage of that horror. It seemed like everyone knew someone directly affected through one degree. My company, that day...I got the call from a friend. I remember it word for word. "The United States is under terrorist attack." ... "Get to work NOW, N____ it safest here, they want us ALL here, 20 minutes ago for some all-hands announcement."

We lost 3 people on one plane alone. I did not know them except by name. But their families became our family. I'm from Denver, it was similar to Columbine. We had all those employees that had kids in that school for hours. We just band together and pray, think, hold someone's hand--whatever way you show your support. Humanity.

9/11 made my depression harder because I let it. Because I'm an empotional sponge. I say that meaning, I like humans, the more human they are, the easier it is to like them, to feel their pain.

In seventh grade I watched the shuttle with the first teacher in space blow up live. I was in my class with my teacher who had made the top 10 final list. It took the teachers about 2 minutes to realize what happened and to turn off the tv. Just in time before the media started explaining what happened that had gone wrong. Kids are smart. You don't turn off a tv that suddenly tell us to get back to work. We knew something was terribly wrong, we'd watched launches before, it never got that quiet. Teachers didn't get that pale. Within 15 minutes they held an assembly because rumors were flying that the russions had nuked the shuttle. (kids) We all ran and grabbed that teacher, even the kids she was flunking. We cried with her, we cried for the students of the other teacher.

Until 9/11, when they showed the people jumping out the windows of the towers. That shuttle disaster had been the worst "national" memory of my life. Because that was so close to being my teacher. I knew those kids in her class didn't have her to comfort them. Likewise 15+ years later when those people jumped out those windows on 9/11, I knew they had to have been so completely alone to go to that extreme. Outside during prayer, I fell to my knees and cried out loud sobbing until some friends helped me calm down. I didn't know those people in NYC. It still messed me up because they were human, they had moms just like me. Moms that would never see them again. I was so ashamed for being depressed, when those people were in that much pain.

I saw my shink that night because he's that good a guy he fit me in. I told him about how i couldn't close my eyes and not see those people. I told him I was losing my mind, because I didn't know them, I wasn't there, they weren't my relatives, so why was I in so much pain that I'd fall over sobbing. He simply answered: "because N___ what happened to them is very representative of what your biggest fear of whats going to happen to you is. That something beyone your control is going to push you to a place beyond where logic matters to your brain and your reaction is not what you want." (for those of you who are reading this as my first post. i'm severely depressed, treatment resistant, have never been suicidal, promised to no one, but promised nonetheless never to kill myself, and my biggest fear is that my brain will break and i'll do it).

I swear, i prayed so hard for those people. I can't imagine the despair they felt. I stared at the picture in the newsweek 9/11 special that showed such detail you could almost see their expressions. i became obsessed to the point my shrink ordered me to cancel my cable and remove all pictures of it. he told me to stop punishing myself until I came up with some way to resolve it peacefully, he told me it was making me too sick.

And I found that resolution. Now when I close my eyes and see the people falling, I see only an earthly shell tumble below. Almost as immediately as the bodies begin to fall, their heavenly souls and spirits are grasped in the loving arms of angels, family members, or whatever would give them comfort based on their own personal faiths, believes. The moment I replaced this in my mind, the healing began. Its slow, but it is steady. If ever I have the financial opportunity to meet an artistic type, I would like to take that picture with the bodies falling, and commission a reinterpretted version painted the way I describe it. Giving comfort in not just judeo-christian manners, but as many faiths/beliefs as possible.


Back to Cymbalta, I did a good job avoiding this. Three weeks in, I shouldn't be feeling any therapuetic results yet. Therapeutic means consistent and some other things though. I am feeling side effects, which they say is a good sign, albeit annoying. And tonight, about 3 hours ago, watching some cop drama where a FBI agent loses his dad, I felt sad.

You're wondering, so what. Well, sad is different from depressed. This sad in particular. The sad that I felt tonight, it was an emotion so strange, it had to knock on the door and be introduced back into my mind. Note that I sad "back into". It wasn't forgotten, just an emotion thats been missing for years. A genunine sad moment. A pinch in the heart. A sting that almost wet my eyes...

I dislike hope. It can break hearts. It can sink ships. It can make dreams come true. It can make 16 year olds blow their brains out. I don't know what its going to do to me. Prozac did this too once. I had these moments of feeling like N____ again, beyond the disease. But I went through all this withdrawal, I tried again, I put my trust in something new. Call me crazy for getting hope from sadness. Better than the other way around.

God Bless You tonight if you want Him to.

~pf

McWaaaaaaaaah! I've McHad it with Grey's Anatomy. It was a decent show with potential. By decent I mean I could throw in the DVD, watch some episodes and be entertained more than disappointed. As for potential, well, that was mainly in the choice of some fairly unknown actors, a medical drama/comedy/romance that wasn't so low-brow that I wanted to gouge my eyes out, like Scrubs. No, Grey's wasn't a medical thriller by far, IMHO, it had too many people sleeping around. There were way too many times that protocol and red tape was convienently dodged in favor of ratings. I'll be honest, I thought the first several episodes blew goats, stuck with it because I'm a huge Katherine Heigl fan (yes I loved Roswell). But some of the other cast kept me interested.

Enter the drama with an intolerance incident that the network, the show's PR firm, and no one really addressed and I had enough. In case you missed the scoop, here's an article summing up one side of it. Normally I don't give a %$#% about Hollywood whining. This involved intolerance though. Not just once, but pattern intolerance, as Washinton made the same slur backstage at an award show. (Yes I watched those, Hugh Laurie was up for an award!!!) I can not stand intolerance. The press made a big hoodoo about it. Supposedly he went to intolerance rehab and everything was ok. Then his contract wasn't reknewed. The producer said, its none of the viewer's business why not. Washington appeared in an interview saying he had no hard feelings. A few weeks later he's suing on these pretenses. When it comes down to greed, I'm out. I don't know the motives. I do know that the network needs to handle PR better. I wasn't really a network watcher...didn't do much for their ratings, I prefer waiting for DVDs. I do know this--fans of a Golden Globe winning series will get upset if they just fire a major character with no statement about it. It doesn't matter who's side I take, thats crap.


Finally. I think Thursday NBC aired the last of the cancelled episode footage of the f*cking brilliant Studio60 series. It of course left its loyal audience hanging forever with a plot better written than most cable series and frankly, a lot of big budget movies. I'd like to take this time to give NBC my middle finger and my top hole. Since they "cancelled the series due to ratings" I've loyally boycotted Heroes. That show looked really cool, and starred at least two actors I really like. I boycotted it though. I'm waiting for the DVDs but the spoilers are pretty much unavoidable. ~scorn~

NBC, you didn't cancel Studio60 because of ratings. Thats about as true as the crap we were fed about why the US invaded Iraq. Anyone who watched the S60 episodes convienently pushed waaaaaay back, and holding up the contract until there was no chance the show could return can put that together. ..|.. you! I won't EVER watch your network again. I will Tivo, I will wait for DVDs, I will give up my Leno headlines that used to make me laugh and feel better than any anti-depressant. I don't care if there is a tornado and your local affiliate is the only station available, I'll risk it. You guys caved to pressure on a show that rocked and was unapologeticly brilliant, patriotic and what America should have been able to watch on tv, for your own political agenda. I'm so glad West Wing didn't get smothered under your panzy asses the same way.


Gosh I feel better. /. is going to know my cycle pretty soon too, by the schedule of my rants I think, if I don't start being careful.

"There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." -- Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942)

i didn't know what i was getting in to when i made a promise not to take my life thirteen years and one month ago today. i sat in a mental health worker's office, heard a diagnosis of unipolar depression, received a Rx script and a pamphlet. at 20 years old, i'd just finished my third year of college. i'd come home for the summer and woken up unable to get out of bed one morning--i was that exhausted, for a week. then i couldn't stop crying, i was in despair but not sure why. nothing anyone did helped. so i ended up at this office with my parents.

on the drive home i read the pamphlet, it was my introduction to the disease that has haunted my mind and body since. it had some statistics on the back about depression and suicide. suicide. now there was a term i knew too well. my senior year of high school a classmate that sat next to me, always said hi to me (even though the athletes aren't supposed to talk to band geeks.) she had the most beautiful smile, but obviously wasn't smiling inside. she blew her brains out with a pistol. at school they wouldn't talk about it. they wouldn't say the word "suicide". it was like if they didn't say it, it made it go away? not to her friends, who felt like they might have missed something and been able to stop her. not to the boyfriend who had broken up with her and thought it might be his fault. not at her funeral when they all "tsk tsk tsk'ed" that she had committed the unforgivable. no counseling for a class of 120 kids that knew everyone by name. the crime scene was across the street.

yep, i read that stat about suicide and i swore to no one that i wouldn't be part of that statistic. i don't even remember what that statistic was, how high it was. i just knew that something is wrong in the world if you can't talk about something that is a disease that makes a 17 year old girl blow her brains out. i swore i wouldn't be a part of that. i swore i would talk about it, i'd educate myself about it, and i'd beat the disease.

six years later to be diagnosed as "chronic", "severe" and eventually "treatment resistant", i was keeping my promise. a lot of mental health care people ask me how and why. i tell them the truth. i made a promise. they ask to who. i find most of them ask this rhetorically and smile and shake their head or something and i've not had to answer it much face to face. only in my writing or online with someone in crisis do i really get into it. if people want to believe its a religious thing then i let them. i was 20, i had faith, but i hadn't carved it out yet. i was about to undergo a huge change in my life too--chronic severe treatment resistant depression is not an easy row to hoe, my faith would evolve as would most aspects of me--never that promise though.

so its been 13 years and a month to the day. i don't know why a date is significant after so long, especially if you stick a month on it. yeah its rare to have gone 13 years with severe depression and not attempted suicide. its also rare to get a lis-franc fracture without falling off a horse or stepping in a hole if you aren't out playing some massively active sport. still, i managed to do that the night of my 30th birthday. mathematically the odds on that have to be not in my favor. i should have at least won a small lottery first. i did win a ten-speed from McD's raffle when I was a kid. so maybe i defy odds? or maybe i'm just determine to be a survivor?

maybe hearing the lousy way the adults--the system, dealt with my friend's death made me determined. i don't think you go into a school and tell them all the gorey details about depression and suicide. i do think its ok to give them someone to talk to. providing appropriate education at an appropriate age about something that can hurt you is not political or controversial--its logical. a sticker in the bathroom with a 1800 number for an anoymous suicide hotline in a highschool is not taboo. even back when i was a senior there were government studies by NIMH that proved that talking about suicide in an educated matter doesn't cause kids to do it. as for education about having a disease that causes you to have an impulse to kill yourself? we weren't even taught about birth control. tolerance wasn't something our small town could handle then, i doubt they can yet. even if that girl had to keep it private that she thought she was going crazy, i think she was smart enough she might have asked a doctor for help, discretely. maybe it would have gotten her killed by hate though. i know i've been told i should be 'erased' for being mentally ill and that was at least 15 years later. tolerance is a whole different journal entry.

i didn't make my promise for her. her situation may have left a mark in my heart forever though that influenced it. i don't judge her at all. i don't know that education, meds or therapy would have changed her path. like i said, depression is no easy journey. not by far. i don't judge her. i don't judge anyone lest myself, if i have enough time to judge anyone else, then its surely a sign i have too much time on my hands! i pray to her and look forward to holding her, and so many others, when the angels come to take me Home. i have no doubt she'll be there.

Himura Kenshin (an anime/manga character) is right, its so very much easier to die, than to live. literally. figuratively.

easier to be the victim and blame the system, the disease or your demons.

when i chose to finally get out of bed and start healing, i was warned how much more it hurts to do that. the "survivors" in my support groups, the recovering addicts, and the ones who i haven't crossed off my prayer list because they succeeded in suicide--they warned me.

its easier to be the victim and blame the system, the disease or your demons. i thought healing meant no more fighting, putting away my weapons and armor and finding peace. i was so spoonfed naive and completely wrong.

victims surrender to an illusion of peace in this battle.

survivors fight to their death.

my angel holds a sword, i pray it doesn't have to attack, that it will only defend and protect, but by God, it will help me survive this.

if you or someone you love is hinting/thinking/talking about suicide there is a toll free hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

(note: the last description, of the angel, is taken from a missive to a friend. its purpose was to describe some body art i'm having done, but it fit the entry too. my poetry and other writings portray angels much differently, so i thought to add the note about the contrast. in case you read my writing about my encountering an angel, please note that i didn't describe it visually because i didn't see it, so this piece is unrelated. ~pf)

I've been hooked on your work since Hackers. You aren't perfect, but you're the first to admit it and come clean about it. You have so many roles now, since the first time I saw those eyes of yours that left such an impression.

I was young and impressionable then...hell I still am at 33. Out of all the roles you fill, actress, wife, friend, family member, UN ambassador, role model to so many, and down to earth mom--huminatarian seems to emcompass them all so well. Its the greatest compliment I think I could give you.

You have such passion, its strong and true and impossible to miss. Yet your careers must put you in positions to see the most terrible sides of humans along with the most amazing, courageous and unforgettable. I am in awe of how you balance what you deal with, I suspect it has a lot to do with your wonderful, growing family. Still, I think you must credit some inner beauty, strength or spirituality, whether it be passed along from a history of strong women or your own spirituality, developed from your life journey. You have always come across as a fiesty, unapologetic spirit--a true creature of beauty and wonder.

I am thankful to have your influences in my life. If I were blessed with children I would want them to know why you continue to be a role model and humanitarian in my eyes. Also, I would want to take lessons from you in how to bring up children, because you and Brad have such a beautiful family that I envy, not with the bad kind of covetous jealousy. No, not that at all, but the kind that makes me joyful that someone experiences it!

You don't need me to tell you this Angelina, but never ever let anyone tell you that you are any less than who you believe yourself to be. I learned from you, from the characters in your movies, your leading ladies and your soft spoken characters too, that lesson.

Thank you for being you, being unafraid to admit mistakes, but never apologizing for who you are. Those are things young women (and men) need to hear in these times. Bless you, bless your family!! Love and friendship, ~WBGG aka ~N

{I want to get this journaled today, because today I was in the hospital for the first time since what I write about below. It was supposed to be a quick steroid epidural for a disc injury. I warned them I have PTSD and might flashback and asked for a sedative or psych consult, but they didn't even believe me that ECT is still used. So while the needle was in my spine and the guy holding it said "Uh-0h!". I asked if everything was ok--seemed reasonable, he has a needle close to my spine and just told me the risks. He gets pissed of and tells me not to question his judgement. I try so hard to keep holding still, but with the smells, beeping and my anxiety, I flashed back to ECT and passed out. The doctor lectured me until I sobbed, for passing out, told me there is no ECT or PTSD.

How much harder will it be for me to go in a hospital next time? WTF call it "health care"?~pf}


My first ElectroConvulsive Therapy procedure performed 10/13/05

"Its very effective for treatment resistant depression." The paper the pamphlet is printed on feels surreally cold and slippery between my fingers. I can't bring myself to read it yet, so I nod blankly back, my eye contact on auto pilot mostly, still trying to take in the fact that I'm sitting in a locked psych ward. Things so bad it has come to this.

I force myself to concentrate again though--I long so badly to be free of this pain and exhaustion overwhelming me. The doctor in front of me can't be any older than I am. Her voice is gentle and soothing--it matches her sweet, heart shaped face--so out of place in this dungeon for the tormented and suffering.

Now her countenance is almost eager as she tells me of a videotape. My broken, tired, drugged mind tries to interpolate how some simple piece of media is certain to answer all my questions and ease the fear growing within. I am already terrified, i don't want to see anymore so i decline, and before i know it i have an appointment for the first "treatment". Suddenly 4 days from now seems awfully close.

By the time i arrive at the hospital i've done my homework though, researched this controversial procedure that is my last hope at getting my life back somehow wading through the websites that tell of the worst case outcomes to find the few scientific resources that explain something so taboo. The few friends I've told I'm trying it were surprised its still used. But, oh no, the Mayo clinic says it has a bad rap but is highly effective so i dive in headfirst, somewhat blindly, on a wing and a prayer. The gurney slides into the cold unfriendly OR and I enter the world of ECT.

Praying silently, trying to hide my shaking, i focus on the ceiling above. Cold hands place sticky electrodes all over my chest and head and the beeping begins. Haunting like i can barely describe, this steady, eerie beeping of all those machines. God, that beeping drove me nuts because those the machines were steady, they weren't in time with each other. I'm a percussionist, it was rattling my nerves to have such dissonance in tones and times. More wires and then the limb restraints. I committed now, tied up and theirs to play god with. Finally the anesthesiologist places the mask over my nose and mouth. The smell is some weird plastic scent--just like beachball, forever engrained in my mind now. (At rock concerts when they throw me a beachball and it get close enough to smell, it triggers a flashback.)

The young, kind, heart-faced doctor smiles encouragingly at me and holds my shaking hand. I believe she is sincere in her belief that this procedure will help me, but how she can smile before such a violent, terrifying treatment is unleashed upon me i do not know.

The general anesthesia enters my veins through the iv in my hand burning and immediately i feel myself fading but I don't quite go under before the paralyzing agent stinging my veins kicks in turning me to cold stone. My chest tightens and i cannot even gasp for air. I can't move at all, can't scream, but i feel like i'm choking. Memories of Metallica's _One_ video flash in my mind and I'm terrified beyond any fear i've ever felt. No! N_____ go back to the Lord's prayer--say it Spanish, backwards, anything else, don't think of that damn video now, you're only making this worse! My will is gone though.

Oh God, there truly are worse things than death aren't there?

No one hears my screams for air, and i feel i'm choking--trying to throw my useless body.

Please Lord, take me now, i'll do anything if you end this. Send me to Hell!

Why the fuck can't anyone hear me?!?

The warmth of two single tears flowing down my cheeks is all i sense through that madness. I cry without moving or making a sound. Oh God, thank you, the signal to the doctors that i'm not quite out enough finally registers and they give me more general...

[nothingness]

"N_____ your ECT is finished, you're in the recovery room, you did fine."

I am so disoriented it takes me a while to realize they are talking to me and where I am. My right forehead and jaw ache like i've been hit, and my muscles are all cramping.

"I want my mother, please!" I cry, this place I'm waking up is unfamiliar and I feel more frightened than ever. Silence. Tears and shaking.

"Where am I?" "Was I in an accident?" "What day is it?" and more questions. I know who I am, at least it seems I do or did a long time ago. God its so surreal, but not a nightmare.

I notice a nurse is there, she takes my vitals and tells me to relax that i'll feel better soon. I can't get the words out through the tears and confusion fast enough to ask the questions pummeling my mixed up mind. Like a doll, one of those dolls with glassy eyes that just look through everyone I am there helpless.

She asks me if I'm in pain. I don't even answer yet she disappears to get meds, leaving me still more than alone. I lie there close to sobbing surrounded by other confused disoriented patients in recovery for an hour. Why does it smell like human excrement across the room? Why don't they do something for that man who moaning?

Then they remove my IV, wheel me to another room and put me in a recliner. I am told to eat the graham crackers and drink the gingerale so that I can take a pain pill and go home soon, like I am a child. So I nod.

Emotionally numb, i chew the crackers even though my jaw hurts and manage to drink up the soda. Narcotics arrive and willingly i swallow them, waiting for the relief to hit. As it does the nurse shuts the curtian and tells me to stand up slowly and get dressed. She has me sign a few forms and tells me to "come back in two days and call if there are any problems" at the speed of light. Before i know it, i'm in a wheelchair down an elevator and being helped into my dad's vehicle.

Its all so surreal because I don't remember anything before going into the OR, even weeks before, I know I should but its missing. Thats not all thats missing, I can't tell my dad how to get home to my condo in a city i've lived in for 10 years that God forbid I let him drive in. When we arrive, I don't even remember that I live there. Its so peculiar, my childhood teddy bear is on the bed, staring at me with its one remaing glass eye.

That was just the beginning of a nightmare. I had 28 more procedures...

© 2007 paperflowers

(author note: {updated June 2007}

i spoke with the heart-shaped-face doctor, telling her about being paralyzed. she initially told me it was common to dream these things in anesthesia. when i recounted to her the name of her two dogs that she had been talking about to the rest of the OR team, she believed me and set to work with the anesthesia teams of the future to try to avoid further mistakes. unfortunately, this mistake happened at least twice more and is the major reason that my psychiatrist has diagnosed me with PTSD from the experience. that is not the way ECT is supposed to happen. i find it terribly ironic that i can recall those moments in such distress but lost other memories. some attribute that to the adrenaline rush from the panic i felt when i thought i would choke to death. ~shrug~

gradually with the help of memory exercises, time, night terrors and flashbacks I am starting to recall more of the experiences of the procedures and memories lost during the time. unfortunately, the lost memories often return in the form of flashbacks set off by sounds, smells and sights in hospitals, which a person in my support group has told me is common. i hope to begin treatment for PTSD in months or weeks, now that I have been formally diagnosed with PTSD caused by improperly performed ECT and other events.

what is written so far is taken from extremely detailed journal accounts i began writing as soon as i made the choice to endure ECT despite the low risks of memory loss i was warned of during only the treatment time. they literally took my journal away from me as they wheeled me into the OR and i asked for it back as soon as i was lucid enough to write. i borrowed a trick from a movie and wrote on my arm with a marker "start journaling" so i'd remember to do that in the recovery room because i wanted to capture such a taboo and terrifying treatment. research from websites of other ECT patients, and common knowledge of anesthesia amnesia led me to believe i would have to trust my pen more than my memory based on the side-effects common to ECT. It has been a little over 2 years since the first treatment and I still rely on those detailed journal accounts for alomst everything that happened during the 5 months of "therapy". i am sad to say that it was unsuccessful treatment and in the long run did more damage then healing. i do not make this statement about ECT in general. ~pf)

Cause I might just not be around to listen to you much longer. Surely there are other blogs, and I can get news faster from Fark. Even the cool Linux element is gone here.

/. seems to have devolved into two groups, the wise people who know how to have a good argument/discussion and the idiots that are kiss-my-ass karma whores.

If anymore assholes care to take a shot at me, please do. I had a shitty epidural this morning, just adding to my lousy mood. So, if possible, I'd like all the rest of the /. whiners, haters and fight-pickers to get over themselves and post their pissy little rants pertaining to me today.

So here you go, have at it you infidel morons. Especially the asshole who moderated me a troll for no reason at all.

Yes, I'm PO'd, yes I'm not holding back, and yes I'm inviting the meanest flames you can offer. I'm sick of the immature BS here. I'm starting to remember why I took a 4 year break.

Bloody fscking hell...

...to peek inside my seratoin-starved mind tonight. ~whisper~


dancing with an albatross

i've got no paltry monkey on my back anymore,
just an anathema albatross marring up my dry-clean only Prada shirt
his thin jinxed wings crumpled, fractured beyond remedy
seems he flew into one too many golden aprocyphal steeples today

never mind us though, we'll just falter crudely, the bird and i
about your pristine glass world, back soon to mop up the blood
by twelve toilsome miles tread though i'm a true eyesore; but don't blink,
you might miss it, we're a real freak-show to the plastic faced masses

the birds dying, crying out in agony; i stumble to ordain his weight
its like the last sordid dance at some morose macabre holiday hap
until someone suddenly whispers that the all too soon-to be-corpse i haul
won't just be another skeleton in my closet i can lock away...

suddenly i just don't feel like dancing anymore.

© 2007 paperflowers

At least they let me go from 600mg to 300mg over 60 days.

But this going from 300mg to 0mg in 5days sounds more like a sports car benchmark than brain chemistry. Especially when the Cymbalta I started the first day of this 5 day run, will take 6-8 weeks to reach "therapeutic levels" in a normal person's brain. Ha ha...normal. I'm so freaking treatment resistant that they've had me on 52 meds and I don't respond.

Anyone seen Requiem For a Dream? Great flick. Don't let your kids see it, but I highly recommend it. If you've seen it, you know the legal methamphetamines the older lady was using? The green and blue pills? Well, other than my mood problem with depression my other major problem symptom is lack of energy. So one of my doctors put me on amphetamines. This was in the summer of 2001. They started me on "normal" doses. By the time that 9/11 came around I was on in the words of two shrinks and a pschyopharmacologist "enough speed to kill an elephant". I was still working at that time. The problem was, I would hear the slew of 5 alarm clocks go off, sit up and take the amphetamines, eat an apple to make them kick in. Then I would fall back asleep sitting up in bed with the apple core in my hand, until a friend came by and physically removed me from bed. I think they call it speed because its supposed to make you go faster. Last I checked methamphetamines, the ones I was taking, were "uppers". ~smirk~ And I could sleep soundly through a horse's dose? Sorry, you can build up a tolerance but not THAT fast.

This was when they started to think my brain might be chemically resistant to drugs...

Back to Effexor withdraw. My brain and body do not like being taken off this drug so fast. Mainly it has turned me into an irritable bitch beyond any PMS you can imagine. There are also "brain shakes" and when I hold still for about 60 seconds it feels like my limbs are no longer connected to my body. Those are the minor side effects though, the ones I can deal with. The worst thing is that I am emotionally numb for periods of hours. I just have no emotion. I don't think thats normal. I really don't like that feeling. In fact, I prefer pain to numbness, emotionally at least. For all the times they warned me about addiction to sleeping aides, amphetamines, pain killers...never had problems. This anti-depressant is really fscking scaring me when I have feelings.

I just keep telling myself, only 3 months to go before they get the Cymbalta up to what is a "therapeutic level" for me. Then the most scary question of all gets answered, am I completely resistent to it? If so, I am SOL because there aren't any drugs left for me... ~pf