Code Strawberry

Well I had intended to post to y’all yesterday September 17^th, 2015, but my brain had other ideas.  Yesterday was a bad day.  It was Code Strawberry day.  That is my word for when all hell breaks loose.  Living with Anxiety, panic attacks and whatever else it is that I have, is often difficult.  I often have no warning as to when or where I will lose my mind.  It has made me kind of a recluse.  I am terrified I will have one of these while I am driving, and suddenly forget how to drive a car, or get to a place and not know how to get home.  The people who are around me know I have a code word, if for no reason what so ever, I saw STRAWBERRY, my friends know that I am about to go into an attack.  They know where my medication is, how to administer it to me, how to handle me, who to call and not to take me to the hospital.  My attacks leave me disoriented and confused, and sometimes unable to speak. I even carry paperwork with me telling first responders what to do with me, where my meds are, and not to stick me in the psych ward again.  It may take several hours, but it will pass.  The medicine usually helps, but then I have days like yesterday.

Yesterday I woke up fine.  I’d had a bit of a strong dream in that I was dreaming of Melinda.  You will meet her in my later posts.  I had been thinking about her before I went to bed, trying to figure out how best to tell that part of my story.  Melinda was not a violent character in my life, but just another one of those people, who kind of used me and then threw me to the wolves, after years of a deep friendship. 

When I woke up I was disoriented and confused.  I felt like I was swimming in molasses.  I felt like my brain was processing, but at a very, very slow speed.  I was on dial up basically.  My since of time and reality was off.   I had hoped to shake, whatever it was, off.  I got up and had breakfast, but it got no better.  An hour after I woke up I decided perhaps it was best I take a pill, just in case.  I did not want it to get worse.  The pill did not help.  Before I knew it I was breaking out the coloring books, not because I felt anxious and was trying to settle myself, no it was because I felt like I was about 6 years old. 

I knew what kind of animals I had, but I was unsure of their names.  I knew what year it was, where I was, who I was married to, and that I was living in a larger, older body.  I knew I was Ilsa, not someone else.  This is not the first time this has happened.  It happened the day I was hospitalized.  It happened a year to the date, when I had another major attack.  Most of that was brought on by stress I was under with Melinda.  But I have also had these attacks where they were not in context of a panic attack.  A few months after I was hospitalized, I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning and suddenly felt like I was 6 years old and wanted to color.  And so that is what I did.  I went in my altar room, got out my colors and did that for about 2 hours.  When I was finished I ran to wake Jay up, stifled the urge to jump up and down on the bed, and woke him up to show the picture I had just colored for him.  He told me how wonderful it was, convinced me I needed sleep and to cuddle under the covers with him.  I did.  When I woke in the morning I was fine. 

Yesterday I was totally by myself.  After I took my pill I called to my therapist, who was very busy.  I told her I was safe and not a danger to myself or others, and was not going to drive my car.  I said, “I just wanted you to be able to talk to me in this state.”  I called Jay too.  Juno and Kay were not home, or I would have had them come over and sit with me.  After coloring for a while I looked out on the beautiful day and wanted to be part of it. 

But I knew I had to get dressed and take my meds.  Two things I was not terribly sure I knew how to do.  But I made it threw and was able to figure it all out.  I grabbed a quilt, some books from my childhood, water, my cell phone, my sunglasses, and of course lip gloss.  When was a kid I never went anywhere without my lip gloss.  I spread out my quilt on the grass, in as much of the shade as I could, put my bag down and then let out the goats and Mr. Henry the piggy.  We all happily visited for a while.  I texted Jay.  I was amazed that in that state I knew how to use modern technology, but I did. 

As I was laying outside it kind of let go of me and I came back to myself.  I was a bit confused and disoriented again, as to how I got outside on a blanket.  I knew I had done it, but had had little control over what I did.  I had been in that state for about 4 hours. 

I think I was angrier over losing most of my day, as I had things to do, and the things I had planned obviously, did not get done.  At that point I was just exhausted.  When Jay came home he ordered me to have a nap, whether I wanted one or not.  When I woke from my nap I was still confused.  It wasn’t until we had gone to bed last night, and I woke somewhere in the night, that I felt I was really back to myself. 

In the two with panic attacks attached to them I kind of spent the day growing up.  Yesterday I did not.  One moment I felt I was 6 years old, and ten minutes later I was in touch with my 40 year old self.

I wonder what the hell is wrong with me and if I will ever get any better?  I think part of the reason I am writing this blog is so that someone can help me and give me a good definition of what is going on with me both emotional, mentally and perhaps spiritually.  I have no doubt all three are connected.  Now y’all come back and tell me to get right with Jesus and it will stop, or that I’m possessed, and I will kick your fucking asses!

If you are suffering from mental illness I encourage you to have a code word as well, instructions you carry with you at all time, and educate those around you about what to do with you if this happens.  It might save you a trip to the psych ward, or save your very life. 

I hate to say it, but never underestimate the stupidity of people.  My roommate in college had terrible seizures.  She was allergic to all the medications available at the time, so she would have upwards of 7 Petit Mals a day.  It would never fail.  She would go missing for a few days, and then show back up.  I’d ask what happened and she would tell me she had a seizure walking to class, and woke up in the Psych Ward, again.   She also carried no identification on her that said she had seizures.  The first responders didn’t know what was happening to her and just thought she was crazy or on drugs, I guess.  I don’t want the same for you. 

Ilsa

Behind a big woman's eyes - Infertility, Weight, and Mental Illness

Warning –this one is good, but long

My diets continue until I am 18.  I graduated high school weighing about 180lb.  I started my period when I was 11, I began to have irregular periods by the time I was 15.  In college I am diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, a conditions which runs in my family.  It is known to make periods irregular and very heavy.  It is also known to make you gain weight.  Shorty after I meet Mike, and become sexual active,  I am put on birth control.  Their hope is it will also make my periods regular.  It does and it also makes me gain 30lb.  My breast swell past D’s and I have trouble walking until I get used to them.   I tip 200lb for the first time.  I quickly get off of it, but the weight stays.

I think one of the reasons I marry Mike is that I have felt all my life; no man will want me because I am so fat and therefore so ugly.  To have someone find me sexy and attractive, at least in the beginning, is a dream come true for me. While in college and in my abusive marriage to Mike I continue to gain weight. I hit 300lb for the first time.  I develop breathing problems and sleep paralysis.  I am taken to a lung specialist who undoes my bra and tells me part of my problem is I am wearing such a tight bra it is cutting off my air flow.  I am wearing a D.  I get new bras and measure in at 52 I.  My bras are now very expensive and come only from a specialty shop.  I am told the sleep paralysis is coming from the excessive stress I am under.  The Dr. also tells me I must immediately loose half my body weight. 

For the first time I join a gym.  I remember going in the bathroom to change into my work out clothes.  I come out shaking, terrified that people will make fun of me.  No one does.  I graduate and we move back home.  When I go to work for the car dealership they offer perks like helping you pay for a gym membership.  I sign up.  Not long after I leave Mike I have lost 50lb.  I continue working on my weight, at the gym and by joining Overeaters Anonymous (OA).  After I lose my job at the car dealership I continue to work out at the gym every day, writing my article for the paper and going to meetings.  In total I lose 87 pounds.  I plateau. I weight 217 lb. when I meet Jay.  Who could freaking careless how much I weigh.

After months of looking I am finally able to start a new job.  Losing weight and writing gets pushed to the side as I work and fall in love with Jay.  When we marry a year later I am at 245 lb and blissfully happy.  We have moved to Sabine Parish and there are no OA meetings for me to attend there.  The weight continues to creep back up.  There are attempts at walking and diet, but nothing sticks. We return home to Caddo Parish after Hurricane Rita.

Shortly before Momma Muriel dies in 2008 we begin the process for me to have my stomach stapled, RNY.  Mercifully I am turned down.  I have talked to many people since who have had the surgery, that are 10, 15 even 20 years out from their surgeries.  Their health is just deplorable, and for those who could not afford the plastic surgery afterwards, they look just as bad.  I am very, very glad I was turned down, but here is the major lesson I learned.  If you want to have your stomach stapled, and they send you to a psych evaluation, whatever you do, don’t tell them you are a witch.  I did and I am turned down because of it.  It takes us a while to get the evaluation from the insurance company.  The first lines read, “While Ilsa may present as possibly psychotic it is my opinion that she is just different, very different.  It is because of these differences that she may have experienced trouble in her life.”  While I passed the evaluation, it is my guess all the insurance company saw was the word “psychotic,” and that was enough to turn me down. 

We try again to diet and eat right in August of 2011.  We go to see the dietician the week before I have my first major panic attack.  I had been trying to measure my food and do as I had been told.  I still think it may have been one of the contributing factors to the attack.  When I go back into counseling in December of 2011 one of the goals during all this is to lose weight so I can get pregnant. 

Mike and I never tried to conceive a child.  Even though diagnosed with Hypothyroidism at age 18, my periods continue to be erratic.  I am unwilling to try birth control again after my first experience with it.  We settle on me taking Progesterone pills 10 days out of the month.  After I leave Mike I go in for a battery of tests.  Given what Mike was into I want to make sure he had not been cheating, and didn’t give me something.  He thankfully did not.  I am clean.  My new OB/GYN, however, diagnoses me with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  I am given less than a 10% chance of ever conceiving naturally.  I am told it will take a team to get me pregnant. PCOS is a vicious cycle.  The added testosterone in your body makes you gain weight; the weight makes you produce more testosterone.  And round and round it goes.  The only treatment for PCOS is anti-testosterone birth control, Yasmin.  We find out later it causes gallbladder trouble. 

The day I meet Jay I tell him all the conditions I have, the medications I take and the meetings I attend.  I tell him that if he can’t deal with that, there is the door.  He stays.  PCOS is mentioned in that list but never discussed.  A month later we are standing in a Wal-Mart checkout line.  He is standing behind me, holding me and kissing my neck.  I am making baby talk with a cute baby in front of me.  He looks at the child and whispers in my ear, “What do you think?  In about a year? year and half?”  He’s asking me when I think we will have our first child.  I sputter.  Thank the Gods he can’t see the shock on my face.  I begin to unload the groceries onto the conveyer belt.  I said, “Did you just ask me what I think you asked me?”  I think he has just asked me to marry him.  I did not know that at the moment he said it, he had meant it as a joke.  But he said later, once he heard himself say it, he meant it.  He never expected my response. 

I begin with, “I have PCOS.  The doctors have told me I have a 10% chance of ever conceiving.  They have told me it will take a team to get me pregnant.  I think you are the man for the job.  Yes.”  I look up and he is smiling and his bright blue eyes are sparkling.  I follow up with, “if we can’t conceive we will adopt.  If we can’t adopt we will raise dogs.”

Since that day 12 ½ year ago Jay and I have tried to get pregnant.  Which is really hard when you have no periods.  For a while we try while I am on birth control, even taking prenatal vitamins which make me sick.  We go for long periods where we don’t try.  We try Progesterone.  We try Colmid twice, not only does it not work, I don’t even ovulate.  We have Jay checked early on.  The Dr’s tell us that he has the highest count they have ever seen.  My response is, “I must have some really broke shit then.”  The Dr’s send me home and tell me I cannot conceive because I am too fat.  To go home and come back after I have lost some weight.  I try, but nothing happens. I am routinely told it is my fault.  I am told to relax and when we finally give up it will happen. I am put on Metformin which chains me to a toilet with diarrhea for more than a year.  I am finally told the next step in infertility treatment is to give me shots in my stomach, which are not covered by insurance, and very expensive.  IVF is about $10,000 per treatment, not covered by insurance and may take as many as 7 times to work.  Besides having PCOS, I have been given no other reason why I cannot conceive.  They just look at me and throw medicine my way that doesn’t work.  It’s hell to be infertile and poor.

I look at my husband and often feel nothing but guilt, that I can’t give him a child with his beautiful blue eyes.  That I can’t give him a little piece of immortality.  That I can’t keep his line going.  My beautiful, wonderful, loving husband has nothing wrong with him.  It’s all on my end.  That eats at a woman.  I began to think that he needed to leave me and find another wife, so he could be a father.  That I should just end my life. 

I am blessed to have a friend like Juno, who has just a many mental problems as I do.  She is great in that I can share with her my crazy and suicidal thoughts and she understands.  One day sharing that I had been having these thought Juno says to me, “you know why you can’t kill yourself.”

“No why?”

“Jay is a wonderful man.  He is so kind hearted that if you die, who ever marries him may not be so kind to him and take advantage of him.  You have to stay alive to protect him.” 

That was one of those light bulb moments for me, game changing in my craziness.  I had to stay alive to protect him.  It has taken root in me.  Even sometimes in my moments of panic attacks I repeat this to myself.

Gods bless Jay, my weight has never been a problem for him.  He loves me just as I am.  He has never told me I was fat or asked me to lose weight for him.  He just looks at me with those loving blue eyes and kisses me.

We have attacked this from a spiritual point as well.  I know I have several closed chakras and have worked to open them.  I have begged and pleaded with Holda.  I have done spells for myself. I have attended high seat rituals to ask why I cannot conceive and when, if ever, I might.  I am told to be patient and that it is not yet time.  The last high seat we attend, Jay bless him, asks.  The oracle tells him she does not believe it will not happen without medical intervention. 

People say, “Well just lose weight.  Go on a diet. Eat more vegetables and fruit.”  They don’t work for me.  No matter what I do it won’t come off.  Fruits and vegetables are also terrible expensive.  I think many poor people, like me, are fat because they can only afford carbs and meat.  Vegetables are a luxury.  I am also really, really tired of well meaning people.  I have been coerced, cajoled and damn right bribed in the past to lose weight.  I have been promised makeovers if I lost weight.  I even had a fellow offer me a dollar a pound if I would lose weight. Why does everybody think it is there business??  Every time I was with my mom she would say something about my weight, until I finally told her it was an off topic subject.  If she started that shit while I was on the phone with her I would just hang up.  If I was at her home and she did it I would get up and leave.  I had to do this until finally she learned.  If she can’t love me and accept me for who I am, she doesn’t deserve to love me.

In the last year I have gone so far as to join a gym, exercise, give up sugar, and join OA again.  I lose 30lb initially and then gain it all back.  After a year of not losing I quit trying. I am now almost 40.  If I was to conceive at this point I am very high risk.  I have been told I will develop gestational diabetes.  I have high blood pressure and could develop preeclampsia.  At my age, my DNA has become sticky and means I could have a child with Down Syndrome or other abnormalities.  I am also on Buspar which could lead to a whole host of other problems.   At this point in my life it is not advisable for me to conceive. 

We have been asked, “Why don’t you adopt??”  I want to feel the baby move in me.  I want a baby who looks like Jay.  I want my own child.  A private adoption is about $20,000.  Most of the children in foster care have problems emotional, mental or physical.  I’m not even sure with my mental history they would let me adopt a child.  I’m not sure with my mental history I could handle one with problems.  Then there is the problem of our religion.  While Jay is Agnostic, I am a very loud, proud and out Pagan.  I talked with a friend of ours some years back.  She had just adopted her sister’s kids.  She told me, once they found out she was a witch they did not want to let her adopt her own flesh and blood.  Wonder what they would do with me.  While I am sure it is highly illegal, don’t doubt it’s being done and simply filed under another made up reason to deny people.

It’s not that I like being fat.  I often feel trapped in a failing body.  Being fat has just been part of my identity for so long that I don’t know any other way.  I am a bit terrified to be thin.  How will my soul live in such a little body?  A friend once said about me, “Yeh she’s big, but that’s because she has a big heart.”  Being 350lb is not easy.  I have frequent back spasms when I stand for more than a few minutes at a time or walk more than a few hundred feet.  I still can’t walk from here to the barn without being winded and hurting.  By the time I leave the house, walk to the barn, a few hundred feet away, put the goats away, and come back I am hurting and need to sit and rest.  My hip hurts me.  It started about 8 years ago.  I went into the hospital for it, they ex ray me and then tell me they can find nothing wrong with me.  I am convinced it is arthritis, and my possible be tied to my weight.  But have I mentioned it again to my Primary Care Physician, nope.  I am afraid he will do the tests and tell me, again, that there is nothing wrong with me.

I think the worst part about being fat is having occasionally to ride in the motorized cart at the store.  These are days when either my hip is hurting, I am having back spasms that won’t quit, or my Interstitial Cystitis pain is so bad that I can barely walk.  I am terrified of being taunted by others in the store.  The last time I had to use the cart I was with Jay at the grocery store.  I was trying to talk myself out of using it, he was trying to talk me into it.  Finally I gave in and said, “Okay but if anybody says anything to me, you beat them up!”  So when you pass a fat lady in a cart please be kind to her.  She may be riding it because of a pain you don’t know about and have nothing to do with her weight.  Just remember the lady riding in the cart may be me.

Yet the Buspar is doing something I am hesitant to discuss.  It’s a minor miracle that I am afraid might disappear or may just be a fluke if I talk about it.  But I must.  In the last few weeks I have noticed that I am eating less.  Not trying to, I am just full.  So full I can’t eat anymore.  I have to decide in my head, before hand, what and how much to eat because I know I can’t hold it all like I used to.  Last night I am thinking to myself.  I can’t have another piece of chicken, because I won’t have room for pudding.  I’ve never had to think like that.  I have so much more energy now I am even considering starting to go for walks in the fall.  But I know by saying all this I have broken the magical spell and I will go back to living in my nightgown before long, eating however I want. 

Ilsa

Buspar

In December of 2014, for the first time in about 15 years I got off of my anti-depressants.  My husband had changed jobs and we had to wait 90 days for his health care to kick in.  We tried, but we could not pay the $250 & $800 per bottle for my meds.  We knew, since he was employed, we would qualify for no programs. 

I was afraid to go off of them.  We had no idea what I would be like.  So we rode the storm out, but something incredible happened, I felt better than I had in years.  Suddenly I was not sleeping 16 hours a day, I had more energy, and our sex life was better than it had been in several years.  I was actually horney for the first time since I didn’t know when.  While this may sound a bit forward me talking about this, I want to speak for and to my sisters who are too shy or too embarrassed to say these things.  We knew that the medication could affect our sex life, but we didn’t realized how much.  I figured, as in all other things medical and emotional, that I was just broken.  I began to feel happier. Happier and clearer then I had been in a long time.  I believe now that I had been over medicated, that at some point in those 15 years my depression had broke. 

I did really well for a while, and then in April I entered this current cycle of heavy anxiety, insomnia and frequent panic attacks.  My best friend, at the time, was put into the mental hospital about then.  I was terrified for her.  I think I had 4 panic attacks during the 10 days she was in.  Now this is someone I spent many hours a day with.  This makes what happened next all the worse.  She decided to tell a massive lie, and we caught her in it.  The day I confront her about all of this, in all freakiness, my dog Prince gets hit and killed on the road in front our house.  No she didn’t do it.  Prince had been sick and we think committed suicide.  He’d been telling us he wanted to go, as his heart had been failing him for several months before this. 

I thought I would break in the weeks following all of this.  Heavy grief, panic attacks, anxiety, plus the loneliness of this place were my constant companions.   So that was May and in June I went to see my primary care physician (PCP).  I told him I was not depressed but was having constant daily anxiety.  I asked if there was a daily medication for anxiety.  I prescribed me Buspar.  It has been a Gods’ send! 

You take it twice a day.  But as he said, “If you don’t take it every day as prescribed it won’t work.”  I hoped it would work. I just had no idea how well it would work!    I started to feel better almost immediately.  What had been a good sex life now became even better!  I have feelings and experiences I had not had, since I first met my husband 12 years ago.  Turns out they give Buspar to people who are on anti-depressants and having sexual side effects.  Slowly, drop by drop I began to do little things I had not done in a long time.  My house became cleaner, because I had the energy to wash the dishes and do the clothes every day.  Little things like getting fully dressed in not just a night gown, every day, and making the bed.  I made to do lists, and then did them. 

Most days are wonderful.  I cook and clean, and tend the animals and my anxiety stays at bay. Then you have days like yesterday, a day full of anxiety, waiting on the panic attack that doesn’t come.  It’s kind of like waiting on a thunder storm.  You see the wind change direction, the sky turn green from the hail in the clouds, you see the lighting and hear the thunder.  You batten down the hatches and wait inside for a storm that never materializes.  You are greatly relieved, but a little disappointed as well.  All that work, all that anticipation for nothing. 

So what was yesterdays trigger?  I don’t know.  It could have been that I wrote extensively, the day before, about my anxiety.  It could be that I am close to the anniversary date of my first major panic attack.  It could be that I have not had a panic attack in 11 days, and something in my brain says it’s time to have another one.  It could just be fear of another attack.  I don’t know. 

I often have panic attacks in my sleep, so last night with all this anxiety I was afraid to go to sleep.  Even with my Unisom sometimes I have trouble.  I had to invoke Holda and my spirit guides to protect me.  I cannot tell you how relieve I was to awaken this morning and have had a good night’s sleep. 

Buspar continues to change my life for the better.  The moral of this story is that there is medication out there to help.  You just have to be brave and ask about it.

Ilsa

 

A little crazy, just like me

I have been in counseling on and off for about 20 years, since before I left Mike.  Diagnoses that have been kicked around me include words like, depression, PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety, Bi-polar, ADD and even psychotic.  In the Southlands there is still a huge stigma about going to seek any kind of psychiatric help.  There are three theories; one you just need to suck it up and deal with it, you need more Jesus in your life and / or the Devil is messing with you and you need to just rebuke him. 

Not long after Mike raped me I began to journal on my computer at work.   I was also very suicidal at this time.  I wrote a piece where I talked about wanting to kill him. That even decapitating him and letting the blood run down my arm would not be good enough for him.  I did not know, as many of you may not, that the computer you type on at work is not a safe place to do this.  You see my managers went by, every now and again, and checked those computers to see what we were doing on them.  I didn’t know that, until one day I was pulled into my manager’s office and confronted with what I had written.  I was told you either go to counseling, which was paid for by the company, or you’re fired.   So reluctantly I went.  It saved my life.  Two weeks into counseling I left Mike. 

His abuse left me with PTSD and severe depression. After that I spent about 2 years in counseling, I reached a stable point.  I was monitored and kept on anti-depressants.  Meds were changed every now and again and adjusted as needed. 

I have always been anxious, you know my nerves are bad, I’m wound a little too tight, and it has progressively gotten worse over the past 7 years or so.  Since Momma Muriel died, she was my best friend and Jay’s grandmother.  I developed panic attacks about 4 years ago, often having them in my sleep.  I freeze, I go damn near catatonic and have trouble speaking, I zone out, I rock, I hum, I want to hide, I am disoriented and sometimes if this goes on too long I regress to a younger age. 

Looking back I have had a few of them over the years, but nothing as bad as I did on August 25, 2011.  It took us almost a year to figure out what had happened to me.  The final conclusion was that I had a panic attack in my sleep.  I dreamed I was trapped and could not get out.  I awoke in a panic state.  I did not know who I was or where I was.  I sat in the bathroom for about 10 minutes trying desperately to figure out my name.  You cannot imagine how desperate that feels. With every breath it seemed to come close and then fad away.  Something as basic as my name, I forgot. Our name is such a basic part of identity.  Everything looked foreign to me and not like my stuff.  When I did come up with at name, it was one from a past life.  It took a while before I remembered who I was.  The image in the mirror scared me.  I did not recognize myself.  I was finally able to come up with my name.  I began to zone out.  When I zone out I stare at an object and cannot break my concentration.  You can sit and call my name and wave your hands in front of my face and I will not come out.  This can go on for a few seconds to a few minutes.  And then I do it again. 

I would have a few moments of clarity, enough that I knew I had to go out and milk the goats.  I got out my milk basket and stared at it for thirty minutes.  I could not remember what went in it.  Something I did every day I could not remember how to do.  When I had another moment of clarity I called my parents to come to me.  I manage to remember their number and get out the words, “Momma I need you.”  Jay was on the road working for Unifirst at that time and could not get to me.  My parents arrived an hour later.  What I could say was word salad.  Meaning I would say a few words at a time, that was often a great effort on my part, but that made no since at all to the people around me, but made since to me.  I remember being I the bathroom when my parents arrived, unable to call out to them and tell them where I was.  When I saw my mother I raised my arms to her, a gesture often seen in young children who wish to be picked up.  My mother was freaked and they believed I may have had a stroke.  I at the time had no idea what was going on or what was happening to me.  I looked at my father and kept saying “goats.”  I was trying desperately to get him to understand I had not milked and would he please milk them for me.  I was terrified they would get mastitis, if he didn’t.

 It was decided that I would be taken to the hospital.  When I arrived at the fire station I could not speak only point and shake my head yes or no.  I felt about 3 or 4 years old at this point.  I was loaded into the back of the truck, where I saw one of my husband’s (he is a volunteer fire fighter) buddies.  “Paul!  Paul!”  I called out.  I kept saying “cake.”  Trying to ask if they liked the cake I had brought them the week before.  When asked my social security number I showed numbers on my hand.  I could answer no questions verbally. 

I did not know until later, that after the ambulance pulled off with me, that Paul and others had talked to my family.  They told them, they knew me and that whatever had happened to me they had never seen before.  They were scared for me.  They had no explanation what was going on with me.

I arrived at the hospital and was immediately given a battery of tests including drug screen and CT SCAN.  Everything came out normal.  As the hours went on I got a little better.  I was able to tell them the year I thought it was “1987,” but I knew Obama was president.  Some questions I could respond to, who is with you, “mom and dad” but I sit could not say my name or what day of the week it was.  To that one I answered, “Jay away, green panties.”  Which to me meant Jay was gone, and Jay got paid on Thursdays and I wore my green panties on Thursdays.  It’s not just your speech at that time that won’t work right but your whole brain.  I remember crying coming back from the CT because I was so frustrated that I could not communicate and because I did not understand what was happening to me.

And then the first break happened.  Mom turned out the lights, so I could rest, and BOOM I had my first moment of clarity.  The nurse walked in, “Hey!”  I said.

“Hey” she said

“No I mean turn around.”  She turned around and I unloaded on her.  I told her answers to all the questions she had been asking me.  My name, my SSN#, my address, the year, my age, where I was and who I was with. 

“Let me get to my computer.”  She said and began to type feverously.  I ended with, “I have no idea what has happened to me, and no idea how long this moment of clarity will hold.” 

It didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes.  By the time the Dr. came I was back in it.   It finally broke an hour later.  I was clear headed, if not a bit confused by everything that had happened. I had been in that attack for about 3 or 4 hours total.  It was decided at some point that I was a danger to myself and I would be held in the psych ward.  Now going to the crazy ward was one of my greatest fears.  I was held for 24 hours and then released. 

I saw my primary care physician (PCP) that Monday and had an EEG done a few days later.  Whatever I had had was not a seizure.  It took us months to figure out what had happened to me. That December, thru the encouragement of friends and family I began counseling again, for the first time in years.  I have been there ever since. 

Panic attacks have changed my life.  I now carry papers with me, at all times, telling of my condition and what to do if I am incapacitated.  I carry medicine with me everywhere I go.  It must always be in easy reach, because I do not know what will trigger it. My panic attacks often occur in my sleep.  I awake terrified and disoriented, but I never let it get as bad as the first time.

They come on much faster now.  I never know where they will hit.  Crowds are one of my triggers so I take my service dog, Sophia, with me on those occasions.  But even then she doesn’t always help.  Everyday life is difficult and normal events are often big undertakings.  A recent trip to Wal-Mart and Sam’s, with Sophia and Jay in tow, was too much for me.  I walked into Sam’s and it started, by the time I got to the back of the store it was on.  I tried, like I try every time to fight, to talk myself out of it, to tell myself I am being silly, by the time I got to the check out I had to take a pill.  Even after taking my medication it was two more hours, before I was relaxed and speaking in complete sentences again.  Once you are in a panic attack then comes the guilt, of all the strain you put on your partner.  That they should not have to be with someone who is as sick in the head as you are.  That they deserve a normal life and that is obviously not with you.  That he should just leave you alone and let you die.  That is would be best for everyone concerned.  It’s like a causality loop.  It just repeats again and again.  All this despite the fact I am on medication, in counseling, have rescue meds with me, and a service dog.  Sometimes there is just no escape from your own mind. 

Ilsa

A year ago today

This blog was started on August 11, 2015, and there was a reason behind that date. It was a year to the day we lost Robin Williams.  A brilliant, talented, crazy, wonderful man with his own set of demons.  I took Robin’s death pretty hard, as a lot of people did.  I am a funny woman.  I am always cracking jokes and making people laugh.  I took a lot of lessons from him.  He was the king of improvisational. I’ve always thought if I had the courage, and grew up somewhere else I could have been a comic.  I was always amazed at how fast his brain worked!  And how smart he was!  He was one of my heroes, warts and all. 

A few days after his death, I was so moved that I sat and wrote, for the first time in a long time, a long and beautiful piece in tribute to his death.  I put the writing away.  A few weeks ago I picked up my pen again and began to write.  Not a freak thing as it is something that I have continued to do, on and off in my life since I was about 12.  More on that later.  I begin to look for the article the other day.  I wanted to type it up and post it as the first article on my blog.  I cannot, as of this writing, find the original tribute I wrote. 

It was beautiful and long and complex and swirling.  The main point of it is this.  I like Robin have suffered on and off with depression and other mental illnesses.  I understood what and why he did it.  With depression, each day we live is a miracle to us.  For those of us with suicidal tendencies, every day we don’t kill ourselves is a victory.  Every day we don’t give in is a gift for those around us, but a lot of times not for us. It’s just one more day stuck in Hell. The constant thought process of we are not good enough, no matter what we do, that we are failures, that we did not do enough is a constant tape that is played in our heads, sometimes despite the medication and years of therapy. 

I may not like what Robin did, but I understand why he did it.  I think finding out he had Parkinson’s was just one more push.  One more thing that put him over the edge.  I think he could just not process it. But I don’t know, we may never know, what or why.  I know I am Robin Williams.  I have been in his shoes.  I have seen the world thru the eyes of mental illness, and sometimes you just get so very, very tired of fighting this often unwinnable fight.  The idea that you are a burden, sometimes because of your disease, and that your family could live a long and happy and healthy life without you in it, is a scenario you play over and over again.  It becomes fact to you, like the Earth is round and the sky Is blue.  When love ones tell you they love you, you often feel they are just deluding themselves and that there is someone out there who is better for them or they wouldn’t love you if they knew what you were thinking or who you really are inside.

I have always been depressed.  I don’t remember a time I was not depressed.  I don’t ever remember a time, except very briefly, that I ever had self confidence and did not loath my own existence.  One of the things that turned me on to Buddhism was a video I watched of His Holiness the Dali Lama.  He was at a conference, I don’t remember where, when a young man got up to speak.  He asked what Buddhism had to say about self hatred.  The Dali Lama looked stunned.  There is then this flurry of activity on stage.  His advisors gather around him and this goes on for a few minutes.  It took me a while to understand they were translating the concept in different languages to him.  They all settle back down and the Dali Lama says, “There is no such concept in Buddhism.  Why would one hate themselves?”  It was a foreign concept to them.  Why indeed?