Harvey
Posted on August 12, 2018 Leave a Comment
Last night I remembered how scared, how alone I’d been during hurricane Harvey.
Yeah, I’d busied myself with packing donations. That was before I’d realized I couldn’t get out of the apartment building, or that the atmospheric pressure changes had impacted me as they had.
I’m embarrassed to have been so affected when others lived through things of unimaginably different proportions.
I suppose I’ll go into detail later.
So, last night, after watching video clips and photos projected onto a large screen above a stage filled with Houstonians singing something beautifully and appropriately inspirational, I spent the remainder of the show ashamedly swiping away tears. Frustrated. Angry. I’ve no reason to complain.
I’d been as helpless as I’d felt during the hurricane. Vertigo, spasticity – crawling on the floor because my stomach wasn’t handling movement well enough to stand.
I had stopped eating and drinking water at some point because it made me sick. Five days? That was it. A measly five days in a midrise apartment building. I couldn’t handle five days. Ridiculous.
Help. I wanted to help, not need help. I contacted Houston-area family and friends. If any of them needed anything then, dammit, I would find a way.
Instead, reality. Dad rushed in when he’d heard I’d been alone through the storm. Off to hospital.
It amazed me that I had smiled and joked with EMTs during hospital transport. A bout of the familiar ‘low’ had hit during the few days of isolation. The small cuts on my arm attested to that; the female EMT had noticed and pressed about it. I told her that I had accidentally cut my arm during one of my falls.
Maybe that’s why the storm had – unbeknownst to me until last night – taken a toll on me. Maybe because I had been so low, and alone, and helpless – maybe that’s why I cried while watching that recap of the hurricane.
No one had noticed. I was glad for that.
Lightning outside. I pretended to be asleep while Dad drove me home so I wouldn’t have to see the lightning. Sometimes thunder and lightning don’t bother me at all, sometimes they do.
But now, like last night, I just want to paint and then go to sleep.
Journal entry #8
Posted on June 10, 2018 Leave a Comment
This is too on point to not share.
I’m very ugly
So don’t try to convince me that
I am a very beautiful person
Because at the end of the day
I hate myself in every way
And I’m not going to lie to myself by saying
There is beauty inside of me that matters
So rest assured I will remind myself
I am a worthless, terrible person
And nothing you say will make me believe
I still deserve love
Because no matter what
I am not good enough to be loved
And I am in no position to believe that
Beauty does exist within me
Because whenever I look in the mirror I always think
Am I as ugly as people say?
I’m very ugly
So don’t try to convince me that
I am a very beautiful person
Because at the end of the day
I hate myself in every way
And I’m not going to lie to myself by saying
There is beauty inside of me that matters
So rest assured I will remind myself
I am a worthless, terrible person
And nothing you say will make me believe
I still deserve love
Because no matter what
I am not good enough to be loved
And I am in no position to believe that
Beauty does exist within me
Because whenever I look in the mirror I always think
Am I as ugly as people say?
Because whenever I look in the mirror I always think
Journal entry #6 – neuropathy
Posted on April 23, 2018 1 Comment
Three hours to go before my alarm will shout encouragement at me. I’m exhausted. No matter how exhausted I am, I have to stick with my morning workouts. Hemiparesis and spasticity don’t wait for me to be prepared. They show up, uninvited and unannounced, rudely staying until they decide to leave on a whim.
Tiny pieces of wire, sharp as thin glass, bite into my arm as I rest it on the pillow above my head. The skin of my torso throbs; my right hip and glute throb with the sensation of icy fire; my right leg feels as though ghostly hands are pounding away – like a meat tenderizer on a chunk of beef. My foot feels the worst, though. Like skin is being torn away, layer by layer, and I somehow have an infinite amount of layers. It doesn’t stop, and I can’t remember what it feels like to not hurt.
This is neuropathy. Thanks stroke.
It’s [already] been a long day… But it’ll get better. :)
Posted on March 21, 2018 3 Comments
I don’t know what triggers me anymore.
What’s wrong?
Oh, nothing, really. I’m just anxious.
Depressed.
Broken.
Angry.
Tired.
Bored.
Busy.
Aphasiac.
Worthless.
A burden.
A hindrance.
Frustrated.
‘Lazy’.
Working my ass off to simply go check the mail.
Tired.
Useless.
Stressed.
Worried.
Frustrated. (Yes, let’s list that one again.)
I’m in everyone’s way, all of the time.
No one likes a complainer, including me. I don’t like me.
I’m extremely sad and worried and anxious, over things that usually make me happy; then I’m so very frustrated and angry. Then the struggle eventually comes to a close and I can finally feel appropriately happy.
Then the cycle begins again. Sometimes it only lasts for a matter of hours and other times it can last for months.
So, this is what mental illness is like? I don’t want it. Someone give me a refund.
Refund all of my stolen days of happiness and calm. Refund the revolutionary road trip with the tours and activities I slept through. Refund those days to anyone who’s given their own time to worry about me. They don’t deserve to have paid for my problem. It’s my problem, so I should just deal.
But then again, there’s the fact that I can’t deal.
Mental illness is just as impactful as physical illness.
I can do this.
I can get out of bed. I can do the cleaning. I can teach. I can go to lectures. I can speak to a room of doctors and medical professionals. I’ll be doing it again in two weeks’ time. I’m not in hospital or hospice.
But some of the people I care about are in hospital or hospice. And, without depression and sadness, they shrug off the anxiety of wondering whether or not they’ll wake up again after the nap that’s become necessary following a day in bed.
I can physically do so much mentally, I’m fragile and feeble in exact comparison.
I don’t mean to say that I’m suddenly not physically disabled. I am. Disabled, I mean. I still have difficulty managing my spastic tone, hemiparesis, vision loss, anomic aphasia, and all that other good stuff.
I know it’s not a choice. Just like those same people, my friends and colleagues, didn’t ask for a degenerative and/or incurable disease, I didn’t ask for my incurable mental illness.
Today, I’ll work out again, despite being exhausted from last night’s adventures with my niece and nephew.
Today, I’ll struggle and become overwhelmed, but I’ll silently recite numbers and facts, and then I’ll be fine.
I’ll respond to messages, work on paintings, and likely go into another days-long cleaning frenzy – but I’ll find a way to control my energy output and maximize it to sustainability.
And if it doesn’t work today, I’ll try again tomorrow.
So, there it is. That’s where I’ve been during these months of silence. I’m sorry. I want to be consistent about my communication – I intend to be, but… you know.
As most of you know, I’m diagnosed with things that [now] seem obvious. Generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar II disorder.
If someone tells you that they’re depressed or anxious, don’t tell them to respond or manage it in a certain, cheerfully positive way. That may not be possible for them, and the suggestion that something so complex could be fixed so easily… don’t you think, if that were so, it wouldn’t be an issue?
Just be there, the way you would if it were something physical, whether it’s a long-term diagnosis or a result of a temporary matter. Just be there.
Misremembering is better than forgetting
Posted on February 11, 2018 Leave a Comment
And again.
This year, I thought it would be 9 years within the hour. Nope. It’ll be 9 years in 48 hours and 38 minutes.
Memory difficulties suck.
She’d be 8 this July.
There’s too much to write. I’ll sleep on it.
Thinking of you, Gracie. Always am. ❤
New batteries make my brain go ’round
Posted on January 26, 2018 Leave a Comment
I squealed after setting my cell phone on the kitchen counter and excitedly bounced on my toes – while holding onto the counter, of course – for a moment, then turned to place my medicine bottles back in the cupboard above my head.
It must seen strange, my looking forward to another surgery.
Let me explain. Around the bbeginning of December Dr. Schiess had mentioned that my battery was running low and would need to be replaced. Several weeks ago it had decreased enough that I was required to learn to walk without much input from the neurostimulator; a little frightening and worrisome, to say the least. I got the hang of it after round two or three days and I’m currently walking without assistance, though very oddly and with my ataxic gait easily notable.
It is so interesting how quickly a brain can adapt to sudden changes, and how efficiently it can compensate for deficiencies should it be lucky enough to do so.
This is not going to be a huge surgery, not like the initial installation was. I’ll be released on the same day. Though, to be fair, I was released the day after a surgeon drilled a hole in my skull before installing wires in my brain. So, not really sure what that says about being released on the same day…
Efficient. That’s what it says. Medicine has become incredibly efficient; it will only become moreso.
Anyway. I’m just excited.
This really isn’t a big deal. I’m relieved that my battery will be replaced. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so tired. Running low on battery.
Such quirky things, brains are. (Yes, I did think that in Yoda voice.)
I was able to play what???
Posted on December 26, 2017 Leave a Comment
Browsing YouTube earlier, as people do the day after Christmas (I guess?), I stumbled across the very last piece I learned to play as a performance major.
I don’t know how I can remember it, but I do. The sheet music is tucked away in the vocal sheetmusic book I’d taken to Carnegie Hall ten years ago. I had apparently wanted to hold on to that folder as well as the last bit of sheet music assigned to me by my instructor, Rosendo Reyna.
Ten years ago. Oy.
Astrurias (Leyenda) – performance by Juan Quesada, composed by Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (1892); transposed for guitar by Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea
Hearing that piece again, and imagining what it must have felt like to play it – great way to end the year. *happy*