Cat and Tonic please…

I’m drugged up and I hate it. That’s about as direct and to the point as it gets. Okay, to be fair, drugged up is a bit of an exaggeration. I’m on something that makes my mood stable, as in flat-lined, as in no creativity at all. As a writer, (or someone trying desperately to become a writer) having a big blank space in my head where scenes and high emotion used to play on a full-time loop is really the last thing I need. As someone with chronic anxiety, panic, and depression, having nothing to ruminate on in my endless imagination is the only way to get better.

One of my favorite films, Stranger Than Fiction, shows an insanely desperate writer, Karen Eiffel (played masterfully by Emma Thompson) trying to overcome her writer’s block. I love her performance because I’ve been exactly there so many times, carefully treading the thin line between imagination and reality and slipping every now and again to one side or the other without realizing it. I suppose that’s not healthy in any way but I identify with that character and her need to just get the words right, to describe what she sees until she gets so wrapped up she can’t see the solution. Now, unlike Emma Thompson with her writer’s block, I can no longer close my eyes and see my imagination. I used to be able to see landscapes and events like she did, feeling the rush of air while imagining the jump from the top of a building and the pandemonium that followed. I could easily describe the scenes in my voice or become someone else; become anyone… someone stronger, smarter, more exciting, or better able to cope with it all. Instead, along with nausea, insomnia, irritability and cravings, I’m stuck staring at things, flitting from task to task without finishing, and spacing out on the computer screen wondering where I was for the past minutes.

Where did I go?

I close my eyes now and there’s nothing. Grey. It’s disheartening when all I want to do is write something beautiful or simply get something out. It’s enough to make me take up smoking again.

I’ve trodden this road before, and I’m still of two minds about it. I’ve written about my decision before to stop taking everything. I don’t have that option now but it does beg that I address the question yet again. Which is worse? Being grey or the pain that comes along with the non-stop black hole of an imagination?

It’s put a giant stop sign in front of me. Hell, even without it as a career goal, writing has always been the lone thing that I do for myself; my only real form of self-care, the only thing I’d stop everything for when inspiration struck.  Without it now, I don’t know if I’m enjoying life, even if I am less unhappy. There’s just nothing to get excited about (or maybe I’m incapable of any extremes of emotion, including excitement??!! who wants that?!)

I don’t even pretend to understand what this all means or what the answer is. Maybe someone else has a better perspective. It could all be that delicate balancing act where I haven’t yet found my footing on the rope or my center of gravity.

There are some things here to wrestle with and this is a big question that every person in this situation has to answer. I can’t knock the meds,  but I can’t know the illness either, I wouldn’t be who I am without it and I wouldn’t have created half of the things I have without it. Maybe I can look at this as a temporary hiatus while I have a little holiday. I’ve never been one for patience and I spent the evening crying and wishing I had my stories back to, if nothing else, escape the grey of real life. I want my colors back.

Call cut already!

It’s funny how much your kids can show you. Some time ago, someone I was having an advisory session with told me how my son, in his free-spirited nature could help me learn how to let go of some of my rigidity and learn to have fun. I’ve always been a little too serious for my own good, having to over-think and analyze every little thing to make sure that I was making the proper decision; to avoid making mistakes or looking foolish. The worst punishment in the world was to be seen as fallible or undignified…or not knowing what to do, and so you can imagine how fun I can be! My friends make fun of me for it and I’m well known for circling the drain in my thinking.

Since the whole thing  went off the rails (see the previous post), I’ve started to wake up to some things that, while I noticed them, thought were immovable parts of my personality. In order to be truly caring and empathetic, which is important to me, because I grew up with some narcissistic and extremely self-centered people around, I felt I needed to not only be there with them, but I also unconsciously took on their situation as my own. People have been telling me for years to stop taking on other people’s “stuff”. I can say that I never really knew what that meant until recently.

In the business I’m in, it’s easy to be sucked into an emotional story. I hear them all day. Some people cry, some laugh, some are angry or in disbelief, but as someone who deals with death as an occupation (and we do get a bad rap, believe me) I try very hard to be a witness to the person’s life as much as possible and to honor the survivors’ memories. It has felt more like an honor and a healing thing to do for me which is part of the reason I sought out a job in this industry. I wanted to be of help to people in a time of crisis. Anyone in this job has to find a way to cope; to separate yourself from their situation. I, however, do the opposite.

A few weeks ago there was an especially tragic case. Several members of a family passed tragically and though the survivors dealt well and were sharing some of those memories in our meeting, I found myself later that night feeling not only drained and depressed, but suicidal. I couldn’t figure out where it had suddenly come from and then it all made sense. My therapist asked me an odd question when I called him in a tizzy. He asked quite simply, “Is It yours?”

What do you mean is it mine? How could emotions I’m having be anything but mine? It perplexed me for a minute and then I finally got it. I had pout myself in his place. When you hear a story, if you have any empathy at all, you can’t help but project, but this was deeper. It was as if I was living what it felt like in an attempt to heal it FOR him instead of sitting with him. Somewhere in my wiring I was trying to take some of the pain away. It’s a noble idea, but unfortunately not only does it not actually help them, it’s hurtful to my well-being. That was one eye open.

On to the kid…

Yesterday, as usual, we were late. My son has a tendency to lollygag and take his sweet time finding his shoes and getting his stuff together while he’s pretending to be someone or somewhere else, making noises. shooting zombies, whatever. We both have overactive imaginations, so I suppose it’s to be expected. Me and my wound up personality couldn’t understand why he felt no sense of urgency. He was late! Why didn’t he hurry? Why didn’t my frantic tone make him move faster instead of, and I couldn’t believe it, slower?!

“We’re late!” I said nervously. And then it hit me. We weren’t late. HE was late. Why was I worrying about his backpack and his shoes and his homework. Those were his responsibilities; his to worry about and his consequences to deal with if he didn’t do it. I was getting all wound up in the gut as if it was me late for school. Had I calmly stated that I was simply going out the door, he probably would have hurried up.

It wasn’t happening to me.

It finally clicked. The gurus always speak about acting as if. It’s visualizing the outcome you want in your mind and pretending that it’s happened already. It’s a perpetual state of acting, really. I just realized that I did it too, just in the negative. I acted as if I was whoever was around me, took on their story and sometimes experienced it as my own. That’s what wore me down so, and that is also one of the weirdest things I’ve ever learned about myself.

What kills me about the kid, is that he is totally free. He can do all of the acting exercises I have been trying to learn lately to get myself “out of character” so I can leave this stuff at the door. He’s relaxed, he’s funny, he’s able to express himself. That kid may just teach me how to be free yet.

Crazy, That’s How It Goes

When I started to blog, it was a diary of sorts. I named it Tangent off the Lifeline because I believed that I was taking a step towards a complete and utter change from my automatic, reactionary life into something completely different. I had no idea how right I was.

Of course, what I intended was a complete life makeover in the image of the dreams I had in my head, paved with strong intentions, affirmations, meditation and a daily dose of the guru blogs that had me enthralled for so long.

Then, reality happened.

I was hit square in the face with it. I can’t recall what I was looking up, advice on this or that. I was feeling weird and down a lot and my anxiety was rising to levels I hadn’t seen in some time and I found solace in a special put on about Bipolar Disorder called “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” hosted by Stephen Fry; one of the people I admire and always listen to whenever he speaks. That led down a strange path of self discovery, wondering if I had a mood disorder, if I was just tired, who I was, what I believed in. I ended up falling upon a debate with him and a striking figure by the name of Christopher Hitchens. My life took a dramatic turn off the main highway and far from the one I had so carefully mapped  in my head. I watched debate after debate and heard words spoken that I’d only ever previously kept to myself; questions I’ve asked in the secret unseen parts of my soul, if there is such a thing. It changed everything. And then the crash happened.

My health took a dramatic turn. A new injury to my previously injured spine caused pain and numbness which caused my already high anxiety to spike to unseen heights. Then  digestive troubles added on, stress headaches, worry, irritability, loss of interest and eneergy and then the inevitable…I had what is commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown. It’s not the sort of thing one admits in public, and hell, most of the people I know don’t fully know the extent of what happened to me, just that I’ve had a nerve problem. The diagnosis came after a bad weekend where I was unable to get up off the floor and unable to stop crying, feeling somehow out of my body and unable to breathe. I had hallucinations and every nerve felt like it was being strummed like the strings on Tiny Tim’s ukulele. I had to take a week off for “health reasons” and had to try to explain to my employers my situation. Severe Panic Disorder and Major Depression were the labels. So much for my meditative guru lifestyle. I had to accept that I wouldn’t be guest blogging for The Daily Love anytime soon. In fact, writing has been out of the question, my mind blank in sometimes near catatonic states and my focus in the trash bin.

No one was surprised when I decided to just come out with it. Everyone had seen it coming but me. My refusal to take care of myself before my other responsibilities, my empathetic nature, my inability to leave things at the door when I went home, and a lot of negative thinking brought me to where I am now; trying to slowly and deliberately get better. It’s ironic in a way. One of my fears has always been, from the time I was a child, being locked up in an asylum or losing my mind. While I’m not considered psychotic by any means, I don’t quite make it to healthy. I just came in after looking at a startling array of pills lined up on the counter, the latest of which makes me sick and groggy. Another one bites the dust, but it’s a beginning. I plan on making it to my destination, but I think there might just be a slight detour; a breaking down and a rebuilding that needed to happen but that I definitely didn’t see coming.