26.04.15 :: 02.05.15

[Note for consistency: Previous week coincided with increase in meds, thus nothing more was accomplished than curling up in bed with crippling headaches and marathon watching mindless TV.]

1.
I keep having to do these things where I rate how I feel on a scale of 1-10.

First: I hate 1-10 scales. It's subjective (who really knows what 10 stands for?). As a general rule, whenever given that sort of scale (for anything) I stay away from 1 or 10 and stick to the middle numbers because they feel safer. Plus, if you say something is the best (or worst) what do you do when you encounter something better?

The most recent one is keeping a week-long schedule and rating each thing on how much pleasure it brought and sense of accomplishment using the 1-10 scale. By the second day, I'd created my own system of smiley faces to make me feel more comfortable about it, but by day 3, I'd given up entirely. Do I get a sense of accomplishment from eating breakfast? How much pleasure is there in brushing my teeth? The answer to both is none. In fact, the only activities I felt anything about were my driving lessons, hanging out with my flatmate and cleaning (all got this face :D).

Everything else is just flat. I don't feel good or bad about my activities; they just are. On average, I don't feel much of anything, except a sense of being empty. Or floating. Drifting. Just kind of taking it all in. And this is what I struggle with the most with this therapy thing. I can go a long time without really feeling anything. Before the meds, it'd get interrupted by the soul-sucking conviction that everything is terminally fucked and nothing will ever make it better (the more frequent path) or bouncing off the walls wanting to hug everyone and take on the world (less frequent, doesn't last as long). In between in just coasting.

Since the meds, I don't get the soul-sucking moments anywhere near as much. It's happened a couple times. It's hard to tell if the highs have been affected because they're so rare anyway, but I've had a couple of those, too. Mostly, though, I'm just living in blankness.

2.
What do you think will happen if you don't do x?

This is the recurring question. I don't have an answer because I don't think anything is going to happen. It's a physical sensation, like little blocks being stacked on me so I can't move - restricted - it's probably similar to a feeling of claustrophobia. I can ignore it for a little while. It's uncomfortable, but I can deal. I'm used to being uncomfortable. But after awhile (like a day, depending on what the environment is sometimes a little longer), but it builds up to a certain point where I feel the pressure digging into my skin. I keep picturing it as Lego blocks. And I can't take it anymore. So then I go on 5 hour cleaning sprees or rearranging furniture until it goes away. The feeling when there are no blocks is euphoric. Like the first time you get out of a car after an eight hour drive. Light. Like there's nothing caging me in. Energy can move freely around again. Because that's a lot of what it is. I put things in certain places because when they're in those places, the energy moves freely. When it isn't in the right place, energy is blocked and everything gets darker, no matter how much light is actually present.

3.
Today was hard. The question of a hypothetical door that may or may not be locked had me twitchy and squirming and really wanting to lock Adam's door just to make the feeling for away. I also had my first cigarette in a week. There's something about the motion of it that calms me down more than anything else.

Diazepam also does absolutely nothing for me anymore. So that's a fantastic bit of news. I'm not sure if I want to mention that to my doctor or just keep self-medicating. At the moment he's trying to limit the number of pills I take because my liver functions have been off for no explainable reason. It's a good thing I'm not a heavy drinker.

I think I can work with Adam, though. I think he's intent on torturing me, but I can work with him.

4.
I really have a passionate dislike of songbirds.

5.
I love the fact that I can have an anxiety attack - and not even a particularly bad one - and over 12 hours later I still can't sleep.

Seriously, my body hates me.

6.
So I looked through the list of people I went to high school with. Hardly recognized most of them. It's weird. Knowing I don't exist for those people anymore. I bailed first chance I got and didn't look back. Firmly and totally shut the door on that part of my life. It's sad, too. Some of those people I really liked but y'know. 14 years later we're basically just strangers. (Shit. I graduated high school 14 years ago. What the hell?)

7.
An inadvertent revelation during a conference panel. Beethoven was the topic of conversation - different regimes that have used it for their own particular (and conflicting) ideologies. Everyone kept referencing the humanness of Beethoven, the passion, the surge of sound and energy, and that's what appeals to people.

I hate Beethoven. Cannot stand it. Bach, however, I adore. To me, it's emotive, sweeping, captivating.

For the group, Bach was the contrast. Universally. They pinpointed him as precise, mathematical, reserved in comparison.

I just found it interesting listening to their descriptions of these two composers. I wouldn't have used any of the same adjectives. It felt strange sitting among thirty or so other people who all praised the emotion and humanity of a composer who, in my opinion, is just erratic and nothing more. It was just an instance of pretty much how I feel all the time: everyone in the room sees something I don't get.

8.
Today I have learned that I miss attending lectures. I am definitely not being stimulated enough intellectually under the status quo. I need to do something about that.

9.
The world frustrates me. Check your facts, people, and say only true things. You damage people when you don't.

10.
I don't know how many times I say, I'm not saving anyone anymore. I'm not going to do it. Then you raise your hand and I do backflips to give you whatever you might need.

You infuriate me like no one else in the world ever.

11.
You know who would be really helpful with my research?

My dad.

I really wish I could talk to him about it. 

01.03.15 :: 07.03.15

1.
Researching this book has made me increasingly paranoid about ending up on some government watch list.

For example, today's goal: figure out how to take down a power grid.

Hypothetically, of course.

It doesn't help that most of my sources are totally paranoid about the government as well.

2.
I wonder what she's thinking as I talk. What does my internal world sound like to someone on the outside? I recognise the look on her face. Just about every doctor I've ever see has that look: I am not equipped for this.

I struggle when we review my previous therapies and diagnoses. One is the different systems. Two is my tendency to dismiss the ones I don't find credible. Three is the fact that I can put on the act of a very stable, grounded, fully functional human being when I want/need to.

(Want and need are one and the same, you see.)

I've never told any of them that, and I won't tell her. I don't let them know I will lie, scheme, manipulate to get what I want.

No, omit. Omit, tweak, censor. I never outright lie.

Honesty and I have a funny relationship. I won't accept any measure of dishonesty from others. I latch onto minute details, and call them out on the slightest variation. (Yesterday you said he was angry, today it's upset. Which is it?)

Concealment is dishonesty, but it's perfectly alright for me to conceal information, and I'm not dishonest. (If the information is requested, it's given, but it's not my fault if you don't know what you don't know.)

It's a habit I have with people to tell them they have to ask what they want to know. It's like a badge, a key for people that I like: here is how you get my secrets. Ask and I will tell you everything.

Have you ever been diagnosed with bipolar disorder?

No, not officially, but I'm aware how closely I follow it. I'm aware of the highs and lows, and that already because I'm starting to feel good again, I'm thinking I don't need to do any of this.

I have to keep reminding myself of black days. I don't want to have those anymore. They're gone now, but I know they'll come back so I have to do this for when that happens. I have to keep telling myself that.

They'll come back.
They always come back.

3.
As this goes on, I'm having to resist the urge to edit what I've written. Make it sound better, more insightful. Or whatever.

I also do not consistently use one spelling or another. Last week it was realize, today it is realise.

I want this to be authentic. In the moment. It doesn't work any other way. What would be even better is posting the actual pages (I write by hand), but I won't.

I worry about how many secrets I'm letting go. I protect myself by keeping these things to myself and a limited few. How does that change if anyone can know?

This has to be authentic.

I decided this would always be honest, so it will. That's the rule.

4.
I have mad coping skills. Sometimes I wish I weren't so resilient, wish I could be the one to fall apart so someone else can pick up the pieces. Usually when I get worn down from doing that for everyone else. But in the end I don't, because I know I'm better at weathering the storm than most people. I can be bent in half and twisted in knots, but I don't break.

Expert compartmentalisation, maybe.

5.
I feel like such a dork in front of my supervisor sometimes.

6.
I am so tired. Sleeping isn't going great - waking up every hour or so - but I an't miss the sun so I drag myself up to sit in it and feel like a zombie who can't string together even the most basic motivation.

My to-do list mocks me.

There's work I need to be doing - that I want to do, but even if I do it now, I'll have to do it again later because nothing is sticking.

I'm so frustrate with being patient with myself.

7.
I wonder if we'll ever find out way back home again.

Does it even still exist?

I want to say I miss you, but those are just words, and words don't mean anything. Neither one of us believes them.

8.
Lounging in sunspots is not luxury; it's necessary.

I still feel guilty.

9.
Could two opposites be so opposite to each other that they end up being the same?

10.
3:03 AM. Last (second to last; I'm going to have another) cigarette. Standing on my faux balcony (hovering in the six inch space between door and railing), thinking that my creative epiphanies have to come the moment I decide I'm going to bed. An ageless nameless voice cries out, then again.

The sound echoes over the parking lot and I can see the vibrations bouncing off the leaves. It comes from everywhere. And the right. Definitely from the right. Eventually I realize it's not just a sound. Mum. It's not a man, either. A woman or a boy (fourteen, brain supplies). I wonder if I should go investigate. But I don't have shoes on, and we're on the 4th floor (American). Just as I'm putting together what I'd need to do to go out and running through the debate: am I really a good person, or just someone who wants to be seen as a good person? (The answer is B.)

It stops. Total silence.

Now I really wonder if I should go check, but I'm also relieved. Silence is ignorable.

My brain does this:
the word "mum" +
androgynous voice +
slightly lower pitch =
adolescent boy with nightmare.

This is what I choose to believe.

I picture a woman having her head smashed in with a rock over in the park near my flat.
It's to the right.

11.
I need to learn to trust my process. I keep trying to wedge myself into the standard habits: read everything, write every day, have a creative atmosphere - and it just doesn't work. I end up feeling guilty and panicky I'm not getting anything done. Eventually I retreat into mindless television and video games.

I goof off.

I feel guilty about that, too, but it's better than pretending to be doing something.

After a few days, sometimes a few weeks, it all comes together in a burst.

Goofing off is my process. And it makes sense. Pretty much all my behaviours and habits are designed to keep my brain - the thinking part - occupied and/or distracted. Basically, out of my way so I don't have to deal with meltdowns over an overly detailed text message or that object A isn't placed properly in relation to object B.

Except when I work - when I try to work the way I'm supposed to. Think Brain is given permission to run wild, and nothing gets done because Think Brain knows shit.

So it makes sense. While it's distracted with killing radiated humans or doing a sitcom marathon, Picture Brain gets to do its thing in peace.

Think Brain has something to do with the not reading as well. It takes too long to get through the page with my brain jumping off in a different direction every paragraph.

The thing is, I know this. This is not the first time I've had this revelation. I just keep forgetting. It's like every time I start back at the beginning and come to terms with myself, and not what I think other people expect me to be.

Which is something that translates into every part of my life. I hate how much I think about what people's perceptions of me are, more than I pay attention to who I really am.

12.
Keeping this record is terrifying. But it's also useful. Promising to be honest was the kicker. A good 80% of my problem is too many things clogged up in my mind and nowhere for them to go.

That's probably where the fear of voicelessness comes from.

I can't say them to other people because they can't keep up - no, they can't follow is better, because my synapses take shortcuts they (the people) don't know are there. So they ask questions, and make interjections, or want to share themselves and it throws me off track. Because I have to focus very hard to live stream my thoughts. It requires translating these multi-sensory concepts into flat, limited words, and it's always easier to write in another language.

And there's no point saying it to myself, because that just creates loops, and that's not good. Sometimes I write notes that'll never be delivered, but that's just a temporary fix, because I know the thought was never really communicated, so it creeps back.

At some point, every one of my close friends has received a very raw, very honest (usually also very long) message (email tends to be the favourite but Facebook is catching up) outlining all the things I finally figured out how to say. Afterwards, I'm embarrassed and avoid it at all costs. The mental equivalent of drunk dialing. Though I guess it's usually drunk texting now.

But I've promised to be honest here. And accurate. Taking that seriously gets all this shit out of my head so it doesn't build up. Not all of it - for every thought I write down, there are about ten or twenty happening at the same time that I don't catch (though 10 & 11 happened simultaneously). But it gets out enough. 

LLAP

1.
I don't read enough.

I don't know when it went from something fun - the height of luxury was staying in bed all day with a pile of books - to something to be avoided. But that's where I am.

2.
I have to see Therapy Lady tomorrow. I want to confront her about last week, but I go quiet when I get angry. I wish I were one of those people who could express exactly what they're feeling as they're feeling it, instead of having to step back and think it through.

3.
I appreciate the people I live with, and thinking about that - the fact that I didn't know anything about them before the day we all moved in together, I feel very fortunate.

4.
I am envious of Paul Auster's words.

5.
You can't have an emotion without a thought, even if you're not aware of the thought, she says.

But if you're not conscious of a thought, is it actually a thought?

I don't know if that's true.  I feel things all the time without thoughts attached to them. I feel things that contradict my thoughts.

Maybe that's the problem with this scenario. She doesn't understand the separation of thought and feeling.

Also: I don't trust her.

It also became clear in the exercise that I can't differentiate between physical sensation and emotion. Aside from the basics, like anger, I had to keep asking if something was an emotion.

She didn't notice I struggled with that.

This is a waste of my time.

6.
There are days - the good days - when I think, this is all just in my head. I'm imagining the problem, that there is a problem. And all this other stuff - the meds, the appointments - it's just playing into that. I'd be totally fine without it. I'd be better without it.

7.
The crux of my problem with the NHS is they keep asking me what's wrong with me and how to treat it, and it's like, well if I knew that, I wouldn't need you, would I?

That, and that everyone has to go through the system in the same order, regardless of how many times they've done it before, or how useless it is for them.

Like, seeing a counselor 8 times is going to be no help to someone with a long term anxiety disorder. But they send me to them over and over, and then they decide they can't help me but need permission to send me on to someone who might be able to. And if they don't get permission?

So often I just get fed up and discouraged and stop pursuing it. Who does that help?

Where are the diagnosticians?

The more I think about it, the more I realize the only benefit of the NHS system is affordable medication (and even that is beginning to get tight as they keep adding things to the list). There is no care, as such. There is no relationship with my doctors, not trust that they know what's best, or even listen to me. There is no trust that someone with the knowledge and experience is keeping it all on track and making sure I get what I need.

Well, there is, but that's just luck of the draw. The fact is, if my parents didn't have the skills that they do, I would be royally fucked.

And that's a seriously flawed system.

I shouldn't be relying on my mother for therapy, or my dad for medical advice. That's the doctors' job.

8.
I worry that people don't know I'm enjoying myself when I am.

I'm not very expressive.

There's a concrete worry for the Therapy Lady.

But then she'd say, how do you change that?

I don't know. You can't. Not something like that.

You could fake it (sometimes I do, but it's obviously faked expressiveness, and usually at the demand of someone else). But then you have to know when it's expected of you.

And there's the problem.

Maybe I should wear signs and switch them out as appropriate. Happy, sad, sleepy...

9.
Language.
Or the lack thereof.

My thoughts aren't actually thoughts in the way people normally think about them, or at least what I've come to understand about the way people normally think. My thoughts are... experiences. Things come with colours or textures. Feelings. Sometimes a picture. Sometimes all of the above.

It takes time to translate, and sometimes there just isn't any verbal equivalent so it takes... awhile. And I have this thing stirring in my head that I'm completely incapable of communicating to anyone else for weeks, months. They'll pile up until I'm afraid I'll start losing track of them all. And that's where the panic comes in. That I'll be stuck holding all these things in without ever being able to get them out just the way they should be.

It's the only time those breathing exercises actually work, because of the conscious mind is putting all its attention on what the lungs are doing, it's not going to give a shit what the subconscious mind is up to.

10.
Leonard Nimoy gave me a character I could identify with who wasn't a murderer or obnoxious or cruel or just a total ass.

It's strange missing someone you never even met.

Playing by the rules

1.
Creating encourages all my bad habits. Sleeping less. Smoking more. Forgetting to go outside.

2.
I want to be brave enough to run into the wild without tripping on all the what-ifs first.

3. Back to square one and the momentous effort required for the most basic things. I want to sleep and sleep and sleep but I'm afraid to stop moving in case I never start up again.

4.
I don't know how to make the words take me from point A to point B.

5.
This is what I should have told the therapist woman:

It's not about confidence. It's about people being unpredictable. I don't know what they're going to do so therefore I can't adequately prepare for the social demands on me.

It's that I forget to keep in regular contact with people. Because I forget about them (sorry, guys. It doesn't mean I don't love you.)

I have to think about so many things when I interact with people.

Maintain eye contact, but not too much.
Ask questions, but not too much.
Show interest, but not too much.
Share, but not too much.
Don't stay too long.
Don't leave too soon.

I can't stop thinking about it because it never just comes to me.

I need a formula for when to speak. When not to speak. How often to talk to someone so they know you like spending time with them, but you aren't suffocating. What their expectations are.

It's so much work. So, so much. And tiring. Some days - a lot of days - I just can't pull together the resources to manage all that thinking and being aware.

It's not about a lack of confidence. It's about not knowing what the rules are.