How having a cat changed my mind about everything.

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It was senior year of college – Syracuse University studying at the Newhouse School of Public Communications. It was the first day of first semester, and my film business class was going around the room introducing themselves. Saying what they wanted to do with their lives. There were an unsurprising number of aspiring producers and directors – it WAS a film BUSINESS class and all – so it kind of threw everyone for a loop when I said I wanted to be a mom. “A mom?” I could almost hear them all thinking. “I mean, why is she even HERE then?”

But I did, I really wanted it.

That stayed with me through graduation, through my first job, through my marriage. More than ten years of the tumult that is life, just waiting for the day I’d hold my own baby in my arms. And then, of course, everything changed. You might think it was the going crazy, or the going broke that did me in. Or, surely, the divorce? The divorce must have been the nail in the coffin.

Nope.

It wasn’t the Bin, it wasn’t the cash, and it wasn’t the men or my own poor decisions - It was that goddamn Jake that finally made me realize I might not want to have children. That goddamn Jake and his liver disorder (or whatever it was) that nearly killed him last summer. I mean, I’m usually able to accurately describe most feelings with words, but I have no language for how awful it was to sit by and watch him suffer. This poor sweet creature, just so sick and so sad. It literally hurt my heart. It broke me. And I thought: what if this was my child? What if this was my own child I had to hand over to others, what if it was MY kid that was being poked with needles and force-fed pills, knowing that he hated every second, not knowing if he’d even make it to the other side? I don’t think I could bear it. I truly don’t think I could.

Watching someone you love suffer is the worst pain of all. We want our children to be happy, but life, intrinsically, is the most painful wish you could grant. As the Buddha teaches us: life is suffering. I find that to be the noblest truth.

1 Comment | charming neurosis, confession, jake | Permalink
Posted by erinire

And another thing, while I’m on a roll here,

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-borderline

This article, found through a Twitter feed I follow at work, made me at least 6% less productive on Tuesday. I remained devoted to my job, turning my attention back to more relevant Tweets, but something about it stuck with me long after the day was done.

Now, let’s be up front. I’ve never been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I have a lot of other official diagnoses, but BPD is not one of them. However, they did teach Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a treatment schemata for those *with* BPD, in The Bin while I was there. I found the techniques very helpful: mindfulness, awareness, cultivated skills and concentration. I’m not saying it works every time, but, really, it’s not supposed to. Emotions are normal, and, we learn, they come and go.

The horrible thing about depression is that it seems to NEVER let go. Being depressed is like being trapped under a heavy, moist, 1-ton bale of stinking farm hay, and not even having the energy to wedge yourself out. And when you’re treating someone depressed, I’d imagine, the first order of business is to lift up that load and help the person stand. So in the hospital, every bit the picture of classical depression, it’s no wonder that they diagnosed me thusly.

So I’ve not been depressed lately. But I haven’t been great, either. Where my moods were once a one-note hum, they’re now a jazz arpeggio. Like, that kind of crazy jazz I hate. I’ll be fine one minute, just OK the next, and then feel myself slipping over the edge into something dark and mushy. Sometimes I’m able to catapult myself back out – sometimes I’m not.

None of this is like depression. But a lot of it is like borderline. Although I’m able to maintain relationships, it has more to do with my resolve to stay healthy and the infinite patience of my companions. Although I’m usually able to compose myself, I generally feel just on the verge of going technicolor. And impulse control? Let’s not even talk about all the ways I venture to excess.

I feel bad about it, really. I feel like I conquered one horrid beast only to be faced with another, more jostling foe. And anyone can tell you, the worst thing about feeling bad is feeling bad about feeling bad. But this article, instead of bringing me down, gave me some measure of hope and self-forgiveness. It’s exhausting to manage these moods – the euphoria and the depths – and since I’ve now been trained to bring awareness to every flicker, each movement is obvious to me.

So maybe it’s OK to be exhausted. Maybe it’s OK to be sad sometimes. And maybe it’s OK that my on-off switch flips at the speed of a strobe light. Maybe this is just the new me, and now I just have to learn how to handle her.

2 Comments | charming neurosis, confession, Depression, manifesto, personal hell | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by erinire

Needs a new coat. Preferably something in a nice shade of mustard.

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So my winter jacket is too small for me, now. Read that: my WINTER JACKET. How is a winter jacket too small? And, moreover, how is a winter jacket too small FOR ME?

I’ve always been tiny. Always been short, skinny, petite. During the high days of my eating disorder, one might have added frail, bony, and skeletal to the list, but those times are long gone. All in all, I was always on the slighter side of normal. Now, I might be plump. And, you know, that’s cool. A sign of healthy eating, or, at the very least, EATING, which I didn’t really do for awhile. So we take that as a positive, I suppose, in our moments of darkness.

But the question, really: as a person who was once so eating disordered, how am I not constantly tortured by this weight? I mean, we’re not talking a month or two of overzealous dieting here, we are talking, like, sixteen YEARS of bloated nightmares come to reality in one solid flesh. The answer came to me last night, merging onto rte 16 at dusk, having just purchased a wardrobe’s worth of size-medium shirts from the local Target.

I’m just happier now.

Before, my weight, whatever it was, was a bone of contention. Another way I had failed, or, conversely, a measure of how I’d achieved superiority. I could be 98 pounds, I could be 118, but, depressed, neither was acceptable. Neither was attained by conventional means, so my weight, my body, became a symbol of my illness. Now, with the depression more (or less) under control, I can begin to be OK with who and how I am otherwise. I’m not saying I don’t wish it weren’t so – some mornings I think I’d take a week of misery for a day out in my size-24 skinny jeans – but I’m not compelled to make drastic changes to my eating patterns as a result.

Unless “drastic changes” means “more apple crisp”, in which case I’m totally game.

1 Comment | charming neurosis, cookin', Depression, eatin', gettin old, I enjoy being a girl, progress?, therapy | Permalink
Posted by erinire

hates everything sometimes. I can’t be the only one.

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Driving home after a crazy day of work, you pick up your boyfriend on the way to the gym. The mere fact that you have to pick him up kind of sets you sideways – you like to be direct in your errands, and this stopoff has you crimped. Then you have to swing by FedEx, which always sucks, and your boyfriend’s bought salmon for dinner when what you really wanted was restaurant pizza. And it’s raining, right, and dark, and there’s all sorts of traffic on 1A so you take this back route through Eastie which brings you through Chelsea which gets you very lost. And of course your boyfriend’s GPS just SAVES THE FREAKING DAY, which irks you tremendously.

By the time you get to the gym, you’re in a “throwing-this-goddamn-mimosa-right-across-the-room” mood. So you decide to use the treadmill and really whip yourself calm. Except the treadmill aggravates your shinsplints and is a lot harder than the elliptical. Seriously. Ten agonizing minutes later, you retreat, red-faced and panting, to your usual machine, and sweat out the next half-hour in a fury of self-loathing and despair at your lack of athletic prowess. And the rain. And especially the GPS.

It occurs to me, however, that I used to live my whole LIFE with this kind of angst. Every minute of every day was spent restraining myself from completely freaking out. So, in that respect, one snowball of frustration isn’t so bad after all. And maybe I should just chill out and be grateful that it’s not how it used to be.

2 Comments | aberrant behavior, charming neurosis, Depression, meds, tiniest violin | Permalink
Posted by erinire

An anecdote

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Driving home from work today, I heard something behind me that sounded like a cross between a garbage disposal and a poorly-made hairdryer. The noise got louder and passed me on the left: a road-worn red Mustang piloted by the largest woman I’d ever seen. Her passenger was no less corpulent. As they pulled their way ahead, I noticed that the rear tire was a spare, and that the rear chassis of the sled was decorated with twee flower decals, chipped away from years of gravel.

Try as I might, I COULD NOT get away from this car. The whole commute, I was confronted with this monstrosity of a vehicle and its interminable, grating roar. Even so, I started to feel bad about being so judgemental. I mean, maybe they were happy, this pair, in their tank tops that remind me of a dollar store in Fargo. Maybe they were just joyriding down 1A at sunset, taking a break from their husbands and their kids, enjoying a smoke and some girl talk.

As I finally pulled by them on the left, I took one last look.

They were both eating double cheeseburgers.

There’s nothing bitchier than an eating-disordered girl who sees other people eating double cheeseburgers. A sick combination of jealousy and horror, marked with a hearty side helping of despair.

*sigh*

We still have some work to do, I guess.

1 Comment | anecdotal, charming neurosis, confession, Depression, eatin', manifesto, personal hell, progress? | Permalink
Posted by erinire

They call me E Money. At least, some of them do.

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So this started out as a comment over at DefineFunctioning, but it got really long and awkward and then I was like, hey, why don’t I just make it a blog post and link back. So that’s what I’m doing.

To paraphrase, we are talking about how mental illness may or may not have impacted our ability to care for ourselves (and others) financially. So here’s my deal:

Katsu and I were making good money, towards the end there. Like, GOOD money. It was nice. We ate fancy food, I wore beautiful shoes, and we were paying down debt hand over fist. Then, you know, I lost it. I quit my job, I went to The Bin, and I was there for six weeks. During those six weeks, of course, I was ineligible for unemployment, and it took another four weeks after that for the state to approve my check. So ten weeks with no income.

(Very) Thankfully, I had my husband to take care of the rent and utilities, and our health insurance covered most of the costs associated with my hospitalization. But it was a hit nonetheless, and we had to take a very uncomfortable look at our budget. But I wondered, you know, what do other people do? People who don’t have a Katsu to float them when they’re waiting for the dole? People with families? People without insurance? I was thankful.

Then, of course, Katsu and I split up. Making only a fraction of my previous income, I chose to move back in with my parents rather than continue squatting in the apartment we once shared. Having second-interviewed for many jobs and gotten no offers, in April 2010, as an experiment, I posted an ad on Craigslist for wedding videography. Within a week, I’d booked my first gig. So that helped out. Living at home, I was able to save money like who knows what – especially after I landed two part-time summer jobs with two local producers.

Meanwhile, as we all know, I was planning to drag B! across the country. I’d saved enough to get us an apartment, and I’d saved enough to allow us to make it our own. One of my part-time jobs turned full, which was awesome, but somewhere around Christmas I realized that the money I was making wasn’t actually… enough. Not saying anything bad about my pay rate, mind you, but footing the bill for two smokers can really drain one’s resources. Then there was the whole insurance deductible thing, which definitely brought the rain to my already-soggy parade.

Now, I’m not complaining. I’m comfortable. I have two cats, I have wine when I want it, and I smoke as many cigarettes as I please. Far be it from me to cry poverty. But in terms of mental health, I’m very aware that what happened to me in summer ’09 had a severe impact on my financial status and my earning potential. Like, my name is totally on this site, which one could count as questionable, and a google search of me links back to some weird old ghost page that somebody hacked and reformatted. Also, I’m aware that my particular blend of crazies can be as limiting as it is prolific.

My therapist asked me, the other week, if I ever hoped to reattain the standard of living I enjoyed before my breakdown.

“No,” I answered, not blinking a lash.

I’d rather be happy than rich.

3 Comments | aberrant behavior, boozin', charming neurosis, Depression, eatin', matrimony, money, moving home, therapy, tiniest violin, work | Permalink
Posted by erinire

How Not To Spend Your Time: Pt 2

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Last Thursday, I just sucked it up and went to the doctor. I didn’t have high hopes – after the failed mono test of the previous Saturday it seemed anything was possible. Except, like, the opposite of that.

So I hauled over to Eastie, parked a half-mile from the health center, and enjoyed the smell of early-morning secondhand smoke during my stroll down Porter St. It was $170 to get in, with a Nurse Practitioner, no less, so I intended to make the most of things. I read a pleasant book in the waiting room after checking in with a woman who looked like a young Salma Hayek (if Salma Hayek had an 18-inch waist and a 36-inch bust), and, as usual, I was weighed facing toward the irons on the scale. I kind of wish they would ask you first.

My nurse was a hip young man with shoes I adored and glasses I couldn’t help but covet.

“I hate rashes,” he confessed, with a sigh, after I showed him my arms.

“So do I,” I said, scratching absently at my lower back.

Together we spent considerable time looking through a large medical book containing every skin disease known to mankind. There were suppurated lesions, cracked and bleeding flesh, swollen fingers and languishing toes. Eventually we settled on Pityriasis rosea, a mild but mysterious affliction that lasts about a month, has no known cause, and, thus, no known treatment.

“I could prescribe you some steroid cream,” he offered, “but you couldn’t, you know -”

“- put it ALL OVER YOUR BODY.” we finished in unison, as I turned my attention to a particular itchy patch on my upper thigh. “OK, well, I also wanted to ask about getting Chantix – that ‘stop smoking’ pill, or whatever.”

He turned back to his monitor and tabbed over to my medication profile. “You know,” he said, rather sadly, “I really wouldn’t feel comfortable prescribing that for you until you talk to your other treaters. Chantix has some pretty serious side effects.” A valid point, since the newly-introduced Seroquel is giving me such vivid dreams that I occasionally wake up and smell my subconscious burning.

I liked this nurse. He treated me very nicely. I liked his rash book, I liked his sweater, I liked his wedding ring. I wanted to have him over for kebabs. He suggested that I come back in a week to check in, and then asked me, as an afterthought, what kind of insurance I had.

“It’s the shitty kind.” I laughed, and I told him all about the crazy deductible and the problems getting my scripts, and and the huge bill I now owe my therapist. His brown eyes turned sad behind those incredible black-rimmed glasses, although he laughed along with me. I mean, I felt bad for the guy. He clearly wanted to help me, but was absolutely unable to. Like, in any way at all.

At least I’m pretty sure now that I don’t have Scabies. That’s a good thing.

4 Comments | charming neurosis, city livin', how i am awesome, meds | Permalink
Posted by erinire

Barking at shadows

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It’s tough, because I know when things are right and I know when things are wrong. I can feel when things start *thinking* about heading wrong. I can taste it in the wind. I know it before it’s there, like how you can feel a thunderstorm. But I’m helpless.

I didn’t associate it with the Abilify withdrawal, not immediately, and I still don’t know if I do, but there’s an undercurrent of terror that runs through every breath. This faceless, nameless, panic that has no root and has no salve. I remember this, I remember from before, and I’m troubled that it hasn’t gone away. Even after all the changes.

But am getting by it, getting through it, carrying on. You know.

All is well until it isn’t, and, after that, it is again.

3 Comments | charming neurosis, Depression, meds, personal hell, progress? | Permalink
Posted by erinire

I did a lot of things today.

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I did a lot of things today. I set up a bank account for ECA Productions, I entered my 2010 expenses into Quicken, I digitized four hours of tape, I went to see my shrink. I washed my hair and blow-dried, I remembered to brush my teeth, and I tried (and failed) to find the mystery button on my boss’ furnace. I expanded my knowledge of 3D filmmaking, I backed up all my wedding projects, I went out to eat for dinner and I fed my cat. Twice. My apartment is relatively clean, my finances are in their usual state of (dis)order – no worse or better than usual. Everything is mostly good.

So what is it about this situation that makes me want to leap out of my skin?

I always feel like there are so many things left UN-done. I still have to find a dentist, and, for that matter, an accountant. I’m running out of socks. That bag of cat supplies is still sitting right where it was three weeks ago, and, no matter how many times I sweep, there is ALWAYS Jakefood in the corner next to the oven. It’s not like a treadmill, it’s more a sensation of free-fall. Like no matter how fast you spin, it’s all getting away from you. Eventually, the bathroom sink will get gross again, you know, and there’s just no stopping it.

This all must sound very fatalist and horrible, and I don’t mean it that way, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. Resources, inertia, motivation. I think I’ve effectively lost the ability to relax.

But at least the apartment is clean.

… kind of.

5 Comments | charming neurosis, jake, money, work | Permalink
Posted by erinire

Forced Labor

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I heard something on the radio the other day. I forget the exact context, but it had to do with work / life balance, and the interviewee said:

“If your job is your life, you need to get a new job or get a new life.”

And this kind of made me sad, because, for me, it’s impossible to separate the two. Until that nasty incident in June 2009, I’d worked constantly since I was 14 years old, with the notable exception of my first semester freshman year of college when I spent my time on more worthy endeavors. Like smoking in the dorm room. Yes, back then you could still smoke in dorm rooms. Crazy! I know!

Anyway.

I’ve been lucky in that most of my jobs have been very meaningful to me, but it’s really a double-edged sword. Because when things have meaning, they have weight. And when they have weight, they can drag you under. This is to blame, in large part, for my breakdown – too much heft assigned to the job, too much self-worth wrapped up therein, too little time spent cultivating other interests – but I couldn’t have helped it if I tried. And then, without it, I felt so lost. How strange that not working can be just as unhealthy as working too much.

So you think about it, though, and at some point you have to land on the notion that without work, you really can’t live. I mean, work brings money, and who can live without money? Nobody normal, certainly. And people even work who don’t NEED the money, right? Look at Warren Buffett! So those who need work to live, and those who have live to work, but, either way, work is the key. There’s no getting away from it.

I’m curious again, Internet. What’s your work / life balance? How do you strike it?

And, perhaps more to the point, could you smoke in YOUR dorm room?

 

2 Comments | aberrant behavior, charming neurosis, life story, progress?, therapy, work | Permalink
Posted by erinire

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