Friday, March 30, 2012

Friday

I've been trying to write more, which is why I'm up writing when I have to leave for work in 15 minutes, while two kittens perform morning Ninja Anti-Gravity Cirque de Soleil routines up my walls and the rabbits calmly ignore them while chewing on orchard hay.

It's a good life. Did I mention there's also good Indian tea?

I like my place. It's small, cozy, and full of creatures who pay attention to one another. And to me. I like my bed, my green walls, my small kitchen with the tangerine dresser I use as a counter/storage piece. I like the pink couch, the trash-picked furniture, the ancient tiled bathroom.

I will go off to work, where large-screen TVs will play CNN relentlessly (remember when CNN was actually a news channel and not some FOX news wannabe?) and I will marvel that I live in a country where people like Mitt Romney an Rick Santorum are considered viable presidential candidates and cretins like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin are given airtime. Where women have to fight all over again for ownership of their bodies, and where there is actual discussion about whether an unarmed teenage boy deserved to be shot by an armed nut job who chased him down and cornered him.

You want a modern-day lynching, here it is. Hello, Florida.

I'm slowly coming off meds. My doctor is taking it slowly, more slowly than I'd like (patience was never my strong suit, once I had a goal in mind), and as my brain re-adjusts I feel sharper. Yeah, a little angrier, but that's OK; in this world, people should be angry. But I'm also happy.

And oh yeah. Late for work.

xo


4 comments:

karen said...

Don't you hate the wait?!

I truly think Anger is an appropriate emotion to experience on a regular basis these days.

I often wonder if we weren't marketed so steadily and earnestly to, if it were thought appropriate to feel authentic feelings and to act upon them in meaningful ways, if less people would "need" the drugs that America is being numbed by. I am surprised at the numbers, here and there.

When I was in hospital -- I checked myself into a psych ward for treatment of bulimia -- I simply refused drugs. I believed wholeheartedly that what I did not have were skills to handle my feelings, to express them, to work through them so that they weren't as intense.

This isn't to say that there aren't people for whom the drugs serve a purpose, for chemical reasons. I have no ultimate opinion on this kind of math. I know what has worked for me is amassing skills, so I'm going to keep at that.

Besides. In my family drugs have a way of backfiring in bad, bad ways. I don't know why the doctors are consistently surprised.

Keep writing! I need material to read and I am rather partial to yours. I need it bad.

My drug??? PUSHER!

JC said...

I was bulemic in my teenage years; it went away when I left for college. And made friends. And felt like I belonged. Funny how that works.

I had a really good therapist who once said that taking a pill doesn't just cure everything, and I believe him.

"...that what I did not have were skills to handle my feelings, to express them, to work through them so that they weren't as intense."

Amen, sister. And if I find I'm having troubles again, I'm heading for a therapist to hep me with this issue also, which is at the heart of it all. Nothing with me is by halves.

The two times I've taken this drug I had struggled mightily with anger and self-destruction. I knew, cognitively, what was going on, but just needed a break form the relentlessness of it all so that I could heal and get back in the game. I'm not a fan of pills over talking but I do believe that when you need it, you need it. I still might look into therapy.

JC said...

And yes, I hate the wait. I do see a change; I'm very talky and energetic again, which might be borderline mania, and I'm feeling irritable, which just might be that people are being irritating. I speak more bluntly, which hey, again, maybe not so bad; I've noticed that people have a tendency to be kind of rude, and it might be time to let them know that I have fewer boundaries and might just give them a taste of their own raw bluntness.

Ob he other hand, my recall is getting much, much better, and my quippiness is back. It feels good in here, for now.

karen said...

feeling good in the here and now is what it is truthfully about, even for the time being. Whatever after that, you'll deal with it when it comes.

I'm looking, apparently, for a cognitive therapist for my next adventure. (Did I mention I have plans myself? In need of some outlaw handling skills. Mine are killin' me.)

But if I had my choice, I would take a Gestalt practitioner every time. You know, if I could find one that I liked.