Swamp Monster

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 10 Zyprexa, 20 Prozac

Swamp Monster by Linda M. Billson

Mushy mush mush.  That is me today.

My mind is mushy, not unlike trudging through a swamp. You can't see through the water and it is squishy.  Man is it squishy. It's a bit creepy if you let your mind wander to what might be lurking beneath the surface.  Beneath your squishy feet.

It's uncomfortable.  Anything swampy could be underneath.  Like snakes, or flesh eating bacteria, or a napping alligator.  The ground is unstable.  Any of your next steps could be the step the leads you into a sinking pit.  You could find yourself no longer up to your ankles in mush, but instead up to your knees.  Your hips.  Your waist.  You could go all the way under for all you know.

I had a session with Dr. Crazy this afternoon.  We explored my mushy mind as walking through a swamp.  My mind is not only mushy today, but also blank.  I couldn't think of answers to Dr. Crazy's simple questions.  My mind preferred to be blank.  It's not what I prefer and so I fought it with crankiness.  Maybe you do too?

He asked me, "Why are you so frustrated?"
"Because it's so frustrating to have a blank, mushy mind!" I raised my voice in disgust.
"Why?" he asked.
"I don't know.  Because it is.  It's uncomfortable to feel this way!"

That's when he brought up the swamp.
The discomfort of walking through a swamp.

"If you are mushy and blank, then let's just be mushy and blank for a minute," he suggested.

And so we were.
We sat in silence.
He stared at me.
I stared back.

Then something incredible happened.

Peace.

What a relief.  What a Zeus damn freakin' relief to not fight.  To. Just. Be. Blank.

The thing is, sometimes the louder we are, the harder it is to hear the way.
Those weren't Dr. Crazy's exact words, but it's the way my mushy mind remembers them.

Hot cross buns he's right.
Sometimes we are clear - our mind is sharp and our words obvious. Other times we are mush.

Perhaps it's the fighting the mush, and not actually the mush that is difficult.

Perhaps, some days we just need to surrender to the Swamp Monster, and the murky water. She doesn't look so bad.

Murky Water by Marley

Until next time...

Serenity Now

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 10 Zyprexa, 20 Prozac

I have mentioned several times that I spend quite a bit of time in Dr. Crazy's waiting room. I talk about his stellar reading selection here.

Let me tell you, his waiting room just got way cooler.

Dr. Crazy has an ipod in the waiting room for our listening pleasure.
It has quite possibly the 744 most random songs on his waiting room playlist.

My last visit went something like this:

1. Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'"
2. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
(Someone should really tell him it's January.)
3. a random Big Band Era song
4. John Denver's "I'm Sorry" Live
5. a harp instrumental
6. Andreas Vollenweider's "See, My Love"
7. Louie Armstrong's "Sweet Georgia Brown"
8. a trumpet instrumental
9. something in French

(Nine songs already? Yes, I can absolutely spend all afternoon in there.)

After the ninth song came the cool part: a guided meditation.

This was really exciting because I got to close my eyes and concentrate on quieting my mind.  This meditation man had a delicious, velvety voice directing my attention first to, and then away from my pain.  The trick is that pain is not meant to be ignored.  We need to acknowledge it in order to be able to consciously realease it; and there is nothing insignificant about the process of releasing pain and letting go. This especially struck a cord with me since I have declared 2012 The Year of Letting Go.

In a past life I was a yoga teacher and spent lots of time leading my classes through guided meditations.  Meditation is something, that for no reason, I have given up. Having a bipolar temperament, I often dive into something, completely submerge, and then just as fiercely, give it up with wild abandonment. Yoga and meditation are two of those things.  For years it was the key to my existence.  I lived and breathed yoga and meditation. I was serene and bendy. The rumors are true.  Yoga and meditation really do that for you.

See how serene and bendy I was:

This waiting room playlist meditation reminded me what I'm missing.
A lot of really good stuff.

I think I will revisit this meditation business as a instrumental piece of my letting go. You should consider trying it too.  I bet you'll like it...

Serene is highly underrated.

Until next time...

Crazy Pill Day!

Crazy Pill Count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 10 Zyprexa, 20 Prozac

There are a lot of really great "awareness holidays" out there.

October is Give a Kitten a Bath Month.

January 11th is Learn Your Name in Morris Code Day.

June 1st is National Go Barefoot Day.

There are also a lot of "awareness holidays" focused around mental health.

May is National Mental Health Month.

Mental Illness Awareness Week is the 1st full week October.

World Mental Health Day is October 10th.

October 11th is both National Depression Screening Day, and Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day.

There are a few "awareness holidays" about medication too.

October is Talk About Prescriptions Month.
October 10th-16th is Take Your Medicine Week.

There is, however, nothing to specifically celebrate crazy pills.
Therefore I proclaim March 1st: 
Psychiatric Medication Awareness Day! (AKA Crazy Pill Day)

I am filling out the paperwork this week to try to make it official!
Wouldn't that be snazzy?  A holiday just for crazy pills?!  They toatlly deserve it.

Stay tuned for a website for Psychiatric Medication Awareness Day.

Until next time...

The Stream of Madness

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 6/25 Symbyax, 5 Zyprexa

This past weekend I went to The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

I have been meaning to go for years, but let's be honest, it's hard to wake up and say, "Man, I'm in the mood for the Holocaust today."  And so, year after year I never went. Until Sunday.

I was fascinated to learn that the mentally ill were some of the first people to be euthanized.  You didn't even need to be Jewish.  Just crazy.  I would have been toast. 

At this time of "purification," some crazies were not killed, but rather sterilized. Involuntary sterilization it was called.  They liked Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest and thought they'd help out.  The feeble-minded were considered, "life unworthy of life." The feeble-minded were defined in the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 and Winston Churchill was one of the early drafters of this bill.

That's right, I said Winston Churchill. The same Winnie, who himself, was bipolar. The same Winnie I have referenced in this blog, here and here, as being an inspiration to a successful life while living with a mental illness. The same Winnie I admire.

I feel like I just found out Santa Clause will no longer be delivering toys to hopeful boys and girls, because he is, instead, doing hard time in the North Pole Penitentiary.

Winston Churchill believed in the confinement, segregation and sterilization of the mentally ill.  He said they should be, "segregated under proper conditions so that their curse died with them and was not transmitted to future generations."

However, because of the expense of forced segregation, he actually preferred sterilization to confinement.  He described sterilisation as a "simple surgical operation so the inferior could be permitted freely in the world without causing much inconvenience to others."

He wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister, "I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." You can read the full article and letter at the website for The Churchill Centre and Museum here.

I feel disappointed.

Winston Churchill is thought of as a hero.  He refused to make peace with Germany while Hitler was in power and was instrumental in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The U.S. Congress and President John F. Kennedy granted him an honorary American citizenship in 1963. Time Magazine declared him Man of the Year in both 1940 and 1949. He was an accomplished painter and writer, and even won a Noble Prize in Literature in 1953. All this, yet he viewed the mentally ill as "life unworthy of life."

"A Study of Boats" by Winston Churchill

Winston wrote about his struggle with mental illness, calling his depression his Black Dog. He knew the depths of despair of mental illness, first hand, yet...yet I don't know. My disappointment is taking place of words.

Winston had five children.  His first daughter, Diane Churchill,  became involved with the Samaritans, an organization dedicated to suicide prevention, 1962, but committed suicide, herself, only a year later at the age of 54.

"The stream of madness," Winston referenced is indeed strong.  Although I am appalled, to say the least, at Winston's idea of sterilization of "the mad," I have to admit a part of me does understand. It is something I struggle with myself - the idea of my stream of madness being passed on.

Perhaps everything is not black and white.

Rethink Mental Illness, an organization in England, unveiled a statue, in Norwich, of Winston Churchill in a straight jacket, in March 2006. It was part of their first anti-stigma regional campaign.  This statue was their artistic attempt in showing "the straight jacket of mental illness."

It was their hope to portray people with mental illness in a more positive image. They are on a mission to help end the discrimination of those who suffer from mental illness. They stated, "The reason we chose Churchill was to try to celebrate his life - to celebrate the fact that this was a man who was voted the Greatest Briton in a BBC poll, yet who experienced mental health problems all his life."

Winston's family was in an uproar about this statue; and so it was removed. One of his grandsons called it, "absurd and pathetic."  He said it was, "sensation-seeking" and, "offensive to them and the people who revered him." You can read the article about it in the BBC news here.

What do I think?

Perhaps nothing is black and white.

Until next time...

The Right To...Tattoo

Crazy pill count:

AM 250 Nuvigil

PM 75 Lamictal, 6/25 Symbyax, 10 Zyprexa

Tattoos...I just don't like them.  I hate them actually.  Let me clarify. I don't mind if other people have tattoos; some people have tattoos that I like very much - on them. 

Like this one: 

I would just never want one for myself.

But...I have two.

I thought I would share another story with you today.

Once upon a time I was manic,

It was 1:00am, my stomach was growling, and I was out of reading material. I was at my favorite 24hour Laundromat on Sunset Boulevard.  As I walked out the door to get a quick snack at the nearby Ralph's Grocery Store, I suddenly had an urge to get a tattoo. I had never thought about getting a tattoo before, but all at once it seemed like a great idea.  So great, in fact, I couldn't believe I hadn't considered it before.

I stepped off the curb and walked toward the neon sign that spelled "TATTOO."

"Hello.  How long does this getting a tattoo business take?  I only have twenty minutes left on my dryer," I asked the girl with a dragon tattoo on her fragile arm. Yup, she was literally the girl with the dragon tattoo.

"It depends how big you want it," she said.

"About this big," I showed her holding my fingers about two inches apart.

"Oh, that shouldn't take any longer than fifteen minutes.  If you hurry up," she explained a tad impatiently, and so I quickly picked the Chinese character for "balance" out of a tattered binder.

"I think it should be purple.  And on my butt.  Yes, definitely purple, and definitely on my butt," I declared.

"Great. Drop your drawers," she directed.

"You want me to pull down my pants in the waiting room?" I asked.

"Sweetie, this isn't a waiting room, and this isn't a doctor's office.  This is my studio and if you want a tattoo on your butt you need to pull down your pants and take a seat on the stool."

And so I did.

I handed her thirty dollars and she unwrapped her tiny tools.  Except I didn't care if they were dirty.  I wasn't particularly concerned with the aftermath of my actions. As she began, I waited for the pain, but it never came - a side effect, I have come to learn, of my manias.

Twenty minutes later I had a purple tattoo on my bum and dry clothes.

Fast forward a few years:

It occurs to me that, perhaps, my tattoo doesn't mean, "balance." I don't know Chinese.  I can't read it.  I started asking around. I even paid a random woman, at the county fair, $5 to read my butt. She didn't know. But I continued to investigate further and finally learned it doesn't mean balance at all. 

It means, "the right to..." 

You know, as in the right to bear arms, or the right to a speedy and public trial.

Great. My butt was only the beginning of a thought.

Fast forward a few years to another random mania:

I decide the way to remedy the situation is to write the English word "balance" next to it.  Another genius manic idea.  I hit a tattoo shop and, voila, I now have another tattoo that still doesn't make sense. Again, I experience no pain and decide people are real crybabies.  What hurts so badly about a needle repeatedly stabbing your skin?

Fast forward a month:

My new tattoo has faded into an undesirable blue.  I figure if I'm stuck with a tattoo, I might as well make sure it looks nice, especially since it doesn't make sense.  This is a decision I made in a full on normal state, and therefore the first time I have gotten a tattoo while not manic.  Sweet Jesus does it hurt! I nearly cried. Seriously. Ends up tattoos do hurt. A lot.

Fast forward to today:

I hate tattoos.

I have two.

Neither one makes sense.

My butt is a riddle.

And do I even need to mention the irony of being bipolar, the definition of unbalanced, with a butt declaring "the right to balance."  

I suppose it is true.  

We all have the right to balance; and I have a purple and blue, bilingual, much larger than two inch, permanent reminder.

Until next time...

You're Oh So Lovely

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 75 Lamictal, 6/25 Symbyax, 10 Zyprexa

There was a recent search that led to this blog that is near and dear to my heart:
"you're crazy but I love you"

That is all.

Until next time...

Persevere.

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 75 Lamictal, 6/25 Symbyax, 10 Zyprexa

Another post brought to you by a request from The 100th Post Survey.

Request: "What to do when none of the crazy pills work!"
Answer:  Ay-yi-yi...

Frustration by Grady Zeeman

This is tough.  It's frustrating trying out different pills, but I am willing to walk the plank to say there is a pill, or combination of pills, that will work for you.  There are gazillions of pills.  Well, maybe not a gazillion, but close. I have personally tried twenty-three pills!

I will be the first person to tell you this is not an easy process.  

I will never pretend that it is.

If your Dr. Crazy has no other treatment to recommend, then find a different doctor. Again, I know this is the opposite of easy. Finding a new doctor might even be more frustrating that finding a new pill.

...but...

Preserver.

"Keep Going" by Nikki Biefel

You are worth it.

Preserver.

"Keep Going" by Sarit Paz

You are worth the frustration.
Persevere.

"Keep Going" by Lisa Shoemaker

You are worth finding a solution.
Preserver.

"Keep Going!!!" by eXplosetoi 

There is a solution. You just have to be willing to do whatever it takes.
So preserver:  Do. Whatever. It. Takes.

Revised Answer:  Keep going.

"Persistence" by Wendy Brightbill (check out her awesome esty shop here) 

Until next time...

P.S. I'm Bat Shit Crazy for You

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 75 Lamictal, 6/25 Symbyax, 10 Zyprexa

I haven't tackled a request from The 100th Post Survey lately.

Request: "Helping someone who takes crazy pills."

There are two parts to this request:
1) helping yourself if you take crazy pills
2) helping someone you love if they take crazy pills

I talk a lot about why taking crazy pills is awesome, and often necessary.  I even posted directions how to take crazy pills, and 40 reasons to take crazy pills, but perhaps I haven't talked about why we might be hesitant to take them.  Why, a long while ago, even I, the crazy pill poster girl, was hesitant to take them.

So now I will...

No one really wants to take crazy pills in the fundamental core of wanting.  I want to take them because it's the only way I'm not bat shit crazy, but do I want to as in actually needing to?

No. No way.

{Part 1}
Taking crazy pills means accepting that we need them.  Accepting that we are a tad, a touch, or a lot crazy. This is not a simple feat and not a place I came to without a tad, a touch, or a lot of resistance.

I remember when I was first prescribed antidepressants before my bipolar diagnosis with a recurrent depression diagnosis.  I took them for a while, knowing I needed them, with the intention of not taking them forever.  I hated that I took them.  I hated that I needed them.  I thought it was a personal flaw that I needed to take pills to be normal like everyone else.

As soon as I felt better I quit.  Good riddance damn pills!  That's what I thought then.  I quit taking them because I didn't want to admit to myself that perhaps I wasn't normal like everyone else.  I felt weak.  I felt like a failure.  How come everyone else can cope with life without pills but me?  I held this belief for a long time.

Soon after I stopped taking them I went bat shit crazy.
I started wearing this shirt all around town as a warning.
Not really.  But it sure would have been helpful if I had.

Soon after I went bat shit crazy I received my bipolar diagnosis. This began another wave of resistance.  But then...eventually...came acceptance.

I don't know who she is, but doesn't she look enlightened?

I get not wanting to accept it.  I get that taking crazy pills is a preliminary step on the road to acceptance. But guess what?  Acceptance is a pretty awesome thing.

I know acceptance is a process, and I know it's not always an easy or quick journey. I have no intention of ever judging you, and I won't.  I won't scream at you, "Accept yourself damn it!" Even if I feel like it.  Which I do. But I will tell you, again and again, that you are amazing.  Being crazy is part of you - part of the amazing you.

So take those pills.  Taking pills doesn't mean you are weak or a failure; it is not a personal flaw; it's not because you aren't normal like everyone else.  It simply means you have an illness that, thankfully, can be treated with medication, and you are awesome because you are taking care of yourself.

A bonus of taking crazy pills is that it often helps acceptance because we feel good and can function in the world.

{Part 2}
If someone you love takes crazy pills, you can help them on the road to acceptance too.

Encourage them to take their pills.
Support them.
Accept them.
Sometimes that's all it takes...

Until next time...

P.S. I'm...

Keep Going

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 150 Lamictal, 3/25 Symbyax, 15 Zyprexa

Winston Churchill was a smarty pants because he said stuff like this:

He was also bipolar, and so I believe he had, in fact, at times, experienced a very real version of hell.

But he kept going; and made history to boot.

So can we...

Keep going - Let's make Winston proud.

Until next time...

The Manic Rose

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 150 Lamictal, 3/25 Symbyax, 15 Zyprexa

I went home for the holidays.  I walked into my old bedroom and gazed at the walls, left mostly unchanged since I left in 1998.  Among the glow in the dark stars, snapshots from high school, and quotes I cut out of magazines, was this drawing:

I created it in high school.  The reason it's significant is because I believe it was the lovechild of one of my first manias.  Of course I didn't know it at the time, but now I can reflect back and understand.

It was a school night.  I was all jazzed up (manic), and furiously drew and blended with my favorite pastels until my alarm went off, at 6am, to get ready for school. It is on a large poster board.  Manic girls can't be bothered to find things like heavy weight charcoal paper when inspiration strikes. I also recall smoking out my bedroom window (sorry mom).

What I remember about that night, besides smoking out my bedroom window, is the element of frozen time.  When my alarm went off I was disoriented. What? It's 6am? How the hell did that happen? My focus and concentration was so sharp I went into a manic time warp.

But what I remember most, is the deliriously happy and creative energy that blazed through my body.  Had I ever been so happy?  I couldn't think of a time when I had.

In case it's not obvious, I was also a creative genius that night. Was I really?  Of course not.  But that's one of the things that goes along with a mindblowing mania; you are the best at everything you attempt.  Correction. You believe you are the best at everything you attempt.  And so...as the story goes...that night...I was a creative genius.

This manic rose is part of my bipolar time capsule.
What's in yours?

Until next time...

And It Was Glorious

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 150 Lamictal, 3/25 Symbyax, 15 Zyprexa

Something glorious happened to me at CVS.

I filled my first prescription of Zyprexa since the generic has become available. When I pulled out my piggy bank the pharmacist stopped me. "There's no charge," she said.  Whaaaaaaat? No charge as in zero dollars and zero cents?

Yup.
Wasssss up $0.00!

my glorious receipt

With my insurance plan generic medications are zero dollars and zero cents...you know, as in free. In case you are bad at math, like me, I'll do the calculations for you.  It's one million dollars in savings. That's right - my monthly Zyprexa bill just went from one million dollars to zero dollars.

A-maz-ing.

I know generic Zyprexa won't be free for every insurance plan, and I also know not everyone has health insurance, but hopefully Zyprexa has become affordable for you too.

Now let's celebrate with the worldwide Happy Dance!




Until next time...

The Perfect Advent Calendar

Crazy pill count:
AM 250 Nuvigil
PM 150 Lamictal, 15 Zyprexa, 3/25 Symbyax

I talked about the stress of holidays here.
But now I am delighted to propose a solution to this stress.

Visiting family by chance?
How about spending an afternoon with your grandma who promptly points out you've gained weight?

Traveling by chance?
How about having a three year old kick the back of your seat for a five hour flight?

No longer a problem!
Introducing:  The Advent Crazy Pill Holiday Survival Calendar!

Perhaps you are familiar with the chocolate advent calendars available this time of year.

Mmmm...Santa has chocolate ears...

Advent calendars are fun for all ages, boys and girls alike, and come in many different styles.  You can purchase chocolate advent calendars at most retailers near year. Check your local grocer's freezer. No wait...that's not it.  But really, you can get them almost anywhere.  You can also buy them online, like this one from amazon.

kids not included

Sure chocolate is great, and chocolate advent calendars are great, but crazy pills are even greater.

When I travel I bring along a bag of crazy pill goodies - extra Zyprexa, some Prozac...the basics in my pharmaceutical stash.  But imagine both the ease and the excitement of having that extra dose tucked behind a little paper door.  Taking crazy pills has never been so fun.

The holidays happen regardless if we are having an episode or not.  The best we can do is be prepared.

Crazy? Crazy pills? Bring it on.

Until next time...