Sick Enough

 The voices continue to tell me that I'm not ill enough to go into the hospital. They may have a point. There's a continuum in suicidality, and it's hard to figure out where I stand. You want to go into the hospital to get help before you swallow the pills, but you don't want to fuck around if you're like me, someone who thinks about suicide, all day long, week after week, month after month, year after year. 

When, then, do you know it's the right time to go into the hospital? It's more of a gut feeling, of when things start to get out of control. I'm having negative thoughts about my dog, about her dying, about her being killed. That's new. I feel a compulsion to act--that's new. Am I a danger to myself? The voices, the previous suicide attempts, the depression, all these things add up. The Advisor asked me why I wouldn't go into the hospital if I knew I needed help. Why not? I have a hard time asking that question as well. Which is why I'm leaning heavily towards going in. 

I need help, but am I sick enough to go back in? What exactly does that even mean? Sick enough? I could steal the gabapentin pills. I could make a statement.

 Sometimes I think about my life, and I think, what a big, fucking waste of breath. What have I done that's good in life?

 

Reasons for Living

I've been told that taking a W in Chemistry 201A isn't the end of world, but why does it feel like it? Or why does it just feel like it's more of the same? One more failure on top of a shit pile of more of the same? Does that mean that I'm just not intellectually astute enough to be a veterinarian? 

It's just led to an obsession with the bottle of pills (which are locked up in my parent's safe). If I took the pills then that means I'm seriously ill and need help. Do I need help? I think to myself, lots of people are depressed and go about their daily lives and don't swallow pills and don't run off to the hospital. Do I just want to take the pills because it's a cry for help, because I'm in pain and need people to respond to that pain with concern and warmth? Isn't that a bad reason to overdose? Some part of me does want to die. I can't think of a single reason to keep on living. I have tried all of the major purposes for existence. I have loved, and lost, I have tried and failed at having career, I have had at some point a great sex life. I never wanted kids.

 I question why I want to go to the hospital. Is it because I am truly a danger to myself or is it because I want to be around people who genuinely care about me and my well being? Do I want to see IP again? Is it because I just feel bad and want those feelings to stop? 

Yes, I am depressed, and I want those feelings to stop, but the question becomes: how long can I feel bad, and what happens when those feelings intensify? If history serves to be correct, the depression will just get worse unless something big hinders it. Otherwise, it will just run its course, and that will take months. And even if I do go to the hospital, that is no guarantee that it will help.

What Fight for What Reason?

 "Most of this fight you are going to have to do on your own," Mom tells me.

Their Whole Fucking Job

 I was walking the dog around the horse unit with mom, who was walking her puppy too, when I mentioned to my mom that the voices were especially bad today. She said she was sorry. 

"I think I'm going to leave Dr. [Ba.] a note," I say.

"Why? He's not going to do anything but put a note in your chart."

"I'm tired of talking to myself," I say exasperated. 

"Has your doctor not told you? There's nothing they can do, and the symptoms are just going to get worse."

"I don't want to hear that," I reply honestly. "[IP] says there are always things to try." I always wince whenever I mention IP to anyone who doesn't know how I truly feel about the man.

"Then let's talk to [IP]." 

I don't want to explain to my mother that I would have to be re-hospitalized in order to be under IP's care. I can't send IP a cry for help letter. It's strictly against the rules we set up before we started emailing each other. 

 I'm supposed to be able to talk to my doctor when I feel a crisis looming in the horizon. When I last talked to Dr. Ba. during our last session, he didn't seem to be particularly concerned about the auditory hallucinations. He was more preoccupied with his new promotion (but he will still be seeing a small number of patients, me included), replacing one of my favorite doctors (who luckily, for me, is not retiring). Again, I don't believe Dr. Ba. gives a shit about how I'm doing. Psychiatrists are doctors who prescribe medications for mental illness. That's their whole fucking job. That's what he should be doing or I'm wasting my time driving up there, three hours one way.

You Can't Be Afraid. You Have to Just Ride.

 Somehow, someway, while sitting on the bleacher stands, during a summer cutting horse show I was hit by this powerful, deep sense of loneliness and alienation, like no one understood and I was all alone in some tragic, teen-agery way. I couldn't escape it. It didn't help that no one at the cutting knew me, and that I haven't ridden in a horse show in about twenty years. 

James was there, telling me I was a piece of shit, and as much as I like to ignore him, I do often times feel like a piece of shit. At least when he's telling me I'm dirt, the bottom off of someone's shoe, he's not telling me I'm stupid. I do feel unintelligent, and I don't need James to remind me of that fact. 

I sit there, and I watch the horses. I notice that there are plenty of skinny loper girls in tight jeans, running around, brushing out tails for trainers who are just about to step in the show ring, but there is only one female rider in the open classes, Morgan Cromer. The rest are all men. 

I look at Morgan as someone who could have been me if I didn't have fibromyalgia and chose to keep training horses at Skip Brown's ranch (for a little while longer, then moved on to an assistant trainer position at a cutting horse facility). We both rode with the same cutting horse trainer, Russ Westfall.

I can't go back in time and change the path I was on (I went to New Jersey, and realized that turning a hobby into a profession was not for me).

Being a loper is a tough job, and the only job I'd be able to find if I wanted to go back to work in the cutting horse industry. Early mornings and late nights. Physically, I probably couldn't do it full time. Nevertheless, I sent a Facebook private message to Morgan Cromer saying that I was looking for work, willing to do any kind of work--clean stalls, saddle and unsaddle or--yes, lope. I can lope a circle. For how long? That is to be seen.

So, why so many young, enthusiastic female lopers, making their way literally in circles in an arena, booting horses up, shampooing tails,  and only two well known female cutting horse trainers (you cannot forget the Lindy Burch)? Talk about a glass ceiling. 

I have Sawyer, my three-year-old gelding to think about, and I have been searching for someone in the industry to help me with him--labor in exchange for lessons. My friend John, who I've known since I was eight, has help me some.  But otherwise, so far, no luck. If I had success with him, would that make me feel better about myself as a person?  Riding Sawyer is complicated for me because every time I swing my leg over him, I am facing down some demons. Simply, the horse scares me to death. I lost my fearlessness at some point in my illness, and you can watch Morgan ride, the way she send her horses across the pen to catch those cows that she fears nothing. 

Sawyer can be unpredictable, he's bucked, he's bolted, he's jumped around, etc. You have to be prepared when you ride him. He is, also, very fast and very strong. You can't be afraid, You have to just ride. 

It has been suggested to me to sell him and find another horse that isn't so scary. I've put a lot of thought into that. Honestly, he's just so talented. No, he's not going into the show pen any time soon, but he has the ability to go there someday.  He can compete at the open level. He just needs to see some cows.

Healthy

 Over the past four or five days, James has been unusually quiet and subdued. Is it part of a trend?

"What do you attribute that to?" My outpatient psychiatrist asked me during our last session. This was a trick question, and I fall right into it like an idiot. 

"I think it's the clozapine kicking in," I say, honestly. He would later state that it wasn't a medication that helped me, but rather being engaged outdoors with the horses and staying busy and social and three days a week therapy and all that crap that was saving my life, not the pills. The fact that he's a psychiatrist who doesn't believe in medical intervention--well, I continually have a difficult time swallowing this. What does he do, exactly? If he doesn't prescribe pills?

But, he gave me the big "told you so" during our session, an attitude I didn't particularly care for. Literally saying, "I told you..." He was impressed that I was doing so well, but if he knows anything about psychiatry, he should know that this is the most vulnerable part of the cycle, if you will, of depression because you have just enough energy and executive function and motivation to kill yourself. 

So much of my identity is my illness, so what happens to me when James goes away, and I am healthy? Well? Who am I then?

The Final Straw

 Morpheus finally blocked me on Facebook even though my worst defense was I asked him out to coffee. So, I had it. I archived our conversation, and then deleted my text-messaging to him. I did pause at deleting him from my contact list. I deleted the voicemails of his that I've had for many years (I did save the sound files in my email account). I figured the less I see of him or reminders of him, the better off I'll be. 

I didn't cry, I didn't even feel really sad, I just felt numb to it all. Like this is the end that we've all been waiting for.

Some Game of One

What if--

What the voices are saying--

Is true?? 

What if the voices are telling the truth?? Factual information? Correct interpretation? About your life, about yourself, about other people?

Game of Twister, Part V

Time had passed into our session in the conference room, and I was sitting next to him. He hadn't mentioned it. Did he forget? Did he not want to broach the topic? 

"So, yeah, about keeping in contact, we can email each other, I would like that," he said. "I'm not always the best at writing emails..."

Like that? I repeated in my head. 

He went on to explain that sometimes he was away from his email for a week or so, but that he always came back. 

James commented that maybe I should just hump his leg. 

 

Game of Twister, Part IV (Updated)

 I sent IP a copy of "The Devil Dyed Me Blue," and he told me that I was very talented. The social worker at Stanford who received the flash nonfiction just said in an email "Wow! [Jae].. That was really something! So many images and so much raw depth."

Is there a way to stand out of the crowd, even at a place like Stanford? I'm always haunted, by this idea, that I'm just like everyone else, even with this awful disease. I'm haunted by the idea that no one sees me for the person I am. That the people around me don't notice if I'm exceptional (am I exceptional? I don't feel exceptional.). That they don't value me. Or that I am worthless unless I do this great act like writing this outstanding memoir or completing this trying Ph.D.

Can I do one thing great? And belong somewhere among brilliant people like Elizabeth Wurtzel? One great book? Isn't that asking too much? Who put it in my mind to strive for such things? Why can't I be happy with my blog and my journal? What's with the craziness?

Is Nursing Right for Me?

 IP and I are talking in the conference room about my academic aspirations. I continue about my mother, "She thinks being a nurse is too stressful."

"I don't think that's true," IP says, lifting up his gaze to the ceiling, and then saying, "That's not the [Jae] I know. I think you would get into the groove of the job, and you would really enjoy it."

Not the person he knows? Has he been paying attention?

The End of this Admission?

 I did write in my last email to IP that I felt like my admission this time around can possibly be coming to a close. I say this with caution, and I hope I expressed that with IP. 

I recognized that the voices, the auditory hallucinations have not improved, and at certain times of the day, have gotten worse. James thrives on my feelings of embarrassment around the romantic transference. He thinks it's funnier than hell. 

The depression is still an 8/10. It has been at that level since the beginning of the admission.

What has improved is my suicidality. I do think about suicide, but I do not intend on completing the act as soon as I get home. That has shifted. If that's enough for IP to discharge me, then I will agree to that.

 I would rather have it be my idea, and under my control and what I want, then to be surprised by the team, and forced out. Also, there are other reasons for discharge. I would like to be home for Mother's Day, writers' group, and I need to give back my damaged phone, or they will charge me over $300 (this can be negotiated, but still, I would like to get my new phone). 

Game of Twister, Part III

IP shared with me about himself all week, thanks to my emails that I sent either the night before or that morning. I felt like that interaction lifted my mood in a genuine, therapeutic way. 

 IP talked about his journey into becoming a doctor, about how calculus wasn't hard for him (it was probably because he had a great professor, he said, trying to make me feel better). He gave me the advice that life takes us in different directions, but we can still end up in the right place. I'm not too sure what that means for someone who could have easily ended up a substitute teacher, but he pressed on, finished his pre-med courses, and applied to medical school.

While he never talked about his private life, besides drinking coffee non-stop all day long and rebuffing the science that coffee addiction exists, he shared what he thought made for attraction in a relationship (shared interests). (I'm more of a physical attraction type.)

All of this was enough for me to get the courage to ask in my last email if I could write him occasionally (very infrequently, maybe once every few months) once I've been discharged. If we could keep the line of communication open. I explained that I wouldn't contact him if I was in crisis (my regular psychiatrist is for that), I wouldn't contact him if I needed to be re-hospitalized. I have a number to call to see if there are beds available. I mentioned that it was perhaps crossing some line or perhaps he just didn't like writing emails. If that was the case, that was okay with me. I do have an agreement with my inpatient psychologist that I can contact her, if I'd like, when I'm on the outside, just to say hi. I brought that up as an example. 

I have no idea how he'll respond.

Game of Twister, Part II

 "Coffee and the news," IP says abruptly. 

He's referring to my previous email in which I inquired about his morning routine. I asked about coffee. I was so embarrassed about that after I hit the send button. 

Morning routine? Who am I to ask about his private life? He's my doctor! But there he was, the following day, sitting with one empty chair between us, answering my question. I moved closer to him in the conference room, mostly because with my hearing loss, I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything he'd say, and I was losing words sitting across the table with the masks being on everyone. So, I went around and then sat next to him on the other side. "I like it!" he commented on the change of chairs.

 I was wondering if he went to the gym to catch an early morning workout or fucked his girlfriend before work. I pictured him showering. I hated these thoughts, but they came anyway. I wondered if he wondered if I was having them. He wasn't stupid. My latest book called them romantic transference. Easy, simple. Erase with one broad stroke. Gone forever. A little crush. We can work through this.

Somehow having an email between us opened a lot of doors. We chatted.

The Game of Twister--Playing With Different Versions of Myself

 Mostly I struggle about what to put into those emails. How can I remain unique in a large pool of patients? What about me makes me special? 

So, yes, I remain frozen while sitting down with IP, and I have a hard time expressing myself verbally, but what about the written word? It was for this reason that I asked to be able to write him instead. (Dr. IP says that he never noticed me "freezing," but I think he was just being polite)

My essay answering the initial questions regarding my stay, asked by the team, that I sent to IP had its intended effect--better treatment, more empathy from my doctor(s), etc. In a Stanford world full of massive brains, photographic memories and grade books full of straight A's and SAT scores of 1600's, I might only be able to stand out by my writing. There are great writers at Stanford, I'm not saying I'll stand out there with them; one fine example is Daniel Mason, who I greatly admire. I'm only saying that to make myself known, maybe my best avenue is writing. 

I'm currently listening to the AudioBook called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and it is currently discussing how much we need as individuals to be understood. 

I am grieving and going through massive amount of emotions, and no one, short of Harry, knows what's going on. And James is having a field day with all this shit. He thinks it's all hilarious.

 At times, I am hiding from even myself. I have often considered if I'm just focusing on my romantic feelings for IP as another way of not coming to closure for Morpheus. However, coming to realization that I do have feelings for IP took a long time. Months, years. I've always been attracted to him, always gotten those feelings inside my stomach whenever I saw him, yes, yes and yes.

In short, no one is understanding me because no one knows what the fuck is going on with me. I'll try to explain to IP in an email as best I can without giving myself away, but fuck--it reminds me of that game Twister. Only I'm playing with different versions of myself.

IP: Emails and Excitement

 He seemed rather excited by the idea. 

I caught him in the hallway. "Can I talk to you briefly?" I emphasized the word "briefly." There's the hidden policy that even though the doctors walk freely up and down the hallway, they are not in fact free to chat. They circle around in their world, and we are sinking down in ours.

"Yeah," he says, and then walks a few feet to the conference door, opens it with his badge. We step inside, and he sits down. 

I reluctantly sit also. I tell him my idea about emailing him every morning with how I'm feeling, an update of sorts. It would contain just a couple little paragraphs, maybe instead, even a few bullet points for brevity sake.

"I think that's a great idea!" He replies, stirred by the prospect.

Captured by IP

 Okay, maybe I'm sick! I refuse to believe there's zero chance. The chance or possibility is so close to zero that it might as well be zero--but it is in fact not zero...Over time, days or weeks, I will become comfortable with zero, and I have such a hard time talking to him. Being around him strikes up a guttural fear. 

But being together with him, is that an impossibility? No, not as long as both of us breathe those heavy sighs in those deep chests with those weighty emotions. 

The Great Divide Between IP and Me

 

IP and I were in the conference room, alone to ourselves. He was talking with his head turned upward, seemingly staring at the ceiling, “So, I was thinking about you saying whether or not you should be in the hospital because the voices were getting worse…if it was something about being in the hospital is making the voices more intense or more frequent?” His gaze settled back on me. “We did name a couple of factors like [the psychologist] leaving…can you think of anything else that might be bothering you?”

 

I lied because I couldn’t envision us anywhere but here, in this room, I couldn’t see us in any other situation. There was too much of a divide between patient and doctor. Then the question becomes, did I ever affect him as a doctor? Was he ever swayed by me as a patient? Did I ever jostle him a little bit as he left the room? Just a little bit?

 

All in all, the man scares the shit out of me. What to make of that fear? I spent most of my day in anticipation of meeting with him for only a few moments out of the day, and then I can relax afterwards into the late afternoon. What is so terrorizing? Just a fear of intimacy?

True Affection for the Doctor

 

There could be the belief that if I truly have affection for the doctor, then he deserves to make the decision for himself on how he chooses to act. I’ve thought about this a lot, and maybe it’s just a mind trap, but maybe there’s some truth in it. This way of thinking is especially true if he also has feelings for me but is unable to act on those feelings because of legal, moral, ethical trappings, and needs me to step forward first. This is all best case scenario.

No one who truly loves or cares about someone else would ever ask another someone to give up his career for that person just so they could be together. And that’s exactly what would happen if news ever got out about IP fraternizing with a patient. That’s just a reality.

As A Human Being: Deserving of Love

 

You have to believe that as a human being you deserve love and respect and acceptance and that somewhere out in the vast, teeming world of men and women, there’s someone for you who will love you and accept you and be your friend and lover back. And that you are right in your search for that person. That it’s okay to feel vulnerable and silly and maybe even a little stupid at times as long as you keep trying to find that person.

          I gave up trying to find that person a long time ago, figuring that my love for Morpheus was beautiful and tragic, and I’d never come across a stable relationship with all those thick emotions felt so deeply for one sole person. It was psychologically impossible. You can’t love that much for that long, every day, all day, for years in a day-to-day normal relationship. It’s too tiring.

          I still believe that. It seems fitting then that the next person I turn my gaze to is completely and utterly inappropriate. Maybe it’s just something wrong with me, some psychological track laid out in my brain, making me attracted to men who are one particular way—distant and unavailable. It’s their inability to love me back that makes them so tasty and irresistible. The struggle to get them to love me is the tragedy, played out a few times in my life, most recently by my relationship with my father.