but a whimper

Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer— 

 
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

 The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

 Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

 Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

 This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

My migraines are holding me hostage

Lately i've increasingly been living in the fear that I'll wake up with a migraine. Not your my head hurts suuuper bad so ill just lay down with a pillow on it, i'm talking puking in a bucket every three minutes can't hear because my ears are ringing so loud, double vision type migraine. This has been happening at least twice a week. I see a neurologist  but so far all he's given me is a bunch of pills that don't work and make me feel like i'm on fire. I am completely nonresponsive to triptans. The day before yesterday he gave me injections in the back of my head  that turned my scalp numb but my actual headache worse. My hips are always sore from getting shots to abort my migraines, it's expensive and incredibly frustrating to have to go to the dr so much but that's the only way i know so far that I can get relief.
   My neurologist said he's not sure what else to do with me besides enroll me in a headache clinic and possibly give me botox. I feel like giving up on ever feeling better again. Mentally I'm not doing good either which aggravates my migraines which aggravates my mental illness. I'm on one terrible merry-go-round. My quality of life would be zilch if I didn't have my son to think about and brighten my day. There's no way i could work right now, my migraines are ruining my life. I've tried ice, heat, hot showers, cold showers, staying away from hard cheeses and yogurts, drinking excesssive amounts of water, drinking alot of caffeine, multiple medications that have all been ineffective. Living like this is not living. I need some help in a major way but i have no idea where else to turn.

im the little fish in my own pond

"there's been a disconnect since you got out of the hospital, with me, with your friends even with your mom."

I wish I could contest this but it's spot on. I'm losing so much time i think i'm gonna have to keep a log book of what i'm doing every couple of hours just so i can monitor how much time i am losing. I've cancelled appointments with my therapist, lost money, even whole days without realizing it. It's my life yet i'm not the one calling the shots right now. The scariest part is usually whenever im having a huge problem with disasociating it's because there's new memories trying to surface. I don't need any new memories. The abuse i remember is more than enough for me. Justin works nights so we try and get people to babysit me while he's gone so i don't do anything too irrational. Mostly i find myself just sitting on the couch looking at the tv, not watching it, just staring at it.I don't think I even change the channel.

Judging just by the dreams i've been having the likelihood of my doing something really destructive just keeps escalating. I don't like it but i feel so helpless, i'm the little fish just swimming around, trying to stay out of the way, trying, just to stay.

Leave the bourbon on the shelf

tic toc goes the clock
nice ring says the queen
no matter how you put it
were still doing the same damn thing.

There's an interesting dynamic going on with my alters right now. I'm switching alot, I'm not losing time but i'm definitely switching more than I think most people around me realize. A few weeks ago pandora's box was opened, and now there's no stopping it. I'm not uncomfortable with it at all. It doesn't feel bad. It's not scary. I'm embracing it. It's relaxing, to press pause on yourself so someone else can have a turn.

Reality swirls and twirls around you, the ticking of a clock becomes an unbearable tremor. You long, don't even know what exactly you're longing for, only that the feeling is there. After so long of disasociating life in real time drags on and on. It's foreign and uncomfortable.

"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl."
— Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

"Do

You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?"

I remember

Those are pearls that were his eyes.
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"

d.i.d at the workplace

I started last Monday as a housekeeper at the motel 6. I hadn't worked since i was still pregnant and I'd forgotten just how much having multiple personalities interferes at the workplace. They want me to remember specific room numbers, how many beds were in them, etc. etc. It should be simple, but it isn't. I'll be asked if i've done a specific room and i have no idea without looking at the clipboard where i write down all this information. I've walked into clean rooms I already did twenty minutes ago. And I'm not even having a big problem with disasociating right now. This is just normal. I have to conquer conflicting urges. GO faster, get it over with, take your time, sit on the floor and look at the bug, smoke a cigarette. It's hard to block all that out and just do my job but i can do it. It might take me a little longer, i might do things different than you, but I do it. I am still capable.
   My son is staying with my mom and sister for the time being. He comes home on weekends and I try to see him as much as possible. I don't feel guilty or wrong or anything some people might want me to feel. I know I am doing the right thing for Everett. It's not the cookie cutter life, but there is nothing about me that is even remotely cookie cutter. My babys doing great and healthy and happy. How I choose to raise him is how he needs to be raised, it just looks different.
    I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe they have tattoos and piercings,  maybe they're illegal immigrants, maybe they have mental illness, maybe they're gay, or transgender, either way we're all just trying to make it, same as everybody else, so before you judge remember, we're all the same, we just look different.

Back after only six days inpatient. Just the same way my brain "snaps" into crazy mode it "snaps" back into functioning. While there in kc i learned something pretty interesting, my eyes change colors when i switch. I think that's pretty cool.
Mentally i'm doing much better. Mood is levelled out, no more mania, no more delusions and hallucinations. Big sigh of relief. Emotionally it's a different story. I'm just so sick and tired of everything. I don't want to have to explain myself. I just want to for once get out of this house, it's beautiful, and i keep it clean, all lovely whatever but it gets old. Really really old.I feel like i'm reaching my minimum potential. I feel stifled and tamed and alone and i don't like it one bit. I've never really been happy but i have had alot of fun and that is one thing that i just don't have anymore.

the sky is crying and everyone can see it

I was discharged early from two rivers hospital due to unexplained medical reasons. I've seen a few doctors and narrowed it down to crazy side effects from some anti-crazy pills I was perscribed. I go back Saturday.      
Everyone (when i use this term it's usually referring to everyone inhabiting my body) is at a loss for words. No lies, just love. (bright eyes, look it up)all these things to be feeling, shame, embarrassment, loss, depression, sadness so deep you can't help but drown in it. I don't feel like i'm disasociating but I don't remember anything either. It's all enveloped in a one huge chorus of "it's all your fault, all your fault, all your fault." Pointed fingers, fat and accusing.  The rats are hungry, the squirrels are screaming. I'm a heavier, slightly wiser, version of myself three years ago. The walk back up is a daunting one. But i'll be damned if i stay like this forever.

on my way to hospital stay number 5. surprised?dont be. its another notch in my belt. at this rate of almost two hospitilizations per year by the time im 40 ill need a new belt. already im desperately homesick. desperately despondent. Even if i dont continue the cycle of abuse i continue the cycle of pain to those closest to me. no good no good no good. i am no good.

i should be sleeping

I should be sleeping, but i'm not. "sleep when the baby sleeps" This is the advice i've gotten most. Except it's not so easy. I've never been a napper. In fact, other than my pregnancy, napping was a skill I could never quit accomplish. I can lay fitfully on the couch for a couple hours, but I need all lights and noise off, doors locked and closed, and nocturnal hours to really get to that wonderful blissfully ignorant place called sleep.
So what does that mean for someone like me? I feel like i'm seventeen again. Lost in a sea of sleep deprivation, depressed, confused, and abandoning all sense of giving a rats ass. Add to this taking care of a newborn. Which it so happens is a 24/7 job. No, i do not have postpartum depression. I am not plagued by images of my baby slamming against a wall, i don't fantasize about leaving my family, this is just me returning to me. All those zen pregnancy hormones have gone.
Again everyone has an opinion, has a task they'd like to take over, a song they want to hear. I'm dancing to six different tunes. It isn't easy, but it's familiar.

Be still and know that I am God

warning: may be offensive to those of monotheistic religions, particularly a judeo christian one


Sometimes, I can think rationally. Even more rarely I actually get around to meditating, when I do a common mantra i use is
"Be still and know that I am God."

Because of it's blatant biblical associations, usually I take off the god part on the end. But it's all good. The whole thing. I know I'm taking it out of context, but each tiny sentence in this sentence is full of wonderful truth.

Be still.
With all the chaos in this world. My family, my new immediate family, my five personalities, I tend to forget to do this. Sometimes I don't need  to take another xanax, sometimes I just need to be still. Just breathe. Don't worry about doing anything else but being.

Be still and know.
This is the next good part, i don't need to define what it is I know, purely the fact that I know it. Know that you are capable, know that you have the power, the godness within you to trust your instincts and navigate through whatever waters are testing you.

Be still and know that I am God.
Yes, I'm being blasphemous. I'm not saying that I am the one and only god, i'm saying that there's godness, goodness, genuine love and purity in every living thing. In and of itself everything is as it should. It's always a choice whether made by myself or others that corrupts this.

I say this over and over in my head. Be still and know that I am God.Be still and know that I am God.Be still and know that I am God.

about a boy part two

Afterbirth
Because of the cesearean and general antestethia I didn't get to see my  baby right away, I waited almost 6 hours to meet Everett, but when I did, it took my breath away. He was so big. My first thought after a collective mental gasp was "no wonder my pregnancy was so difficult!" I held him and looked at him looking at me, the nurse was saying all these words I did not and could not hear. I was consumed with absolute awe and amazement.

The doctor came in later, we were told how amazingly healthy and well he was doing, we would both only need a couple more days in the hospital. I was relieved and overjoyed that everything was ok.
The next morning i was able to hobble over to the nursery to look at e, the nurse said he had been up since 7 and was crying inconsolably. By noon, she wheeled him into our room and told us she basically couldn't take it anymore. He calmed down considerably with me and justin, then fell into a deep sleep we could not wake him up from. Before I knew it, a doctor from the NICU was telling me he might have to go upstairs with them, he seemed to be withdrawing from my medications. Apparently it can take a good 24 hours after birth for this to start happening. Before I knew it, there was a slough of NICU nurses in our room, prepping him and talking to us about what to expect. The head nurse told us to expect weeks before he could return home. They would have to insert a feeding tube. He would be given phenobarbital to help wean him off of my meds and get him through the withdrawals. Safe to say I was pretty distraught. Luckily for me, I have an incredible therapist that goes above and beyond her professional duties and came to the hospital to talk to me. Needless to say I felt incredibly guilty, it is a personal creed I live by to keep ALL children out of harms way, especially my own, however I had to accept the fact that if I had tried to go through my pregnancy unmedicated, it is likely neither I nor Everett would be here today. Being on medication indefinitely is a fact I have to accept, and reaccept, over and over again.

       Everett wasn't in nearly as bad shape as the nurses made it out to be. The only thing they had to use the feeding tube for was to give him his first dose of phenobarbital. He was in there 6 days and nights. Justin stayed with him pretty much 24/7.

The week after
Because I was recovering from a c section, and ended up with an infected uterus, and a dr. who would only give me a very limited supply of pain medication, I wasn't able to see Everett in the hospital nearly enough. I could hardly sleep in my own bed, let alone a hospital one. The first couple nights home my brother came and took care of me, then my mother in law took her turn too. This week is fuzzy for me. I was getting depressed. It's hard to distinguish between normal postpartum hormones and my mental illness symptoms but either way it was a hard week. I barely got to see my baby, or even his dad for that matter, I was in incredible amounts of pain still, but we got through it. Like with labor, it wasn't painfully obvious that I had been disasociating, but now looking back on it, I definitely was.

And now?
Now things are great. Yesterday, Libby left after a week with us helping us with the baby and household stuff, and well just about everything. She really has helped our budding family tremendously. All of our family has. I am so grateful to have all the support that I do.


Everett and I have a great time listening to music, talking, and just generally chillin out together while Justin is at work. He really is an unfathomably easy baby. The three of us are managing just fine. Something I didn't expect? We're having fun doing it. 

about a boy

January 11th at 2:48 am I had my son, Everett Franklin Fowler.

Labour
I went in to be induced at 5 am on the 10th. Justin and i tossed and turned the night before, waiting for the alarm clock to go off at 4 so we could get this show on the road. We had no idea what we were in for. They started the pitosin, I got my epidural, I was contracting regularly, for a couple hours things were looking pretty good. I was in labor for an agonizing twenty hours. My first epidural quickly wore off, my second one i got didn't do anything longer than thirty minutes. I am so grateful for all the support I received while it was all happening, Justin, my mom, my sister dorothy, justin's mom, even my brother were all there by my side the entire time. They all took turns holding my hands and helping me through each contraction, although the last few hours, when i was waiting for my c section I was told I'd be getting, when the pain was so intense I was getting very confused as to what was actually happening, my mother was my saving grace. I had my eyes locked on her, and with her breathing through my contractions with me, assuring me each time my cervix was being checked that it was the doctors helping me and not past trauma reoccuring, somehow I remained grounded in the moment, and made it through. I really thought I wouldn't, but i did.

I didn't switch as much as i thought I would, although looking back on it, I did more than I thought I was at the time. Either way, we all made it through together.

10 lbs. 6 oz.
and that's all I have to say about that right now.

the waiting game

Well, here i am again. In the death grips of pregnancy insomnia. A different breed from the insomnia that's been as familiar to me as the back of my own hand. This one purely driven by physical discomfort. I'm exhausted, my back aches, sleep seems like it would fall right into my lap, but the minute i lay in bed, my legs get that funny feeling, my hips ache, my mind races, and the good nights sleep always seems just beyond my fingertips that I still can't feel. So i continue my nightly regimen of chamomile tea, homemade rice heating pad, and surfing the web. I'll probably fall asleep on the couch again sometime around 6 am, reawaken at 7 or 8, trudge up the stairs and sleep fitfully til noon.
      However the end is near. Actually i thought it would be here already, seeing as i'm 3 days overdue now. But I'm promised by my doctors they won't let a pregnancy prolong past 41 weeks. Which will be tuesday.And everyone is preparing for it. I can't help but wonder how labors going to go. Will i disasociate? will it be completely or will i still get to watch but not control? Which personality will take over if I do? It depends on the amount of pain, and the stress level of the environment around me I suppose.

     With everything going on right now I have been in survival mode the past few weeks. I don't brood over my unfolding family drama, my long, hard, pregnancy, in fact I'm pretty out of touch with my own emotions. Losing control is simply not an option. So i really don't even think about any of it. I'm not trapped in my own head, I'm trapped out of it. It would be a nice break if the circumstances were different.

oh despondency, how you nag at me.

that strange moment when you look in the mirror and it's your brother staring back at you. That overly sentimental " i know what you're going through" phrase turned staggeringly appropriate.
That even stranger moment when the mirror reflects your face, only it's different, more aggressive, the eyes give it away. I lost time for the first time in months last night, and honestly, it felt good.

rated W for whiney

warning: using this post to indulge myself in complaining and venting. Expletives are abundant. As my hands are too swollen to hold a pen to write in my journal.

Pregnancy sucks. All three trimesters. The "honeymoon" phase? What idiot came up with that load of bs? I really, truly do not understand women who can do this more than once. Or the ones who can gracefully walk through the grocery store, hair perfect, full makeup, reapplying and reapplying their lipgloss. fuck them. Also all the nymphy, "natural moms" that are on book covers and up at 6 am to go to the farmers market, not gaining a pound the whole time due to their oh so healthy diets, hair just messy enough so you know they don't put any chemicals or products anywhere NEAR their baby. One hand on the glowing belly so everyone knows it's the most wonderful thing in the world, like it's not totally throwing your body off balance and making you clumsier then you were in the 3rd grade.

As a soon mommy to be in this 2011 era of parenting, there is definitely a certain pressure to appear completely satisfied by your own bodys betrayal of you. Ask me how i'm doing? I'll smile, probably say i'm miserable. Probably make a joke i think is witty but just comes out as bitchy.  But what I really want to say is

I CAN NOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE! IM FIGURATIVELY AND SOMETIMES LITERALLY PULLING MY HAIR OUT! I HAVE TO TAKE BREAKS FROM TYPING THIS BLOG BECAUSE MY FINGERS ARE NUMB, MY EARS HAVE BEEN RINGING FOR TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT , THIS IS CRAZINESS! I WANT IT TO STOP I WANT IT TO STOP I WANT IT TO STOP!!!!

But that's not so nice now is it? It's not that i don't love my baby, believe me, after all this by the time he's borne we'll have memories together that go waaay back. I desperately want to love and hold and take care of my son, but i'd like to do it outside my body now please.I want to be able to fall asleep blissfully with my boyfriend when we have a snugglenight and it's the moon and the stars and the lovegod shining down on us, but my arms swell up and ache so bad i have to, just have to get out of bed. Even this christmas lover is now starting to warm up to scrooge and declare "bah humbug."

don't sweat it. hang loose.

a little word of wisdom from david schonhoff

no witty title necessary

Being sick last week has really thrown my sleeping schedule off.I know, i know, i know. "Just wait til you have your baby, you'll forget what a regular sleeping pattern even is. " I am aware. I'd also like to fall asleep before 5 am while i'm still sans baby.
It's been a strange couple of weeks. I won't go into details out of respect for someone very near and dear to my heart, but I'd be lying if this whole thing wasn't throwing me for a loop. On top of raging hormones, I still have disasociative identity disorder. It is there, and it will be there no matter what's currently happening in my life and this is a fact i've come to terms with. And lately it's been flaring up like a bad case of gout. They call it mental illness for a reason you know. My most troublesome alter,vampire, is having a very hard time coping with alot of things. From a psychoanalytical standpoint it makes perfect sense. We've been made painfully aware of things that are just plain disgusting, right at the advent of the beautiful child that's coming soon. (!) So it makes sense that the angry, protective personality is having a hard time dealing. Which means I occasionally have "bugs in my hair and crawling on me", and upon awakening from a nap i didn't know i was taking I'm usually overcome with this incredible fury. Usually directed at my boyfriend, which sucks because we are actually in a very good place right now. I never wake up with any particular reason to be overcome with such hatred for him, other than his genitalia. Men are a threat. Men are bad. They must be elimenated. I pick fights and say cold, callous, downright cruel things in such a condescending tone I almost can't believe it's coming out of my mouth, the occasional snarl escapes as well. I'm not just being "bitchy". I'm starting to get the gist of what's really going on. Peeling back the layers of the onion that stings so good. A good session with Dr. a would really help this along i believe, but especially this time of year, and a belly so big I literally cannot drive myself, making our schedules match has become a bit of a challenge.
Forest comes back on the 20th. I can't wait. I always feel like i'm at my best when my brother's around. I am so very excited for the baby boy that's coming. But i'd like to devote this next section to the baby boy's already here. My nephews.

River and I have finally come to a bonding place. I'd say it's perfect timing. you gotta give love to get it with riv, and I know a large part of his life, I just wasn't that much a part of hislife. Now he's graciously letting me in bit by bit and I love all his eccentricities. Medical difficulties and all. In fact I feel that we have a special bond there as well.

Now Liam and I go way back. I actually lived with him for a large part of his baby years (sorry dorothy for all the trouble i was). But something about Liam always brings me back to where I need to be. Very few people can ground me the way he can. Someday I'll get to tell him that by 3 years old he'd already saved my life multiple times. Before i became pregnant myself, I seriously doubted my ability to have children, also doubted that the love for my nephews could possibly even come close to being topped by another child. I am so excited for everett to meet his cousins, and for me to meet the most likely spitfire personality he will have.

I guess the moral of the story is, no matter how irritating 5 am bedtimes can be, it is one night closer to meeting my baby.

to sum it all up

The effectiveness of my ambien is starting to wean off again. This is not a good time to not be able to sleep.
I am now 35 weeks pregnant.That's roughly 35 more days until my baby gets here. Maybe I'll be lucky and he'll come a.s.a.h.p. (as soon as health permits. i just made it up.) I know to some extent I'm only kidding myself when i assume that things will be so much easier after giving birth, and this awful thing called pregnancy is over. ( go hug your mom. she had to do it for you.) I know there will be many many more nights of no sleep, that a rock attached to my abdomen turning into a real live baby with incessant needs is not going to be any less of an inconvenience. But I'd like to think it would be easier for me to handle. It somehow seems so much more logical that the burden of someone else's problems is way less of a burden.
I am so over my own shit. I want to wash my hands of it. Over the migraines, the backaches, the hormonal rages that make my bipolar diagnosis laughable. Over my childhood, my depression, my repression, my illnesses.

Here universe. You can take it all. I am done with it.

However it's nowhere near over. The little gnats and mosquitoes gnaw at my brain and the big things smack me in the face. I cannot stand the noise of electronics plugged in and not being used that make a sound, they remind me of left on amplifiers and guitar equipment.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone. and it is. and i am very very very angry.

sacrifice

as i sit alone in a crowded room of other moms and moms to be i wonder:
how many men would do the same?
backs aching in ugly red plastic
hardly
accomodating a swollen pregnant behind.
doing their best to make small talk through screaming toddlers and language barriers. not one face is scowling,
no complaints, only exasperated laughter.
show me a man who would happily do this alone for
one?, two?, three?
hours without
"bitching like a woman"
go ahead.
i dare you.

"Quis hic locus? Quae regio? Quae mundis plaga?

What world is this? What kingdom? What shores of what worlds?

I am entering new territory. A world I have never been before, one where I am left to deal with the ups and downs, the infuriating and the confusing, all with only my thoughts in my head. Never before have I considered how lonely and isolating it must be to be normal. To not have other people inside you who can just take over when the going gets tough. I am learning all too quickly. To be honest, I do not like it. I do not like having all 24 hours in my day. I do not like making decisions without an agreement, protest, or rebuttal from somewhere deep inside my being. The only break i've gotten in the past three weeks is when I got a birthday card in the mail from my dad. I watched from the balcony as it was burnt to a crisp in my kitchen sink, eminem blasting so loudly on the stereo that my ears hurt when i "came to". But that is all.....What shall we do tomorrow? what shall we ever do?... It began with the false supposition that my therapist was getting married, they went silent. I was deserted. Even now, after finding out it wasn't true, I still feel deserted and abandoned. It doesn't help that my boyfriend is sometimes wonderful and engaging, sometimes distant, but the greatest distance of all is the one between my best friend and I. The one I'm constantly, painfully aware of. She is there, and I am here, and as much as i want to, i cannot will the distance together. My loneliness, or "aloneness" is somewhat thrilling, albeit daunting. An adventure of sorts. I will undergo this one, holding my own hand, just as i always have, and just as i always will.