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.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
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.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, January 30, 2012
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.
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 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.
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.
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