Month: April 2015

Put Some Cotton On Your Eyes

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Take a cotton ball. Spread it so the fibers thin slightly and it’s like an oval piece of mesh. Now place this over both eyes and live your life. Go about making coffee and love. Plan meetings, playdates, talk on the phone and write a thesis. Buy groceries, mow the lawn.
Remember as you go about doing all your doings, your friends and family still see clearly. They have no cotton. They’re the ones in the background constantly chanting, “You will feel like yourself again. Just wait.”
And when they accidentally let a chuckle escape their mouth because they know your behavior is erratic, that soon you won’t be crying over the dandelion spores and potato chips the kids put in the back seat of the car, try your best not to kick them in the shin and then point.

Welcome to a slight understanding of what it’s like in the midst of mental illness. Everything hazy, stuck, and you just can’t see your way through. Even with all the yoga and fish oil the doctors suggest. I know, I know. It does help, but when I’m on the floor in fetal position, my body rocking from a rush of adrenaline, I’m not so much thinking about the best use of down dog. Not to mention how everything seems to take 3-4 weeks or forever which also is not the best of help for immediate circumstances.

Folks, my cotton has fallen. It’s like I can breathe again. For every minute I was fighting for a sense of reality I am now opening my hands in gratitude for the relief. I mean, I can still be moody over my son’s screeching noises. But even the most sane person would find neverending mouth-farts annoying after awhile. Get ahold of yourself child.

I know I have taken small freedoms for granted when I enter a sixteenth entry of symptoms in my journal which say, very mild, almost unnoticeable. The words track two weeks of acclimation. Two weeks in the trenches of upheaval, finally claiming calm.

It’s as I rummage through the laundry basket that I hear their laughs come unexpectedly. It surprises them because they start slowly until one kid’s giggle feeds the other until they are a mess of silly. I smile broad, full, and feel it deep in the reserves of my chest. I take a second to realize that a smile is progress. I am engaged in my life and not clawing for a sense of normality.

There may be a few final shreds on the eyelashes, but I’ve made it. And not all on my own.

Frequent Bouts of Crying

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My breathing is raggedly out of control. Too fast and yet not able to catch up.
A gag fills my throat so words are forced quiet. All I can do is let tears fall to where they tickle my chin.
My surroundings are the same, but they no longer compute in me as they did. They tower over my withering self. They look darker, scarier.
Reality sifts like sand so that I consider vomiting all my emotion on my bare feet.

I look closer. Coral polish is beginning to chip from the nails and there is new ink. I read what I paid to have burned into my skin and realize, this is exactly why these words are precious to me.

beauty for ashes

They sink into my soul, lifting me out of the waves of panic and centered to a larger perspective. Even if momentarily, I am calmer.

Three months ago I had a chat with my doctor about how difficult it was to express emotion. I couldn’t cry when I felt like I wanted or needed to. Compassion was merely a swell in my chest. Anger…well, I’ve never struggled to let that be known.
“It’s a good indication that we have you on too high a dose.”
Admittedly, the numbing results were a relief at first. I wasn’t having panic attacks ten times a day and I could drink coffee like a Seinfeld cast member. But then it was as if something was missing. Like pieces of my vulnerability and personality weren’t available to anyone except me.

So while I wait for my brain to regulate serotonin levels from this new drop in dosage, I breathe deep into my gut and initiate my five senses. My sweet Linnaya (my therapist) tells me to do this.

I hear a bird. The wind. Yikes, the wind is kind of scary. It brings dark clouds and tornadoes. No, no stop it. The bird.

I smell…ew, I smell socks. Not helping the nausea a bit.

Okay, I feel my hands on a blanket that gives me safety in the way my childhood covers kept me protected from robbers. You know, were they to come. 

I can’t think of any more senses because all I hear is that bird. 

It actually works at relaxing me, until I hear the tribute song for Paul Walker and suddenly I find myself hunched in sobs like I’m grieving a long lost brother. I cry for his friends, his family.

“Symptoms of withdrawal may include frequent bouts of crying.”

Over celebrities who died too young?
Over cute, nerdy kids in glasses who are running down the sidewalk?
Over every, single note remotely near the key of D minor?
Over my husband walking in from the garage?
Because I see nothing of the sort in your notes.

So I let the tears come, and keep spreading the ashes.

“It will pass,” say the experts.

And I’ll be holding the beauty.