My brushes. Ha ha this is what it's coming to, waiting for my paintings to dry, a portrait of my brushes. I love my brushes, and although I don't have an heir, I sometimes think who I would like to will them to. They have served me well and I have many cousins who are artists, so I think of them. It's pretty much all I would be leaving, because, even though I also love my camera, computer and printer, it will be old technology by the time I die - I'm hoping to live maybe thirty more years, if things go well and I quit smoking.
I have always planned my life out in segments. After I graduated university, I would look back every four years to see what I had accomplished. I wanted to see at least the equivalent of earning a degree in each of the four year segments. After schizophrenia hit, I just crashed, skidded, bumped into and out of about twelve years, before finally I got a diagnosis and a treatment plan presented to my face, by the doctor at the hospital. That talk was so important. I didn't read my medical records from all of my hospitalisations - 11 of them. I just threw them in a file and got on with my life, hoping for the best. No one ever said to me, you have schizophrenia, until then. They just sent me home with a bottle of pills and that was it. So after that, there were the Haldol years, about five of them. They started out hopeful but ended up pretty hard to manage. But it was progress, so for that I get a degree. With Latuda now, since September last year, I have achieved a lot more - I'm painting again. But as of this week the hallucinations have come back. I have had them every day this week. It's just something I am learning to adjust to. They don't seem to last for hours, which is good, just for a few minutes, throughout the day. I have to stay stable, but I like one of them. It's my ex-husband as a little boy. He says, "Live". I like that.
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Ice Storm. Actually, the ice is all melted now, and yesterday it was 60 degrees! I was sick yesterday, I fainted at 4am and had to throw up and stuff. It's times like this that I am glad to be single. I just want to be left alone, to pick myself up and clean up and try and get back to bed, which is what I did. I think it was food poisoning. I drank sodas to settle my stomach, and in the afternoon i bought two hamburger buns, just the bread, from McDonald's with my drink and it was fine. I felt better into the evening and this morning I'm feeling a bit stronger, just sore in my neck from where my head hit the wall when I fainted. I nearly fainted in the afternoon yesterday, but I quickly removed my fleece and my scarf and felt the cool air and avoided the fainting. I won't be buying Stouffer's vegetable lasagne again any time soon though. Actually, getting the confidence up to eat again is the hardest thing. I just thank God I have a washing machine that works. I just threw my clothes in and went back to bed. It's just there have been times in my life where I didn't have one, and I feel like a fairy tale character who found a house in the woods with everything you need to live, just waiting for me. I did think though, for all my independence in this circumstance, that I will miss my parents one day. I mean, I'll miss them for all kinds of reasons, I love them, but it's just nice to pick up the phone. Mom was mad at me, said I drink too many sodas, but I don't really. I just have two or three large Diet Dr Pepper's a day. Not bad considering some people say you should drink eight glasses of water a day. I would drown.
I'm a bit off my stride financially. I had one of my photographs framed this month and I bought an expensive tube of oil paint. I can handle that, but Dad is kind of pushing me out of the nest with my new car, and I have to get it inspected. This will be about $50 I wasn't expecting. I think I can handle it, but there will be no trips to the sushi bar in February. It's not bad, I just have to stop thinking of spending money just because it's there. I got comfortable and it's time to get back to saving. I'm just a bit put off my eating at home at the moment after getting sick. But it looks like it will be a month of microwave dinners again. I'll be ok. Just have to take it slow this month. The good thing is, i"m smoking a bit less, which will save me quite a bit of money over the month. I'm going to have to quit, I know this, it's just that I'm quite contemplative this winter, and I appreciate the break. Ice storm this weekend. I'm just getting back to normal after the storm. Usually, I leave the house three or four times a day for a diet soda, or chocolate or cigarettes but because of the forecast, I stocked up on Thursday. So I have been going mad wanting to get out of the house. I depend on it. Luckily, this new car has electric heaters on some of the windows and mirrors, and they work, which is so good. I feel super lucky about that. I ate all the chocolate in two days, too. So there is method in my madness of going out to buy it, not having it around the house, just waiting for me. To be fair, I shared some with my brother, but still, it was quite disgusting of me to eat it like that. I'm totally put off and it was my favorite kind.
I'm waiting for my paintings to dry, which will take forever in this cold weather. I have thought of some new color combinations I would like to try though, and this time I wrote them down. Last time I had to wait for drying time, I forgot my ideas I had. I still can't remember them. This time, it will take longer because I added the stand oil, so I'm thinking about a month, at least. In the meantime, I have been thinking and writing a bit about my film making in general, just turning over ideas in my mind for putting a very few of them on the net. I have given myself a three-year window for this. It will take some time to track them down, for a start, but also I am just thinking of doing some research in the next few years about what technology to use on any given film, if I were to get some interest from the public. I just don't know what people are using now. Last time I worked was in the last century, before digital and high definition and all that took over. I don't love video. I prefer film. So if I have to use video I am thinking of shooting for the internet only. But I will look into what is available generally, over the next few years. The whole project makes me nervous, so I have to go slow. Just thinking about it, I kind of seize up a little, panic. I mean, it's a total long shot that anyone would contact me for a film, it's been so long, and I'm no longer with my directing partner, my ex-husband. I have three films I am interested in posting, that I think show my own sensibility. It's kind of just an exploratory project. Even if I get some interest, I would only be able to do a couple of projects a year, tops. It's just that I have given thought to what to do with myself and I'm just not up to having a job. I can't even get hired. I didn't even get a call from Walmart and I applied twice. This was back in 2012. I was not in good shape and after my last attempt at an interview for a part-time job I just talked with my Dad and he said, look, you need Disability. And I do. I was hallucinating and got lost on the way to the interview and I didn't have a cell phone to call. They didn't want to reschedule. But yeah, I thought about it a lot and I'm just not able to work 5 days a week. I wouldn't even last three months. But if I take my time and don't push myself too hard, I might get some interest from my films. It would mean working just two weeks at a time, a couple of times a year. As it stands now, I don't think I could do it, but maybe in a few years I can, so I am giving it some thought. Mussels with Saffron Cream Sauce, Appalachian Grill, Cartersville, GA. I rarely have mussels, it's hard to find good ones and these were good. They were the special that day. But I, for some reason, was rushing and chose the wrong sauce. The saffron was nice, but I would have preferred the cream and white wine, more classic, and my absolute favorite dish in the whole world. Still, I wasn't disappointed. My ex-husband introduced me to them many years ago, and we had them whenever we went to Paris or Provence, and finally we had them in London when a good Belgian restaurant was built. I just love them. I made the mistake of ordering them at Red Lobster with my Dad one time, and they were not good, just not fresh and not a good size either. Hate that. My Belgian friend makes them himself, which I have never done, we don't have a supplier here in town. I know the rules for cooking mussels, but I'm still a little nervous of it. But I can't find them at any seafood supply in town and anyway, even if I could, my brother won't allow wine in the house, so I would have to sneak that in. Just for the sauce, not for drinking. This plate of mussels was for a lunch to celebrate my Aunt's birthday. She is 81. They were a special treat, so I took a picture - after I was finished of course, lol.
I love seafood now because of my ex-husband. My mom was either beef or chicken always, sometimes pork, which I don't love. But his mom was a fantastic cook, and we had salmon poached in white wine with homemade mayonnaise, mackerel with a parcel of herbs inside and a delicious lemon cream sauce, or her fabulous fish pie. His sister made a lovely smoked mackerel paté that I loved on toast. I shopped for the fish pie - maybe it was even last winter, I can't remember - but the cod was $6 for two small fillets, and I just thought it wasn't worth it. I would have to buy two and it just seemed too much. I rarely cook these days anyway. I just buy frozen microwave stuff. It has helped me keep the weight off I lost last summer. Every schizophrenic has weight gain from the meds - significant weight gain, for me it was 80 lbs. I hate it and it's hard to lose, but I'll have another go at it this summer and if I do well, I'll feel much better. I'm hopeless dieting in winter. I was quite athletic when I was younger and since meds I'm just feeling stiff and arthritic, so the best I can do is thirty minutes on the treadmill, a brisk walk. But I haven't done that since October, I'm just too cold to leave the house and the gym is cold. My dear friend I wrote about last week, who dissociated and took an accidental overdose, is still struggling. She cut her wrist and arm, she does that sometimes, and her crisis team noticed, which she didn't want them to. They bandaged her up. I'm just out of my depth with her, but I tell her I love her and try to just be a good friend. I have burned myself on purpose twice, and I cut my wrist very lightly once, but it was many years ago now and it didn't become a habit or ritual like it has for her. I just remember thinking that I did it because of voices and afterward, I just thought, this isn't what I meant to do. So I'm feeling a bit helpless about it all. The night she did it, the overdose, we had been talking about quite deep things, she was talking about her two rapes. I was mostly just listening. She seemed strong and not upset, she seemed calm and was very clear. She stayed up for many hours after we ended the call though, and that's when it happened. Same with the cutting. We stopped video chatting, about nothing very disturbing, and she ended up staying up until the early hours and cutting. I don't feel I could do more as a friend, I don't feel like I'm partly to blame, with her I just listen. I was date-raped and I didn't talk about that with her, though. Maybe I should, maybe she feels too alone in her experiences. I don't know. I mean, for me, I only talked about that experience for the first time with my therapist two weeks ago, so we are both just trying to find our way, you know? But yes, her experiences are more serious and her illness is more serious and we just try to be lovely with each other. Maybe sometime in the future I will disclose with her more. It might help. She had, on her own, without telling a doctor, reduced her meds by half for several weeks, and I think that was the reason she dissociated. So does she. She is back on her full dose now, and it's really obvious, the difference. She is very slow and considered in her talking. Quite monotone, and she is sleeping more, which she hates. But because of the incident, she is being given a new psychiatrist, and he has promised to take a look at her meds and even consider Latuda. Her parents are going with her to the appointment too, which will help her get the support she needs to speak up about how unhappy she is with her meds generally. She takes sixteen pills a day at the moment, thousands of milligrams. It is a fact that she is overmedicated, even though it's because she is, in her body, resistant to the meds. That's why the doses are so high. But it does need more thought. I hope this new doctor is good for her. Knitted Painting. Finally getting back to doing some painting - with paint. The picture is of a painting I knitted a few years ago. Somehow it survived all of my purges. It's about long walks in the United Kingdom. I was thinking of my marriage and all of our holidays in the countryside. I still have a trunk half-full of beautiful yarn, but I'm not knitting lately. I am back to painting with oil, which I had thrown out in a rage and was without for several years. I am glad I have added the stand oil to the medium. They are shinier and more painterly, and I am getting better at color. They are richer than when I first started. I have ten now. I found a patch of wall space to hang some of them while they dry, which does take ages in winter in the garage. Just finished a yellow one.
Every time I paint one, I am reminded of the ones I threw out. It's nice having the memory, but now that I am on a better medicine I do actually miss them. I could fill a couple of rooms with my own paintings and my collected paintings if I still had them. I would like to see them again, but they are gone forever, unless an archeologist does a dig in the city dump. Maybe I needed for them to go to clear my mind, I don't know. I also threw out about eight other knitted paintings, which I sometimes wore as scarves around my shoulders. So much loss. I am ok, the important thing is that I am doing it again, but yeah, there is kind of that hole in my life now. But I'm getting a better feeling for the paint, especially painting small. It just feels good, even though they are only just small color studies. I am wanting to get back on track after spending what was probably too much time on Facebook arguing about gun control and video chatting there. I actually find video chatting quite hard. It's easier for me to instant message, because I can think better. My friend left me on video chat for what was supposed to be a minute or two, for a cup of tea, but she forgot and left me waiting for nearly an hour. I give her a lot of time, it's hard for her at the moment, she's dissociating and was briefly hospitalised for a few hours on Wednesday because she took an overdose, which she blacked out completely in her memory. But I also have to stay on track, or I'm no good to anybody. So I painted this morning, which is usually a time when she is doing other things. I feel quite helpless about her condition, I'm just not a doctor, and she has lost confidence in herself because of this last episode. Her parents have taken away the house keys, just to keep her safe, but yeah, it's a burden for her. She has a lot of attention now from social services, but she's skipping meals and staying up until four am. She is afraid to sleep after taking medicine because of the blackouts. She's afraid she won't wake up. It just takes so much trust when one is mentally ill. It's very hard to let someone help, to give over any control. My only advice is to set one's self a schedule for sleep and food. If you can just achieve that, stick to it, I have found the rest of the day and logical thought can return. But I don't think she can do it right now. So I'm kind of at a loss for words. I did get her to eat a yoghurt last night before bed. But yeah, I'm worried. Southern Flavor Café, Cave Spring, GA. I'm a little bit depressed as I write this. The verbal sparring between my missionary cousin and me has continued, and I am just tired of being told my offerings are irrelevant or misinformed. When he's not smug, he's actually a little angry, or at least frustrated, which is disappointing. Today, I just laid it all out. I wrote that I looked at the executive order for what it is, and as a schizophrenic - I have the same disease as the Colorado shooter and the Gifford shooter - and it's a bid to keep unstable people, even me, from easily acquiring guns. It's just a tighter background check. I actually don't think schizophrenia is a good enough excuse for what those guys did, even though I know my own thoughts, regarding self harm mostly, can spiral out of control. As long as they are also on medication, I'm ok that they are serving time. I still think you have to be pretty determined, even as a schizo, to stockpile weapons and ammunition like the Colorado shooter did. I am actually reduced to declaring myself openly, just to make a point - and it's a good one.
There are ways of disagreeing intelligently that rise above knee-jerk rhetoric. And actually, I am aware that I am now in the position of feeling a little defensive about my right to vote, as mentally disabled, and I may one day depend on these right-wingers to help me keep it. It's just like, what will it take to get them to understand that the executive order is not a gun recall, not even close? In his most recent post, the one I last responded to, he mentions the Dunblane massacre in Scotland - similar to Sandy Hook as it was an attack on a school full of children. I said that I was tired of murdered children being considered mere casualties and a fair trade-off for gun freedom. He didn't answer back yet. It's just it is my newsfeed, and I do have an opinion. Maybe he wants to unfriend me, I don't know. He doesn't take it easy on me, and I feel I'm left with little recourse but to just cite myself as the kind of intended target of the background checks, and point out that it is I, not he or his circle of people, who will be taking the brunt of this double check on gun ownership. I don't actually mind that, but I do mind a bit feeling like my back is against the wall to make a fair point. Most people don't think about or know schizophrenics beyond the occasional news item or film, perhaps. I know myself and my brother and a handful of people on the internet and we talk a bit. None of them are talking about the executive order. None of them are upset by a background check or even mention wanting a gun at all. It is the so-called "normal" who are freaking out and that is what is scary. I don't have any evidence nor have I done any research, but it is my feeling that anyone who wants a gun - especially those impatient with a background check - is on the spectrum and shouldn't have one. I haven't stated this in my arguments to my cousin. I don't want to be inflammatory. I can't help it though, I think they are kind of crazy. Buying a gun means that one is ok with the possibility of injuring or killing someone else, even if it's in given circumstances like self-defense. I am not ok with this possibility in my life, even if it means I am attacked or raped or killed by an intruder, which I am a little afraid of sometimes. If I had one, I would not know what to do with a gun, and would probably end up being hurt myself. I studied kung fu for a short while - it was because I thought it was pretty to look at, not for self defense. I'm just not one of "them", I'm not a gun enthusiast, and I am tired of that means I am thumbing my nose at the constitution or am somehow unAmerican. You know? It's just talking on the net about things, but I feel attacked and sometimes threatened by these people. Even if the threat is to possibly unfriend or block me. I am isolated and I would hate to lose this cousin as a friend, if for no other reason I like the debate - and I do like it. It's good for my mind. Somehow though, it seems to bring the worst out in them. It's too bad. If I am unfriended, I'll be sad, but I guess I'll just take it like a big girl. It's all I can do. Mom, Autumn 2015. It has been a challenging start to the year so far. First was my trying to get used to actually being in the documentary I have agreed to be in. The questions involved are challenging - why do schizophrenics suffer, what are your thoughts on God, and what are your thoughts on Love. This week, I was approached by my missionary cousin, who, it should be said, has been fairly patient with my comments on his Facebook posts. His politics are very conservative, and for some reason, I just feel the need to contribute my liberal leanings rather than scroll on. Some of his friends have been rude to me about it. He posted a quote to my timeline and asked me what I thought about it. It said, "One of the quickest ways to complicate a mess is to jump in with both feet and try to do it all without God." So I tried to answer. As it was posted to my timeline, I felt he was genuinely asking, rather than trying to make a point about my politics. I realised that in my life, I have never tried to do anything without God. Just a prayer, that's all. I have not been attending church most of my life or anything like that. But there was not an exam or a job or even my marriage, that I didn't pray about. Until he asked, I didn't realise how that is the actual truth about me. I have had a consistent, though fragile, faith throughout my life. I have complained about the devastation of schizophrenia, but I cannot actually think of a mess I myself have caused by trying to "do it all without God".
There are things I have said and done I have regrets about, but I can't say it was me trying to do without God. Maybe I was flying solo without realising it, I don't know. A lot of it was just being young and nervous. Schizophrenia made a huge mess in my life, personal and professional, but I don't blame myself for that. I have become quite patient and philosophical. My main stance is, I do not want to cultivate within my understanding a fear of God, and fear of God is what I was kind of introduced to as a child. I just don't accept it. But if schizophrenia is God's personal contact in my brain, I am afraid and I also don't appreciate it. I try to reflect this in my prayers. I told my cousin that God did not answer my prayers to take away the voices, and that I stopped asking for that in the autumn of 2014. Then, in the spring of 2015, it's like floods of what some people call "blessings" were showered on me. I told my cousin maybe I was just supposed to quit asking. I don't know. (He hasn't responded, it's been a couple of days.) He had posted a quote early in December that was the first and only one I actually respond to intellectually. It said something to the effect that trying to understand God can be frustrating, but also that it is not for us to fit him into our understanding. God's mystery. For me, my cousin is more effective on that footing. His usual line is more like spankings are good for you, get a gun or some "old tyme" wisdom on economics, in other words, anti-welfare. (Though he survives solely on contributions from people. But he does cool things with them, like bring water to African villages and stuff.) I just don't subscribe to his beliefs. And I am actually nervous going public with my thoughts on God, since I am not interested in preaching. But maybe my answer to his question will make a difference. He usually questions the relevance of my comments. Maybe he does think I'm a mess, I don't know. An online friend included me in a private Facebook page about schizophrenia and it's really a good one. A lot of common sense articles from professionals about schizophrenia. One point in one article, I think it was entitled 40 things to know about schizophrenics, or something like that, was that solitude is important for schizophrenics. I am finding this to be true. I thought it would be good to introduce myself in my life as a schizophrenic, but the documentary and the spotlight from my cousin make me actually want to crawl back in my shell. I should be careful dealing with normal people and the public at large. I do feel vulnerable and public scrutiny can glare. It's not easy. My Christmas present from Mom. I saw the sock monkeys at a restaurant Mom had taken me to for lunch. I just thought I wanted one, so I told her to make that my Christmas present. It was not expensive, and it's what I really wanted, for some reason. I used to have a tiny one on a keychain, but I lost it. This sock monkey is a great comfort to me. I have, for years now, been missing spooning with my husband to sleep, and bunching up the comforter wasn't working. But Wilson, which is what my Mom named the sock monkey, fits right under my chin and cheek and is soft, so it doesn't cause an ache. It's good, everyone who is single and 51 should have a sock monkey.
Normally I would have a stern talk with myself to stop reminiscing and move on. But that hasn't worked. I figure I have earned it. It is just a little concession to the fact that my divorce, which I asked for because of my then-undiagnosed schizophrenia, was sudden and very very hard. I am still trying to unwind from it, and it has been 17 years since our first separation. Many people have said to me that making such a unilateral suggestion was unfair to both myself and my partner, but my mind was really gone and I couldn't even concentrate on anything he said. I just looked at his smiling face and heard voices that didn't belong to him. It was horrible. I just somehow instinctively knew that whatever was wrong with my mind was serious and not going away any time soon. We were not only married for ten years, we worked together as film directing partners. I wanted him to go out on his own and keep going, while I moved back home to my parents' house. I knew what I was doing, as far as I could know, but somehow in my mind I thought we would stay in touch. It didn't work out like that. He was hurt and angry and confused by my behavior, and set about quickly moving on. In just a quick five years, he was remarried and soon to have children, which is what I had wanted for him. I just thought we would stay friends. I remember one time he called me here at my father's house, for no particular reason. I had been having a horrible time with voices and he was just who I wanted to hear from. I wasn't able to talk properly though, and when I asked him if he would start calling me every two weeks, just to check in, he said no. I was thinking that it would give me something to hang on to, to get from call to call. I wasn't thinking of a reconciliation or anything. So I had to suck it up anyway, which is what I had designed for myself and I should not second guess that. It's just I thought my illness would eventually clear up and I could get a little newspaper job or something local. I thought I would just live with one or the other of my parents and just work at my little job until it was time to retire. But I wasn't able to hold a job longer than a few months, I kept having to go back to hospital. Even now, on steady medications and with a certain diagnosis, I still am not stable enough to work. I had counted on the job I was hoping to have supplying me with friends, but it didn't work out like that. I am still in touch with a photographer I worked for, who liked my work, but I live two states away now. But he and his wife are roughly my age. I send Christmas cards. They don't. My crisis therapist, who I was given six months with, after my last hospitalisation, was keen for me to get on Facebook. I had been without a computer for a few years, after disassembling my brilliant one because of voices. A few months later, my Mom loaned me her computer, and when I had done my best with that, my Dad bought me a laptop. Facebook is good, I have found a lot of old friends from school, and it gives me the illusion of a fuller life. It's nice seeing their profile pictures and I enjoy their posts, even if many of them are quite conservative. I wake up every day and after checking my emails, which are all automatically generated, not from friends, I look at my Facebook and start the day. I have had lunch with three of them over the years, and one more is moving back from Spain this year and is up for a meeting. So I just work slowly on that. But yeah, it's time I had a sock monkey. New Year's Day fire. I have taken the past two weeks "off", first to prepare for the documentary on schizophrenia I have agreed to be in and second, just for the sake of it. I'm no closer to any answers to the questions they will ask for the film, but I'm ok with that now. I don't have any wisdom regarding schizophrenia, I am in the middle of it still. I have never given myself to a project like this before. Suddenly I realize how camera shy I am, aside from not having answers. I'll just do my best. My original concern was that I didn't want to talk about demons, but now I don't mind touching on it. Maybe it will be lost in the edit anyway, I don't know.
I'm going to start painting again today, as I have no further questions or memories to access for the documentary. I am going to mix the paint and the medium more carefully and, if I can get it at the local store, I might buy some stand oil to help. I am used to painting in glazes, and I don't think I mixed the damar varnish in correctly, like I need more. I just don't want to thin the paint tons, because I want the brush strokes. So it's just going to be trial and error. I want to start today though on the painting because tomorrow I begin to read the novel sent to me by an online schizophrenic friend, that he wrote. I'm looking forward to that now, after feeling the weight of it all autumn, sitting on the chair in the living room. He also sent about 15 books of his poetry. He is good at poetry, I have read some of it, it's just I am not super great at reading poetry. I find it hard work. He has fans though. He self published in San Francisco back in the Eighties, and someone online tracked him down a couple of years ago, and offered to put all of his poetry online. He has about 600 sonnets he has written. So yes, I have a lot to read. I feel like I'm in school again. |
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