#fml
I am on Facebook. A lot. I like it and I am cool with that. I don’t feel a need to downplay my love for Facebook to feel good about myself (much.)
A trend of late for people on Facebook (and Twitter and such) is for them to post something that has gone wrong in their life and then put the hashtag #fml (fuck my life.) Fml usually follows statements like,
I spilled my morning coffee on my jeggings #fml
or I just left the grocery store and forgot to buy Baked Lays #fml.
This drives me absolutely bonkers.
It’s not because of some elevated buddah-like reason, like “People should try to only breath in their positive thoughts.” or “We should all focus on what really matters and not sweat the small stuff.”
In fact, I am all about sweating the small stuff. Let’s bitch about little things. I love it. I actually think if you let the small stuff bother you it is less likely to become big stuff. My problem is the lack of specificity. People “fucking their whole life.” for something small seems like they are setting themselves up for a shitty trending pattern. Let’s just get pissed at the specific event and not our life in general.
Stuck in a slow moving lane on the freeway and gonna be late to work? Try using #fmmtp (fuck my morning traffic pattern.)
Got food poisoning from eating half priced sushi? Maybe you can go with #fmcarfls (fuck my cheap ass fish loving self)
You’re with me on this right? And if not, #fysspwdgmsnosyhtrtitfp (fuck you stupid stubborn person who doesn’t get my shit. No one said you you had to read this in the first place.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEKJDOEiV-E
Philosophical Sitcom Clip Friday:
After Reverend Jim’s Driving Exam, this clip is from my favorite Taxi episode.
People in general, and women in specific, spend too much time trying to improve who they are by comparing themselves to others.
I am never going to weigh 103 lbs. and have a PhD in chemical something or other but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a responsibility to myself to be healthy and learn shit.
That’s it. Happy Friday (however you define that.)
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Putting it Out There
“At the heart of any real intimacy is a certain vulnerability. It is hard to trust someone with your vulnerability unless you can see in them a matching vulnerability and know that you will not be judged. In some basic way it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others close to us.” – Rachel Naomi Remen
I share my blog on Facebook, with a select group of people. People I know well or people I just think will get it. As I have shared my thoughts, musings, weird analogies that usually involve pop culture or food, many of these friends have written me back telling me how depression and other mental illnesses have impacted (I chose impacted because I still don’t get how to use effected and affected) their lives.These exchanges have provided a specific comfort and validation for me and I hope this blog has done the same for them.
I spend a lot of time wondering why I still remain leery about sharing my blog with everyone I am “friends” with on Facebook. What could there possibly be to lose? People get you or they don’t. I am more then happy to share my political views in no uncertain terms, but the fact that my brain and the rest of my body work best with pills, and shocks, and talking to professionals, that I keep hidden.
And then I think, wow, I am doing a disservice to my son. I want a son who embraces every part of himself and is embarrassed of nothing. Fart when you need to as long as you say excuse me and dig all that you are. So here is my blog for anyone who wants to read it. Hopefully you will see my healthy journey through mental illness and my somewhat unhealthy obsession with 80s sitcom theme songs.
Also if you think women are smart and capable of being the CEO of their own vagina, vote Obama.
My last ECT appointment is scheduled for November 15. Nine month to the day the treatment began. I feel like I should be giving birth to something, maybe my own little shock baby. Perhaps I should read things in preparation like What to Expect When You’re No Longer Electric.
I do find myself a bit worried about the whole not getting zapped anymore thing. (I should make it clear, with all the offhanded comments that use words like shocked and zapped, that I am completely knocked out, asleep, and feel absolutely nothing.) No part of me ever thought this would work. It was the last stop before dying and I figured I should try it. It was like ceviche, how could raw fish marinated in lemon juice that could possibly give you salmonella be worth trying, but you take the risk and yep, it is good stuff, yet not for everyone.
So ECT has worked and now it is ending. I can go back if the lovely medication resistant suicidal depression returns but hopefully it will just be another page in this Creative Memories scrapbook of mental illness. November 15 doesn’t just end ECT though, it is the last ride in this long year plus adventure. I will still take my meds and pay the occasional visit to my psychiatrist, (trying not to break the fish bowl again,) but I will have officially run out of excuses to not resume the full responsibilities of an adult life.
That, like every other time, is what scares the ever living everything out of me.
I don’t want anymore excuses. Excuses equal sickness and guilt and an inability to fully function. Why would I want them, yet I would be lying if I said there is not a tiny part of me that does. I hate that this part exists. It feels icky. Another skin tag on the neck meat of life. So I shall admit it is there, maybe focus on it too much, pick at it, and possibly see a trained professional who knows how to remove it or I will just hide under a blanket and totally ignore it.
5 really bad ECT jokes.
Knock, Knock
Who’s there?
I don’t know
I don’t know who?
No, really, I have no idea who you are
What is an ECT patient’s favorite month?
Shocktober
Where is an ECT patient’s favorite place to shop?
Zappo’s
How many ECT patients does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Who needs a light bulb, we have our own electricity.
An ECT patient gets his bill and his treatment costs more than it should. He calls his insurance and asks “Why is my bill so high?” and the insurance agent says “It looks like you had some extra charges.”
Funnel Cakes Not Included
My son and husband just got back from visiting family and going to Hershey Park. I chose to stay home, mostly because I was afraid I would unintentionally find a way to fuck it up.
The Hershey Park day o’ fun has become a yearly excursion ever since my brother-in-law started getting free tickets through his job. My brother-in-law is very thoughtful in the fact that he tends to pick jobs that include free amusement park tickets.This trip combines everything my husband loves. Family, roller coasters, and free stuff.
A year ago we went to York, PA to hang with the family and go to Hershey. I was not doing well at this point. That might be a huge understatement.
While suicidal amusement park visit sounds like a good name for a stoned college student punk band, it did not sound like the ideal way to spend a Saturday with my family.
I had to ask my husband to do something I never wanted to do.
“Hey honey, could you skip going to Hershey and take me to a psych ward instead?”
We left my son in York so he could go to Hershey and skip the action packed Psych Facility Land we were going to, where the best rides take place when you skip your meds. If you have to make this choice for your child, I recommend always picking the place with the gift shop and funnel cakes.
Oh, if only the mental hospital had funnel cakes.
Leaving my son was beyond hard, so much of me was afraid there was a chance I would be leaving him forever.
While Psych Facility Land would not be the mental health amusement park that ultimately gave me my life back,( that would be Electro Shock Wonder Village,) it was a necessary part of the journey.
I am grateful for my husband’s sacrifice and glad he got to go this year, because it is a trip he loves and because I was healthy enough to be at home by myself. And get this, I even had a funnel cake.
Dreams do come true, people of the internet.
A lot of blech things are happening ranging from just annoying to oh my god that’s horrible and really sucks. I find myself very afraid to respond with any negative feelings for the situations. My response to myself seems to be “It’s okay, I’m doing great, everything’s going well, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. Smiles”
This can only end in misplaced tears.
I have realized I am afraid to feel sad. Will my sadness worry others? Will I be able to stop at regular people sadness and not go to the time-to-adjust-your-meds sadness?
It feels similar to my struggle with weight. How do you know you can eat the right amount of food, food you actually enjoy, without eating too much? If I let myself eat these few fries will I eat every single fry in the entire world? It seems easier to just do what Weight Watcher says, eat twenty points for the rest of your life and all will be good. Who doesn’t love to weigh their turkey breast and eat everything with fat free dressing on the side?
The thing is every time I have done Weight Watchers I have never been able to stick with Weight Watchers. At some point I just decide I want to be able to eat like regular people so I buy a box of Entenmann’s donuts and eat them all in one sitting and soon I weigh more than when I started Weight Watchers in the first place.
There has to be some place between a life of emotional fat free sugar free ice cream and emotional an entire pan of brownies. It probably involves a slice of pizza.
I went to my psychiatrist appointment today. I got in the elevator and standing next to me was a sweet looking guy in his late 20s. Strapped to him was the biggest nerf gun I have ever seen along with an impressive array of darts. He did not try to explain this or even seem to realize these were not “normal” accessories. Well he is definitely getting off at the psychiatry floor, I thought. But, no, he got off four floors earlier. Not getting off at my floor all of the sudden made him seem more crazy.
I then went to check-in and was given a survey I am told to fill out at every appointment. It asks delightful questions like “How many hours a night are you sleeping?” and ”Are you consumed with thoughts of death?” I imagine it is similar to filling out an eHarmony profile.
As I was turning in the form I knocked the clipboard into the fish bowl and I broke the bowl. I didn’t just crack it, no, there was a huge hole and water started spraying everywhere. I apologized several times as the kind secretary was cleaning up whatever was wet, which was everything. Another psychiatrist came out of his office as all of this was going on and I told him what happened. And the secretary replied “But don’t worry, she didn’t do it on purpose.” Only in a psychiatric office would this need to be said.
I went into my Dr. and gave her the survey I filled out.
She said “Your numbers are looking really good.”
“Well” I said “This is from before I broke the fish bowl.”
I posted this video earlier today on Facebook with the words “Let’s be good people.”
Then I left my house and went to an improv jam and I was not a good person. There was a workshop before the jam and I was perfectly swell there. I enjoyed the company, played well with others, and then I became an asshole. A passive asshole, but an asshole nonetheless.
This is the thing about improv, and probably life as well. People have rules, all sorts of them. You learn which ones go with how you like to play and you try to live by those rules. I try to give myself the rules of have fun and respect those on stage.
I can give excuses of why I chose not to follow these principles tonight but it just boils down to this: I was being an asshole.I wish you could wash off the asshole, but you can’t. Like accidentally touching my nose with the tip of an opened Sharpie, it will eventually fade, but I will feel a bit embarrassed until it does.
Fortunately life is full of solutions. Put the cap on the damn marker and stop being an asshole.
A year ago today, I was checking myself in to the mental hospital. I don’t recommend this as a fun fall activity, though as a life saving measure it is pretty good.
People tend to think when you have depression and want to kill yourself it is because you have lost the will to live. To me, it is that you can no longer fight not dying. I realize this might seem like it’s the same, but like Kraft mac and cheese and generic mac and cheese, they are two very different things. You would think all noodle/fake orange cheese foods would be the same but Kraft has something here that just can’t be matched. I used to bring food from a local food pantry to a family and when the mac and cheese was not Kraft, the family would send it back with me. Apparently beggars can’t be choosers except for when it comes to powdered cheese. Anyway, back to suicide.
A year ago the desire to die overpowered pretty much everything. Like when a contestant on Chopped uses truffle oil and the judges freak out because they know that is all they will be able to taste. I watched a lot of Chopped while I was depressed.
This is the thing though, pretty much everything is not everything, and that “not everything” was enough to help me get to the hospital. Now I am lucky enough to feel well and I can focus on building up my “not everything” pile and that is the weirdness in which this all lies for me. I do not feel suicidal now, not an inkling of it, but that doesn’t mean feeling that way is hard to imagine.That is scary in a way, but really more for those close to me than for me. Like a million other illnesses, I have a predisposition, mine, unfortunately, is to being suicidal. I would have preferred eczema, but as far as I know there are no exchanges and even if there were I would have probably lost the receipt.So this is what I got and I know it and I can figure out how to make it so things are healthiest for me.
You know what sucks? The people who don’t know that this is what they’ve got. That fucking sucks.
