Medicated Wolf

These chronic wolf-woman observations are brought to you by the song Comfortably Numb.

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It's getting easier to tolerate all the medications I need to just reach half of normal functioning power. I feel like I am constantly an outdated, broken down, model of a creature called Kweeny. Some wacko that was lovable. A person who used to maintain relationships in a healthy way. Someone people once referred to kindly as Kweenybeast. People respected hir. They knew ze was nuts but for some reason, weren't afraid. They didn't leave. They didn't drop hir like a  hot rock the moment she flipped out. It didn't matter she was insane. She was still welcomed to the group and made to feel a part of it.

I'm on pills to regulate my "imbalances" in the brain. No one knows the terrors I have seen in my life, right up to this year. Being locked against your will, screeching like a banshee to be let out. No one caring that though your mind is shattered, your body is too, and it's flaring up right now due to stress. I really do feel like a ghost these days. A Ghost trying to remember who ze was.

It's hard to sleep still. My body is getting used to the drugs. The same drugs people constantly tell me to NEVER STOP TAKING, as if I do I might revert to my crazier self and do unspeakable things! It's cool, don't worry reader. I won't stop taking them. You don't have to deal with me at full strength anymore. You don't have to deal with me at all if you don't want to.

And unlike before, I won't be broken when you leave.

Thank you meds. Thank you for taking a lot of my fucks away.

Being bipolar is like having waaay to many feelings all at once, all the time. On a high swing, things are fucking amazing! It could be anything from eating cake, to your wedding day. They will be about the same fucking awesomeness, and it will feel really good.

The down swings though...

Let's just say I have stared my death in the face more times than a person should.

Some of my pills I take are for that. For the bipolar/emotional crap.  And I should never stop taking them. EVER, EVER...or else I turn into a werewolf and eat the world.

Some of my drugs are for pain. I take a combo of things for pain, because pain is one of the few constants in my life. I can depend on pain. It won't leave me know matter how much I cry and beg. I am done judging myself for my drugs. I have to take these things and that's that. I want to make things, go places, see the world outside my house. I want my skin to not hurt in sunlight or shade, I want to dance without costing myself spoons for tomorrow. I want to go to a convention and not sleep though half of it because I hurt too much.

Always because I hurt too much.

I know I have to be careful with this path, because my mother was a pill-popper. She smoked things, but mostly she loved pills. She got whatever she wanted from her quack doc. I watched him as a child giving her drugs, handing her packages of pills. It's been hard for me to adjust to this life. This strange sort of half-life I maintain with medication. I'm trying to teach myself to call it that, to not always refer to it as drugs. Not because they aren't drugs, but because I need a better way to look at the situation. So I don't allow people to treat me like her.

If I ask for medication, it's because I fucking need it. I don't do it for a lark or to get high. A lot of the stuff I take I can't get high off of anyhow. I don't do drugs. I medicate. I am trying to be a better me, even if that me has lost her sexdrive and has become numb.

There are always side effects.

On Swords in the Snow and Writing

I have many friends in Canada I still keep in contact with. Some friendships can survive distance, which I am grateful for. One such friendship is with my Big Sister Marcy. She is one of the few people I call Big Sister, because I tend to be the Older Sister. I'm an old soul, and I am in my mid 30's. So I tend to hang around a lot of young folk who look up to me.

I look up to Marcy though. She's a strong bitch who survived a lot of shit. We both came from hard backgrounds, we both got raised in the same city (and know what The Hammer means), and we even know some of the same folks from that place. But she's survived some really frightening things, like being in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina happened. She's a fucking bad ass, because she managed to live through it and come home to tell the tale.

We have started a new project together that I am stoked about. My first time co-writing with her! It's going to be awesome. I can't say much more as we are still in the brainstorming stage, but it is going to be awesome. I am glad to be doing some creative with my Big Sis!

She showed me some amazing pictures she did sitting in the snow with her blade. She looks like a warrior Queen. A true, fierce powerful force, cutting through the elements. She told me she had a mantra in her head as she did the photos, "Make pain bend." I found this extremely powerful. Make Pain Bend. You can't erase it. You can't go back in time to when it wasn't there. It is here, in the now, and you can live with it. Bend the pain. Not yourself. Yes.

This is the battle one has with Invisible Chronic Illness. The battle of making pain bend. Of being alive with the pain. It is a struggle. Every day the pain takes more and more of your time, your sense of self, your ability to get up and fight. Just bend it. As much as you can.

She told me she thought of me while sitting out in the snow, which was a great honor to me. She knows how hard things have been. That my Raynauds and Fibro are making life suck. I have to take meds just to be somewhat functional right now, and I couldn't sit out in the cold holding a blade which would feel like getting ice-burned if I touched it. The weather would literally suck the heat from my body and I would go into spasms. Her strength was inspiring. She once couldn't climb a wall because her Fibro was so bad, and I recently saw her do this. She climbed a mother fucking wall right to the top, like a true bad ass. This is strength to me. She makes the pain bend. She doesn't let it dictate her life.

Bad Ass!

I wrote to her today, "I keep trying though. I face what I am now with all the invisible BS people can't see. I face my Bipolar, my PTSD...all of it. I need to be on pills to be sane, and pain meds to sometimes just get out of bed. I stare at stacks of med bills, knowing if I was in Canada things would be different. Did I know one day I would move? Yes. When I fell for Bear I knew. I knew I wasn't wealthy enough to support him, and I had no family to turn to for sponsorship. I got chewed out for my choice to leave, without people truly understanding why.

I'd honestly be dead without my husband. When I had my mental breakdown I was a danger to myself. Three times I was wheeled out on a stretcher, for my safety. Bear saved me from myself as much as he could.
I feel a bit emotional seeing you in the snow like that. I think it is pretty bad ass too honestly. Squinting or not, you look fierce. Canadian girls kick ass!"

Battle On...

Thank you to all my Canadian friends who understand and still wish to keep me in your life. I love you all and miss home greatly.

On Strength and Bravery

Today is my second to last day of therapy. It felt like any other Monday though, except today we were talking about qualities we and others thought were our positive traits. For me it was my bravery and strength that people mentioned. This isn't the first time I have been told this in my life. It just seemed so weird to hear it from the mouths of people who've only known me for a few weeks, and even one of my therapists. She was going around the room telling people traits she liked in each person, and when she got to me she told me flat out, "You are very brave Kweeny."

Rawr!

What makes someone brave or strong? Because I know what strength isn't. When I was young I thought it was something you wore like armor. You barked louder than the other animals so they would fear you and run off. You let the world beat into you the lesson that showing any weakness was a fault, and no one should smell your fear. Better they smell your rage and ferocity. Better they see the beast before they see the person under the fangs and fur.

 But the thing about werewolves is they haven't always been just slobbering beasts made of hunger and rage. Werewolves and shifters were also warriors depending on the culture you read your legends from. A creature meant to walk between worlds. You cannot always be a wolf. To live in only that form will not only destroy those around you, but it destroys you from the inside out. Humans have vulnerabilities. That is just a fact of life. No matter how angry, hurt or manic you get, under it all is still a quivering mortal. What you leave of your self in tact is up to you. I have conditions that render both my body and mind, and owning all that is no easy feat.

Today was a good day though. I wasn't in as much pain as I have been. And when I was called brave by my therapist, I realized yes, I was. I have been through hell. I should have been another statistic. Another lost soul from the ghetto. The fact I made it this far, is a miracle. I almost didn't make it. Several times over I should have died, or worse. I know where I could have ended up. I saw her get lowered into the ground. I have those same genes in me, and some beasts don't die from one beheading. But I realized that my fight these days is for bringing meaning to my madness and pain. Not for others, but for myself. I have spent too long trying to please others. This quest, is mine.

 I am an artist for a reason, and I am also a warrior. I haven't always fought for the right reasons, and I have spent many a day pulling myself up by my bloody bootstraps and dealing with my shit. And it's okay to have a good day, a day that makes me thankful. A day were I feel brave for smiling. It's okay to know that I am vulnerable and bleeding, even while I smile and laugh. I am brave now not because I have fallen into the abyss, but because I crawled out and I am willing to keep trying. I am making an effort to try a new way of living with my beasts because I want to.

Fighting for yourself is one of the most self loving things you can do.

I will dance with my devils again. We all do at some point or another. But I am stronger. I  have skills now to help me deal with myself and the world. I know who and what I am. I know what I am capable of too.

And in the end, if I have nothing else, my attempt at having more good days is worth living for.

Kweeny's Thoughts on Graduation Day

Not sure how I feel about the concept of Graduating from my therapy program. It was never meant to be a long lasting thing. And I won't lie, some days have been really hard. Talking in a group situation is different than one on one, because people can do all sorts of things. Like interrupt you in the middle of you sharing your "check in". We check in everyday so everyone is updated on how the group feels. Lately, I haven't had much to complain about. Which is good, but makes checking in feel tedious. Because I really don't have anything I would deem worth calling problems. My other group members have problems. Sometimes big ones. And then it comes to me and all I can complain about is medical bills, my sleep issues, and how tired and sore I am.

I am sore everyday. That is how Fibro works. When it is cold, the Raynauds joins in to make things harder. That is my life. On my check in sheet have I taken to writing my pain levels under the mood level, because I find it offensive there isn't an option for that. I am tired of people focusing all their attentions on my brain, and not enough attention to pain management. I talk about my pain as much as anything else, maybe more so. Because it is more constant than my mania. I haven't felt manic since I came out of the hospital.

And I am on a lot of meds. More than I have ever been in my life. I know I could be on more, and I am grateful I don't have to be. I am worried if I tell my psychiatrist next week about my sleep issues he will suggest more medication. I don't want to live in a drug fueled haze my whole life. I know right now I am way better than I was. I am actually functioning like a mostly-sane person. I am calmer, still retaining my personality, funny, and actually considered CHILL by people who only met me after the meds. This makes me laugh every time I hear it. Or when my therapist calls me his "Meditation Queen."

I'm totally zen motherfuckers!

To be honest, half the time I fall asleep. My therapist tells me it's okay, but I do much better when I have slept enough the night before. Sleeping is still not easy, though I do sleep better now than I ever did. I feel kinda weird to even complain about the sleep issues considering how bad things have been. All and all, I'm doing okay at therapy, and soon it will be done. Soon I will have to figure out what I am doing next, and add to my to-do list shopping around for a personal therapist as well as a new GP.

Progress is great, but it is also pretty frightening. Because the unknown can be daunting.

PAIN MANAGEMENT AND RAGEMASTE

So despite myself, yesterday and today turned out to be a productive days. I was feeling completely drained, sore and depressed the last couple of days. I didn't want to do anything, let alone leave my house because I hurt and was really tired. I did some amazing art therapy though, and the work we focused on was Pain Management based. It was exactly what I needed oddly enough. I created some helpful pieces...

How I see my healing

What my pain looks like

It's important to be creative even when you feel like complete ass and you think there is no way out of your pit of humiliation and despair. Creating new neuropathways with the power of thought is important. Doing visualizations and art is much more productive than freaking out at the universe for it's unfairness.  I cannot change what happened to me, but I can work on making myself feel better by creating. I also am learning how to meditate, which is a weird experience. I don't sit still when I meditate because of the pain I am in. I have to wrestle my pain down so I can reach a calm within. So for me, meditation is a dance. It is musical trance. I need to move through it to find the calm in the storm.

So I have created my own Kweenyism...

Ragemaste: My divine rage honors and respects the divine rage in you.

Everyone close to me has their feelings about what is happening, and I have my own.  Mine carry a lot of rage, because I believe a lot of what happened last week was unfair, and I know if I was in Canada I would have been treated way better. I wouldn't have been put into ER JAIL for example, which was a hellish experience that even my Therapists agree wasn't handled well. Plus, I didn't really have control over how I acted while Hallucinating, but some people still hold that period of time over me and judge me. In my opinion, they are being unjustly cruel and putting their own projections of what happened onto me that don't reflect actual reality. I have to do a lot of work in therapy to deal with those feelings, because they impact my healing. I love the people who are judging me. If I didn't care for them, their opinions wouldn't matter and I'd be over it by now.

I had a mental breakdown. That is the reality of what happened. I broke down quite severely. And I didn't do it on purpose. It was completely drug induced. I have better ideas of how I would spend a week of time that don't involve being locked up and treated like a monster. And I have holes in my memory from that time period. It's fucking scary to know I have no control over my brain, or that I did stupid shit I am being held accountable for when I have no clue I did any of it.

Thus I created the term Ragemaste. It is a way to own the horrible feelings, and to forgive myself for having them. No one else will or can forgive me. And I won't wait around for people to treat me with dignity or kindness like I deserve, so I let it go and move on. I own my feelings, even the ugly, angry parts as they are the only things I have control over. Also, I own the sorrow that comes after. I feel a lot of grief for what happened. For we all have suffering, and I know I am not the only person who is upset about last week's terrible journey into hell. My husband for example, had to deal with the worst of my mania.

So let us honor our feelings. All of them, and sit in reflective contemplation together.

Ragemaste Monster-Kids. Ragemaste.

Now I go lie down and recover from horrible Fibro and Raynauds flare ups.