Art Revisited

Once again the blogosphere is abuzz with a mental health stigma perpetuation scandal I just can't stand behind. My smorgasbord of symptoms is as active right now as IT (whatever it is) has been in a while (Dark Chocolate is moving out and we are most likely getting divorced, primarily due to IT.) One might think I'd be in the kind of hypersensitive mode that would leave me willing to in-group it up and tag recent iCarly episode "iLost my Mind" as an example of the American societal shortcomings which have made my illness that much more painful over the years.

Not so.

Yes, I know those who protest this broadcast and the network behind it are parents who are tired of fighting their childrens' demons alone. Yes, I did watch the episode. Yes, I did think it was fairly lacking in artistic substance (all television shows with laugh tracks are leaning strongly that way.) Yes, I found the "Friends Don't Kill Freinds" sign in the day room background, the lack of security on the ward, and the dirty walls to be silly and unrealistic. And no, as I stated in my previous "Art" post, I do not think any of this means we can hop, skip, jump ahead to demanding the world at large ensure material like this never sees the light. Television shows aren't the problem anyway. It is such a disappointing waste of energy to act as if they are, especially when those doing so have access to a wider stage upon which, perhaps, true change could be wrought.

Please don't try to tell me that this is not okay because it would not be okay to make light of cancer or race or [insert minutiae of human condition here.] It is okay to make light of these things too! There are so many examples (Google shall serve) of well-respected comedic institutions who do so. Scrubs comes to mind. It is okay to make light of pain, death, and suffering. Think Six Feet Under. If we do, that does not make us cold or disrespectful. We still have to feel the pain; we still have to live the life. Humor is a sometimes thing --- sometimes it makes us feel better, sometimes it triggers our need to let out pent-up emotion (i.e. long-toiling parents who are rightly fed up with the system), sometimes it helps to shine a light on an issue that may just be too icky to tackle straight on. Think of one of my heroes, Stephen Colbert.

None of the people involved in the production of this show likely intended to make a statement about mental illness, and the fact that the need to do so skillfully didn't occur to them even as the subject matter played out is a bit of a concern. It is indeed strange that this is 2011 and most of the people I meet can't even talk about depression comfortably. I read somewhere that an estimated 33% of Americans are experiencing a clinical level of depression right now, and we still can't talk about it. Depression being the garter snake of mental maladies, if we as a society can't face it, how the hell are we going to talk about psychosis and self-mutilation and police brutality against the mentally ill? We're not. That, I think, is what this uproar is really about.

There are ways we as the mentally ill and the caretakers of the mentally ill can approach the mainstream public in the hopes of increasing awareness and support. One parent suggested creating a public service announcement to be attached to the end of this type of show, where the actors sit around staring awkwardly at the camera and say, "In all seriousness, guys..." before providing some beginning resources for those who need help. Great idea. Political involvement is key, since the functionality of our government on both sides is all about following the money, lobbyists = money, and concerned citizens x + flashy yet peaceful protests y may be greater than greater than or equal to a real mental health lobby in this country, factoring out random chance.

The way not to do this is to put our hackles up, write borderline sarcastic and yet still politically correct missives to television producers (as if their interest is anything other than image), and scream out to all the confused masses in the dark night, "YOU ARE OUTSIDERS WHO WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND!!!" Unless we want the world to stay the way it is.

The Internet is Forever

It's been almost five months since I created this page and spent a fair amount of time designing it for a novice in such things. As I commonly do, I lost steam early in my project. Unlike the old days of journaling as a child and teenager, in spiral notebooks I would spend hours decorating with stickers and then end up throwing away or losing in the tiny cavern of my room, this website is still here for me when I'm procrastinating, when I'm done, and and when I'm enough over my embarrassment to admit what a big fat procrastinator I am.

This is why I've never become any lucrative type of writer or creator of anything. I am not disciplined. I have a lot of potential to achieve a lot of great things, even though I am overweight and even though my twenties feel like they are melting away before my eyes, even though I am unemployed and even though I hated the job I spent months preparing to get, and thought might be my dream. Truly thought about it and was truly crushed when it wasn't. Just another job. Just another glitzy call center that gets you in the door with verbal champagne and strawberries and then drops you on the battlefield with little ceremony or attention to your humanness thereafter.

I have spent my working life embroiled in and excelling at a line of work which seems to have ultimately unhinged me from who I thought I was. Do I love to do what I am good at? Do I love to follow rules and toe the line, show my coworkers up in the nicest way, in the hopes of getting promoted? Do I love to hang out with the smokers and listen to their yikkity yak as a way of hearing all the important rumors in management? Do I love to find covert ways of bending the bonus structure in my favor and casually hide them from my less likeable peers? Do I love to tell off a customer who really deserves it here and there if statistical probability indicates I'll get away it? Do I love to give a customer free money now and then if they make me laugh, rap for me, or otherwise (rarely) improve the quality of my existence?

I surely do both love and hate all these things. In call centers, I met and talked to people from all religions, races, and walks of life. I talked to Messianic Jews, Pagans, Evangelicals, and a Muslim man who very gently explained to me that he couldn't shake my hand because of his religious beliefs regarding the interaction of men and women. I have met wealthy old retired businessmen who were bored for company and dirt poor teen mothers who barely spoke English. I have gotten in two verbal altercations at work with two very interesting wayward coworkers, one a self-identified racist who was attempting to explain to me the difference between describing someone as "black" or the ole n word. I have been yelled at by bosses, praised by bosses, sometimes the same one. I have heard Every Excuse Known to Man over the phone for why a person does not have and is entitled for someone else to give them money. I have been sung to, proposed to, threatened with death, and asked questions about my public transportation habits. I have cried and been cried to. I have had the Bible and various Rush Limbaugh broadcasts read to me in part. I have opened my mind to amazing names the likes of which I did not believe existed - the Quintabithas and Johnqueshas of the South, 15+ syllable Indian names, and more spellings of whitebread names like Ashley and Brittany than I ever cared to know. I have a fixed a lot of "broken" shit - cell phones, computers, tablets, credit cards, human brains. I have answered my personal line with a pre-recorded greeting from any of an array of workplaces. I have performed at both the top and the bottom of the pack, worked days, nights, weekdays, weekends.

It's hard to imagine ever giving all of this up when one is away from it and it's hard to imagine dealing with it one more second when one is involved in it. Right now I'm out, so I'm thinking about getting back in, while elsewhere other opportunities await me. We'll have to see what I end up deciding to do. Hopefully if I get myself involved in some consistent routine I'll have an easier path out of the blah mood I'm in.

:(

So much for posting here daily... it seems this new job training has taken a lot more out of me than I expected. I am not gone. I am merely struggling to keep my (emotional) head above water at the moment.

Art

As a person with an intense history of mental illness, I want to weigh in on the interwebz furor surrounding two recent incidences (one at a high school, the other a university) of competitive dance teams incorporating straight jackets and "wild" makeup into their routines.

I seem to be in the minority when I say this, but I am not offended by these choices AT ALL. I AM somewhat offended to feel a sort of obligation from other mental health advocates to get hot under the collar about this. There is an implication that if I don't, the only reason why is because the man been keepin' me down so long I've gotten used to it. Yes, fitting into society has been difficulty for me and anyone with similar symptoms. Yes, I've felt alone, and occasionally, resigned to a miserable fate. And no, that is NOT the reason why I'm on the side of the dance teams in this case.

I will admit I have not seen either of the performances, though I've looked around for clips on YouTube with no success. I still feel confident in my opinion as the look of either routine would make no difference at all to me. Dance is art. Some of you out there are throwing out a red herring to say it's sport, not art. That argument is meaningless. Art to me is any kind of personal expression springing from one's own, and in this case the group's, creativity. Passionate athletes are artists too. Unless an artist is committing a crime, he/she is free to let it all hang out. This is the fucking United States of America. Let's not move backward any more than we already are in other areas.

Do we need more good quality mental health services in this country, available to more people, at lower financial and social cost? Yes. Do those mental health advocates who are writing letters to the networks, the schools, and the world have the best of intentions, love their ill children, etc? Yes. Does that make actual repression and/or efforts to impose it okay? No.

For those who are unaware, there was plenty of macabre art in the world before this, and it won't stop now, no matter what we as individuals say, do, or wish. Some people will connect to it, and some won't. Those that find any particular bit of artistic expression not to their liking may turn their faces away/associate with different organizations/remember it is each person's CHOICE to be offended or not in any given situation. In this case, there was no material or immaterial threat to anyone, and no intention of such. To choose to be offended is merely a waste of mental energy, and won't accomplish anything. Why not put that energy toward generating what this country really needs: a group of mental health lobbyists in significant proportion to get and keep the attention of lawmakers.

Anyway.

Someone might make fun of me or turn me down for a job or a relationship if I was actively mentally ill, mostly because symptoms like psychosis, manic rage and aggression, and suicidal or parasuicidal behaviors are scary to witness, hard to understand, and can be dangerous to an observer who doesn't have specialized training. That is their right. If I was in remission from these symptoms (as I mostly am now) I would not want to go around the world wearing one of those Bring Change 2 Mind T-shirts with the word "schizophrenic" or "bipolar" written on it and demand that other people immediately bow down and "understand" me. I would not want to do that if I had cancer, diabetes, or a cognitive disability either. I just want to live and reserve the personal details of my life and its high/low points for my close friends and family. (This blog is entirely anonymous so I don't really consider it personal, per se.) I don't see my mental illness as something to be proud of or something other people must be comfortable with and willing to chat with me about when our relationship is casual or non-existent. I have tried to for a while and I can't understand why other people disagree with me on this.

It is my responsibility to seek out the best treatment I can find for myself, or to entrust myself to a loved one's and/or ideally a professional's judgment if I am unable due to symptom severity (and yes, I have been there, multiple times.) It is my responsibility to take the reins of my life and get myself to a stable, healthy place, no matter if it takes me my whole life to do it. In some way, shape, or form, we all have mental difficulties. I'd rather they came up in art in whatever form that may take instead of not at all. That means the truth is out there and legal, practical progress is within our reach. Dance on girls, and I hope both teams did well in their competitions.

Moovin Right Along

I was slammed with a pretty intense migraine this morning. I rarely have them. I was worried, since my last meal had been at 5 PM and mild pain started happening around 9 PM, that ibuprofen would upset my stomach and I wouldn't be able to sleep and I'd stay up all night thinking about how hungry I was, or at least felt, considering I'd by no means deprived myself of the nutrition I needed for the day. Bad call, as I didn't really sleep anyway.... Thankfully, I took the ibuprofen in the morning, went back to bed for about 3 hours, and was good as new.

I've been doing some research on calorie consumption. As it turns out, the only possible way I could maintain my starting weight (the past couple years I haven't gained or lost more than 5 lbs away from 365) is to consume an average of 3,000 calories a day AND maintain a sedentary lifestyle. I don't doubt for a second I've been doing this, though it is shocking to see the actual number. I've never been one to track calories, especially when I don't want to know. I'd hazard a guess that most emotional eaters are like this. When I'm upset or excited, I want my favorite tastes, textures, and smells to fill me up, and I don't care what the consequences are. I will keep eating to the point of physical discomfort. Then, an hour later, I'm going to need another hit --- cheese, pasta, bacon, sour cream, french fries, cake... whatever it is, it will be high in fat, salt, and/or sugar. And no matter how much I eat, it will never be enough.

I commit, from yesterday forward, fueled by my own choice and not external pressure, to alter my view on eating. I am desperately addicted to the idea of food as companionship, and have never before been willing to publicly admit I was wrong and literally killing myself. I wouldn't be surprised if that migraine was simply the pleasure center of my brain sassing back at me. We are NOT going another 24 hours sans a Double Whopper w/cheese. Get your ass in the car, buy one, and promise you'll never do this again.

I'm saying no this time. I've been to the brink of suicide, almost fell over that ledge, and when I became wise enough to understand what my actions against myself meant, I said no. This is not for me. That's the same thing I'm saying to food today, and for the rest of my days, one at a time.

Perfectionism

Figures. The first thing I would do this morning, the first day of my epic best diet EVAR, is break it. I am on a 10 day course of antibiotics for lady bits issues, the morning installment of which I'm supposed to take at 5 AM. I got up, stumbled to the kitchen in my half-conscious, foraging bear state, and made that pill mine with a big 'ol swig of chocolate milk. Scandal. I never buy chocolate milk and the only reason we had it is because the Wal-Mart checker accidentally gave me 2 extra bags of groceries this week that weren't mine. Irony. I also spaced weighing myself naked before ingesting anything today (though I did clock in at 365.4 a few days ago when I was testing the scale.) Annoyance. At this point the theoretical sock puppet representing me is getting its little face bashed into the desk. Bad Zell.

All of us perfectionists out there know the feeling of allowing a minor mistake to derail us from major achievement. I could write you an infinite list of examples of opportunities I turned down just because I was afraid I might not be the best performer of that task who ever lived. I'll be lucky if I fit that bill for even one thing I attempt in this life. I won't be alone if I don't.

I have a feeling real world perfection would be to stick with the promise I've made to myself through the end, no matter how many times I fuck it up along the way. I've set an attainable goal here --- less than 2 pounds a week. I'm starting with diet modification only at first, planning to add in exercise a little at a time as my metabolism slows. I have a long road to walk. I have 245ish pounds to lose and my lifestyle is borderline sedentary at the moment, not to mention the limitations and fear of pain my Frankenstein-style ankle fracture and repair have afforded me. Yet somehow, I know that slowly, steadily I can climb down this mountain.

So I'm going to take a breath, crack open a can of Slim-Fast, and keep walking.

Thanks to Mr. November

This man is what my mother would call a "hot nerd" --- he spends a lot of time engaged in geek-worthy pursuits such as playing WOW, memorizing black hat hacker lingo on Urban Dictionary, and covering the little lasers on the bottom of everyone's optical mice with white paper. I know this because I met him at the office of my former employer, where I worked for almost 2 years. I met him in July 2010.

I was returning to work after a long absence due to a 3rd surgery on the ankle I compound fractured as a result of the collision of this employer's refusal to salt their icy sidewalks and my refusal to wear something than worn out Crocs in winter. I was limping terribly and wearing what's known in the injured community as a DARTH, a hard black plastic boot used to pad and stabilize an injured leg. I wasn't able to take calls on my own because my login IDs for the dozen or so systems we used were all inactivated. I was told to "sidejack" with Mr. November while the issue sorted itself --- we'd hook our headsets together and I'd listen to his calls. When I first saw him, I was really put off by his wild hair style, dark and shorn on the sides with a mini-mohawk down the middle dyed, not blonde, but yellow. He was wearing a Hollister T-shirt and I remember thinking, "He looks young. I hate sidejacking." He was 21 at the time.

We sat together like this, day in, day out, for 8 weeks. We didn't talk at all for at least 2. He slowly opened up to me about his time living in England and Germany, his views on the right to bear arms, and his love of mai tais and techno, preferably mixed. I gave him tips on how to shorten the length of his calls and increase his quality scores. He didn't mind me being bossy. I didn't mind him being ornery and a bit aloof. At some point I dared him to use his British accent exclusively at work the entire day just to see people's reactions, and he did it. Later he dared me to yell out the word cock in the parking lot, and I did that. (He did it first.) We always had a good time talking and a hard time stopping once we got started.

At home, my husband (who we'll call Dark Chocolate) and I soldiered on. The injury recovery process had been long and rough on us both. I had spent more than half of the last year in bed, unable to walk. I had a walker, a wheelchair, crutches... I never did well with them. At 360 pounds, every hopping step to the bathroom was like a hell in itself. I had been in passable shape for my size before the accident --- I could navigate steps, go on walks occasionally, and wasn't held back from my social life, flying, or finding okay clothes. I was extremely fat, but I was somehow living my life. The injury ripped all this apart, stirred up a lot of my mental health symptoms, muddied the waters of my life so much that I felt quite blind inside and broken out.

Mr. November never lied to me. One of our first conversations we had outside of work, he admitted as a schoolboy in England he had made fun of overweight people and been a bit of a bully in general. He had definitely changed a lot since that time but still felt some aversion to obesity and had never considered someone like me a friend. That might sound cruel, but it wasn't for me because I know this is what most people think about the morbidly obese, and just aren't willing to say it out loud. They end up being much crueler through their actions, avoiding looking at me, talking to me, getting too close. Whispering about me when I'm close enough to hear (for some reason, a lot of folks operate as if when someone has one physical disadvantage, they must be deaf too. Silly.) Mr. November was different, because he told me the real way he felt and he stuck around anyway. That conversation was the milestone that marked the beginning of our friendship.

We slowly came closer over the course of the 9 months I remained with the company after we met. He told me about the death of his father and I told him about the death of my best friend and then my college roommate, 2 years apart. We shared a darkly humorous perspective on things. He convinced me to give Eminem a chance. I talked him into a wearing a little American Eagle instead of just all that Hollister (he admitted it made him look more grown up.) My ankle healed and I learned to walk the right way again, slowly, and he kept his pace with mine on the stairs leading down to the cafeteria even though his legs were twice as long. He died his hair all black and got a better cut. We constantly shot South Park lines and Sasha Baron Cohen quotes at each other. We spent hours loitering in Red Robin while we handed his Android phone back and forth in search of viral videos. Time passed.

One of the best things about Dark Chocolate for me has always been his reasonable, logical mind. I so often get stuck in the dark corners of my own thought processes, and he is the one who is always there to set me right. It hasn't been a glamorous courtship; I've put him through more emotional pain than most men could deal with, and I never forget for long that he won't be able to deal with my symptoms forever, should they continue. No non-professional truly can, which is what makes casual friendships so much easier to hide in than real love, where one is expected to grow, share, and change much more.

One morning the 3 of us randomly ran into each other walking into Village Inn at the exact same time and shared breakfast. The two of them were not quite thick as thieves, but they got along. I felt electrified sitting between them --- one a pillar of my strength and the other my court jester.

Conditions deteriorated at work. Our pay and hours were significantly cut, which added to the already negative environment disorganized management creates. I tried to hang on, not wanting to leave the friendship I had made or being at all fond of change, but we just couldn't have afforded to stay. Dark Chocolate was still in school and it was my job to bring home the bacon. I hunted carefully, angled and caught (with luck) the first position I had applied for since Mr. November and I met. On my last day at my former job, Mr. November and I went out for drinks, tried and true. We stayed from 4 in the afternoon until it got dark. We talked about everything. I told him the sad tale of my former best friend, The Emperor, who I'd known for 12 years. Our relationship took a great blow when he moved to Japan to become an ESL teacher, at a pretty tense time due to a dark period of illness for me and a bit of a standoff between The Emperor and Dark Chocolate. The rift was my fault, as one of my twisted brain's mistakes was its compulsion to manipulate others by playing the victim to Dark Chocolate's totally imagined and non-existent villain. It remains to be seen whether we'll make it through this.

I told Mr. November more about the details of my illness, but not too much. I took his hand and asked him flat out about a suspicious looking scar I had seen on the inside of one of his wrists. Sometimes he would joke about suicide and sometimes I would worry about him, having been there, done that, with myself and others. He told me it was a "normal cut." I decided to believe him for now, even though he always told me, "Rule #1, Zell --- Don't trust anyone." We had a lot of Rule #1s. I told him he was my best friend. He laughed and said, "You might want me as a friend, but a best friend? I'm an ass." When the time came, he walked me to my car. He hugged me. I held him tight as speculative imaginings ran through my head, ultimately giving way to the present moment. I drove home.

For 9 months I saw him every day, and it's been a week now without much talking at all. I've begun to realize it's quite possible I may never see Mr. November again. He is the type who very much subscribes to the old mantra, "out of sight, out of mind." I just hoped it wouldn't be so soon.

It starts...

I have been drowning in ambivalence over "to blog or not to blog" for months now. I can and often do complicate things to the extent they never happen. I am starting this blog today in the hopes of moving forward.

This blog shall serve primarily as free therapy for me. I like to talk. I like to think out loud. I'd like to give my inner circle a break from my constant analytical ramblings. I'd like to not pay someone else to listen to them. I would like at least the possibility that someone else is listening, someone I don't know and will never meet, someone who will, if I'm lucky, remember me when I'm gone. Or at least remember what I said.

The Rules:

1. I will do my utmost commit to one entry per day, no more, no less, with a minimum of three sentences in length. Of those sentences, none can be "I do not know what to write" --- a perennial favorite of mine during grade school journaling periods as the teacher insisted we just write something. I abdicate myself from blame if all this ends up as a pile of pseudo-thoughtful haikus. :) I'll give a caveat here that this blog is obviously not my # 1 life priority and given that I'm about to start an intense training period for a technical job, frequency may vary at first.

2. Two of the most important elements of good therapy are confidentiality and trust. As such, this blog will retain a certain flair of anonymity. I will hold myself accountable to facts and will not post anything that is overtly dishonest, speculative, or "ranty." I am here to tell the truth. What I will not reveal are the real names, locations, or any other details that may be considered identifying of anyone else but myself, at my discretion.

3. Subject matter on this blog may vary, and may include profanity at times. I'll try not to be fucking gratuitous about it. :) Any readers who do decide to join me on my journey (who will be greatly appreciated even if not intentionally pursued) shall have the same freedom. If you would like to troll me, mention something totally off-topic, or behave in a way you would never consider face-to-face, you are just as welcome here as any more agreeable or erudite folk. I will not moderate comments and I will not delete them, for any reason.

Now that we've laid out the rules... there's one other thing to say:

As a former moderately successful "blogger" with a decent following who ultimately got burned out (RIP, My Dear Diary), I will not make the mistake of boring myself and the universe with extensive backstory at this point. You can feel free to click the "view my complete profile" link under "About Me" at the bottom left of this page if you'd like the Reader's Digest version. If you encounter something in my present moment-oriented writing that seems unclear, out of place, or intriguing, just let me know and I'll be happy to fill in detail.