Racecars & Reality
To say it’s been a while since my last post would be an understatement.
It’s been 35 days since I last hit the “publish” button on the blog. And it feels a great deal longer than that! Making my life and thoughts available for public consumption has become so natural, so routine and so vital to my identity that a separation from writing and publishing, however brief, is unwelcome–distressing, even. I’m glad to be resuming a normal writing schedule for both the blog and my offline writing project.
And to address the break itself, I’ll say that things hadn’t–and haven’t–been going so well for me personally: internally and emotionally. I could just say: “I went off my meds” and leave it at that; streamline the speculation process, so that everyone could conclude that I willfully and deliberately made a choice to stop taking the medications that effectively manage my mood, personality and eating disorders.
But it’s a little more complicated than that.
I didn’t just wake up one morning, see my bottles of pills all lined up, quietly and patiently waiting for me, throw out an arm, scattering them to the floor, all the while hollering Fuck it All to Hell!
Why would I do that? The current meds were working! The suicidal ideation had stopped completely. I’d begun tentatively thinking about the future. I was experiencing little to no side effects. I couldn’t even claim one of the more adverse side effects–weight gain–that prevents some from taking psychiatric medication altogether. In fact, I’ve actually lost weight over time since beginning a consistent course of medication.
So…why, then? If I was feeling better, what was the problem?
I really was. Feeling. Better.
Well, what happened, see, was it was time to refill one of the bottles of pills, see. A really important bottle. The mood stabilizing one.
And because it’s a government subsidized program, the SMA Pharmacy is necessarily and understandably tightfisted concerning medication refills and the flexibility in picking them up sooner rather than later. And so, unfortunately, one can’t plan very far in advance.
And in the days leading up to this, I’d miscalculated, called in the refill late, had to sit it out over the weekend (as they are closed) and come Monday morning, the pharmacy staff told me they were out of the specific medication I had refilled. Not that my refill wasn’t ready. That they were just. Out.
So now, thanks to my own poor judgment, with a side of bad luck, I’m now on Day Five sans mood stabilizer.
The good people at SMA say, Don’t worry, it’s okay.
They say, Come back tomorrow. We will have your medicine by then and you will be okay.
I say, okay. I say, See you tomorrow.
I do not see them tomorrow, because, by this time tomorrow, I am batshit crazy.
The very poisonous, very diseased part of my brain, assumed command and jumped into the driver’s seat. I don’t even own a car, but there the demon was, racing gloves snapped on, pedal to the medal, zooming around like a Daytona 500 pro. By then, I wasn’t even in the passenger’s seat. I was knocked out, unconscious, in the trunk, without even enough time to try and kick out the tail lights like they tell you to do. …they? I guess maybe I read that somewhere; it sounds plausible.
Anyway…it sounds as though I’m not taking responsibility, right? Well, I am. I got what was coming to me. And since then, my meds have been adjusted. The monster inside me is sleeping. Fitfully sometimes; quietly, mostly.
I am reevaluating my reality. I have some new responsibilities and restrictions to keep me as safe as possible from my monster, my tormentor, myself.
I started thinking about how I’ve very recently begun drawing again.
The last time that I drew for pleasure and self-expression was over 22 years ago. I’d stopped doing it because it wasn’t perfect. I lacked the perspective to think of my artwork as simply an emotional outlet; something private just for me.
I never really developed the capacity to do creative and constructive projects “just because”. There was always an end-game, a competition, some goal in mind. Anything pleasurable, relaxing or therapeutic quickly became stressful, anxiety-inducing, and another task added to a list of “have to’s”.
It’s not a stretch to say I’m emotionally stunted. I simply stalled out; I stopped learning appropriate, healthy coping skills at some point in adolescence. Thanks to mood, personality and eating disorders, my erratic emotions, irrational behavior and extreme thinking were in full force by high school. They became debilitating in college and grad school. For a brief time, I excelled in academia but was never happy. Everything was a requirement, a “have-to”. And even what my parents may have interpreted as self-serving behaviors have been under internal duress. It sounds crazy because it is.
So now drawing is something I am doing again, but strictly when I want to. Moreover, it’s my privilege and pleasure to do so, and just as imperfectly as I like. My initial thought had been to schedule art time so that I’d be ensured of its therapeutic value, ha-ha. And there I go again with the “have to’s”. Interestingly, art therapy is often used in both eating disorder and substance abuse treatment programs. As a matter of fact, we had it as part of each program at Renfrew, Shands and Fairwinds, although I was not receptive to anything “therapeutic” at any of those facilities.
While my abbreviated and mostly negative relationship with drawing fostered an uncertain sense of self throughout childhood and beyond, writing has played a vastly different role in my life.
I discovered an aptitude for writing much later on, well past undergrad and grad school, after I’d already acquired the sunk cost of an education in business economics and finance (although all I really recall are terms such as “sunk cost”).
Perhaps writing would have been spoiled for me if I’d discovered a proclivity for it during childhood or adolescence; it might have lost its restorative power. Writing is infinitely helpful now, and I’m grateful.
And here I find myself coming full circle to the crux of the post, returning to writing. And writing is quite therapeutic for many people. For me, it’s essential. Writing is the obvious choice. It’s art without trying. It’s unpretentious and necessary.
It’s racecars; it’s reality.
It’s pure, unadulterated sanity.
(c) Bulimia – SaltandPepperTheEarth – Read entire story here.
