So sue me.

I haven't written a blog in three days when I said I was going to try to write every day. So sue me. But right now everything just seems so hard. I don't really want to post my pity party on the web; just let me say that I've been spending a lot of time sitting around staring at walls. Bored but nothing appeals to me. Ever felt that way?

But if I don't post a pity party, what do I post?? I just don't know. Sitting here trying to come up with some happy joy thoughts isn't working.

Bleah. This whole deal isn't working. Calgon take me away.

maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

Did I Mention...

...that we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the midnight show on Wednesday morning? I kind of don't think I did.

I'm getting pretty upset with these movies as they go on. The first two were cute and the third was excellent. But as the books get longer the movies get more and more compressed, with more and more left out--which causes more and more to have to be left out--which causes.....you get my drift.

For example, in CoS, the scene between Harry and Filch where Harry discovers Filch is a Squib never takes place. So Squibs are never explained. So when Arabella Figg shows up in OotP, it's like, "Who is this batty old woman and why is she appearing right now?" You don;t know she's a squib; she can't be a squib because in the world of the movies squibs don't exist.

And what about Bill Weasley? He never got introduced in Goblet of Fire. So the connection between him and Fleur hasn't happened. How are they going to handle that in movie six where a great deal is made of the fact that the two are engaged? And I can't know for sure, but it seems like the Weasley wedding is going to be a big scene in book seven--I'm actually imagining bad things happening. Are they just going to cut that or are they going to introduce Bill at the last minute or what?

Don;t get me wrong-these movies have some fine things about them, not the least in the casting. But I think all the script cuts really detract from the experience. And the inconsistency in direction with the constant change of directors is really starting to annoy me. It seems to me that would leave way too much burden on the actors--especially the ones who have been recurring characters--for making their characters consistent. You can see that in the change in Dumbledore from movie three to movie four to movie five--he's different every time and though I like Michael Gambon I can't say I like all the changes.

These movies are made for people who have already read the books, because if you haven't read the books you can't understand them, especially the later ones. But they do the books a great disservice by rushing through plot details and compressing scenes to the point of incoherence.

rant over and out

okay that's weird.

I just tried to sigh in and they wouldn;t let me sign in but when I came back to my blog page, there was the option for a new post. I don't get it. Magic.

I am following my vow--I hope--to post something every day even if it's trivia. So today's trivia is: the weather is better than it has been. Cloudcover maing the sky grey but the temps cooler. Not the blazing hot above 100 degree temps we had last week, thank whatever god you prefer.

getting life stabilised: that's another weird thing. since finding out I'm bipolar--and I still can;t believe no one got that sooner in my life, I mean HELLO!-- and getting on meds that make me have a normal thought and emotional process....well, I can understand why most bipolar people go off their meds, can;t I? Even now I;m thinking, okay, I'm stable, can I stop taking some of these pills please. Eventhough I know it's early for that.

But I miss....I don't miss the lows so much, although they were feeling something. But I miss those rare and ...infinitely valuable highs when everything felt like it came together and made sense and everything was going to go right and I was so inspired I;d forget to eat and just work until my eyes fell out. How much harder it is doing the work from this flat place, how do people function like this???? Is this what normal life is? I just can't bear it sometimes. Is this health? I suppose these are questions for my p-sychiatrist when I see him next

I doubt I will like his answers....

where have I been?

I last posted in February. It is now July? Where have I been?

Hanging around various forums.

playing casual games on my computer.

not reading as much as I used to.

learning to play the new flute I got (yes I got it).

joining Weight Watchers.

Doing radio.

Trying to work on a new book.

Trying to wrok on an old book.

basically trying to get my life together.

I'm going to TRY to make myself post something every day even if it's not much. As a discipline.

that's all for now

K.

One pill makes you larger...

But I take the ones that make you small. Smaller in your head, that is.

I remember the day when I realised that psychiatrists are called "shrinks" because their job is to shrink your thoughts back into a reasonable approximation of normalcy. And I thought at the time that was a bad thing. Well, 20-odd years and several nervous breakdowns later, I don't agree with my younger self.

The thing is, I thought I couldn't be myself, have my same point of view, without the pain. I thought the pain was integral to the experience. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have formed some of the thoughts I have, or formed them so early, without hurting. I can never know that, though.

So I believed you couldn't have passion without pain. And I resisted a lot of medication therapy because of that, for a great many years. Then I got tired. And I thought, I can't live like this anymore. And I went to see the headshrinker. Maybe it's a good thing I resisted medication for so long, because medication is a LOT better and a LOT more effective than it used to be. Still, I have to take a lot of pills. I have the little yellow pill, and the tiny pale lavender pill (it's almost white, but I think it's lavender anyway), four of the orange tablets and two of the orange capsules and one big brown tablet (but that's a vitamin so maybe it doesn't count) every day. Just to get me close to what other people think of as normal.

I think about this every day when I take these pills. I think about what that means about me. Something? Nothing? Is the distinction between neurotic and psychotic really meaningless? Or does it prove a point that after years and years of being told I was making stuff up and I could stop if I wanted, after years and years of practicing all the therapeutic techniques in the world--think positive, don't take things personally, be here now, and others too many to name--the bad voices still didn't go away. I could erect a wall against them, but I felt them pounding at it every minute.

the pounding is still there, but it's softer now. And I'm grateful for that.

And I've found that my thoughts haven't changed. My point of view hasn't changed. I am still the same person, just a saner version. I can go downtown and check the mail without thinking everyone is talking about me and pointing at me. I can carry on a conversation without getting distracted by stray thoughts or stuff going on around me. I can go to a party. I can take pride in my appearance. These are things I could not do before. I could pretend to do them, and I got so good at pretending that you'd never know I had a problem. But when the pretense broke down...

I think this saner me is okay, but it's still weird to think of "saner" as a word that I need to apply to myself. When you think the weird stuff is normal--that's just your life and you have to adjust somehow--it's funny when you pop back into a less weird reality. And have perspective on just how weird it was. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that part.

Well, it's time for my morning meds...

Little Earthquakes

I was listening to this Tori Amos album the other day. It's probably my favourite of her albums, but I couldn't listen to it for a couple years because some of the songs would make me cry so hard I would throw up. As my therapist would say, they "brought up stuff." Heh.

I always think Tori Amos must have really experienced lots of the more unpleasant things she writes her songs about--rape, abusive relationships--because I don't see how she could give such a succinct and poignant picture of them otherwise. You just can't make up the terror of the words, "Don't try it; the phone's been disconnected" if you haven't been there. You can't make up the way your throat goes tight and silent about some things and how when you discover your voice it's both beautiful and frightening.

Which makes me wonder, how does she manage to write these things at all? How does she face that stuff and get underneath it? How does she create the things she does? I know a lot of people, artists, talk about their "stuff" being fodder for their art and I guess that's true--in my experience it's true enough. But also in my experience you can't just trust that to be there. You can't necessarily access that at will; it's too much. Sometimes when I try to think about things I just go black. I can't imagine writing them down. Well, I guess that's my trauma talking.

Then there's the times that I can talk about stuff--like I can describe in detail being raped in my dorm room my first semester at college--and I can't think why I should bother. It doesn't seem important to me. So it's not an inspiration for art at all. I talk to my husband about things some times and he gets all, "I want to kill the people who did this to you" and I don't know why. Because to me that was just life. Even saying, "My family was abusive," doesn't seem to have any edge to it. It's unimportant.

Or maybe that's just part of my thinking my life is unimportant. That's interesting.

Writing Exercise

So, every day I think, "Gee, I should post a blog." Then I think, I don't have anytyhing to say and I don't post anything. And I suppose there's no reason I should feel guilty about it, because a blog is a voluntary thing; there's no compulsory posting. But I feel like since I have one I should post and post something significant.

I guess that I often have significant thinngs to say, but I'm afraid. Fear of Posting. Why? Gee, I don't know that I really want to go into this here. I think fear of posting is fear of writing is fear of being. I often feel that: afraid to be. Yesterday was really bad, with palpitations and nausea and the whole business...so when people say, "Don't be afraid, just be!" like in some New Age and Buddhist camps, I get really angry because they're missing the point.

I told myself I would write just whatever popped into my head for 20 minutes and I just looked at my timer and only three minutes have gone by. Jeez.

"Just Being" is supposed to give you this wonderful feeling of liberation--like, wow, I've thrown off the constraints of society and gotten to what's underneath and now I realise the truth of my soul. the "I never knew who I was" moment of Satori. But for me, it's not like that. I always knew who I was and hardly ever went along with what society planned for me. And that led to problems. How can you stand against that weight? Everyone's always so..."Wake up and be yourself and you'll be free and it's wonderful;" they don't get the weight. Of course, when I'm myself I'm also not like the groups of people who suddenly made their personal discoveries and are all happy about it. I don't fit into any group--mostly because i'm smarter than 99% of the people on the planet. I also don't swallow the simple reasoning that most folks are so eager to swallow. Primary Source woman, that's me.

Six minutes to go and I wonder if I can keep this up. My thought processes seem to go all over the place. But I guess that's what I get with being bi-polar. It astounds me that no one got this for 25 years, but everyone was too attached to his or her idea that I was just some kid acting out from....who knows what. I mean, why do you think kids act out, anyway? And people still really don't want to hear about it. You know, I e-mailed all my siblings when I got diagnosed (finally) and only one of them even replied?? You'd think that at least I'd hear a "I'm so glad you finally got some answers." but All I got was silence.

That's my family for you. silent and stagnant and I think mostly no one replied because if they acccept the reality of my illness they also have to start looking at some other dysfunctional things about themselves. I wrote one of my sisters some years ago about the abuse and neglect in my family and she wrote back saying it never happened. Can you believe that? I never was able to ignore the elephant in the living room but I guess for some people ignoring it is all that lets them survive.

Time's up.