Kids are Back!

I got my kids back and I’m feeling wonderful about it!  I’ve spent a goodly amount of time with my little man and am happy to finally have my daughter back as well. I am still just so-so on summer, though the real sense of panic and crisis has somewhat passed. I wonder when the snow will fly again and I can feel insulated and safe once more.  The panic that I had been having over the huge void that represents for me the season of summer is still there to some degree.  I need the structure of school to keep me occupied and focused on something other than just my illness and my uncertain future.  My future truly is uncertain, and that troubles me on a number of levels. I have been less than energetic lately and have felt the enthusiasm I had once felt for any online “friendships” waning.  I’m pretty sure that I know my capacity for maintaining correspondence and keeping up with friendly activities.  

Feeling Listless and Blue

  I’m at one hell of a low point in my life just now.  Ben is away for nearly two weeks at the same time as Jessica.  I feel like I’m just so empty now.  I am unable to focus upon anything for any extended period of time, so writing, working on stories or the novel is all but out of the question.  My novel is going badly- the story is dragging anyway.  I feel like a body suddenly deprived of breath and my efforts to regain my life are frantic like a breathless body’s.  I need my kids.  I cannot live without them.  I can see that now.  Sometimes it takes some dramatic event, sometimes cataclysmic, to make us see what is truly important.  I’m giving just cursory thoughts to school and anything else at this point; I just want to get my kids to come back to me.   That’s all that seems important.  My relationship with the Dutch girl is ongoing.  We “meet” every day and she describes me as “sweet”.  It’s good to hear, really.  After feeling so beaten about by life, it’s very good to hear.

Here She Is

I’ve been alluding to my online relationship with a schizophrenic Dutch girl lately and just wanted to put a face to the name.  This is her. (Shouldn’t that be “This is she”?) I really do like her, but she scares the literal hell out of me, being so young (28!) and so severely mentally ill, not to mention so keen on me.  She really appears to be drawn to me, for whatever reason, and it’s kind of frightening in a pleasant way.  What am I going to do with her? Get re-married? I’m barely able to care for myself, much less take on the burdens of a severely schizophrenic significant other.  The tattoo is kind of interesting.  I think she’s bothered by her appearance, which is troubling, because beyond looking a bit depressed, she is a lovely girl, really. 

Manic Monday

I’ve had great luck on the social networking site for people with schizophrenia, bipolar, schizoaffective and related mental illnesses.  My online “special friend” is a 28-year old schizophrenic Dutch girl.  We converse at about 2:00 each day, which is for her 8:00.  It’s fun and interesting.  She really likes me and I her, so I have no complaints.  Other than conversing with God regularly, and rapper Eminem (so she says), she is fairly “normal” whatever that means.  I have half a mind to visit her in Holland- it seems like she feels hemmed in by her culture and lorded over by her parents.  She says there are periods when she can be fairly normal, and predicts she’ll return to a normal state in four to six months (fingers crossed).

A Man’s Reach Should Exceed His Grasp- Right?

My good Lord the brightness of summer has no end.  I feel I have to shield my eyes every moment I’m outside for all the brightness. (I’m too cheap for good sunglasses and too honest to filch the good pair I saw in the lost & found box at the church my support group meets in- even if they were by Guess and looked great on me.)  I love the warmth but I feel like a mole-blinking against the bright light of day. My support group, which meets each Thursday, was unusually explosive this week.  Everybody has heavyweight problems which make mine look wimpy in comparison.  Everything is confidential, so I can’t honorably get into details, but let’s just say that I am among the fortunate ones, I suppose- not suicidal, solvent for the moment- new Apple Macbook 17 and a car that runs. My energy level has been unusually low lately, though, which is about the only complaint I can make just now.  I took what is an unusual step for me in my musings on reaching out to seek socialization.  Though the younger- (much younger I should say)- women at school have been receptive to me, even inviting on some levels, I really don’t think that I want to go there. These younger women scare me- they just seem very demanding.  I have joined an online social networking group for people with mental illnesses.  I know just what you’re thinking; one crazy person in a relationship is enough, right?  I was thinking a similar thing while I was filling out the profile information.  So far things are going reasonably well, and I’ve met what can only be termed “rich, interesting characters”.  (These people are fodder for novels- no doubt about it.)  Anyway- it’ll keep life interesting and perhaps I might even make a friend or two- who knows?

School’s Out

Here’s a scene I painted of a visual snapshot from last year’s county fair. A guy, a girl, cotton candy, an old truck in the background. It’s like Norman Rockwell-the way life ought to be but isn’t.

 Last days of classes this week.  I feel such a keen sense of relief that I’m not sure if I’m altogether sorry to see the semester end.  The last projects that were due were very taxing and I just barely made it.  I’ve been keeping a very casual eye on my grades as they’ve accumulated and I’m counting on either A’s or very high B’s in my courses. I’ve worked hard this semester and am going to enjoy the course in drawing that I’ve picked out for the summer five-week program.   As far as my spirits go, I’m relieved on the one hand, let down in a strange way in another.  I’m beginning to come to the realization that I do need my optional third antidepressant dose each day to sort of frighten away the black shadows I’ve been feeling lately. They’re just too overwhelming without the extra little chemical boost of Wellbutrin. 

So Much Familiar Strangeness

I’m sick of seeing cows.  I’m trying to not be too down on the whole Frederick area, but there are cows everywhere here.  This pastoral beauty feels like it’s killing me; I need some kind of involvement and excitement that doesn’t involve anything bovine.  The term is winding down at school and I’m feeling it: lots of projects due and one whole hell of a lot of things that I’m going to be missing during my summer off.  I’m hoping that I can either take the summer off or do two courses; one design, one drawing, that have nothing to do with my certification.  We’ll see if I can pull it off.  I won’t need to strain much for drawing and design- those will be fun and I can spend evenings for five weeks doing something fun and engaging.

Bring Me the Summer of My Youth

I’m ready for summer. I need the heat- I’ve become so tired of the cold and dampness.  I want to see sunflowers again- those big ones that seem so life-affirming. I am doing more writing -creative writing- and am going to start sending things out soon, once I’m finished with five of my short stories.  I can’t wait to start mailing things out- it is all very exciting. 

I Feel Like Having a Drink

I can’t though.  Sadly, drinking, with the meds I’m on, is now a part of my past.  I do occasionally see some loner like myself walking home after closing time if I’m up and wandering around the great metropolis of Frederick in the wee hours. (Hell, I’m crazy-who would mug me?)  Yeah, Klonopin and Geodon don’t make for good mixology where it comes to the hard stuff, so I’m doomed to diet soda at bars.  I had some excitement on Easter if you could call it that- I mentioned to my minister the possibility that my lawyer would go ahead with a suit against him for damages.   It is a distinct possibility- I have a crackerjack lawyer- he’s had every motion my wife’s sad-assed she-lawyer has ever drafted dismissed.  ( The woman really is completely incompetant, so far as I can tell.) My lawyer on the other hand, my guy is golden-he’s magic.  My mom hired him because he was the best and I suppose you get what you pay for, don’t you?  In any case, the pastor who works with my soon to be ex-wife helped to remove my personal belongings from my place of legal residence (home)  before I left for the hospital, with absolutely no legal authority to do so, causing me untold pain and distress (Really, it did.).  For this should he be made to pay?  I don’t know, really, it depends upon just where I am chemically when it comes up again with my lawyer at our next meeting.  The pastor turned white as a sheet when I mentioned the possibility of his being served with a suit and he was rigid and obviously distressed for the service. 

Psych Ward

 I haven’t talked much about my hospital stay earlier last year except in some oblique references to some changes in my medications and just saying I was “institutionalized” for a stint. During my stay from April until June I not only got to go to the psych ward during my psychotic episode, but also be treated for a time, begin to feel modestly better, then I got to be unceremoniously told that my mind was not adequately wrecked to be kept on for intensive observation and that I was being discharged to a less well-staffed facility. (Trust me-It’s a singular feeling of discrimination.) “You’re too highly functioning” the shrinks- both of them foreign-born, each of whom spoke a “kind” of English offered, pointing out: “You you don’t look like these other people, you’re a writer- you’re a functioning person” All this was said with a look on their faces which hoped to goad me into agreement.