All of the sudden I am doing too much. Yesterday started at 6:30 am with a 45 minute walk through the heart of the city and down to the river, continued with meditation, shower, breakfast, a little respite in front of the news, off to the library to write then peruse the books for a while, then eat lunch in my car while it warmed up so I could drive to my once a week art class which I had little inspiration for. Escaping a group critique of my work I headed off for a half hour drive to my psychiatrist's office then back to my rented parking space near my half-way house, stopping at a coffee shop where I bumped into an old housemate and then walking in the bitter cold to a drop in meditation class for an hour then finally arriving back home at 7:30 pm. Once home I had a boisterous political conversation on the phone with my father, who is awaiting results on a biopsy they took over a week ago (my dad is in remission from colorectal cancer.) We have no results yet, hence the distraction of politics. I then had a dinner of cereal and yogurt at the kitchen table where there was loud game of "UNO" going on with cheating and alliances and all sorts of things happening with great glee and downright disgust, whether you were the cheater or the cheated. Then I left a message for my friend making plans to talk today to make plans to see eachother. She called back once I was already trying to sleep. I just could not settle down. I set my alarm for seven, thinking that not walking this morning would be enough of a respite to fuel me for a day with my friend walking in the tamed wilderness west of the city (i.e. conservation land or Audobon land or something like that.)
Impossible. With all my might, all my self-knowledge, all my courage, mustering all the things my friend, my mother, my father, my treaters have said to me I actually asked for the day off from our residence director (we are required to leave the house from 10am until 2pm each day unless sick) and called my friend and cancelled. It was terrifying, but L. was kind and told me to curl up with a good book. Instead I slept fitfully until 3pm, dreamng that I was stuck in fifities movie in which a group of women were serving cookies and lemonade in my parents house, complaing about and to their husbands for all the work and chidren that were getting dumped upon them. One women realized she was pregnant again and silently handed me a bag full of everything I needed to give her an at home abortion in my parent's old study. Silently I complied as all the mothers and children gathered at the bottom of the stairs to watch. The film stopped just as I was about to induce the abortion and my hope materialized into a potential end of the movie--the woman holding her baby happily at the bottom of the stairs.
What a dream. I woke up confused about its meaning and went downstairs to eat lunch and then took myself out for my weekly dose of ice cream. I then realized my dream was telling me I am doing too much. I am constantly looking for meaning and have just missed the target. I have a lot to do suddenly but still feel meaningless as it is all just stuff that circulates around me. Question--is that so bad. Don't most people arrange their lives, build their lives, around their wishes, wants, needs, and goals. Goals. Wishes. Hmmm. Wants. Needs are taken care of but how about the other stuff?
It's too much to settle here, but it is a window into the life of living with mental illness as well as a window from my perspective into a non-mentally ill life. Picking out priorities. Making hard decisions. Bowing to your limitations.
While a shower can take it out of me, or a chance conversation in the hallway with a housemate, I have to be very careful about how I spend my energy, but have to balance that with doing something for others. I just have to do something for a cause greater than myself. And not on an irregular basis. I've tried to volunteer at a woman's shelter serving lunch but it turned out to be just a tiny kitchen in an old house and demanded far too much interpersonal reaction with the streetwise woman who quickly took to calling me "dear" or "hon." I interviewd at MGH to be a flower delivery volunteer but the responsibility there was enormous--fire codes, security codes, infection controls--and the only available day was a Sunday afternoon, a time often chooses to celebrate birthdays and things or I am hunkering down for the week ahead or at a movie with a freind. Each of these times I disclosed and while I think that mattered little to the shelter I believe the man at MGH guided me away from them gently. Still, I'm finding disclosing is better than pretending (another subject)
The best volunteership for me has been at a local community supported agriculture (CSA) farm during the last two falls. They know I have an illness, as I was introduced to them by the vocational counselor and greenhouse director of my clubhouse, but that is not an issue. They are, however, sensitive to me in allowing me to do jobs I think I might be best at, giving me a little choice each day I am there. And they give 20% of their food to local charities. And it is a job that is manual and I can do it on my worst and my best days. And I love the outdoors and they are a great group of people. And I have skills in this area, as in my early twenties I spent three years living on a working organic farm for people with psych disorders.
So the farm starts accepting voluntneers in March. But man, I have a lot going on. I begin a meditation class on Monday nights next Monday. I have just started this blog and want to write every morning. I want to start volunteering in March. I want to continue to walk. I have my art group. I have therapy three times a week.. I have chores and cooking and meetings at my halfway house and an edict that I can't be home between 10 and 2. I have my clubhouse. I have recently started yoga again, once a week. I figured out how to organize my pictures on my computer from the camera I got from my mum. I have to manage all my very complex medication and my medical world (I have a PCP, a neuroendocrinologist to manage my hormoned which have a huge part effect on my illness, an endocrinologist who manages my thyroid cancer which is in remission, as well as my psychiatrist and psychologist.) I pay my bills, manage my finances (finally with the help of my sister,) and socialize a little bit, and manage living with 15 other people. I have just created a four page list of goals to research other living situations and have two to accomplish this week. Still, I feel like I am not doing enough. So what is the problem? What is the hole I am trying to fill?
I think I know. I think I am trying so hard to deny or obscure the effects of living with schizoaffective disorder. Sure, I'll admit to having it, but I won't live like I do. If I just do the right thing--meditate, think, the right way, make the right decisions--can't I live normally? Can't I manage it all? It's heartbreaking, but no, I can't. It just kills me.
I'm always asking "who am I?" and "What is my purpose?" But maybe those answers are not so hard to find. Maybe it is simply this whirlwind of expectations meant to obscure the truth that is hiding what is so evidently there. Maybe simply in being, I am.
Well, that is a show stopper. Sickens me a bit. But I know, I know, it is a realization that everyone must come to whether they are managing a running stream of psychotic thoughts or a household bursting with children (back to my dream.) When can I be enough for myself? I am enough for my family finally, my friends, treaters and a housemates. When can I be enough for myself?
Walking, meditating, writing, farming. Seems like a pretty decent life. Yoga could go. Art group could even go. The occasional therapy could go. Could my halfway house go? We'll see.
Enough,
Signing off.