What do my readers need to know about "living schizoaffective" today? Or more to the point, what can I tell you all? I don't want to prove some hopeful, meditative, logical point true, all tied up with a red ribbon edged in gold. On the other hand, it may be harmful for me to try to bring you all into the wildly out of control gears and disks and pins (like the inner workings of an old fashioned watch) that reside in my head and color my emotions, my relationships, my ability to work (none), play (very little), think clearly (with great will power and determination.)
The rage is back. Like on Saturday I was ruefully tempted this morning not to take my meds. Revolt! Revolt! Against what, I'm not quite sure, but I was so tempted to call my kind doctor and cry to him, "I can't stand it! I can't stand it anymore!" What can't I stand? The videos that play in my head nearly all the time as judge, jury and trial of my slightest error? Just like in "Law and Order" I am questioned by the police for jaywalking. Or I am banned from Dunkin' Donuts on my morning walkd because, after using their bathroom I buy only a banana and don't have two pennies to make up the $1.02 cost. They say it's ok but I know they are looking at me funny and I know they think I am homeless and won't let me back in. Or worse, can I not stand all the self-recrimination, the constant assault on myself from every twist of my mind? I pass a mother yelling at her child to hold her hand as they cross the street and my attention alights on the fact that I have never had and never will have a baby and that that is a good thing because I would be a horrible, mean, dangerous mother unable to prevent myself from taking out the pain and rage of my illness on my unsuspecting child. Gauntlet down; I am guilty. Of course, my mind doesn't let me know until now that I am a good aunt, a gentle, warm, interested presence in my nephews' and niece's lives. That fact just won't take root.
How much longer can stand this twisted assault on myself? And the great pain and shame and sacrilege of writing yesterday that I want no friends? (Mother's face again, swollen from her Prednazone, looms above me.) I want so badly to go back and redeem myself from that entry. How much longer can I take the sensation that my body parts are being pulled in different direction like the hard pink taffy I used to buy at the penny candy store in my hometown? There are tears behind my eyes; searing pain is mounting in my muscles--How much more can I stand??!!
So I slipped, earlier this morning into the next phase--"Maybe it is time. Maybe it is time." I wonder if it is time to say good-bye, to end my life. I've gotten to this point many times before and will not act on it, but it is a seductive place to let my mind fall into. An answer, a decision, a finality, a cure (of sorts.)
I don't disclose this to anyone at the house. I sit at breakfast with a fellow resident and try, in all my heightened anxiety caused merely by his presence, to make the right kind of conversation-casual, relaxed, nonchalant, cool--and slam myself for the things I say that make me sound like a nervous old biddy. I embarrass myself; I know he thinks I don't count, am not worth much in the social circle in the house.
I don't talk to staff. She is useless to me. Telling her, a new addition to the house and the field, would only confuse the situation. Human contact is out. No one can handle me. I would get more enraged at her ineptitude rather than be open to what, if not much, she may be able to offer me. In all truth, I don't think many people can handle me. No one can help me. No one can take it away. No one can take it away.
And I guess that is the bottom line. I don't want help. I want a cure. I WANT A CURE!!! Not taking my meds, flirting with suicide, whatever, are only ways of letting out a little steam in an impossible situation. I am cramped inside a box that is far too small for me and can't get out, I'll never get out.
Ironically, I am starting a new meditation class focused on the Four Noble Truths which address suffering. And I know what they want me to say, that I want a different relationship with my suffering, and on my better days I want this, too. But after a week of stepped up psychosis and guilt and self-flagellation, and loneliness, and so forth, I want a cure, goddamn it.
But what at last happened this morning is that once all my preparations for the day were complete I sat on the living room couch with K. and S. and sipped my decaf and read a few pages of my book and slowly the urgency for the impossible slipped away and I was in the present again. The present only being, there is no fix.
This visceral knowledge will not last. I will fight this all day, this anger, this wish for some action to happen to relieve me, this urge to revolt, to not take my meds, to take too many. It will fill my mind and put great pressure on the inside of my skull, aching to be put into action. ButI will steel my will and clench my teeth, and maybe call my doctor if it unbearable, and it will pass. Maybe I will need the hospital, maybe not. Ultimately I will go through it alone. I will smile and appear kind while inside I raking any usefulness or value everyone has over coals in my head; I cannot love if I don't love myself.
My question I'll leave myself with is can my suffering ever turn me into a kinder person? Can I not use my suffering to love? Myself? Others? Even when intrinsic to my symptoms is guilt and self-hatred? Help me god, help me love. Help me not be alone and a let me be unencumbered enough to help others.