You Hate This Title

I am reading at Liminal: An Alternative Artspace tonight, at 5:30 for the Roanoke peeps. Make note that the address is 302 Campbell Ave. SE, not SW. So, it's not down by 3rd St., but in the opposite direction...over the railroad tracks, down by the railyard. Yeah, yeah, where the hookers hang...

I am moderately nervous. By the time I graduated Hollins University, I had been taught to read aloud, and practiced it a lot. But it's been a while. I know things will go just fine however...a few of my friends have promised to be there...I'll be reading to a small sea of loving faces. What could be better?

I'll let the rest of you know how it went, tomorrow. That's barring loss of limb, tonight, as Sev Snape said. Meanwhile, I don't have much this morning. Last night I proved again that I cannot have chocolate in the house without eating it. The dog, cats and I slept ok, what there was of it. And I am planning to start my day soon.

I hang on until I see my shrink again. He reduced my Prozac in February, because I had the stupid idea that I felt just fine. You've heard that joke...I feel fine, why take my meds? And I regret telling him I felt good. He won't just put me back on a higher dosage for fear he will trigger one of my disorders. It's much easier for me to just be miserable. It's a hard job for him.

It's already a struggle with my love/hate thing going on, but then I want him to micromanage my meds, which he just can't/won't do. He is a stable force in my life and very qualified for his job. Although being stable makes him supremely irritating at times.

I have one friend who is a very stabilizing influence in my life: Dark Star. But she is so loving and charming and compassionate, I never feel irritated at her. I am, like Anne Boleyn, "Most Fortunate" in this friendship.

One of the 'Borderline' books I have read suggest every person with bpd (Borderline Personality Disorder) have as many such stable relationships as they can. This is a joke. Not too many volatile, emotionally unstable people who form intense love/hate relationships, attract very stable people. It's a lot of bother, in the first place, and can run the gamut of intense suspicion and paranoia, to idealization of that friend. Just sloppin' over with love...and then there is being impulsive. Combined with bipolar, it can reach extremes. One Hollins alumna took a trip to Turkey to get a tattoo. It's something like that.

I once went to Scotland, on impulse. Nothing could keep me from it. Great experience but rather frightening for my brother, who I dragged along. And we toured Scotland from Edinburgh, to the Orkneys, to the Western Isles at break neck speed. We landed in Edinburgh, spent the day in travel to Inverness (our base) and spent the next day in travel to Orkney. By then, I had triggered mania, borderline and my PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder.)

We had an absolutely wonderful, life-altering time, but my poor brother Marc, got the worst of it. By the last day, I had pulled a hamstring and ate an entire pound of fudge by myself. It was destined for my sister-in-law, but never made it home.

Life can be that topsy-turvy. And thank God I wasn't drinking! It would have been much more impulsive. The worse part about it is, I used to think that, when I was impulsive, it was a 'sending' from God to do something or say some particular thing. That was a disaster.

I say the most provoking things, or contact friends on impulse, at work or wherever, without considering the consequences first. It must be from God, I thought! I have learned from the results, and years of therapy, that anything I do on impulse, is WRONG. It's hard to describe the heartache...

But these things pass. It is Spring now, and more spring-like than it has been in years. Cool and misty outside today, where the skies are bluest of blue, and yet, the morning dew hangs in the air. It's too cool for the cats, I have decided...on this day of excitement and the resultant paranoia, they will just have to stay in. I am afraid on this beautiful day.