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.

The Bellwether

I know! I'm late!

But after a 3 am binge on doughnuts, (borderline), I went back to sleep. So, now, I run to catch up. It's amazes me how far behind I am, waking at a normal hour. How do everyday people do it?

Speaking of the binge: I am a train wreck in progress. The psychotropic drug I am taking, Abilify, can put weight on me, as a side effect. Gaining weight is one thing I will not do. Meanwhile, I am binging on doughnuts and cake, ice cream, gaining weight and blaming the pills. So I can go back to being miserable? You see what my long suffering shrink puts up with?

I don't eat or exercise as he has taught me; I don't want to take the anti-Evil pills. This is one of the few things I am taught that I have a choice over. That binging is a symptom of borderline personality disorder, doesn't/can't figure into it. I know I should be med compliant, and eat and exercise 'right', but I sometimes don't. Sometimes, I think I self mutilate this way...

It doesn't help that America seems to be on the same diet as I am. But, that's just an excuse. As a person in recovery, I should look at how I am responsible...that's my first 'should' on myself today. Ok, I am going to start this morning over...

So it's time to talk about the real world: I have been out this morning, on this first day of Spring. In this small corner of the world, it's chilly, as it should be. There is a fine mist on everything, and it is weather that horses are most frisky in. The cats are eager to hunt unicorns; the herds migrate north at this time of year. Each blade of grass, still winter colored, is laden with dew, since the wind has died during the night. The glass door to the outside is coated with moisture, where the cool air meets the warm. The dog is sleeping peacefully now, having gone out and come back.

Minkins stays out later and later in the morning. He is a good bellwether of what it will be like today. He knows it's Spring.

The Edge of Tuesday

I haven't really had enough coffee yet, so forgive me if I fall asleep sometime while posting...I ran into a blog last night, about Steubenville again, called: "Black Girl Dangerous". I am going to give you the link here, because her writing style and content is simply amazing: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Girl-Dangerous/184890874945927

Good luck following that link. I told you it was early.

Of course, I don't want to have to pay the price she must have, as a lesbian, black chick, but I would love to write the way she does. She has a brilliance and a fire I haven't seen since I first read Toni Morrison in Beloved.

Getting to see my therapist yesterday, was a stunning feat for me. I couldn't manage a shower, but I did take the anti-Evil pills, and ate. But this is why I do therapy. I found out that I can change my own mind and the way I think if my therapist helps me re-think. So, sometime this morning, I will take a shower and act as if I were an 'everyday' person and run errands. At least, those are my plans. Not very exciting I know. But it is soothing to concentrate on the most ordinary of tasks sometimes, and draw the mind away from excitement. With the news coming out of our heartlands, Sandy Hook (remember that?) and Steubenville, I think we need less excitement, not more...

It truly is as if, as Jerold J. Kreisman, M.D. and Hal Strause suggested in their book, I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality, have suggested. That we have become a Borderline Society, scrabbling at the sides of the well we have fallen into; afraid of abandonment, or separation, real or imagined. We are impulsive: it takes a lot of that kind of thinking to send a death threat to a 16 year old girl, who did nothing to merit that kind of attention. We are intense: idealizing the 'new love' in our lives, Sandy Hook, Steubenville, guns, and then demonizing them. I could go on all day about our illnesses, the rape culture, the gun culture, the prison culture, we live in. We are a mess, and it's going to take some long haul work to straighten us out. But if I can do it, anyone can.


But let's turn our mind away from 'The World' for a moment. Everyone needs a time of reflection during one's awake time. It is a deep spring in this small corner of the world. Just last summer, I was hoping for the kind of spring we used to have before climate change started kicking our butt; the kind of spring we are having this year. It is cold and blustery, well into March, although the ground is softening under the rain. The daffodils are long since up, and yesterday-and I have saved this in my memory for you here-I saw two, unashamedly pink trees. They are glorious: I am holding them in my eyes until the trees around my yard start assuming color. And the pool outside is more like a pond than any other time of year. I simply wait for the frogs.

Some nocturnal creature has chewed a hole in the bag of trash I set out last night. Most likely, it is a raccoon. The rain is supposed to clear up sometime today, but the March winds will be blowing a storm our way. I love the wind driving the clouds and rain before it. It would simply be more pleasant at a warmer temperature. I hold onto the thought that this year perhaps, as a fluke, we do not go back into a drought, with derechos, and storms of that order.

It is much simpler to wish for a more ordered Universe...one we see in our mind's eye as safer, more perfect, than what we have today. I particularly long for a remembered Easter, in my grandparents' back yard. I have a distant memory: of a new pink dress, and white gloves, of a blooming dogwood, and grass emerald. Of my brother's hair, shining in the sunlight and his blue suit the same color as his eyes. It is a memory before alcohol, rapes, creative, mental disorders: there are two small baskets waiting for us in the house. My father is taking pictures of us, wandering around on the grass, like two small calves bathing in the sunlight. My mother is beautiful, like a Spanish princess with her red lips, like my father used to say.


You should know by now, from too many sources over the centuries to list here, that rebirth is possible only through change and struggle. So take deep breaths, the Quickening is started.

Don't Panic*

To my regular readers: Don't Panic.* I have changed the look of my blog because I was bored silly with the windmill, and it's my blog. And I know, I know, what's with the posting at night time? I can hear you asking, "Are we still going to get our 4 am posts?"

Yes, you will! You know how much I love our time together, and just because I finally went to my therapist today, after a small hiatus, never fear. I am still taking my anti-Evil pills and the unicorn meat eating cats are still breathing on my fingers, as I write.

I have just decided that I need some golden color in my life. I hope you don't mind. The unicorn meat eating cats, the one cat still on ostrich meat, all voted for a golden, bubbley background, with the dog voting for green.

Then we tried the green and I almost got a hernia getting the text back to black. It was woeful. And pink was right out.#  So I have stopped my efforts at this point, to keep from deleting my blog altogether...and in my own borderline way, I really do hope you don't mind. I lost so many of you when I went from my old blog, Whisper of Fields to Fields of the Mind.

Well, it's time to kick back, and watch the teev. I will see you in 6 hours...I'll bring the cigarettes if you have coffee...

*Douglas Adams
#Monty Python

Steubenville

I am disturbed this morning by some news that I would like to share with you. I don't know if you have heard of Steubenville, Ohio, but I would like to tell you about it.

Once upon a time, there was a party composed of drunk teenagers, who had learned not to drink and drive. What they hadn't learned was: what rape is. The boys involved in the rape of a 16 year old, teenagers themselves, were convicted as juveniles, of rape.

Now, this is disturbing for everyone involved, as well as those who just read about it. But, the rape hasn't ended yet. Jane Doe/Steubenville is now receiving death threats.

So now this issue is about the adults in the case: the adults before, beyond, and in charge of the boys, the families. They are sending death threats to a rape victim, just in case she hasn't had enough.

This is disturbing enough in so many ways. But what bothers me at this hour of the morning is seeing some posts on Facebook addressed to Kimberley A. Johnson, who is a women's rights advocate from California. Apparently, she too, is appalled that adults and family and friends of the convicted rapists are sending death threats to Jane Doe/Steubensville.

In the middle of a discussion on rape and rape culture, one man, we'll call him Tomm, cause that's his name, pulled the "You gotta pay for it" card. He asked if women could be convicted of rape under the same conditions. Of course they can, was Kimberley's reply.

His response goes on, though: 'Are ya sure? Cause if you want equal rights, you know we'll hold you to the same standard...' I am paraphrasing here.

Apparently Tomm thinks that we love the convenience of Ladies' Nights at bars so much, and hold the tradition of having doors opened for us, (except in any real way) so tightly, and we are so frightened of being held accountable under the law, that we will give up equal consideration under the Law for it.

Bring it out into the sunlight, Tomm!

Just say what you are thinking: That the threat, and it is phrased as a threat, of Equal Rights is just too much for us to handle in this great big, bad world. Why, if women were held accountable under the Law, common courtesy and the lovely tenets of the world we live in would just crumble! 'Equal pay for equal work means no frilly skirts and lipstick, you ladies know you just love lipstick: it's a dog eat dog world out there, and you ladies just couldn't handle it. ' Again I am extrapolating from his word and tone.

That many women deal with issues too much for many, is part of the picture that Tomm doesn't get. Golly Gee, Batman! The world he is defending never existed. Women and rape and violence have co-existed with all of Humanity. For every '50's housewife and Victorian 'Lady' protected by common assumptions of what society should be, there was always another in mortal danger to being raped and beaten everyday. Because there was no Equality under the Law.

That is what I am tired of hearing: that women, given the choice of wearing lipstick and pencil skirts, and having equal rights, SHOULD choose the lipstick, every time. Why, what would this world be, if we valued women's gifts?

And I have no pretty thoughts today, although I feel fine. I just hold an anonymous 16 year old in my thoughts, who has learned too early just how despicable some people can be. She is now serving a life sentence for rape. Apparently, some people would like it to be a short one.

St. Patrick's Day

I never celebrated St. Patrick's Day growing up, and didn't as an adult, until I found out that he was Scottish. Now, it's the time of the wearin' of the green! Have at it...and drink a green beer for me.

I missed my therapy session this week, yesterday, in fact. I just could not leave the house. Isolation is common for those with bpd (borderline personality disorder.) And I am showing classic symptoms this week. But I did take my anti-evil pills, and got a shower, both of which are the biggest hurdles to my morning. So, there is that.

In other news, it is shaping up to be a fine, Irish/Scottish day...warm with rain. Although the warm part is iffy...I have visited Scotland in March and there is nothing warm about it. For those who have not been able to make it 'home,' it is easy to see why so many Scot and Irish folk got to the foot of the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains, and decided to settle. It is so like to Scotland in this small corner of the world.

In the real world, the cats have settled down, like a coating of dust on fine wood. They always get stirred up when I wake, but quiet down if I don't let them out. And it is not so warm as all that. I am caught changing out the winter clothes for the summer, and they have made beds on the clothes where they could. I have shared my breakfast with the dog...he loves bananas.

There is no fine mist of green on the trees, yet. But the tulips are coming up and the daffodils came up two weeks ago. The pool outside my door once again resembles a pond, although it has not birthed any frogs as yet, and there are less leaves in it than last year. And while the grass is green in Scotland, year round, ours is still winter gold shot with green, as it gets in the winter. The shadows of the trees are softer now, not iron sharp. Everything drips with moisture, as it should here, but has not been, with climate change. We hope again for a summer filled with rainy days and summer clouds. Enough rain to feed the tomatoes and enough sun to help them.

Soon, it will officially be spring, and we will celebrate Easter. Persephone will come out of Hades, where she lives with her lord, and reside again with her mother, bringing flowers and food crops and fruit.

Here's hoping you can make it out of your own house, on this day, on this preliminary celebration of spring.

Whistling my Whims

Now that the weather has dipped back into winter for a day...it snowed yesterday in this small corner of the world, the unicorn meat eating cats are back in hibernation. Which is quite all right with me. I love having them around this early in the morning, even if they are asleep. Of course the dog, Max, is asleep. He is so over rolling out of bed when I wake up.

Let's see how the new Vicar of Christ shapes up. Really, the Congress and Catholicism both need purging at the highest levels...their adherents deserve it.

Yesterday was a challenge in so many ways. Still exhausted from this syndrome I associate as a physical manifestation of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), it was group therapy day for Borderline Personality Disorder. I personally love this group of women. The first thing we do is Now time. Sometimes we play games, but yesterday we colored mandalas with crayons. I am moved enough by the design that I picked that I plan to finish it with pencils.

It seems silly, doesn't it? A group of grown women, with a host of life problems, coloring as therapy. It's not silly though. Most always, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is acquired through molestation, or abandonment, in childhood. These women are subsequently challenged, their entire lives, to find and have normal relations with other people.

So, while we color, we are in the here and now, and we are also all children together again. I cannot tell you how deeply I care for these women. Or how much stigma we face because of our diagnoses. I have seen even health care professionals recoil when I filled them in.

I know when I was first diagnosed, my reaction was, "What, something else to deal with?" and "O, my god, am I that monstrous?" Now that I have done my research on the disorder, I realize it is not such a bad thing to be. There are so many other diagnoses and disorders that I could be, but am not. And those are the ones I fear now: sociopath, narcissist, etc.

I have yet to master the swing of bi-polar disorder, with the PTSD, and the BPD...I can't tell where one ends and the next one begins.

All I know is that they can be managed, theoretically, with the help of this group and a sterling support network. I am so very fortunate that way, in my support. I have an AA sponsor, who is well-read and thoughtful. She is a rock. My best friend Dark Star, of Dark Star and Schrodinger fame, is startlingly intelligent and compassionate: she will drop everything to talk for a bit when I am at my worst. I have my groups, AA and BPD, at my back. And then my therapist, who has gone to the trouble to take hundreds of hours of classes, and to specialize in the treatment of, BPD.

There is also a man who does not get enough praise from me: my psychiatrist, my shrink; although he is certainly not looking for praise or credit. I have felt and spoken bitterly about and to this man...we'll call him G2. But he has a marvelous sense of humor, and I am grateful that he lets my sometimes unendurable criticism roll off of him, like water off of a duck's back. I am lucky that he is patient and kind, in a world where so many aren't.

I don't know from where all this gratitude has come this morning. Really, I am much more hard-bitten, and bitter when one meets me in person. A cynic, in all her glory. But perhaps the spring rains are softening more than my flower beds.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone."

Sara Teasdale

Bah humbug.
Tomorrow.