Languor Forgetfulness

  In a world where it feels like it is you against everyone, where do you turn for solace? I have had a hard time believing that I truly have Bipolar disorder, and yet again today, the thought crept up. I am not saying I am in denial, I know there is something going on within. I am just not certain the diagnosis given to me years ago is accurate. Every time I think about it, I quickly try to put myself in check seeing as Bipolar disorder is a decent medical condition opposed to the numerous others that I could have received. I am not a doctor and all the symptoms or things I deal with are characteristics of a variety of different conditions, so uniformly I could not diagnose myself. At the beginning of my diagnosis, it was easier for me to push out my discrepancies due to the fact I had no real knowledge of mental illness and I could subjectively distinguish my highs and lows and relate them to the condition. Although, the triggers in relation to the changing cycles are now harder, if not invisible for me to pinpoint. I have not seen an extreme high in a long time and I have been off meds for quite some time. I go from one extreme low to another in a matter of weeks and sometimes days. I have always had issues with the timeframe given to the disorder for mood and cycle changes. Because I can sporadically change moods back and forth throughout a day’s time, which does not fit into any of the symptoms relating to Bipolar. I can be extremely jovial for some time, automatically switch without notice, purpose, or desire to being enraged or extremely depressed, then as quickly as I changed the first time I can go into a state of indifference so on and so forth. The symptoms I was once able to use as signals for transitioning through the cycles are distorted; I can no longer use them to my advantage so to speak. A big signal for me when I am at the doorstep to becoming manic is this extreme and persistent urge my mind sends telling me that I need to cut my hair when I look in the mirror. We are not talking the “Oh I need a new haircut” thought, this is total hair mutilation. This is not something I understand what so ever, I have always loved my hair, but it gets to the point that I can no longer look in mirrors. Doing simple daily activities like brushing my teeth, drying off after a shower, and washing my face becomes a struggle. One look in that mirror when I feel the transition approaching and my hair is toast. The urge is so great that one look and my mind is so fixated on the desire to complete the compulsion that it becomes a total body meltdown. When I try to fight it off my body goes through the same reactions it would before I were to harm myself in a depressive state. My body feels like it is full of all this dark adrenaline and energy that cannot escape through physical movement, that it can only release and subdue through the comportment my mind is persuading me to execute. Fighting off the desires only leads to a pit of doom where I have slapped myself, punched my legs, biting, screaming, excessive leg bouncing for long lengths of time and other random and odd behavior trying to release the energy that will ultimately return. The downfall, in a depressive state the completed desire ends in a calming effect, while the hair cutting is the exact opposite. Once I make the first cut, the compulsion only grows stronger and so then it becomes a fight in itself to be able to stop myself. I remember the worst episode I have had was a year and a half ago, where I could not get myself under control. I was in the bathroom chopping away, sobbing, throwing up, and trying my hardest just to walk away. I did not make it out of the bathroom until almost two hours later, and my hair was less than half an inch long by the time I was done. A few weeks ago I had these urges return, which I haven’t had to deal with since the before mentioned, I allowed myself to bite off all my nails instead in hopes that my mind would shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone… I decided biting my fingernails off would be less dramatic, easier to get away with, it would save my hair, and besides nail re-growth is much more conspicuous than hair growth… so I wouldn’t be without fingernails for long. Well it did not work out the way I intended, the exigency swiftly returned and three days ago, I found my self at the mercy of my neuroticism. Thankfully, in the end, I only cut off about four inches and my hair had gotten long enough that it was not as drastic an alteration as it frequently is. What I typically epitomize ensuing all of this has yet to bare its face and frankly I am flummoxed. Customarily I ought to be gripping the safety bars of the psychosomatic rollercoaster about to take off with manic apprehensions. Yet I am stagnant in the midst of this ongoing melancholic disarray that I cannot seem to shake off and sleep is copiously needed, but not out of mere insomnia. Although rest is a foe through the ghastly darkness of night it has come to be a anodyne safe haven friend in the lightness of day, which is the only time that my mind is at some kind of consolation. When darkness falls, the real monsters of my mind come out to toy and play with my senses and in solitude, they manifest. My body is unremittingly fighting off sleep for one reason or another and these days the battles are short lived.



Before we can enter the transcendent consciousness of heavenly tranquility, we must pass through the fires of hell and experience a dark night of the soul, as our universal self fights against our individuated and physical self, as pure knowledge struggles against animalistic will, and as freedom struggles against nature.
-Arthur Schopenhauer

Chasity

Emancipation

  Okay, so I declare I am addicted to Facebook, things could be shoddier correct?… I could be addicted to a number of otherwise supplementary aberrant things, so I bite the bullet. Besides there is nothing more enjoyable in the morning than sitting down with a warm velvety cup of Joe, advent music streaming through my headphones, and reading my version of the morning paper-My Facebook News Feed that chronically keeps me up to date with friends, family, and random noteworthiness. Lord knows that I belong to way to many groups and pages these days. In the public Blogger community and being the Spring Chicken that I am, I want to be up-date on issues that possibly interest my readers and me. Furthermore, today’s “paper” gave more exuberant spirits than the melancholic ones of yesterday and the yesterdays before that with all this BP oil crisis business and everything else unchangingly down beat. I come to you today with an abundance of things.

  Firstly, who knew with all the mystery surrounding the precise foundation of most mental illnesses, that I would read today that there may soon be an MRI that can diagnose Bipolar disorder?…Now my excitement here was more on the side of possible medical advancement in the Mental Health Dept than the actual finding itself. For one reason only, if our medical world is not certain on the origin of the illness, then how can we be evident on a tactic for diagnosing it? Seems to me that more research is unquestionably needed here. Especially since treatment itself is more of a guessing game than a sure thing. I myself have been on a combination of Lithium Carbonate and Alprazolam (otherwise known as Xanax) which did not work thereafter Quetiapine (Seroquel) and Klonopin (Clonazepam) and finally back to higher dosages of Lithium Carbonate and Klonopin (Clonazepam). For me medication has been an up and down daily battle, as of now I do not medicate myself on a daily basis. Which is not something I celebrate or encourage others to participate in, but my current circumstances hinder it to be. I have never been one to enjoy pill popping and have been more afraid of the medications doing more harm than good. My experiences with these were more terrifying than I ever expected. I started having tremors, nerve twitches, foggy vision, horrible memory function, at night I was pretty much a catatonic zombie, my vertigo worsened, I was confused all the time, extreme hair loss, severe diarrhea, weight gain, my heart palpitations increased, I was also more prone to getting ill with either a sinus infection or severe upper respiratory infections, and extreme leg spasms where I could no longer drive. Although my highs, lows, mood swings, erratic crying, impulses, immense rage, paranoia, fears, mental tics, my abnormal urge to be brutality honest in opinions, suicidal thoughts, and dark demented perspectives were shadowed, they were still there and my hallucinations increased, but I was to drugged to react or be extremely disturbed by them. In my arbitrary opinion, research, research, research and more research is very well needed!
Link to article

  Second up to bat, Metabolic Syndrome X. Queue thriller musical note sequence, Dun Dun Duunnn… Individuals with B.D. more likely to have Metabolic Syndrome, which is a fancy smancy way of saying they are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and Diabetes. Due to high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, high levels of triglycerides (a type of fat, in your blood), Low levels of HDL (the good cholesterol, in your blood), and too much fat around your waist. Now I myself have had Diabetes for what, five years now, I think; once again I can chalk up thanks for my horrid memory that has yet to and may never return to normal, to my past medication treatment and the extra weight, so this was the utmost disturbing. Especially since, I suffer from extreme paranoia and anxiety over my health and well-being. After reading the article, I was somewhat baffled… If research shows this to be true, could they not link it to the side effects of the prescribed medications as well? Making it obvious that the medications need to be re-evaluated, as they clearly are not safe. To me these “side effects” are outnumbering the good reasoning’s in taking the medications.
Link to article

  Third and final topic of the day, Omega-3 Treatment for Depression. The investigation presented that three daily doses of “OM3 Emotional Balance and Mood Enhancer“, 1050 mg of EPA and 150 mg of DHA performed like a prescribed anti-depressant. I am all for natural, organic, homeopathic, and home remedies so this was vastly fascinating to me. I have not conducted my own examination of this. Regrettably, it would be undoubtedly pointless, seeing as it apparently works on people with depression, excluding ones that have an anxiety disorder as well as depression… Therefore, I could not tell you if it truly works or not I presume. Although I might be inclined to give it a whirl when the time befalls, heck it cannot hurt to try. The only place I could find through the internet that you can purchase the product from is CVS and a few other online stores that did not look legit to me. If you have used this product, I would love to hear your feedback on it.

Link to article

Chasity

What Did You Say...?

I found some interesting youtube.com videos by a man named Sean, who through reading his profile states he has Bipolar disorder. His videos are numbered in chronological order of topic, etc and are extremely interesting or at least to me they are. He talks about the many different aspects of the disorder and how he believes they come to be. I suffer from paranoia and watching his videos, I could relate to almost everything he was talking about. Although, I feel what he suggests causes Bipolar, how we can break, the many different sides, and the cycle of Bipolar is quite an ugly belief he has. I am not legitimately putting myself through these episodes willingly and that is the gist I got from him. Although, I did not find the long-term help that others may find in his perspectives. I did like the fact that he approached issues that I have not heard many people that suffer from Bipolar disorder discuss which had led me to think I was alone with these symptoms. I also learned a few things, that I was not aware could be part of it or that I did not recognize before. He talks a lot about how your ego reflects how your brain works and how this relates to the state of your spiritual well-being. From what I watched, he really made me think he thought that the only way to cure yourself is for a Spiritual awakening to rid you from the sin of Bipolar… This made me think of all those who actually think that mental illness is something caused by the devil and that people who suffer from mental illness are sinful, dirty, and letting the devil take over their souls. He goes on and on about how a spiritual awakening and such can rid you of the disorder like it is some sort of venereal disease. Now I know there are many out there that believe that mental illnesses are nothing more than a darkening or lack of spiritual and religious purity, but those who I have known to think like this do not have the disorder themselves and this man does. I am left wondering if maybe I am the one with the blinders on here… I have never thought myself or anyone else was to blame for my downfalls, especially not God and believing that I am secretly Satanic, enough to let the Devil have free run over my mind, which to me is a far-fetched conclusion. I know there are reasoning’s beyond my control for how my brain functions, but I highly doubt in all my religious knowledge that it is a reaction or punishment for my current spiritual or religious standing. I have dealt with these demons since childhood and I hardly believe the cause is my original sin. If I believe this opinion, then I would have to believe that my God is unjust and this is the most undaunted perception I have ever heard of. Just because something is dark, scary, sad, unreliable, unconventional, and painful does not make it an action of the Devil. If I was to call out everything that is the opposite of happy and joyful a work of the Devil, then this world is in for a huge fucking hell party funeral, because we are all going down in a blaze of sins from the Devil. That is one of the most cancerous beliefs in the world. It sounds to me like a fear conclusion to me. They cannot exactly pinpoint why some things and some people are the way they are or work the way they do, so it must be unrighteous. Furthermore, determining them to be inhumanely derived, therefore, they must be shunned or conformed and a vindication for the public to accede has to be devised for validation purposes. Seems to me these people are much more paranoid than I am, and they are the ones needing to be exorcised, not myself. That must also mean that cancer, lisps, physical deformities, blindness, birth defects, tumors, infertility, and everything else people medically suffer from that is not “normal” is a reaction to their spiritual well-being and that the Devil is at work on them as well, correct? Wow, shocker huh… So how do you feel about your perception of others now? What are your opinions?
I enclosed the video in which my post is about, and the link below the video is his profile page with all his other videos, hope you enjoy!
 

 




http://www.youtube.com/user/bipolarorwakingup

Chasity

Mad Scientist Salad for Brunch

 I know I have been straying from my Blog's train of thought lately, but oh well you will thank me later for this one. Besides, who wouldn‘t want to read the awesome information I am about to share with you! :)


 I enjoy baking, cooking, and whatever else you can create in the kitchen. I remember when I was about seven years old I was given my very first cookbook as a gift, “Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Cookbook” which I still have it to this day. Seeing, as books do not age as well as humans, it has been stored away for safekeeping. This book started it all for me. Ever since the day, I received it; I have enjoyed the many pleasures of it and numerous other cookbooks. I tend to get some of my inspirations from food blogs and on-line recipe sites. While looking through a recipe blog I happened upon a miraculous dish that I will be sharing with you. I was looking for a good poached egg recipe, when I found the following… Salad Lyonnaise with Crispy Poached Egg. I love poached eggs and what I was searching for was a more complex Eggs Benedict/Florentine recipe. Now, I am allergic to eggs, but a melancholic tummy is no match for a contented mouth when it comes to a crispy English muffin, salty Canadian bacon, and fresh spinach, fully loaded with an ooey gooey centered poached egg and warm succulent hollandaise sauce especially when Benadryl is at hand! Mmm… I frequently take recipes I stumble upon and diverse them until they are my particular creation. Exploiting recipes, this usually precedes to dishes never being prepared the same way twice and makes it exceptionally arduous to share recipes with friends and family. I want to disclose to you one that I experimented with and found sinfully decadent. The specific salad recipe I found called for a leafy salad blend, and the majority of other recipes called for frisée lettuce alone, nonetheless you can utilize the lettuce or greens of your preference. I substituted my lettuce for a healthier and more beneficial use of plain baby spinach. The recipe I am sharing strays from the normal preparation of the dish which usually calls for a plain poached egg, but this one jacks it up a notch to blow your mind a little bit… A fried poached egg, I know what you are thinking; excuse me! Not only are you eating the exact opposite of what is hardwired in us about fried foods, eggs, and salad, but now you are telling me to fry an egg after it has already been prepared… WTF! This salad is not your normal light, refreshingly cool summer favorite anymore. Drop the hardboiled chef salad concept and dive into a comfort food you probably never knew about. Seeing, as most of us are not raised with someone preparing poached eggs on a regular basis, you might think it is a scary thing. If the contemplation of poaching an egg scares you, let me tell you even the foulest cook will nevertheless find the finished product edible, yummy, and that it is nowhere near a Byzantine process as perceived, to learn. I seasoned my flour with my homemade spice/herb/seasoning blend that I use in a majority of my dishes; dill weed, minced lemon peel, minced orange peel, garlic salt, cumin powder, paprika, white pepper, cilantro, cayenne pepper, rubbed sage, broken leaf oregano, onion powder, ground basil, and mustard powder. With this said I premix equal parts of each and store to use when needed, you can substitute your own personal favorites. I also replaced the chopped bacon for turkey bacon cooked on a broiler rack in the oven until they resembled a jerky texture, then chopped. The recipe did not call for croutons, but I also freshly baked a few to add for carb value, since I am diabetic. I used regular store bought thick sliced italian bread, which I removed the crust and cut into squares, buttered, added the same seasoning I used for my flour mixture, and baked until crisp. This dish is to die for, delish! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Salad Lyonnaise with Crispy Poached Egg

Chasity

Expectation Is the Root of All Heartache

"Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in, can hope to escape."
-William S. Burroughs



  This is not the official music video for the song, but I am an incredibly analytical, associational, and metaphorical thinker and the song is suitable for tonight. As I searched for the right video of this song to post, I found this one and thought it was titillating. Whoever the person is that created this video was quite interesting, seeing as we think alike. In the words of Orson Scott Card, “Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

Chasity

If Wishes Were HorsesThen Beggars Would Ride

  How do you move on in life and from people that hurt you when everything you do in the endeavor fails you? My heart knows its happily ever after story; the fact that the story has to be rewritten for it has turned into a fairy tale, and the obviousness that one of the main characters in the story is faulted beyond its particular mending competency. Yet my heart lacks the preparedness and the capacity to fully surrender, abandon, and relinquish the love I possess to save me from the black hole that has embroiled me. On its own behalf, my heart reconstructed itself and assembled trap doors to forfend trespassers, after copious sorrow left me in peril. Through my life journeys and encounters, my internal security system has been on high alert continually quarantining even the trivial invasions. My heart never sanctioned anything or anyone accessible to its Achilles' heel that it alleged possible to corrupt my emotional barricades. For some reason or another my heart flew its doors wide open, cut the wires to its own caveat system, and pushed the reset button so that no triggers were perceptible. My heart left me at my most vulnerable, at all the unsuitable moments, and with the furthermost imperfectly iniquitous person. He has his own Armageddon of demons and under no circumstances is altogether acquiescent of compassion from others. Out of fears of his own, he could and would certainly not permit himself the pleasures of befitting emotional intimacy. Every time you reached his cordon using even the utmost delicate maneuvers, he receded like a crab to its shell. He has his personal apprehensions for love consequently dissimilar to my own, but alike in some references. Nonetheless, we both have two immensely different skill tactics for personal survival. Where affectionately romantic love destroyed him, I was running from my innermost dark experiences, my childhood, my struggles, and the unconditional love. In hopes of receiving his love to the same degree, as I involuntarily love him, I fought a war that I promised myself I never would allow to happen. In spite of everything, he did breach my core; there must be something to all these feelings, right. How obtuse I was for giving significance to him, when I was only one of the many miscellany choices he had. Even during the end days of my perilous battle when the time had come for my heart’s army to retreat, I still fought within myself. Praying and hoping he would run after and fight for me. How foolish my heart was to believe that he would choose me, love me, fight for me, stand up and have faith like me. Once he protruded my personal sanctuary, he won me over and I was putty in his unbeknownst hands. I confided in him things that I by no means confessed to a single soul. I trusted him more than I had anyone else in a very long time. He saw straight through my independently formidable facade from the beginning. Yet I never legitimately became close with anyone in an attempt to hide how reclusive I made myself, out of fear from the lifelong pain, grudges, and the torment that dwelled within me. Come what may, I have to learn to let go of everything I painstakingly clutch onto and inaugurate a new me, de novo. I am demolishing the cold dead rebuild of that security mechanism in my heart. It did not keep me unscathed or exultant in the past and I deem it incapable for the future as well. Therefore, I am pulling off the band-aid exposing my wounds in all their glory, crossing my fingers that the healing process does not cause scars, but perfectly beautiful new skin. I am no stronger than I ever was, but maybe if I stop running for once, I can attain what God had in store for me all along.

 

Chasity

Handwritten Straight to the Heart

   Have you realized how quickly and impressionably our world has become impersonal? What ever happened to running to the mailbox in childhood anticipation of what treasures await you, people do not even care about penmanship anymore. We are so obsessed with emails, instant messages, texts, tweets, and status updates that we no longer value the simple things. These things are nothing in comparison to a postcard, handwritten letter, or an occasion card. The things we once kept as treasures from friends, family, and lovers are turning into unvalued antiques, as we know it. We have replaced them with intangible extraneous gestural messages that are continually becoming absolutely obsolete. When did we as a whole lose our intimacy with one another? I, myself, love the “old” way of doing things. I feel it is more personal and genuine, but sadly as time goes by I notice when receiving my perfectly personal sentiments people are no longer pleasurably satisfied or gratified by what they receive. Our relationships with each other are supposedly fulfilled, yet we are colloquially estranged from any and every thing that is not electronically instantaneous. I think we need to go back to the basics here, so I am standing up and doing my part. My plan of action is to make myself more personable, in hopes of ratifying our former ways and depleting the insatiable desires of technology. I will not be defeated by modern day living, although I do enjoy the pleasures that technology has beaconed, I will not let myself become a robot of the future either.

Chasity

Dormant Hibernation

   Beyond my own boundaries lies night terrors, these are like nightmares on steroids. They are unidentifiable at the time due to many circumstances. Sometimes you are unable to recollect anything happening, but the fear and paranoia are still there. Other times it is like a movie-playing, scene by vivid scene. You know exactly what frightened you to the core and your real life is on hold stuck in this parallel universe. I am supposed to take tranquilizers for the night terrors, but with my ever-changing mood, I do not take them regularly. The reasoning changes from the mere I just feel I do not need them, I refuse to take them out of fear of going bald again, potentially dying, or because of the broad spectrum of how they work; either not at all or a full on sleep fest. These night terrors have had me paralyzed out of fear since childhood. I have literally had one of the same ones for as long as I can remember. It never changes and I wake up at the same point in it every time as well. Now that I am an adult, it does not horrifyingly frighten me as much as it did when I was a child, thankfully. I have had numerous ones about snakes invading my house and “waking up” to them covering me in bed. Several about my friends or family dying right in front of me, me killing people close to me, but more than I can count or want to recollect they are about me being killed or hunted. All this may sound like just Plain Jane nightmares to you, but until you have had to live through one, do not even go there with me. These things are serious business. I thought I was literally going crazy like Mort played by Johnny Depp in the movie Secret Window. In the moment that one is happening, it takes you over and that is the only thing your mind can comprehend. Not until the dust settles and everything finally starts to fade away, do you realize that what just happened was not what it appeared to be. It is almost like living your life with a pair of demented 3-D movie glasses on, that only show atrociously barbaric monster scenes, but not knowing you are wearing them and not being able to take them off when they turn Stanley Ipkiss into “The Mask“. Not only are the night terrors impairing to the mind, but to the body as well. They render a person from ever getting a good night’s rest and weaken the person, leaving them forever running on fumes. You are stuck in a state of sleep that never allows your body to recuperate. With the severe night terrors as a child I would also sleep walk, talk in my sleep, and I also thrashed so much I often woke up on the floor beside my bed and this happened on a nightly basis. Although I do not sleep walk now, I still talk in my sleep to the point I can hold a conversation with someone, talk to whomever or whatever is in my head while asleep, I even scream to the point of waking myself. My body jerks, twitches, thrashes, and I have even hit people. I breath so heavy while asleep during some of these episodes where I have worried people and the most terrifying and debilitating part of it all of it is when you wake up and reality is so tightly twisted into the night terror, there is no actuality and your stuck for hours in an upside down world. When you wake up from a night terror it is not the normal arousal of fear, it is a full-blown life or death paranoia situation going on. I remember not for the normal child-like reasoning’s but as a child, I hated taking naps. After the naps, I would awaken to a deep sadness and feelings of abandonment and I would literally run to find my parents or anyone else to prove that people other than me were still alive. I remember a time when I was approximately five years old, I awoke from my nap, the sun was going down, and I could not find my parents. I was so distraught I demolished the living room, threw the TV remote so hard against the wall it shattered and hit me in the face, I ran next door to a friend of my Mother’s looking for someone, any body. I literally thought everyone had left me for good or that they all died. I scared her to death because I was so upset, my face was beet red from crying, and I couldn‘t tell her what was wrong, but when it happens you are so caught in the firestorm that you do not know what exactly is or is not happening. To this day I still go through this more often than I let on. Unlike the childhood me, I am now an adult, abandonment, and feeling neglected are not as important as they are as children, so you learn to get by. It never stops the fear of it all, even when you are not having an episode. It never fails to stop me that any time I accidentally fall asleep or take a nap I wake up as if a bolt of lightening has hit me. First looking at the clock, then to check to see if the sun is still out, and then finally to see if people are around and in that exact order I do my checklist. I do not know exactly why I always do this, maybe I fear the feelings it gave me as a child, maybe because I am looking for assurance, or maybe because I am trying to “talk” myself out of the feelings of fear. What I do know is that sleeping, no matter the necessity, has never been my friend.

Chasity

Sputnik

As you probably know from reading previous entries, I suffer from Bipolar disorder or so the medical mad men say. I will indulge in some idiosyncrasy token manifestations for your educational pleasure. It took me an extremely long time before I ever got the courage to explain to anyone what I was living through, for many reasons. Firstly, I am from a very prude-like family where mental illness is not something you discuss openly; everyone expects you to pretend everything is perfect in a perfect world. Taking your anti-psychotic medications with your morning juice pretending for yourself and for others that they are merely vitamins and to go about your day like that elephant in the room never existed. The stigmas for the mentally ill are very much alive, as they were back in the bunkered down 1950’s. I am here to tell you I will no longer stand to be scrutinized, deemed inferior, ill-judged, scorned, or ridiculed for something I can no more be held accountable for than the color of my skin. Instead of having rancid thoughts, if we as a whole opened up to reality maybe we can rise from the dark ages together. It was more than a year after being formally diagnosed that I finally fell out of the stigma closet with my own family. I had lived with only my Mother and Father knowing the truth and hiding the truth for so long, exhausted from tiptoeing around, afraid I might drop the ball. That heavy ball I carried everywhere distracting others from the truth finally dropped and shattered to a millions pieces haphazardly. I condemn only myself for the marionette show I performed for so long, but I do admit it was not without outside influences. The day my puppet unsystematically combusted came while preparing dinner for my entire family one evening. I had a melt down, threw food, and spewed obscenities from all the anxiety I had held in for so long. I could do nothing, but run out of the room out of embarrassment and shame. That ball I had been balancing was only the beginning I am sad to say. Not only did my Mother lie to cover up what was really lying beneath the surface, saying that I suffer from small anxiety attacks and never completely came clean to my family. She never came to comfort me, or to check on me what so ever, I felt like I really did not belong. I spent hours secluded in my room and leaving them to live their imaginary fantasy lives. Half-heartedly when I did get the nerve to face my family everyone had gone, I was left wondering if they really cared or if they were finally going to recognize that I hid behind stained glass windows. Forcefully I lived in that closet by scrutiny from my family and our society, until the day, I could not hide it any longer. In one of my many episodes of mania, I chopped my hair practically all off. In doing this drastic action, I had to explain myself, because this was not like me at all. I cut and chopped until my hair was less than an inch long. In the hysteria of it all, I could not lie anymore. I was ready to face the firing squad and I no longer cared what happened in the end. Even then, I felt like I was a disgrace because no one understood what it meant, no one daunted the notion to open that door with me, and I could not talk to anyone about it. It was as if I had simply asked to pass the butter at the dinner table, nobody thought twice to open his or her arms to me. They ever so carefully looked the other way as though they all had blinders on and only cared to call me out when I did not “perform” cordially. Secondly, they were so ashamed they did not believe what I was telling them, even after I received three different doctor’s opinions with all the same answers. It was hard enough being told that my entire life’s ups and downs, highs and lows could be summed up to one thing, Bipolar and that one thing I was no where near ready to accept. When in the cycle of mania the hair cutting is only the beginning of the compulsions I cannot control. I have turned to drugs, alcohol, cutting myself, pulling my hair out, beating myself, punching or destroying things, digging my nails into my skin to the point of drawing blood and biting myself. None of these things am I proud of, I do not enjoy the acts nor do I willingly think about doing them. These utterly dark acts and thoughts derive from somewhere deep inside that I really have no answer how to explain to the fullest and withstanding them are damn near impossible. Something inside is like a blood-thirst you cannot quench until the mind is satisfied with its desires. You can feel the energy running through your veins and nothing can subdue it or make it go away. There is no release till you relentlessly follow through with it, and the moment the act is finished a serene calm takes over and all the pain, sadness, and the mental and bodily ramifications slowly fade into the darkness that once was. Be it a true form of happiness or not, in that moment of weakness you will sell your soul to the devil for an escape because your mind sees no other way through. I hope in this arduous voyage we partake in together, that if you so happen to know or coincide even in the most indirect ways with someone suffering from mental illness, that in quandary judiciousness you will be the one to convey compassion and not the one to turn a cold shoulder.

Chasity

No Longer In Love With Me

 The days since I conjured up the "splendid" idea to start my new blog journey, I have felt like there is a humongous change wafting in the air, like that first scent of salt when you‘re only miles away from the ocean. I do not know yet what it is exactly, it is little things so far, but I can feel it. I am not sure if it will be a favorable change, but I am trying to look at the positive. I intend for this blog to emanate from every part of me. I want to be able to pour everything I hold inside, out. My premeditation for this blog was for it to fundamentally be my tell all. I am not writing this blog to superimpose myself, to intersperse myself for other’s ridicule, or for people to repute me shoddily for what I disclose. I do so to facilitate my voyage into the unknowns of what I suppress and maybe help inform others, but I welcome all comments positive or negative. In doing this, the grail is not to infringe or aggrieve upon anyone, or to ruin any relationships I may have. I believe that the things in my life, in my past, in my thoughts, and in my emotions need an outlet. I need to let it all out; I have to get rid of it all. I know that this is not literally possible, unless someone plans on inflicting serious damage upon me to cause amnesia…hoping that is not the case though. To be able to move on, to discover and regain oneself it is only rational and logical thinking that, one would undress from what is clothing them and what is withholding them, correct. If not then you are on a continuous fight against the current in a tsunami. In saying all this, I also have to put out there that, I believe that I should not feel guilty or worried about what I make known because it is what it is. This is my testimony. They are my feelings, not yours and I cannot change how I feel on any matter until I get it out. My viewpoints are exactly that, my own and everyone is entitled to their own. Plus I see it this way, I have damn near lost everyone in my life already, so what do I really have to lose...? Besides the utter fact, I have not offered for the biggest role players the opportunity to have the chance to learn about the secrets I hold. I am not certain I am ready for that storm to begin to brew yet. It sucks being on the fence out of fear.


Dim Sum: Touch the Heart
Puzzle piece number one is an ironic one since it shall be my first issue to discuss. I am finally admitting my number one flaw, something I never let myself fall victim to, if at all possible. It is one thing that I despise in others for the simple fact that I avoid it all costs. It was inscribed in me from childhood to see as a character flaw. A simple word that grasps my fear mechanism by the horns. Something that is one of the biggest roots to other problems and negative things about me. So throw out everything you have ever learned or read because I am about to blow your fucking mind... Weakness is the word and it means to need. Now I know the Webster Dictionary does not tell you this, but everything I ever learned through my life has installed this definition in my brain. Weakness is something I cannot own up to, even though I see myself as the weakest person I know. I never admit it to anyone and I would have previously gone to my grave with only one person ever knowing. My core is entirely full of weaknesses, yet I strive so hard for this not to be true. I grew up believing that simply needing was weakness. I hate asking for anything and I am a terribly independent person, I will break my back before I admit I need help with anything. Needing is not only a weakness; I believe it is a sign of failure. Just like the dictionary in my head references weakness to need my brain was also installed with a link between need and failure. As a child my goal was to strive for excellence in fear of letting my parents down because it would mean I was a failure. Failure is something I know all to well and to the point where not trying anymore because if you do not try then you can never fail. Then it continues to go down the line, failure being linked to ignorance so forth and so on. Ignorance is not something I am accepting of at all; in fact, it annoys me down to the bone. Exactly how my brain registers all this information the way it does confuses the hell out of me. I know there are facts to disprove my logic, but it does not change anything in the end. Along the way, I have secluded myself from anyone close to me in fear of the weakness I would show for caring. In doing so, I am losing myself as well. To teach yourself not to care is one of the hardest and most ridiculous things one can do to themselves. In my life, I have kept so many things secret out of fear that it has finally made me numb to everything perpetually, I believe. I am the most complex person I know, to be so secluded when it comes to my most personal feelings, yet be so honest and open about everything else. It did not end there I am sad to report. Banishing my inner most feelings in the end stole away my empathy, compassion, and affection as well. The wall I built for my own protection ended up killing me, would that be considered an accidental emotional death or an emotional suicide? Either way I fucked myself over and the only person that tried resuscitating me I gave up on in the end. That is a whole other blog, for another time when I can bear the salted wound. For now, I will give my farewell salutations and bid you a goodnight!

Therefore, in celebration of a hopefully positive change, so that I can get back to me, I post this song. Now I know this version does not hale to the late, great, and the original Sam Cooke, but this version fits me. Enjoy!

Chasity