The Truth of Things

It’s been a long time since my last post. Truth is that I’ve been some goods  and bad things last year and I haven’t been able to write. Nothing was coming out of my head. I plan to write often. Promise…to my fans. Somewhere there has to be one.

I don’t know to say .this, the word is scary to me now. There we go: Suicide. Yes, I had the intention of killing myself two weeks ago.  I remember that day, at least most of it.

At the beginning…,

There was  no preparation, or intention that day. It was a normal day, like any other.  I was going to various Doctor Office’s trying to get one that could do an MRI and other studies and everyday was the same: “We are sorry, but we don’t do that”.  One day, I just lost it.

It felt like everything was the same color and you have to run out of there. I could not breath. Then, the feeling and paranoia go away and I was exhausted. I just wanted to sleep.

I ran home, and took my first eight pills of  klonopin and then, seemed like a good idea at the time, taking some Relagesic and some Desyrel. I vomited some. The truth:  I was lying to myself.  I accept that the real intention was to die. I just thought at the time, my first story. really I got scared and with my blurred vision I managed to call 911.

And at the hospital in one minute or less…

To make this short, because all hospitals are the same, I did a list of the points of this story that are important, at least to me.

-On the way to the hospital. I got  bitchy there. That guy insisted that I give him information. All I did was drool and say go away, no more questions!.

-The Dr., or whoever was in charge, ordered to put a device in my nose that would wash my stomach (I don’t remember the proper name in English).

-I was in observation for two days.

-The hospital transferred me to the psych guard in another hospital.

-I had a 5 minute call a day. I divided the minutes so I can call my mom and friends.

-The food was terrible.

-two guys fought each other.

-I cried every night until I go to sleep.

-I cried because I was ashamed of what I did.

-I cried because thinking in just me, hurted love ones.

-I cried because I wish it was an accident.

-I saw the shrink two times and let me go home

The Aftermath

Nothing good came out of this. There we go with another list.

-I was selfish. Didn’t think of anyone but myself.

-I hurt people I really love.

-I lost almost everything I work so hard for.

-I still cry

-I almost became an statistic

So, my advice is don’t do this. Don’t kill yourself.  If you don’t die you will loose and if you die you loose even more. . Just imagine, if you are in pain, imagine the pain that the people who loves you who care about you would feel.

-If you can’t get what you want or need. There will always be another day.

-Go to a place you haven’t seen.

-Get involve in activities, anyone

-There always someone to talk.  If it is a good friend he/her will be with you.

-There are always options rather to take the easy way. The truth of things is that I consider myself a coward because of a what I did. And I have no excuse for it.

-You are not alone.

I don’t want to go there; Third and last part of my tale

I don’t want to go there
The Last Part

Well, where I left the last time I was talking about my adventures at the hospital?

Oh yeah, about the Electro Convulsive Therapy which is a fancy name for Electroshock. Many of you will think that that procedure is from a past coming from a movie like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” when you have to bite a piece of wood to overcome the shock. No, it wasn’t like that.

Nowadays is a very common, secure procedure, although kind of last option, for treating major depression. The meds weren’t working for me at the rate that was supposed too, so my Doctor suggested it and I said yes.

That same night, I was transferred to another hospital very, very different from the one I was in. I was used to group therapy, having time on my own, etc. But this was something else. It was a mental ward from hell, and yes, that one was like the ones you see from movies or documental form the Discovery Channel. That first night all I heard was people screaming and nurses screaming back. I was put in the acute cases floor because there was no bed anywhere else. I didn’t sleep. I just sat in my bed’s corner with my bag of clothes, terrified.

Next day, was a little better, because they transferred me to another floor with less serious cases. People with depression and conditions like mine. There were no therapies, no arts and crafts, nothing. Just people wondering on the halls or fighting over the television. I just went into my own world waiting for my first treatment and was it going to be like.

So, my first treatment was the next day. It was a really strange sensation having your hands tied and your head full of jelly and cables. I was put under anesthesia and the procedure lasted about 30 seconds or less or so I was told. When I woke up, I was in the recovery room with the worst headache of my life and for some reason couldn’t move my jaw. A nurse brought me coffee and helped me drink it with a straw. I felt better after that. Once I could get up I went to my room, took a bath and slept until they gave me my usual medication. Then, I slept again. It was exhausting.

The therapies where in alternate days, so I had no choices but integrate and I get to meet a very interesting bunch of people, including a stripper. They all were nice to me and I felt less tense and we all came with the same conclusion: the food was horrible. I lost five pounds when I was there; which wasn’t so bad after all because I needed to shred some weight anyway.

I heard about people who lose memory after the procedure. My memory was fine, except form the fact that I have no recollection If I called someone while I was there. I know I most have, but I don’t remember.

I received a total of three therapies at the hospital and four ambulatory ones. After that, I started to feel better and my last therapy was October 30th. For a while, I felt like a million bucks.

The point of sharing these stories is that people like us, with some kind of mental condition, can go through hell and back just to get better and not feel like the world is shrink it around you. The sensation that you are underwater and there’s no one to take your hand.

The question is, after all I’ve been through does it ever get away? No, it never does. For example, I received New Year’s Eve at the hospital again, for reasons that I prefer not to talk about. All you can do is learn to live with yourself.

I would have saved a lot of pain, for myself and other if I had recognized my bipolar diagnosis and started to get treatment in time. I wait years before I accept help. I let my pride get on the way and the result was the ones you have been read about for quite some time.

I don’t mean to be preachy here, but if you are affected by some kind of mental, affective condition you have to recognize that you need treatment, that once in a while you may lose control over it and you, as an adult can’t get standing there, waiting for a miracle. You need to be responsible and get help. You have to say the truth about the way you feel. If you feel sad, if you feel on cloud nine, if you feel like killing someone (and let’s face it, you don’t have to be bipolar to feel that sometimes, some people are just that annoying), if you feel like killing yourself, if you feel like you want to harm yourself in anyway, speak about it. Don’t let it inside you. It will eat you up until no one could be able to help you and you may get your way and there’s no remedy for that.

The last thing I want to say is that this is the last time I’ll talk about this. From now on, maybe I’ll blog about life, stories, people or life in general. I’m not only a bipolar. My life is about my friends, about me waking up at 4am just to watch the sun come up; about the million things that I do that has nothing to do with me taking nine pills a day. My life is so much than that.

Thanks for reading.

Little handbook for things that happen or might happen when you start a relationship:

1. Apparently, you are not supposed to go in public without a bra. Go figure. My tits free days are over.
2. You are supposed to share. Even your cornflakes, dammit! I don’t want to share! Get your own damn cornflakes!
3. Your significant other will have the need to talk to you several times a day and when you get home it gets tense if you don’t talk. What the hell I’m going to talk about! Apart from the guy picking his nose in the middle of the traffic jam, there’s not that much to say.
4. On the same subject, you HAVE to ask “how was your day”? I know how was your day. I spoke to you five times today.
4. Smoking is only in a designated area. Actually, is not important unless You start a fire. It happened. It got ugly. I still have nightmares about that.
5. You have to watch tv as a couple. Sucks, specially if one likes soaps and the other “Sons of Anarchy” and both are at the same hour.
6. The bathing together thing. Very nice first couple of times, but, personally, I need my privacy and space to wash my hu-ha properly and in peace.
7. The use of the toilet while You are in the shower. Apparently that’s a sign of intimacy. The day pooping is involved, either there’s gonna be a lot of yelling or you’ll know that the love of your life is taking a dump in front of you and you don’t care.
8. Sleeping intertwined like nothing else exists. Like time and space are both of you. It’s a freaking nightmare!! Specially when you have to pee in the middle of the night or it gets so hot you think is an oven. For some reason, arms and legs becomes claws that are trapping you. Fun fact: once you manage to get out and pee, you get to bed and the same claws gets you again. So, sauna it is.
9. The snoring thing. Ear plugs. Just to evade the need of sleeping on the porch or accidentally smother your loved one in your sleep.
10. The following conversation:
“What you want to eat?”
“I don’t know, what are you in mood for?
“I don’t know, what do you want? Chinese?
-of course not, You know I don’t like Chinese”
-Actually, I didn’t know, but how about Italian?
-you know I don’t eat carbs
-A salad?
-No, I want something different”
And after an hour of that, you’re gonna end up, home and sharing your cornflakes….

Thanks for reading

Lessons

Never give in to the pressure of others.
Never give anything to just anyone.
Never change or regret the things that makes you who you are today.
Never beg for love.

For you belong only to yourself.
For if you give everything, you’ll be empty, and you won’t anything to offer to the one that deserves it.
For if you change for someone else, you’ll loose what makes you unique.
For if you have to beg for love, that love doesn’t exists.

And it will hurt, but just for a while.
And you will think it was a mistake, maybe it was. Learn from it.
And you’ll think that you’ll never find love, but that is the biggest lie.
And, one day, you’ll understand why these things have and needs to happen.
And then, you’ll get your chance to be happy.

Weekend’s Problems and suggested solutions

Laundry = wear pajamas
Cleaning =Dust doesn’t exists if you ignore it long enough
Groceries=Cornflakes
Going out = sleep

So put on your pajamas, eat your cornflakes, ignore the rest and have a nice weekend everyone!

The Lemon Tree

Her aunt called and told her that she needed to go to the house and take her things as soon as possible. Her brothers just sold it, and the new owners were very anxious to move in. There was no way around it so Esther had to sum up all her courage just to stand in front of the house that she grow up in. A year since the funeral, she was still dealing with the reality of it.

So sudden were their deaths that she pretended for some time that it never happened, even when she was the one who had to identify them at the morgue. Neither of her parents was supposed to drive, but they did it anyway, out of pride and stubbornness. The inevitable happened. A combination of a tree, bad breaks and a truck stop them from reaching their destination.

At the front yard, there was no garden anymore, just wild grass and her mother’s dead orchids. Her trembling hands dropped the keys twice before she could open the door.

As she entered the living room, and opened the windows, the sounds of silence overwhelmed her. The leaking faucet in the kitchen, the shy whistle of a very soft and almost non existant breeze and the rustling leaves of the lemon tree in the backyard. She knew that tree since she was a toddler and the tree was just a sprout on the ground. She used to play there a lot. The aroma of citrus overpowered anything else sorrounding it. “At least something has survived”, she thougt.

Sitting at the couch, everything stood still, bringing back to life what has been dead for a long time.

She could see her little sister on her father’s lap kissing him and eating candy, maybe asking to buy her one thing or the other. She could see her father, strong and proud with his dark beard and his eyes full of ambition. She didn’t consider him neither as good or a bad, just her father. He was almost never around and when she asked why he’s never home the answer was always the same “because he works really hard to buy you nice things”. Esther just saw him on Saturdays and maybe once or two a week and her baby sister took most of the attention.

She could see her mom with her feet in cold water, after a long day of working around the house. She could see her trying to get her sister to sleep and hear the sound of the kiss she gave her when she finally closed her eyes. Esther wouldn’t sleep, so she sat with her mother at the porch, without saying a word, wondering if her father would or wouldn’t come home, if he would come to kiss her goodnight, if he would come to sleep by her mother’s side. She woke up on her bed every morning, so she never knew if he came home or not. After a while she stopped waiting or asking.

One day at school, some kids were taunting Esther about her family. They told her that her mother was a whore, that her father had a real family and she and her sister
where bastards. She ran home and told her mother. There wasn’t another option, but to explain to her what was going on.

Mostly everything that the kids told her was true. He belonged to another home with a wife and kids. She wasn’t a whore, her mother said, she just believed in the promises of another woman’s husband. Neither she nor her sister were bastards for they both had her father’s name. Yes, she had two brothers and she will meet them in due time. After that, Esther was transferred to a private school out of town so she wasn’t taunted anymore.

Esther and her sister did meet their brothers. It was a Saturday afternoon. They just looked at each other but didn’t say a thing. They met a couple of times after that, but they weren’t interested in one another. That was it.

Esther walked out the living room and opened the door of her bedroom. Her bed, her desk and some books were still there. Things that she left behind when she
went to College. Apart from the dust, there was her porcelain clown collection. Nothing else

.

She opened her closet which used to be her hiding place as a child. She went inside and closed the crystal door and looked through a little hole that she make to see if the monster came looking for her. He always did and he always frightened her. So much that she was petrified by the time the monster took her hand and pulled her out of the closet. Then, the monster touched her for a while. After that, the monster gets out of the room, leaving her trembling and confused.

She never said anything to anyone. That was one of those secrets buried between fear, anger and shame. Esther wondered if her life would have been any different if she had the power to say no.

Everything became so different in the last few years that those memories seemed like a fading picture. After a long time, the monster go away, never to return. At some point and when they were old, her parents finally married. By the time it happened her father was a phantom of that man that she remembered from her childhood. Defeated by life, he could barely walk, and he drank beer or black coffee from dusk to dawn. As an adult, she saw him crying a lot, not because he was drunk, but because he was looking for some kind of redemption for all his past actions. A redemtion that he knew will never come. Rectifying one thing doesn’t make up for the life he lived and the people he hurt..

Her mother didn’t cry, but her eyes were just as sad. She spent her youth trying to please a man that couldn’t be pleased in any way, she lost most of her family for what she did. The only ones who looked for her were her sister and her nephew. Her final years finally brought the husband she always hoped for, but by then, it didn’t matter anymore. Both were too tired to enjoy their elderly years together.

That house was never a home, it was just a house.
She grew up in it, but that’s all. There were no happy memories; there were no pictures of birthdays, picnics, graduation, in which the four of them were together, nothing that resembled a home. She had a Mother a Father a sister and two brothers, but they were never a family, just people related by blood.

She closed the windows and the door. Then, she went to the backyard and took four leaves and two lemons from the tree. She didn’t take anything else.

There’s always something…

Thursday night, a strange sense of peace and happiness surrounded her. Finally free, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, no one to take care of…finally free. She didn’t feel particularly depressed, particularly angry, particularly anything and because nothing in particular, she decided it was her time to go.

It was going to be Friday night. She hated Fridays. There were the longest days and loneliest of nights. She tried to participate in happy hours and drunken karaoke contests, but it wasn’t her thing and she always felt like an alien around too many people. Also, being practical, no one will miss her until Monday or Tuesday, and she thought that everyone that knew her deserved a decent weekend.

There wasn’t’ nothing to think about, so no second thoughts. There will be no soul searching. There will be no last sunset, not a last cigarette. Specially, and most importantly, there will be no goodbye notes or letters. She felt that it was unfair and inconsiderate making people feel guilty because they didn’t do this or because they felt that they didn’t note the signs or all that shit that appears in “how to prevent that your basket case friend shoot, hang, or cut her veins” pamphlets or after school specials. First of all, she wasn’t a basket case, maybe a little bit on the “I wash my hands twelve thousand times a day and flush the toilet seven times every time I use it” side, but still functional. Second, there’s no need to involve anyone else. Third, she didn’t have a gun, hanging implied too much work and she didn’t want to cut up her veins because it will be too messy. Sleeping pills. Before she knew it, she’ll be on the other side, whatever that might be. Smooth and simple.

She didn’t sleep that night, but she wasn’t strange to that. That was her third night in a row. At 3:00 a.m., she took a bath, had two boiled eggs for breakfast, washed her teeth, did the daily routine of makeup, trying to match her underwear (she always thought that unmatched underwear should be a crime) put on jeans, blouse and shoes, packed a bottle of sleeping pills in her purse and drove to work.

She arrived at 5:55 a.m., sat on her desk and wrote the first five useless letters of the day. She find them useless because first, that wasn’t her job but she had to do it because nobody else will, second because she knew that nobody will read those letters and they will end in a recycle bin that nobody will take the trouble of empty. She smoke, make other useless letters, filed some documents and, at 8:35 a.m. she answered a lot of calls with the same answer “I don’t have it, and I don’t know when it will be finished, that is another division”. Isn’t bureaucracy a wonderful thing?

She didn’t want anyone to notice anything odd about her that day, so she smoked, as she always did, with her friends, had lunch, laughed like crazy over dirty jokes, smoked again and make inappropriate comments on the elevator (for some reason her best and dirties jokes came the moment she enters it). She didn’t want to think about anything, so she got as busy as possible making more letters, filing more papers and when she looked at the clock it was finally 4:00 p.m.

That was the hardest moment of that day. She said to her friend “See you on Monday” when her husband, also a good friend, came to pick her up. She didn’t want to lie, but she did.

She wanted to tell her that she was sorry about the other day. She wanted to say how much she cared about both of them, how much, she loved them. She wanted to say that nothing will change what she was about to do; that the decision was hers, that it had nothing to do with them or anybody; that she was tired and she didn’t have anything to give to anyone anymore. Instead, she just waved goodbye and watched as they drove away, disappearing in the distance.

According to her plan, she wasn’t allowed to think, so she went to the mall and walked until 7:00 p.m. At last, it was dark outside. She drove to the beach. She leaved everything in the car, except the pills and a bottle of water. She took her shoes off and walked. There was no moon, but the light of the streets make up for it, illuminating the water. It look beautiful. She walked until she could feel the cold water between her toes, closed her eyes and stood there for a little while, hearing the sound of the breaking waves and tasting the salty wind that she loved so much. She took a deep breath.

Then, she opened the bottle of water and took the first ten pills. She waited because she felt nauseous. There was no going back, so she took the next five, then ten more, then the final ten.

Dizzy and with all her defenses down, Reason finally took hold and shove the “no thinking rule” out of the way.

-“What are you doing?”

-“Shut up, you are not supposed to be here”

-“…but here I am and, again, what are you doing, you idiot?”

-“You know what I’m doing and why”

-“That’s it, I don’t understand the why part”

-“I want out, no more guilt over everything, no more silence,no more nothing, especially no more you, reminding me of everything every fucking day”

-“Do not throw that shit on me, I’m Reason, not Memory”

-“Shut the hell up! I just took thirty five sleeping pills. I’m doing this and that’s it that”

-“Why you think this is so simple?”

Then, and contrary to her expectations, her heart started to beat faster than ever. Her thoughts were racing in her head so bad that she was beating it trying to get them out, until finally one coherent and clear thought came through: It wasn’t as simple as she believed it would be.

She will cause suffering, because she was loved.

She will cause guilt, because everyone will think they didn’t do enough.

She will cause anger, because she thought she’s thinking about everyone, but she wasn’t.

She will be everything that she wanted to avoid.

Nobody will believe that she loved someone enough to stick around. She wanted to be just a remote memory that eventually fades out, but she’ll be a constant reminder of something that could have been but chose not to.

Reason was right, there’s always something. That something was that nobody will understand her reasons, because nobody will know the reasons, because there was no real reason.

-“I can’t do this, right?”

-“No, you can’t, and don’t panic, you’ll be fine”

Then, she shoved her fingers down to her throat trying to throw up, but she couldn’t.

-“You have a beach in front of you, drink the water and, I guarantee, you’ll throw your guts out. Kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

As soon as she started to drink the water, she started to throw up. She wasn’t sure if everything was flushing out. She thought it was too late, because everything went black…

– “Hey, wake up! Oh my God, you look and smell disgusting!

She did wake up; she tasted salt, sand and vomit in her mouth. In fact, she was covered in it. The sun was rising. Her head was pounding as she was struggling to get up.

She opened the trunk of her car and found her cigarettes. As she was smoking, she started to laugh.

There she was, the one who said there will be no last sunset and no a last cigarette, watching the wonderful light of dawn, smoking one. You got to love the ironies of life.

-“Why do I do know?”

-“Go home, take a long shower and get some sleep”

-“Then what?”

-“Change”

Why do I Write?

I know it’s been a while, but, being as I am, I was having a little battle that involved some depression, some anger, and some something that I can’t describe. Nothing out of the ordinary happened to me on those days and I can actually say that I go out more and had a really good time over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, my mind ignore these things and, as hard as I’ve been working on feeling better and stay on that cloud, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t speak to anyone about it, because I didn’t wanted to spoil anyone’s good time. I didn’t want to be alone, but sometimes you can’t help it and won’t ask for some company, fearing the questions that might be asked. To make this story short, those are the times in which my head and thoughts had lives outside myself and is very difficult to obtain a decent and organized line to write. My notebooks have page after page of unfinished lines and broken stories. I don’t even know if this will make sense to any of you, but I have to start, again, somewhere.

Why do I write? Why I try, against all odds, to communicate and share with the world the contents of my mind through a piece of paper, or a blog, or just my computer? For my amusement? Because I have something so important to say that it can’t be contained within myself? Why I can’t talk to anyone about my real feelings, but can write a 40 page story about the women in my family without flinching for one second? Why, I’m scared of ordering a latte at Starbucks, and write page after page of very private, even embarrassing stuff and share them with you at the same time?

I write sbecause I know that any other way of communication isn’t right for me. My shrink said to me that I shouldn’t rely that much on it because at 41, I should have learned to speak up and stand up for myself. I don’t want to be unfair to him, mostly because that was my third appointment, but I just went silent and spoke even less.

I don’t know how this is going to sound, but I really don’t like
to talk. I like to observe people, imagine what they do for a living and write stories about them. I like to stand still, see my life from the outside and just write about it. I like to bring the inhabitants of my head to life, so they can continue a road apart from mine. Forget that I exist, for just a moment, and live my life as a anti-hero that steals from Wal-Mart in the hopes of destroying it because is an evil corporation that uses the money from consumers to conduct experiments on cloned puppy’s and make them deathly soldiers so the Corporation can rule the Earth (except for the puppy thing, that’s pretty much what they do anyway).

I write because I still have the dream of publish something that, many years after I’m gone, will be read in some middle school by a boy who finds it incredibly boring, even though he has to write a paper about it. Or by a girl who that rather be at the mall watching her first crush joking with his friends. Maybe there will be an old copy in a doctor’s office between Cosmopolitan magazines and a rheumatic lady starts to read it and finds it interesting. Isn’t that the dream?

And…that’s about it. Thanks for reading.

Just saying…

It takes a great amount of courage to talk about the things you want to forget.
It takes an iron will to make peace with your past and don’t let it step into your future.
It takes a lot of patience to get rid of your ghouls once and for all.
It takes age and wisdom to recognize and learn from your mistakes.
It takes time to believe in yourself after a life of doubt.
It takes passion to understand that love is not always reciprocated, not always known, not always fair…and still risk it all for it.
It takes faith to do the rest…

Answers

A woman stands in front of her Doctor. He asked her how she felt. She said okay, which was lie. Why are you here, he asked. I don’t know, she said, but she knew. Do you want to say something, he asked. No, she said, even though a lot needed to be said. May you sit down, and she said yes.

So the doctor asked,

What’s in your mind? Why?

A sandwich, because I’m hungry
The mortgage, because I haven’t paid it yet
Being here, because I never thought I would
Work, because I worry about it all the time
Lots of things, because that’s the way it is

What do you love? Why?

The wind in my face, makes me feel free
Giving, makes me happy
Laughter, makes me forget
Music, makes me sing
Ice Cream, makes me feel like a kid

What do you fear? Why?

Sleepless nights, I’m afraid of how long they are
Speaking my mind, I’m afraid of rejection
Loneliness, I’m afraid it would last forever
Bad Thoughts, I’m afraid of myself
Being Forgotten, I’m afraid of being another sad story

What do you hate? Why?

Hospitals, when I go there is because I don’t have anywhere else to go
Betrayal, when that happens that person ceases to be my friend, and that hurts
Half truths, when I hear the other half I’m already fucked
Christmas, when the season comes I’m not that jolly
Mojitos, when I finally tasted one, it felt like grass in my mouth

What do you want? Why?
The future, I think is still mine to shape
Pizza, I think I already told you, I’m hungry
Travel the world, I think the world is meant to be seen
Life, I think I should have one
Another appointment, I think you can help me