Tag Archives: school

To Older Siblings Everywhere

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in heroes, relationships, Uncategorized

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Do you ever think about your childhood and what your life was like then? I am decades away from living in the pink house, across the street from an elementary school, where I spent seven of my childhood years (from age 3 to 10).

I think about that time, with a chicken coop out back full of hens and a rooster or two; the garden that provided us with almost all of our vegetables and enough cucumbers, green beans, cauliflower, and carrots for many dinners and pickling. There were the apple trees, plum tree, and apricot trees, and a patch of strawberries and rhubarb. I’ll never forget picking tomatoes out of the garden and biting into them as the juice made a path across my dirt covered face.

It isn’t the fresh food I remember most, though or the smell of lilacs that wafted through the yard in spring. What I remember most is life with my three older brothers. I remember the times I was allowed to play with them or tag along with them, and the times I was told, no and was left behind.

Today, my oldest brother, Joel, turns sixty and it is his birthday that has me wandering back to the house where we all lived together under one roof. A house where the walls and floors and paint and furniture held our laughter, our secrets, our dreams, and our tears. At times blood tied us together, and at times life, anger and choices tore us apart.

My brother Joel had a pet mouse, a pet rat, pet snakes, played baseball as a catcher, and kept more than a dozen Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the freezer and instructed his younger siblings not to touch that chocolate.

I looked up to my oldest brother, and I listened to him. Listening to Joel was a problem, though because he liked to tell stories. Stories weren’t for lying, although he occasionally received a spanking for that, his stories were made up to entertain himself and anyone else who would listen. I was always a willing audience.

Joel once sent me to school with a bottle of mouthwash (I didn’t know what it was) and told me to drink it for superpowers like running faster or jump roping longer. He told me it was “White Lightning,” a magic potion. You can imagine how well my bottle of white lightning went over with my teachers in elementary school.

At school for show-and-tell, we were instructed to bring things from home that started with the letter, B. Joel went through our whole house and collected everything from baseballs, books, batteries, brushes, etc. and sent me to school with bags full of things that started with a B. I brought at least ten times the number of items of any other kid.

Another time for show-and-tell, Joel sent me to school with a record by Shel Silverstein. He wanted me to share the song, “Sarah, Cynthia, Silvia Stout.” It is a song about a girl who will not take the garbage out. The song is very funny, and my class loved it and wanted to hear the other songs on the record. Well, some of the other songs, contain adult language and themes and once again, I upset the elementary school teachers.

Having older siblings almost ensures that you will know things teachers don’t think are age appropriate. That means getting in trouble for being “ahead of the class” in things like anatomy and sex.

When our time in the pink house came to an end, and my parents went different ways, my brother Joel stepped in and took care of all of us in ways he was too young to do. At night before bed, he would drive my brother, Andrew, and I out to the neighboring town so we could see our mom at her waitressing job and she could kiss us before he took us home and put us to bed.

There are a thousand other memories; feelings, images, familiar smells, favorite foods, least favorite foods that bring back the time we shared under one roof. Good times and bad times. Happy times and hard times. But in the end, there is nothing quite like having an older brother.

The Secret to Writing

26 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

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For hours I read the descriptions for writing classes. I look at UCLA Extension classes. I look at Gotham Writing Workshop. I look at the offerings of the non-profit writing organization in my city. I spend hours searching for online writing classes and writing groups in my area. I attend as many writing workshops as I can afford. I am searching. I am looking for discipline. I am looking for a magic pill or bullet that will keep me in my chair every day writing essays, prose poems, blog posts, articles. There must be a trick to being productive. It doesn’t help that on Facebook I am friends with a wide network of writers. Those writers report their daily word count: 2500, 3000, sometimes more. I feel inadequate. I feel like a failure. I hire a writing coach.

I have to accept that I am looking for shortcuts. I am looking for a guru with the answers to being a writer, but no such guru exists. The only true guru would tell me this one word, “write.”  That’s it. I realize today as I am typing this that my problem is not that I need one more class, another critique, the input of one more teacher, assignments, encouragement, one more syllabus, or to participate in another workshop.

I need to sit down and do the work. I need to open a document and begin to type. I have been looking for something magical or mystical, some easy way out. There is no easy way out. It is just me, my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, my words on a page that I either send into the world, or I don’t.

The time of reckoning is here: I either want to be a writer or I don’t. I either take this lonely step, or I give it up altogether. I think of all the money I have spent on advice. I think of all the time I have spent in classes. I think of how I was searching for someone to do the work for me. It doesn’t work that way. I need the determination. I need the motivation. I need to sit down and get down to business, the business of putting words on a page.

I have always believed that everyone has a book inside of them. I frequently meet people who tell me they are going to write theirs. I wish them well, I do, but this business of putting ideas on the page every day is not for everyone. It is both a pleasure and hard work. The words don’t always flow. The ideas don’t always make sense when you try to type them out. Not every piece is artistic or amazing.

I lost the ability to write for many years because I couldn’t focus while on my medication. I never want to lose that ability again. I don’t take this gift of time and the gift of desire for granted, but I have been looking for shortcuts and the path that has already been cleared for a few years now. It’s time to take out my machete, and start hacking away at the obstacles. No one can do it for me. I’m out in the jungle and the options are, move forward or stand still and perish without water.

I sat in my chair today, and I wrote. I wrote these words. I cleared the path a little bit. I took a step forward. Tomorrow, I hope I can make a little more progress, and after that, a few steps into the jungle each day.

It is work this writing, and although it is the best life I can imagine, I need to stop searching. If you want to write a book or make a living as a writer, you can pack your bags and begin to search for the best way to do that. But when you return home, you will find your computer waiting, and if you are lucky, there will be a sticky note on it that says that one word, “write.” And you will discover that you already had everything you needed before you left on your journey. That’s it. That’s all there is to it, “write.”

It’s so much harder than it sounds, you’ll break a sweat again and again, but that’s the secret, and it’s up to you to somehow find a way to turn it into magic one word at a time.

 

 

Inspiration From Supercross

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in hope, Uncategorized, writing

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My nephew is twenty-three-years-old and living his passion and following his dream.

When he came to San Diego just over a week ago, he wrecked his dirt bike and ended up in the emergency room. The very next week he drove from California to Texas, got back on his bike and did better than the week before.

It is true that he holds the world record for a dirt to dirt jump, but at other times, his body has been bruised, broken, and hurting. He gets back up, though. He travels long distances to try again. He commits his time, his money and his talent to being the best rider he can be.

I love that spirit.

I had a minor meltdown the other day. I ended up crying that I couldn’t keep up my current schedule (two blogs, articles, essays, and other school work). I thought of my nephew, and all he does to live out his passion and try to make his dreams come true.

I don’t have the grit, the determination, or the physical strength of my nephew, but I can learn from the one thing he does over and over again – he wrecks that bike and gets back on to race.

I have to let something go, and for many reasons, what I am going to let go is school, but it is just a minor wreck. I’m hurt, but I’m getting back on the bike right now – typing these words.

I wish I was like my nephew and followed my dreams when I was young, but there is no guarantee I would have a trophy or first place race behind me now. I am fifty. I am slower and more cautious than when I was younger. I am less likely to risk it all and throw my whole self into the process. I am wiser now, though, and I need wisdom more than strength for my dream to come true.

I’m a bit roughed up today. It could be my ego that is hurt worst of all, realizing that my limitations are far more than I previously understood. I can push limits, though, and I’ll do my best to go as far as I can.

Both my nephew and I are moving toward dreams – he wants to be the fastest, and I want to make words sound like a symphony.

He needs to get back on the bike and ride, and I need to spend time forming sentences at my computer.

We are both going to get a little dirty, a little sore, but in the process, we’ll gain experience.

I hold that young man in my heart, and say under my breath like a mantra to us both, “Ride Alex, ride.”

Psychosis Is Like Death

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized, writing

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I am working on a collection of essays for a school project. This is last week’s homework. The teacher suggested a few things to make it better. What do you think?

Death is Like Psychosis

I am lying on the couch staring out the window at the branches of a tree. The branches turn into Clifford the dog, a character from a book I loved as a child. I wonder to myself what message is God sending me through Clifford? I decide God is trying to entertain me.

Days before, my husband and I are at a coffee shop near the beach in San Diego. I am agitated. My head hurts but not in the traditional sense. The thoughts in my head hurt. The thoughts are circular. I become more and more uncomfortable. I feel trapped inside of my mind. My thoughts are looping, repeating, making me feel as if there is no way out. I decide that this is hell, and I have been sent here to live for eternity.

I can’t imagine an escape. I feel as if another hour of this and I will run in front of traffic or jump off a bridge (both things I have tried before).  But then I realize it is hell, and there is no escape because I am already dead. Tears don’t come. Hell? I made it to hell. These thoughts that lead nowhere and loop back around onto each other like pathways to visions that end in confusion. I’m not going to make it long here. I must deserve this punishment. No chance to live my life over again. I fucked up too badly. I can’t even remember my worst sins, although I know they are grave because of these thoughts – nonlinear, backward, forward, and then all over again.

In a flash of clarity, I realize my only hope is a doctor. I ask my husband to call a doctor. I can’t sit still. I am pacing. I am going back and forth on an escalator. There is no comfort. My husband tries to get me to the car. I am both reluctant and eager. My husband calls the doctor who prescribes medication. If I can stay safe until the medication works, if I can stand these torturous thoughts, life may return to normal.

Within a couple of days, the medication kills the terror, but the doctors don’t know that the dosage is not high enough, and I am unable to tell them, trapped as I am inside my head. I am still psychotic although there is no terror. I believe I am Jesus. I believe I was sent to save the world. I spend days talking to God; we play video games. He is better than me at the games. He tells me jokes like this, “When the first person saw the golden calf that the Israelites crafted in the desert, the person screamed, “Holy Cow!” I find this joke hilarious. I laugh. God knows I will laugh. God knows everything.

I learn the voice of Jesus. I learn the voice of God, and I learn the voice of the Holy Spirit. The voice of Jesus is kind, clear, and very distinct. The voice of the Holy Spirit is the most innocent voice I have ever heard like a grown up child.

During this time, the voices in my head are all consuming. I can’t hear or respond to other people. I do not talk to my husband. I am in a world of madness. The woman he married is dead, and he doesn’t know if she will ever come back to life.

After six months on a tightrope between one life and another, I am convinced I need to kill myself. The voices tell me, “Do it! Do it!” One whole day the voices hound me. Just when I am about to go to Rite-Aid and buy some over the counter pills to overdose on, the voice of Jesus breaks into my populated head, “I am never scary,” he says. Something inside of me snaps, and I believe it was Jesus breaking through my madness.  I call my husband, “Please come home. I need to go to the hospital. I need to see a doctor.”

The doctor at the emergency room increases my medication. Within two days I am like Lazarus. I walk out of the tomb of death, and I begin to piece together what my life looks like and what happened to me.

Recovery is slow. I have been in the grave – both heaven and hell for a very long time. There is still an echo of voices in my head like a wave. But there are moments of silence. It feels strange to experience silence again. The moments of nothingness get longer and longer, and I adjust to a less crowded mind.

I have memories of my psychosis. I am ashamed that I thought I was Jesus. I am confused that I spent months talking to God. I watch Christian television and try to bring my faith back into a normal realm. After having God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as my companions for months, it is hard to organize my thoughts about what Christianity is, what I was raised to believe. What is fact, and what is fiction? Of course, there are those who think all religion is fiction, but I am not one of those people. I can’t live without my faith.

I spent six months in another world. Possibly it is the world where spirits get trapped, a middle world between heaven and earth or hell and earth. The doctors play the role of the key holder. It is as if they go into the world with medication, give it to you, and then grab your hand and pull you back. The entry into reality is abrupt. Now rescued,  I am left feeling confused, frightened, ashamed, and disoriented.

Well-meaning people tell me that if I pray harder, healing will come. They tell me that demons possess me. In my vulnerable state with the memory of psychosis being so fresh in my mind, it is not a stretch to think that I am demon possessed. The thought terrifies me. Will the spirits come back to get me?

There is fear, a fear of going back, or being lost forever, of being stuck between this world and another, or possibly experiencing a death of self. I am afraid psychosis will arrive on my doorstep again.

I have not gotten used to my husband’s loving voice, and outstretched arms. He knows that I am home now. He welcomes me. I do not want to be lost to him forever. He knows what it is like to see me die in front of his eyes. He knows what it is like to sleep next to a woman who doesn’t know about all the years you have been married, or that you knew one another in high school. He knows what it is like to have the love of your life turn against you like a stranger in the street.

My husband has experienced a six-month death of his wife. I was there physically, and he could recognize the shape of my nose and the color of my eyes, but there was no emotional connection. The body existed but the heart, the spirit, the mind did not.

Today after making love, I kiss my husband’s bearded cheek. We are listening to love songs. A song by Snow Patrol comes on Pandora, “If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

I look at my husband and ask, “Can you imagine if I slipped into madness but didn’t come back?”

“No,” he says. “I can’t imagine that.”

“It would be sad for you to see me, but not be able to reach me. To know that somewhere trapped inside was my laughter, my love, our memories. It would be awful. I would be trapped and terrified. I would be in the land of the unreachable. It is a death. To be certain, it is a death of sorts. Please help me not to get buried there again.”

Are You Hard On Yourself?

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

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My mind plays tricks on me. There are times when I am dozing off to sleep that I will remember a sentence I wrote earlier and the errors in it will stand out like a blue shirt against a white background. “How could I make such a dumb mistake?” I will ask myself.

Because I have already hit the send button to an editor, to a journal or for one of my blogs, I will feel so stupid thinking that the whole world now knows my inadequacies, deficiencies and the gaps in my knowledge of perfect grammar.

During these times, I will get up and check what I have sent. Many times I didn’t make the error I was positive I made. (There are times though when I reread what I sent and am horrified that I didn’t pick up on stupid and simple mistakes).

I am so hard on myself during those times. I feel like I am an imposter who doesn’t deserve the title of writer. I say to myself, “If I can’t get the basics right, how can I consider myself a writer?”

For a while, the punishment I put myself through for making mistakes seems like it will overwhelm me and I will stop writing completely. But in the long run, it is the pressure, the feeling of being an imposter, the desire to call me a writer and feel it, the desire to write something both beautiful and without errors that keep me going to classes and workshops.

I know I am harder on myself than I need to be, but when the initial weight of criticism leaves me, it makes me do more to master the craft. I sign up for another class, I read another book, and I push and push.

I bet many of you are hard on yourselves, too. I find the process of learning new things uncomfortable but my desire to be better than I was a year ago, a month ago, last week, and yesterday keeps me looking for opportunities to learn.

Do you get past the criticism of yourself and look for new avenues to drive down that will lead you to places you thought might be impossible to visit?  If you do, in time we can walk to the door of some cool house and maybe even have the key to getting in.

 

 

Working Toward Working

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in writing

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I am trying to get back to work. I can’t go back to an office, because of my paranoia, my anxiety, and my lack of motivation in terms of social interactions, but I could, if I try hard enough, work from home. That is why I am taking the creative nonfiction (CNF) certificate program at UCLA.

I can do the certificate all online and I should finish the program with the basics I need for pitching magazines about stories and actually getting hired to write essays and articles.

Being a writer is the only dream I have ever had. When I had my first episode of psychosis in my twenties, I tucked that dream away, because I could no longer focus enough to read or write.

I am fifty now and I am coming to this field very late (I see twenty-somethings and thirty-year-olds publishing constantly), but hopefully I can continue to carve out a place for my voice.

I want to be a busy writer, and today, that wish has come true. I have an essay due for school tomorrow, a Psych Central blog that needs to be written, a blog post for this blog that needs to be written, and an artist’s bio/portrait page that needs to be submitted for two essays that were accepted into a book (that will come out in March).

For me, this is a lot of work to get done in one day, because I don’t have a very long attention span, and ideas take days to percolate in my brain.  I am more of a day dreamer (searching for ideas) than I am a person who gets a lot of words on the page.

Here’s hoping today is a productive one, so that when our heads hit the pillows tonight, we know not a single moment was wasted.

The Internet for the Mentally Ill

24 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia

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I was talking to my psychiatrist about my how I socially isolate and he said that he knew people frequently disregarded social media as a place to build real relationships because there is the tendency for people to be inauthentic on social media – only presenting their good side. But he suggested that for people with a mental illness it could be the difference between interacting and not interacting with people. I know for me, the majority of the time, I am in a room by myself writing, reading, or participating on social media.

When I was first diagnosed with a mental illness back in the 90’s the Internet was just starting to be popular and it was very expensive (you paid by the hour for services like AOL), it was dial-up and very slow compared to today.  Businesses were just starting to build websites and people communicated in chat rooms.

I’ve lived with a severe mental illness for over two decades and in that time I have seen the opportunities for people with all kinds of mental health issues explode on the Internet.  Here are fourteen of the most obvious ways that the mental health community can benefit from the Internet.

  1. You can email your doctor
  2. You can keep a blog to document your history (to share with a therapist or psychiatrist)
  3. You can track your symptoms
  4. You may be able to discover what triggers your symptoms
  5. You can write down your daily thoughts in order to help you with your memory later
  6. You can make friends
  7. You can communicate with others
  8. You can join a support group
  9. You can use it to network
  10. You can help others
  11. You can develop your creativity (photography, art, writing)
  12. You may be able to find work
  13. You can take classes or earn a degree
  14. You can educate yourself about your illness, or current affairs, or almost anything

These are the most obvious benefits that wide use of the Internet has brought to people with mental illnesses who may be isolated socially. I have used the Internet in all of these ways, and I am comfortable saying that the Internet has improved the quality of my life tremendously and afforded me opportunities I wouldn’t be able to handle otherwise. I am currently working toward a certificate in creative nonfiction from a great school (UCLA), I am working at developing a career as a writer, I am networking with other writers, I communicate with people from all over the world, and I read stories and news daily.

Many people see the negative side of having computers be such a big part of our lives, but I would say for the mentally ill and the mental health community, it has opened so many doors that may have been impossible twenty years ago.

It may be true that many people are not authentic on social media and those relationships often lack depth, truth and meaning, but I think if you pan for the gold that is among the rocks and sand you are bound to find it. I’ve found it, chunks of it are everywhere.

We All Need to Find Meaning in Life

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

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I think it is important for those of us with a mental illness to feel useful, to feel as if our lives are meaningful, and that we are contributing. I know this is important for other people too, but when you are battling a mental illness, and a full time job is not likely or possible, and social situations can be too much, etc. finding something to do where you feel valuable is not always easy.

I think this is why many of us blog. Blogging is valuable and it is a connection to the world that is much easier than maneuvering through a party while you are feeling paranoid, or overcome by social anxiety, or maybe you isolate socially like me.

I know it isn’t easy to find things that make you feel productive, creative, and full of life, but it is possible if you search, look at your skills (what you are realistically capable of), and look at your hobbies and passions. If you do these things, and take inventory, you may be able to come up with just the right thing to make you feel great about yourself.

I watched a short documentary the other day on a young man who recently became a professional photographer by shooting the pictures he loved and putting them on social media. His pictures were picked up on Twitter by a lot of people and then noticed by Time Magazine. One of his photos, made the cover. If photography is your thing, why can’t your story be like that young man’s story? If it happened to him, it could happen to you.

I think I have found something where I can succeed despite the symptoms of schizophrenia that manifest during the day.

I started a program to get a certificate in Creative Nonfiction from UCLA. I started the program on August 5th and I should be completed with it in one year. On my first assignment, my teacher wrote that the story was good and the couple I wrote about in my story was interesting, and it left her wanting to know more. On the second assignment, she wrote some notes and at the end she wrote, “REALLY good writing.” I turned in my third assignment on Friday and the teacher made some minor corrections and she said the essay was so good she wanted me to enter it in a competition (I did).

So for me, I want my job to be writing. I am working toward it now, and I plan to keep working toward it as long as my mind is able.  I feel like I need the discipline and the feedback of teachers in order to move ahead and be better at the craft.  That is why I am in school, and online school works perfectly for me. I hope when I am finished with school to launch a full time freelance writing career.

There are many online certificate programs available through universities now, and of course you can get college degrees (both undergraduate and graduate) online too.

It is never too late to chase your dream or to fill your life with meaning and purpose. With the Internet and social media it is easier than ever to work around a mental illness or the time constraints of having a job, or children to look after.

I am a firm believer that if a dream can come true for one person, it can also come true for you.

There are plenty of ways to be successful on your own terms. You just need to find the way for you and then clear the path. I’m guessing that a lack of belief in yourself is the only thing standing between you and your purpose/dream. Get out of your own way and get busy! I want to sign up to be your first fan!

Here are examples of people who have made their own way despite mental illness:

John Cadigan – has schizophrenia. Made a documentary about his life and is a successful artist.

Brian Charnley – artist who had schizophrenia.

Sohrab Hura – photographer and writer whose mother suffers from schizophrenia.

If you need more examples, Google famous people with bipolar disorder, or famous people with schizophrenia.  There is inspiration all over.