A Soul Mate’s Secret Knock

Today was a wonderful day compared to the entry a few days ago while on medication. I felt like I could feel nothing.

“He” was not there.

“God” was not there.

“Creativity” was not there.

and I was out of medical marijuana and without that for depression I am lost to the wind.

I did stop the anti psychotics 24 hours ago. My body swelling has gone down and my mind is sharper. I am however still experiencing blurred vision. I managed to write a rage piece in this blog which for me was really good since writing has bee very hard for me for a long time. I have been censoring some feelings. I feel freer to express those now without shame thanks to a friend.

The story was about being in hospital and it purged the anger of why it happened again to me.  Since I stopped the medication the night before, my mind had ideas, I could think and I found a bit of weed to help it along. It was fueled by sheer outrage that it keeps happening to me.

I will never take dangerous anti psychotics again.

under God’s protection, this I swear for my own health and well being.

but hey God,

dude,

Sir,

Like you gotta help me with this other problem and you know what it is I speak about. This blog is bleeding with it.  How about feeding my heart now. I’ve had enough of darkness ya know? Stuff, where like, I have to keep reliving the same crap and you promise me love and Prince Charming if I do these things then I find him in mysterious was and we can talk in weird ways and you promise and promise but nothing happens. Where do I go from here?

Where do my “boys” come into this tale? This blog is a juxtaposition of two worlds. The reality of dealing with a mental illness and a label and trying to understand Quantum Physics when you are a C student so you can find your soul mate you’ve been looking for for 52 years because you can blame it on Disney movies.

I don’t want to go to bed. I want him in my head.

Is he busy?

Does he not really love me?

He said it was fine to write it all out without guilt, so where do I go from here. Where ever does he go when he goes away? Or do I go away and forget and he is always here and it is just logistics that cause problems like time zones and sleep etc..etc…

He never says he can hear me in writing though? hmmmm? I wonder why. Do you know? I have run my own rational science experiments on this situation in three years and some results have been astounding. I’m not going to broadcast that on Twitter, but still. I like him, but God, what gives. Is this your doing? Like when my ears change and then I think of him and I smile and then my right ear goes off and it starts talking to me in pulses. Sounds crazy to reader it’s normal to me. That’s how it started. We have progressed to a much deeper less primitive communication that often I misread. There is always the fall back to that when I cry or when he interrupts me reading or doing things he is proud of me doing.

I’d call it my

“soul mate’s secret knock“

🙂

I confess in a message to him basically from my heart which was from You and poured my sheer truth out and still although so kind, he never said a word about the other dimension he dwells in with me. So do I dwell there alone? God, am I crazy or just misguided? I think this must be some kind of silly gag I agreed on before I was born. Ha ha.

Am I doing something wrong?

Have I convinced myself of something that is not there?

I just heard him say

(“write: should I write this journal entry in my blog as part of my story and real life happy struggles?”)

I guess it’s fear that it’s not happening and I’m foolish or perhaps I have the wrong man associated with a wonderful feeling. Maybe it’s two taking care of me in two different ways. My body vibrates three different ways at times when I’m feeling good. (just now a pressure change in my ears which he is thinking of me or getting closer)

I don’t know anything really about Quantum Entanglement, I just throw the term around because I dig the way it sounds. But if atoms can entangle why can’t souls before birth? Just wondering.

Have I wished this? what ever “this” is into existence?

Are we spirals affecting the environment?

One might say

“Yes Darling, every single spiraling word…”

I’m not suppose to tell you this, but the gentleman I refer to here is James Callis.

Miracles As Small As A Mustard Seed

The Cannabis Seed

In this blog I have written about my search for a natural medication to treat emotional issues.

I feel that the most beneficial medication for my depression and anxiety is

Cannabis

The point of this post is not why it works for me but why can

…..One day I’m dwelling in The United States in a city called Seattle and can purchase marijuana legally, safely and compassionately.

…..Then one day I undwell and move back to my hometown, still in The United States of America and I can’t buy it legally, nor is it even being considered?

We all know marijuana was given a bad rap in the 30’s by some drug enforcement agency guy man whose name need not go down in history, but it was all a scam against the Mexicans I believe and hyped to the general public as a bad bad thing.

You still see people say “drugs” as in illegal drugs and they keep cannabis mixed in with Heroine and Cocain and drugs that kill you, not the mention the legal drugs that kill you and the alcohol that can kill you if not in moderation.

What’s wrong is what is turning right and yes cannabis has been on the planet for thousands of years. It was a common plant with many uses….. Which is a plant that can make paper, rope, oxygen, food, medicine etc etc…if I keep writing I’ll just get mad.

I will say that in Seattle I was glad.

So why can’t I go to a store and buy it Indiana and when will someone run that will put it on a ballot so I can vote for them?

I get really touchy when I think of the following….

1. How can you be a US citizen and obtain marijuana legally and why you can be a US citizen and not obtain marijuana legally?

2. Why can people buy alcohol which cause many deaths per year.. If a US citizen can buy a bottle of wine, why can’t I grow I smoke or eat or drink a plant? Remember the Tea Party?

(I really don’t)

🙂

3. Cigarettes are legal and they cause cancer and marijuana is not legal and it can help those who suffer with cancer?

I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. Many states are seeing the revenue and how it can help create jobs and taxes for the community and even education, not to mention sick people and taking crime of the equation which is a biGGie!

I’m a bit touchy today because I live in Indiana. A state that is predicted to be the last state to approve medical marijuana. And that makes me sad.

But everyone is already smoking and there is the lawyer neighbor next door who is a great father and wonderful husband who enjoys a toke in the evening with his wife after kids go to bed….so, yea

But he is too scared to come out of the closet and let people know he wants change. Maybe it’s not that long away after all.

But the marijuana God’s shine upon those who need it.

A kind family friend always gives what I need as I have depression and nightmares and PTSD. She knows it’s the only thing that works when things get bad.

The last week I have had night terrors. Often marijuana helps one sleep and not dream so much at night. It certainly helped me out of bed today.

She gives me what I need and never asks for a dime.

So why is this all a crime?

One day this post will be history.

I’m sure.

Thank You God for that Green Plant that will now help my aching back after writing and making this video for four hours which I would not do this week because of my depression.

For more information on cannabis:

Norml.org.

This was a public service announcement that you never see on TV.

Thank you Pearl Jam for letting me steal one of your songs.

GOT SOME!

God’s Gift Wrapping Paper Never Runs Out

Photograph by James Callis

I woke in a dream floating on a cloud.

The sky was purple and pink ribboned wrapping paper.

The grass was mossy green soft.

The often unnoticed dandelions looked furry and friendly as spoke the thickets.

Then the crickets made comments about clouds were apples, chirps of pick it!

I wasn’t even thinking a thought of you.

I heard canvas in the wind and saw an indigo sail.

(like those boats of yours, said Neruda)

The ship of the third eye’s guidance system began spiraling in artful wind.

My right ear popped as it hit my waves.

I don’t know how I did not know it was you.

But my unmind could not see true.

 I lingered on your clouded sky, laying on the grassy ground

and regretfully blew my mind away.

The next day crickets projected an eye into clouds,

carrying a unhappy mad smile.

The love pirate was back, ever transforming my mind into a shape shifting

presence trying to get in.

Into what? I wondered.

Into my thoughts, he thundered.

Breath so intense, I impulsively blew myself away,

once more.

I unknew however that if I have been found by something with no words,

why not allow it to see me?

Maybe his vessel is stranded?

Perhaps transmitting from heavens disguised in crimson?

My heart, not my mind, could read the timeless…in parchment…in parallel?

So, you sail in and out?

(Why is it you never shout?)

Practically speaking, I ask God to explain.

How was I born on these linear clouds, while also being our rooted tree.

Why do I dream? if outside reality is well, reality.

Would you suggest I go? back down? to the ball of …chaos?

……………….a long time went by………………………….

It became quite cold upthere/downhere.

As the star show started, sponsored by no, one…

For an ancient audience of two or three, previewed the story in an unnew game.

Could be a retro opera house, could be lite-bright.

No….it’s connect the dots with stars by Hasbro,

in collaboration with Nasa’s sky toy program.

It spoke, in twinkly fashion a flashing riddle I can’t understand.

“I know that…” I thought to I am.

Why? is the question? answer if you can.

A projection popped into my googled thoughts.

See! I said to Krishna.

His blue boat keeps washing up on to shores of clouds.

“They do belong to him,” He didn’t say outloud.

I blushed.

(In baby voice)

I’m sorry, but a muse…”Whatever does this he want?”

no reply.

“Whatever shall I do?”

I sighed.

And God said….

“Uh, I sort of accidentally gave him your quantum mobile number.”

A sudden smiling on my own lips a cheeky you know you can’t resist me crooked smile that I was not making. I pushed it away with a frown.

“I’ve heard that joke so much before, it’s become a bore.”

Smiled God in a tempting open handed, unsharing, teasing fruit fashion.

Strawberries or peaches? 

Scars and leaches?

God was confuddled. “I’m texting Jesus.”

upon which he received a lite speed reply.

Go ahead, see if I care. Your just trying to make me crazy.

God was actually staring at his phone.

“STOP MESSING AROUND WITH HER heart FATHER…..

by the way, this weeds dank!”

J.C.

Wondering what Jesus spoke, God’s voice left me broke.

“You had no right to give my entanglements my digits. I don’t even know him.” in thought

“Oh yes you do” (God coughed)

“I thought you liked the other one?” he said.

“You mean the one with the bass in his throat? No 20 years my heart bleed such a Once upon an entangled dream ship time ago!

I let go.

You told me so.

This ? is something completely differently, you know!”

Do I?

I do.

That’s not an answer! he bellowed.

I wasn’t talking to you fella.

Well, then, like your made of jello.

That didn’t even rhyme.

I didn’t have the time.

At least his songs rhymed.

The sailor’s presents aren’t in dreams, it’s on the outside of sleep, inside on the outside.

He coughed, “uh, what were we talking about?

I exhaled with discretion to the supreme being…and floated away again.

Presently, space trash fell from the Universe next to me on my soon to be forgotten cloud.

It was my worn blue kOkOpelli diary with a psychedelic post it note on front from G.

Please refer 2 page 118 1/2 in journal dated in some untime in 1995 in average penmanship…

Some blah, blah date:

Dear God,

God Create The Perfect Man For Me

..not a perfect person,

a perfect soul.

blah, blah blah about thirty times.

“Fine, but I was ignorant then.!”

I’ll breath out hard and do it, but I know this is still a joke.”

We didn’t stare at each other for a long time.

So I tried on omnipotence and created my star pencil and simply dotted..

Sorry sir, your…..

‘thoughts too big for my size.’

signed me.

He lite brited back.

“That’s also not funny at all.  That’s just dumb. I’m calling your Son!”

“You don’t have his number.” he tested.

“Ha! He carried me on the beach last week and I guessed it.”

Without a tear God said,

“What happened to the man whose chest you laid your head?

You gave him to someone more deserving and that’s unworthy!

“So he’s only 3Dish?”

No you want me to be narcissistic even. That’s how it appears to me in heaven.

Then maybe you need to turn it up to 11?

“That dimension is special access pass, I don’t have clearance past seven.”

Would you be happy just being here?

Sure, the Dali Lama is just here.

and yes, my not secret love is always near. Space never changes with a bang.

Then my un used cosmic phone rang!

God and I shared long curious sshhhing glances.

I mouthed, should I chance it and answer it?

Who is it!? 

He said with his eye.

I held up a flip charted sky for God to spy…

(is what I didn’t say in my childlike No Code unvoice so my psychiatrists won’t understandkindaway)

“Don’t let him go!”

“Oh no, if it’s that typewriter from another dimension, absolutely know!”

…so the phone kept ringing and we basically just sat there for an eternity.

Fine.

I answered it.

Basically what transpired was a one way conversation God could not understand.

Me:

I think you have the wrong number.

Me:

How do I pronounce it? That’s a lark, you made it up?

Me:

Yea, right.

Me:

I was wrong

Me:

I was tired of acting.

Me:

(smiling)

God:

(irratated)

Me:

(crying)

God:

(tries to put his ear to the phone)

Me:

Stop it!

Me:

No, sorry not you. Just this guy.

Me:

No I’m alone.

Me:

It’s ok.

Me:

Please you must not explain. I already know this and to hear it spoken is redundantly painful.

Me:

It’s not what I think? Now that’s funny.

Me;

I’m patient enough for numerous lifetimes.

Me:

I promise I won’t sell it on ebay.

Sign it,

Downloaded

Me:

You know it’s unconditional.

Me:

I love you more.

Me:

Then I shall await your post.

Me:

……………………………………………..

God desperate for gossip bribed me, again…with a juicy red strawberry, the kind from an English garden.

No bribes. I’m not talking. I pardoned.

‘Accept my apologizes. I’ve used that one before too haven’t I?”

And you gave me peaches.

You love peaches.

But Santa said I could have strawberries.

Want to taste it, it’s really red and sweet?

Your very wicked you are.

You’re not falling for it this time are you?

I want to, but am afraid of love. Now give me your car keys. I need to get off this cloud.

You going fishing?

Yes, and this time I am the bate. If nothing bites, then no need for band aids.

” I owe you one. ” he kinda promised as he left to be I am and get a new phone.

Thinking I was safely on the other side…

…..A shooting star flirted by simultaneously as my second heart beat butterfly like madly.

I’m not so sure that tiny star had landed in my pocket gladly.

But the delivery was brilliant!

I reached inside and found some thing round and hot with speed.

To my surprise, it was a mustard seed.

I expected the package to be flat but I got a sphere.

*hmmmm, I wonder whats on the food network?

(sound of fridge humming…wondering if I need to eat. Wondering if being with baby all night made my creativity go sky high, reconsidering that theory and estimating the practical reason for the inability to stop editing and adding to a post, is actually a gift of three years of celibacy from innocent love. So, that’s an upside I would think…hmmm food)

A feeling comes on, like the lifted Lorax and my ear pops and someone just rings my psychic door at 2am.  I answer it here.

Me:

Oh God, what are you doing now?

?

You just want chocolate.

Me:

That’s your fault.

?

So that was quite a creative rush for you?

Me:

Need we speak in such common echos?

?

If not on paper, where?

Me:

In here.

?

What good would that do?

Me:

Keep me from being under another public humiliation spell of obsessed love.

?

Too late.

Me:

Precisely.

?

Just go with it.

Me:

It’s not it, it’s with you. You could be anyone? You could be, uh, a I don’t know what? A chip in my head or the ghost of Winnie The Pooh, the original, not the remakes…

?

I don’t want to be a cosmic leech.

Me:

I was just about to say that. Stop thinking my thoughts.

?

You can’t hurt me by imagining me?

Has it ever occurred to you that I’m am only in your head?

Me:

Uh, yeah.

?

Why take fear when you can choose love?

It could be something interesting for the both of us.

(covering my ears)

lalalalalalal I’m not listening, that’s coveting, lalalalal

?

Please, choose love. Please.

Me:

No

?

Please my lady, tell me why?

Me:

“Criticize things you don’t know about.”

-Steve Martin

?

You don’t trust me?

Me:

Your only a character in a show.

?

I’m just a strawberry growing out of a cloud.

I’m an angel that just wears my face so you will notice?

Me:

What? I don’t have time for this.

?

What if I said, I simply need you to trust me and that I simply need you more than you need me.

Me:

……………………………………………………..

I am a narcissist. I’m sorry.

but I think your transmitter needs to be turned up to 11 because I have no idea what to do with this sunflower seed or what you are trying to say.

?

It was a mustard seed darling.

Me:

Sorry, God and I shared a bong.

?

I was watching.

Me:

I could tell you wanted to break in a few times, but I can’t talk to you on the phone and in waves in my ears at the same time.

?

Your perfect just the way you are.

Me:

That’s why I fell in love with you, and the crying, the crying did it. It’s all your fault.

?

I didn’t do anything.

Me:

I know you didn’t, and that’s why you are wonderful just the way you are.

?

Stop listening to him.

Me:

Jealous?

?

No, but he is charming and you are the female him.

Me:

He’s my Daddy.

?

And your tormentor and has not allowed me in now.

Me:

At least he spoke to me in person. And watched over me.

?

And I have not?

Me:

No, you have, but not in the physical.

?

Did you sleep with him?

Me:

You know me well enough to ask me that.

?

I think I do.

Me:

And that’s another thing. He never crossed that line.

?

I bet to differ madame. I am sure you remember these days.

Me:

We were always wearing suits. He never touched me.

?

But you took him there.

Me:

Where?

?

Me:

Where did I meet you?

?

Turn off his music and I’ll tell you.

Me:

Fine.

?

Me:

You won’t ever not let me win will you?

?

That’s how I am on this side of the hole.

Me:

So, you are not jealous of him as you are much further out and such speeds of distance and unknown love boggles my mind. I never really had this on my list.

?

 (giggle)

Me:

I love that. It’s like you laugh totally unprepared. It’s just me that’s here on the wrong dimension.

?

………………………………………

Me:

I love ……………………….that the most.

Me:

Where’s this going?

?

Me:

You could say I’m in need of a Doctor.

You make me quite hysterical.

?

Soon, very soon.

Me:

I’ll hold my breath.

?

You know, it’s bigger on the inside.

Me:

Sir, that’s quite impertinent, and it is this very uneasy feeling you evoke in me that has to stop.

?

Just one more episode?

Me:

Ok, but no strings attached cuddling. Promise?

?

I guarantee it.

Me:

Waaaaaa.

?

Strike that, reverse it.

7 Reasons Why a 12 Step Group Does Not Work For Psychiatric Drug Survivors

This is an essay on how a traditional 12 step group will not work for Psychiatric Survivors. Those who have been coerced to take profit driven psychiatric medications given by pseudo doctors. There is no test for mental illness. These drugs destroyed our lives in so many ways. For me, I was lobotomized for 11 years and lost my relationships, my career, my home and my self respect as well as wanting to die all the time.

One day my teenage son said, “Mom, maybe it’s the drugs that make you want to kill yourself.” HE WAS RIGHT. After that I was done. D.O.N.E  I took myself off these drugs, ALONE I may add, as your doctor will not help you come off in safe way because he diagnosed you and he wants a long term patient and wont’ listen when you say, these meds make me  sick and he says, let’s try another then and another and increase and increase til your the swollen walking dead and you have no more friends because you are now really crazy!

So I went cold turkey and it was horrific. I had no idea. At first I felt great. I was writing and walking to parks and living and feeling joy and laughter. I also had medical marijuana in Seattle for back pain and found that it was that medication, that green plant given by God that saved me from the panic attacks that often came every half hour for a week or so.

I can’t tell you how much I suffered. For months and still in some way now. I have to rewire my brain again back to how to handle all these feelings and all the sheer sadness of what time I lost and how much these pills I trusted destroyed me. Thank God I am still alive.

I had been seeking others like myself. There are those who are trying to start support groups, which is great. We need support more than anything. However building a group around a 12 step program for people who have bravely come off these meds and endured the hellish withdrawal from these drugs that can take years to overcome does not work.

We are not addicts.

We are not alcoholics.

To use the 12 steps for alcohol and apply it to us is like mixing strawberries and pickles. Many people get turned off by 12 step groups. The problem is to be a psychiatric survivor and be in a group such as this, will start to insert a belief that I was wrong somehow. as if I am an addict and I have character defects from it, is insane in another way. There needs to be a new paradigm. It does not exist yet, but when these drugs are eventually pulled from the market years from now, millions of people will have no net in place to catch them as they come off these brain damaging drugs we need to be there to catch them. I was briefly in a psychiatric survivor group for only two weeks. I was invited to attend online in a google hangout.  I commend them for trying, but their methods aren’t working because there is no program tailored for this problem.

Here are 7 reasons why a traditional 12 program is not relevant for a population of mental health patients that were poisoned by a drug with horrific side effects such as suicide, given by a Doctor who never told us what these drugs would do to us. Make us worse! We are not addicts. We are not alcoholics or street drug users and to apply this program to mental health recovery or even a veteran who has suffered PTSD from war, proves that these old views will not work for us.

Reason 1: Step One – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

The word powerless. To say we were powerless over an addiction to a prescribed drug that a doctor should have never given us is a negative belief that we are suppose to carry around now? If you believe you are powerless, you would not be in the group, and if you were in the group, then you are not powerless. The words you call yourself are the truths that become you. I am not powerless and never will be. I didn’t stick a needle in my arm for fun or snort coke to escape life.

Reason 2: Step Four –  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Moral  inventory of ourselves? What was immoral by us trusting doctors who prescribed these medications and make an inventory of why we were wrong and not the doctors and pharmaceutical companies who make profits off us.

Reason 3:  Step Five – Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

What did we do wrong. We were suffering feelings that seemed unmanageable which is a human trait. What did we do wrong except to trust a doctor and put a pill in our mouths?

Reason 4: Step Six – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

Character defeats from a drug that caused the character defects? I would not allow myself to say I had character defects from a drug that was suppose to help me. The character defect is in the psychiatrists and pill producers who sell this “false cure” to us and we believed them. I suggested in the group we call it, Drug Induced Character Defeats. They did not like that. Don’t dare question Bill W. Screw that. I have excellent character while even on these drugs as I volunteered and gave years of myself to children’s charities while under the influence of these mind and personality altering poisons. That’s like feeding your toddler a handful of sugar and then they go one sugar craze. The parent gave the child the sugar and it’s the person given the child the sugar that has the character defect? Insane. If I say I have character defeats from being poisoned why should I take that shame on myself when it’s the doctors that deserve the shame and character defeat from poisoning me.

Reason 5: Step Eight –  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

How about making a list of all the psychiatrists, the family who pushed the drugs on us and the psych wards who continued to force us to take these meds when we tried to stop. How about making a list of all the people who harmed us. I will  not apologize to psychiatry and psych wards for torturing me and almost making me lose my life and creating other physical problems.

Reason 6: Step Nine – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Yes, we behaved badly on these meds but it was not our fault and the worst part is often family and friends think you need the drug even more when you withdrawal because the withdrawal is worse than the reason you take them in the first place. I know for me, my  un supportive family have no idea of all the horrors I endured while being drugged and spent time in horrific psych wards where you are tortured, while family and friends stand by and  watch and never questioned the doctors might be giving their loved ones poison with black label warnings. They don’t want to hear it. How about the government make direct amends to veterans who they have been destroyed by the act of war and then later calling them mentally ill when war is the illness. How about the system who changed our personality and damaged our emotional health make amends to us? And who can be harmed by us telling our story when we were the ones harmed?

Reason 7: Step Ten – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted
it.

The only way we were wrong was that we trusted doctors and even though the pills made us feel worse, we continued to put the pills in our mouths being brainwashed we were ill. How about taking a positive personal inventory of how we overcame this horror and did not kill ourselves and how we had the courage to stop the meds with no help from doctors as the real horror is coming off the drugs.

This is why I write this.

I did make a mistake. I was looking for support from others who have suffered at the hands of psychiatry. One day I prayed for support and the next day someone invited me to a Psychiatric Survivors Anonymous 12 step group on Facebook. After about a week I started feeling horrible. The realization that this was happening to others like me and the truth that no one cares about what these drugs, that are now being prescribed for everything scared the fuck out of me. There was no positive feedback, no prayer, no meditation, just a bunch of people continuing to talk about all the negative victim thoughts and beliefs that in some way we are responsible for this harm?

After two weeks was I starting to feel sick about the toxic stories retold every night. Literally, every night one person retold over and over all her pains and it was frankly not helping anyone including themselves. If you keep telling your sad stories, you stay in your sad stories. The other night I was in a real bad place, crying and sobbing and the three people in the group did try to help but only ended up shaming and blaming me for being lonely…and the group leader could not control the group, in fact he yelled at me saying “your not the only one who suffers.” Later he even admitted he was agnostic. Wait? I thought one of the requirements for a 12 step group was to believe in a power greater than ourselves and this guy lead the group and allowed a man who always went off topic constantly started given me advice. People who are still suffering should not be given advice to others who are close to death and suffering in silence. People who are suffering can help others who suffer by just saying “it’s going to get better and you will recover and you are allowed to be in crisis and sad. Your feelings and dreams are valid.

When I reported it to admin, that admin didn’t reply and passed it onto someone who got third party info and wasn’t even in the meeting. They kicked me out with no explanation. She never mentioned the positive posts I put on the page just continued to shame me about how I made a comment I had no idea I made about something that happened in the group on the page. Well, I’m saying this now and your 12 step rules no longer apply to me. How punk ass and dysfunctional is that? Fine, I will be writing about this and that is what heals me. When people do me wrong, you can bet it will appear in my book.

At one point I told them I heal by writing romance stories and someone said “that’s female porn.” Seriously?

The “leaders” were not even kind and compassionate enough to admit maybe it was not all my fault I felt unheard and shamed. People who are healthy and leading a group should have some character, they could not even give me a reasonable explanation before taking me off the group. Can anyone say Character Defect?

Frankly, they did me a favor. Sadly there were a handful of kind suffering souls that treated me well and I will miss them and can’t contact them and they will never know I was kicked out. Maybe if they did they would rethink their own membership and be careful that you have to censor yourself or your ass will be kicked to the curb because they can’t admit when the Administrator dropped the ball and cut me off.

I also believe what we call ourselves and the words we use to describe ourselves is what we create. You can’t compare street drug use and alcoholism to people who were not addicts but patients trusting their doctors to give them good advice and do no harm. But since this group is based on AA, there is much blame put on ourselves for the harm done to use. Make amends to the people we hurt? Uh, how about the doctors and pharmaceutical companies that harmed us make amends to us?

At one point they said we needed to talk about our character defects. I said I would not say I had character defeats on these prescribed medications because they changed my personality without knowing it and to go around feeling shame for my behavior while on meds that poisoned me is just twisted.

I do appreciate they are trying, but the program is flawed. If it had been real support group, they would have had mindful leaders with years of recovery and sponsors and/or even professionals who can keep the group in line. There are no sponsors and seem unable to assign real leaders to meetings. The group actually threw me back into the haunting stories I was trying to recover from. I just feel stupid that I fell for it and thought they would be people who cared about me coming off psychiatric drugs that were prescribed by doctors. After about 5 meetings my depression and shame became worse. They even encouraged me to attend a co-dependency 12 step group as well and when I said I will not go to a group that has nothing to do with psychiatric drugs and call myself co-dependent is role playing and not the truth. The leader said, “well if you don’t want to recover.” I had to laugh. Like I would attend an AA meeting when I don’t drink and have never had an alcohol problem. I think some people get addicted to 12 step groups when they serve a purpose while coming clean, but once clean time occurs, it’s time to keep expanding your spirituality or you remain in this ‘role” you have been given and they can’t escape if your in a 12 step group.

To me, although alcoholism is a disease, if you have been sober for 25 years and you go into a group and say “I am an alcoholic”, when you no longer drink, keeps you an alcoholic. How about the words, I am a recovered alcoholic. What you say you are is what you are and will continue to be. Thoughts are things and we create that reality by the words we use. We need to fake it til we make it and I won’t call myself an addict when I was not addicted to an anti psychotic. A doctor did that to me. To this day, so many people believe the lies being feed to us by psychiatry. They tried the other day to give my dear friend an anti depressant for fibromyalgia! What the hell is going on? One of the side effects of the drug they have her was pain in your calves. She had pain in her calves and that is why she went to doctor. He prescribed dangerous pain killer and dangerous psychiatric drug in Washington state where Medical Marijuana is legal. Why did that doctor not mention that treatment? Because he can’t make a long term patient out of her and make profits for pharmaceutical companies. That’s why. I told her to stop the pill immediately as she had only took it for two days. I was horrified. Did you know the new drug for stopping smoking is really an anti depressant disguised under another name? This is going to backfire on the US and there are going to be people who die and someone is going to have to pay. I blame the FDA for allowing the cross marketing of psychiatric drugs for non mental health issues. It’s a conspiracy to kill and lobotomized the population and people believe the ads on the TV even though the side effects are worse than the cure.

I’m not in need of their group as I have a real therapist who does not shame or blame. I’m two years clean from taking psychiatric medications, but struggle with isolation and lack of support. My best friend said you saw the red flags and the negative language and beliefs they used, so your better off without them.

I know God kicked me out of that toxic group, but it just hurts that I did nothing wrong and they can just kick someone who is fragile out into the streets with no explanation whatsoever. Abandonment is my big issue and it has happened again. They even told me to give up on my writing about my experiences over the twenty years I was medicated and that my forgiveness practice was New Age bullshit.

I see this as a blessing but someday, maybe people will see I had much to offer and that if I ever get published, I will feel like I’m worthy of the pain I have endured.

You can bet that I will be writing about this group on my mental health blog. I tell my truth and they will have to deal with that.

I believe 12 steps can work, but I’m working on a Buddhist 8 path program for recovery where there is more mindfulness and compassion and right speech.

You don’t treat fragile people badly and not have consequences for your behavior…they say that in the 12 steps.

So this essay is my way of dealing with the pain of being stigmatized by my own peers. So sorry, but if your going to hurt me, you will bet you will have consequences of doing that because as I writer, I will not shut up. I am not in your group anymore and what was said in the group does not apply to me anymore because you kicked me out. I could have been so bad that your lack of compassion and professionalism and not taking your own moral inventory is the what you get from this essay.

And yes, I will continue to dream of love to cure my ails and I won’t attend some 12 step group to make me  feel bad that I need love. God is love, and  romance is not “female porn.”  If that is true, then Disney makes porn.

Have a lovely day being addicted to your 12 step group that keep you addicted to your toxic stories that you can let go of.

…and I will just fine without you. But hey I forgive this group, but get your shit together and get some clean time before you try to help others get their shit together who are in the process of healing.

WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE IS WHAT YOU ARE!

Think hard on that one Psychiatric Survivors Anonymous.

Right speech is just that, right.

A footnote:

One leader called himself an Alcoholic and Pot Head. He was bringing his addiction into the group that had nothing to do with his addiction. We were not addicted. Ironically Medical Marijuana is real medicine and thank God I had a medical card because it was the medical marijuana that kept me from  killing myself while withdrawaling without any help from the doctors who gave me the pharmaceutical medication that passes the FDA in weeks and now is prescribed for people who bite their nails and toddlers whose parents can’t parent who put them on drugs and later six year olds kill themselves. Maybe if that gentleman had used medical marijuana and not alcohol he would be fine. It was the alcohol that harmed you and putting medical marijuana, a plant put on this Earth with no side effects is bad, who is not thinking straight is nuts. If this pisses you off, frankly Scarlet I don’t give a dam. I speak my truth and if you disagree deal with it.

Namaste.

Recommended Reading:

Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teachings To Overcome Addiction

by

Valerie Mason-John

Telling My Mental Health Story In A Safe Place

Here is a post I made to a forum that supports people coming off psychiatric drugs. I thought it would be helpful in my blog.

I have been searching for groups that allow me to speak out about not taking psychiatric drugs without being bullied or called a Scientologist…which I am not. (However the documentaries produced by Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights. CCHR, which is funded by scientology. But shoot the messenger I say) I did my research on the internet on how to come off medications alone. There are few scary documentaries on the dangers of psychiatry that scared me to death, so I became my own doctor and made a choice to live with my “bi polar” symptoms.

I have heard that it can take up to four years to completely withdrawal from these drugs, which I took for 10 years. It’s been two years but I still have withdrawal symptoms as I learn to deal with my own extreme emotional states. Which often are environmental, not mental illness. I actually question labeling people. I don’t live my diagnoses. I don’t believe things like grief, child abuse issues, general depression are mental illnesses. Humans have lived with suffering since the beginning of time. I’m frightened of the control psychiatrists have over our feelings. Sometimes, there are people who have special gifts and their emotions are the way some of us stay creative. Spiritual. Awake.

I don’t believe in pushing down normal emotions with drugs that deadened me. Took away my creativity as well as my career, my family and my connection to the power greater than myself.

I’m also appalled at the fact that little children are now given dangerous drugs with suicidal side effects. There is great profit to be made by pharmaceutical companies to now cross market drugs that were once used for schizophrenia, that is now given for even general depression.

I’m also horrified by the advertising of these medications on TV.

I also question why a drug manufacture and FDA would approve drugs in such a fast manner. Many drugs were once tested for years. Now medications are being developed and approved in weeks! Why can’t they make a drug that does NOT have such horrific side effects, like suicide. If someone is already suicidal,  why would a doctor give a patient something that actually makes it worse? It’s pure insanity.

I realize some people are helped by drugs, but there are many people taking them that don’t need them. I was given my first anti depressant in 92 for post partum depression by my OB/GYN. That is a normal condition that eventually goes away. Prozac was new on the market and I’m sure my doc had some drug rep sell him on the idea. The truth of the matter that doctor told me I would have to take them all my life, when in fact after a few months, post partum goes away.  He also never told me of the side effects, which is the law now. It’s called Informed Consent. A doctor must tell the patient of the dangerous side effects and the should be allowed to say no. It’s criminal. Anti depressants changed my personality and never really helped my depression. I ended up divorcing a wonderful husband, and became someone I didn’t want to be.

While living in Seattle, I had been given too much thyroid medication that made me go slightly manic. This was in 03. At the ER, a doctor in five minutes took my symptoms and my history of depression and immediately labeled me. I believed the hype. I never felt right on the meds. Never. I became a person I did not recognize. I gained so much weight on the medication, I was swollen beyond comprehension. No doctor, not even a family doctor saw the dangers in swollen face and ankles. I went from 140 pounds to 196.

just before diagnoses in 2003.

140 pounds.

2006

170 lbs

 2011, almost 210 pounds….

….what I looked like when my son felt I should stop taking the medications.

I noticed that almost all anti psychotics for me made my face and ankles swell. In fact my legs were often so swollen my family Dr. thought I may have diabetes which Serequel can cause. I did not however.

I was smiling cause this was church photo, but inside I was really freaked out for my health.

October 2014

166 pounds after two years free of the medication.

Smiling and mean it this time…

Although no one can stop age, I have gained a healthier lifestyle with exercise and diet changes.

Update: 7/15 – 3  years med free so the weight gain came off pretty easy.

157 lbs

It’s been two years since I have been free from anti psychotics, (except for a four week forced drugging that took my weight back up for a bit) so I had to start the withdrawal over again but I have lost over 30 pounds and the weight is flying off! I’m so happy I have my legs back so I can zip up my old boots!

Now I have the energy to actually work out!

but back then, I could barely move….

My partner, my family, except my son, encouraged me to keep talking them as they saw how sick I was on them, when the real sickness was that I was allergic to drugs for schizophrenia and it caused horrible suffering and a change of personality. I was suicidal feeling all the time, I sleep for 14 hours a day on these drugs and lost my career. My home. My partner. Most of my family. I stopped writing and I’m that was my passion. It also did not allow me to feel my spiritual self. I once had a doctor ask me if I heard voices. I said, “I talk to myself in my mind as I am always writing dialog for screenplay then added, “I also hear Jesus’ voice” just to push his button to see what he would say. He called me delusional and forced me on the most dangerous drug I ever took, Risperdal. I told him I could not take it, He gave me no Informed Consent and was told that if I did not take it, I would have to go to court to get out of psych ward.

In fact, I ended up in the psych ward when I went to the ER for a chronic bladder condition I suffer with. While under morphine in the ER, they ask me questions about my mental health history and my writing, (Which I write Sci Fi stories) I woke up two hours later lock involuntarily into their stress center. I was distraught. No one addressed my bladder and was immediately shot up with Haldol. I continued to ask staff why I was there. I must have said something under the influence of morphine and they stigmatized me. I could not get out. I was forced on the meds after I had withdrawaled already for a year. No legal representation. A nurse kindly told me to take the pill for two days so I could just get out. I had been taken to court twice in ten years to get out of a psych facility which I voluntarily entered.

I also tried to obtain my psych records for my screenplay on why I was involuntarily committed last summer and said I was not allowed to have them. Does anyone know this. You are not allowed to get your own psych records. The doctor who was to approve it was the very doctor that forced me on the drugs that almost took my life. The Indiana Attorney General’s Office finally decided to take my case and I’m currently waiting to see if I can get my records because I need to know why I was committed when I went in for Interstitial Cystitis. I told them I would not sue, but the case has become bigger than that. Not only was a wrongly committed while under heavy drugs, I also was never treated for my IC. I was also not given the required “Informed Consent” which is my right to refuse drugs that would cause me harm.

I’m now suffer from horrible memories of being restrained, being mistreated in a psych ER, and once jailed by partner when I was withdrawling from the drugs.

The key point is. That when you come off these drugs cold turkey, which i had to because no doctor would support me coming off, at first you feel wonderful. I felt I could think again. I wrote like crazy and had wonderful days even though I lived on disability. It was my 20 year old son that said, Mom, maybe your problems ARE the drugs because you don’t seem like yourself. So when the withdrawals comes and they were scary like LSD trips, I would make a mistake and go to an ER and say I’m withdrawaling from drugs that I’m allergic too. They never believed this. I was always told, “No, your in crisis BECAUSE you aren’t taking the drugs.” Do you see the insane circle in this? Psychiatry is very biased. If only I had had a a good alternative doctor who realized that the pills were the problem. But I had bad psychiatric treatment and was always coerced to go back into hospital and start drugs. This went on for four years. I would try to stop and they would put me back on and I would have to start over.

“THE PAIN WAS IN THE PILL.”

I did successfully come off and eventually I began to feel joy. I would walk to the park and watch Orcas. I volunteered at two jobs and began writing my book again. It was like feeling happy for the first time in 10 years. Sadly, I had to leave Seattle as my son was going to be a Father and I could not stay in a town that was paradise but scared me. All the trauma and horror stories I have would blow your mind. So I left nature, my real medicine and moved back to the midwest where now I”m lonelier than ever in this backwards town I left years ago. There is no alternative medication I can afford, nor is medical marijuana legal here which is what helps my depression almost completely disappear. I’m blessed I have disability and a small part time job. But I suffer still. Sometimes from stigma. Sometimes from family members that refused to believe that I withdrawal symptoms and possible brain damage and PTSD from taking the meds. My mother is cruel and always tells me you need pills. It enrages me. She takes anti depressants and feels nothing which is why she is so cruel and un supporting.

I lost the love of my life three years ago. I live alone in a dumpy section 8 apartment now. Just two busy good friends, but no love, no understanding, no hope sometimes  that my story might be published someday to help others like myself. I can’t really find a quality therapist that is not attached to a shrink or if I find one, they are too expensive for my budget. It’s a sad circle. My tools in Seattle, was going for walks in nature, attending festivals, my Buddhist practice and friends.

I have been back two years and I now wake up everyday from nightmares, in tears that I’m here. In tears from memories of psych wards and how these drugs might have permanently damage my brain. I have read that some of these drugs actually shrink your brain. And it can also take up to four years to get back to “normal” after taking them for ten years. I literally don’t remember how to handle my emotions because I was a walking zombie on meds. I felt nothing. Nothing.

I gained 75 pounds in two years on Serequel alone and almost had diabetes. Family doctors never wanted to help either.

I’m proud of myself.  I loved myself never to kill myself because I could not do that to my son. But recently his psychotic teenage girlfriend has taken my grandson away from me after she found out I had been in a psych ward long ago.   My son watched in horror as she abused me. She is 18. I’m 51. He understands me, but has no ability to defend me at this point. Everyone in my family although they think I’m a hot mess, all agreed what an incredible Grandmother I was as I watched the infant four days a week. He was my blessing. He helped me forget all my psychic pain when he entered the house. It was like taking care of my inner child. Horrifically, my 21 year old son is on my side but scared of this girl and wants to keep the peace for the child’s sake, but in the end, she won’t allow him  here anymore. Ironically, she is more bi polar than I and is abused child so I understand and forgive her. I thought this baby was my gift after years of hell. Now that I hardly see him, I wonder why I came back to Indiana. I struggle with my faith sometimes as things don’t seem  to get better, but worse. It’s all environmental, it’s not a mental illness when you are bullied by people.

I have done great work on myself and feel I love myself despite the shame of allowing these doctors to label me and make me believe my gifts were disease. I’m so lonely. I wish I could finally find a partner whom I adore who accepts my past and my ongoing sadness. It’s very hard to be in crisis when there is no one there for you. No one to just hug you or bring you tea and say “darling, this won’t last long, just breath.”

I love music, especially Pearl Jam. Music and writing is the way I cope now with my emotions. There are times I’m tempted to start drugs again and realize, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcome. I believe I am bless and all  of this happened to me for a reason. My soul purpose in life is to help others, spread the word, and maybe someday a producer will approach me to make a documentary or film telling my story and giving other hope too.

It’s one day at a time.  Please no bullies. I get so scared when I speak  my story. I have been bullied and treated so bad by other bi polars that take meds when I tell my story. I was even banned from dailystrength.com after being on there for 8 years when I tried to tell my story about how the drugs almost killed me and there are other more healthy ways to live without meds. It’s sad, people on meds I have found to be the meanest, whiniest and unhappy people I have ever met. Some forums are nothing more than numerous people talking about changing their drugs or increasing their does and seeing their “pdocs” which is a word they use all the time which drives me crazy. If the drugs are working, why are these people still so unhappy? They let one doctor who talks to you for five minutes tell you what you are. It’s start to what we are not. We are not our lable. We are  humans that feel deeply. I’m neuroscience will find a new way to help people who suffer with illness and that the profits made off these drugs and the killing of people and children due to side effects can be seen as what it is. Profits and long term customers.  And the stigma society puts on us is just horrific.

There is hope. This forum is proof of that. I just wish I could really know what is going on in my brain now. How long will these panic attacks and feelings of doom stay?

Until then, I continue a spiritual practice. Try to live one day at a time and reach out for others who understand.

I have an interesting blog about all kinds of things, but there are some stories about my mental health history and horrors. Please see my profile for link.

Sorry this was so long, but as a writer I tend to go on and on.

And well it’s a sign of wellness, since when I was on drugs I would not have even been able to write one sentence.

The biggest question of all is,

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE SOMEONE TO RECOVER FROM THE ANTI PSYCHOTICS I was feeding myself. I know have an still having withdrawal symptoms.

Am I permanently damaged? Will I ever find peace from seeking help from medicine and have sought it, being  even more disabled. I pray that my brain will recover, but I can’t find a doctor to tell me when this may happen.

Namaste and blessings to you all.

Thanks for reading.

The best part of this story is that I can heal by telling it and not be afraid of being censored from my own story.

Also, I hope I can help anyone who has also felt medications made their quality of life much worse and who want to replace medications with healthy life style choices. I’m not trying to change people’s minds about meds, I’m sharing why I choose not to take them any longer.

Namaste

The Church of Phish

Phishin At The Creek

Summer of ’97

I’m sitting on the lawn at Deer Creek Music Center ready to experience my first Phish concert. Three years ago, I saw the Grateful Dead. At that time, there were fans of all types: families, yuppies and Heads. Today. Deer Creek’s lawn is blanketed with a surreal version of that crowd, only younger. I don’t think I see anyone over 30.

I feel old – and I have to pee really bad! Do I go to the bathroom now or wait until the show starts?

My bladder wins the battle. My companion, John, grabs my arm in a panic, “You can’t leave now! They could start any minute!” He shakes his head as I pull away, venturing through the crowd to the women’s bathroom. There’s a long line of about 60 “Phunky Bitches.” As I wait, I hear the crowd let out a roar of welcome. Phish has walked on stage. Just my luck. With the first chord, the women in the line fling themselves from the queue. Wide eyed hippies, all of them cheering, speed past me as if running from a fire. Cool! Sitting on the porcelain throne, I realize I’m now the only one in here.

Walking back to the lawn, my eyes and ears have been stimulated. I stop just outside pavilion, and witness a giant pulsating crowd of people, dancing to a funny little tune called “Bathtub Gin.” The crowd appear to be a giant organism – no individuals, just a mass of movement. The mass is jumping, whirling, a gyration in unison. Here’s the most amazing part: The only way I can find John is to dance my way back. If I didn’t, I’d look out of place.

The walkway that separates the lawn from the pavilion is no longer a sidewalk. It’s an anaconda of bouncing humanity, snaking it’s way to and fro. People have big smiles and spin like dervishes. I begin to laugh out loud from sheer nervousness – afraid I have lost John in the mob. As if guided by some magnificent force from above, miraculously I find our spot, although it’s not a spot at all, just another small place to dance.

A Phish newsgroup posting uses the following analogy:

“Phish is the water hose, we are the flowers.”

They were right, I had to dance. I think of lemmings – but in a warm and fuzzy way. I spot pixie-like girls twirling in circles. After three hours the most incredible light show and musical insanity, the show is over. The experience was unforgettable, but I wasn’t too sure of the improvised and sometimes disjointed jams that constitute the band’s unique sound. This is a genre of music I can appreciate, but not necessarily enjoy on the home stereo. We left with the thousands of fans. There is a point at the exit at the end that narrows down to small funnel and so it takes quite awhile to get to the last gate. I get a bit panicky as I don’t like tight crowds. Then someone begins to “moo” like a cow. Everyone else joins in. Now, this is funny! and my anxiety goes away. Hundreds of fans would stay behind for fellowship and grilled cheese and goo balls. Many will walk the cornfield lined country road back to their campgrounds. Local residents with big spaces, offer there property to these nomads. The ones that travel from show to show. I felt a twinge of isolation inside. Part of me wanted to stay.

I wanted to know what goes on at those campgrounds after the show. What is it these people understand that I don’t? Maybe if I ate nothing but homemade hippie food for days I would be enlightened too?

Summer of ’98

Just like a reoccurring cold sore or a Jehovah’s Witness at your front door, this band keeps popping into my life. I’m a hard core Pearl Jam fan. The memories of seeing them at Deer Creek were close to my heart and I never could find someone that loved them as much as I did. Phish doesn’t get much radio play in Indiana – or anywhere else for that matter. Why do I hear of them so often? It’s those dam Phish missionaries – people who find Phish and want you to find them as well.

I had been working with John at the local planetarium and he played their music their music for almost every evening  opening to our  laser shows. I had kinda had enough. He left and I took over his job to manage and perform laser shows to rock music for the public. Prior to each show, I played walk-in music while the crowd was being seated. For once this music was my own choice and depending on the show, sometimes I played Pearl Jam. I had heard enough of Phish intros. It was here, under the constellation of Aries, that I met yet another Phish missionary. A new laserist I hired. I knew he was a Phish Head before he told me by the macrame choker he wore to an interview. Charlie mentioned he was a Phish fan and wanted the job, but also wanted time off for summer to go on Phish tour. That was a funny thing to say in an interview to someone who needed a laserist right away, against my better judgment, I hired him and worked out the schedule so he could tour as well.

I got to know Charlie. Some people collect baseball cards; Charlie collects ticket stubs of music concerts of all kinds. There are literally hundreds. His collection is neatly preserved in plastic the same way an original Babe Ruth card would be. I understood this because Phish’s tickets are works of art. (Pearl Jam’s are as well. Blatant combative competition thought just now.)

 One day while waiting for the matinee crowd with children in the group enter the planetarium, Charlie is in charge of the show. I believe it was a Motown show for all ages. He was allowed to pick his own entry music for the families to enjoy while they waited for the show. I’m not really listening because I’m outside the entrance to the planetarium taking tickets. Suddenly, a woman dressed like she just came from a junior league charity luncheon rudely comes up to me and demands: “Could you please turn that music off inside the planetarium; it’s making my husband very nervous!” My attention focuses on the sounds reverberating from the top of the dome. It sounds like Frank Zappa wired on a double espresso while reading “Dr. Suess!

I run inside and ask Charlie; “what the hell are you playing?” Holy shit! It was LSD inspired fragmented Phish that frankly, was just not appropriate for the crowd full of kids. Thaat song ended and then another came on. It was awkward to the show to stop it at this point. We were lucky the song that came on was called ‘Weigh” which is very childlike and fun.

I’d like to cut your head off so I could weigh it, what do ya say?
Five pounds, six, pounds, seven pounds

Kids begin to laugh. So I agree to let him continue.

I’d like to go to your house and gather all your razors and pick all the
little prickly hairs so I can weigh them, what do ya say?
Five pounds, six pounds, seven pounds
I’d like to gather all your friends and squish them all into a small
swimming pool so I can weigh them, what do ya say?
Five pounds, six pounds, seven pounds
Why weigh on a sunny day?
So much to do so why, why weigh?
On a sunny day, why wei-igh-hey?
Why weigh, why weigh?
I’d like to hear my options, so I can weigh them, what do ya say?
Five pounds, six pounds, seven pounds
Why weigh on a sunny day?
So much to do, so why, why weigh?
On a sunny day, why wei-gh-hey?

I remember hearing Phish for the first time when I was married years before. We had gone to a friend of a friend’s home. Cute couple who owned a tie dye screen printing company. They put on the album “Rift” by Phish. The first Phish song I had ever heard was “Fast Enough” which isn’t fast or fragmented like the future Phish I was to experience. I later bought that CD not knowing that in time they would evolve into a digital psychedelic wall of sound. There was even one track on the CD that was merely the sound of some guy sleeping! 🙂

Fast forward to the planetarium days, I ask Charlie later not to play such deep and tripped out tunes for a conservation Children’s Museum group. The night time shows with adults only would have been a better setting for mind blowing. He kinda gave me a look as if I didn’t understand. I shot one back basically like this “hey, I’m the boss, so I get the last word.” I did however feel my love/hate relationship could be compared to one scene from the film “Amadeus”

too many notes indeed.

Summer Of ’99

Again, sigh, I find myself stuck in traffic in a shuttle van packed with about 70 phish fans and Charlie. Waaaa! I wanted to be going to a Pearl Jam show. How the hell did I get here again? I got claustrophobic. I felt like I was going up the hill on a roller coaster and about ready to die. I had not been feeling well when I boarded the shuttle for three reasons; I had a heavy workload, I had had the flu earlier in the week and I took _ _ _! …….. Against my better judgment. So getting into that van was already a nightmare. Panic set in and I thought I would never make it through the night.

Many fans walk the 20 minute journey from the camp site to the venue. I was not going to walk in this heat. So here I was on the bus and it took an hour! Outside it was 95 degrees with 100% humidity. Inside the but it was about 150 degrees. I try to distract myself by listening to others talk. Long conversations about set lists dominate the chatter. A cacophony of another language to my ears.

We arrive and our group gathers on the lawn: Two laserists, my old friend John, Charlie and his old friend and me. When the music starts Charlie flashes a cheesy Cheshire cat grin. The place is on fire and so am I. Just before the set break, Charlie and his friend go up front. I opt to stay where I am. The second set begins. Soon, I start to over-heat so I sit down. Wrong idea. There is no air on the ground because everyone is standing and packed tightly around me. All I can smell is hippy body order.  I stand up again, and that doesn’t help either.

Then it happens. I see myself in space looking down from a ship of some kind. Other beings are with me and they are looking through some microscope at Earth. They zoom into the spot where I stand that is now pulsating with color. One being says to the other “what is that strange array of lights and why are all those cells dancing around it?” Holy crap! Where was I? At that moment I felt as tiny as a atom. I was back on Earthy a minuscule  piece of nothing. I didn’t like that vision. I was feeling fragmented and segmented like broken glass. This was no mushroom salad I can tell you that.

These is where Phish scares the hell outta me. The music is too extreme. It’s not Pearl Jam. This would not be happening if it were Eddie Vedder up there being angry and crooning out ballads that CAME TO AN END. I would be a kite flying happily above the crowd vibrating with baritone or dancing my ass off.  Something funny happened inside my mind. I said to myself “Where’s my Eddie when I need him?” I looked around riducuiously and saw him. Not him obviously but a vision of him and he said “it’s ok.”

Phish keeps going. God will this song every end. No air. No water. No place to sit. This is not what I expected. An internal dialog of terror and judgment begins. I’m a single mom. I don’t belong here.  Who are these people? I’m too old to be doing this. I began to look at all these young people  in disdain. This was not a Grateful Dead crowd.. There were no hippy moms holding babies in slings. Everyone was exactly the same age and wearing exactly the same thing. This was not Woodstock either. No one was bathing in the river naked to cool off. I thought “all these people need rehab.” There was nothing I could do about any of it and I felt completely isolated and kinda started to pray to God or those beings or whatever to get me outta there. I’m losing it! My skin is clammy and I feel nauseous. One of my laserists puts her arm around me and says “are you OK?” I say nothing. She knows. Eddie? lol… We rock back and forth. My head is going to burst and the music is getting louder and LouDeR and LOUDER! For God’s sake!?

Then…as if some prayer were heard, Phish does what they always do. They play a ballad. I listen to the lyrics and I start to float away from fear.

Need I mention the song I refer to is 6 minutes and 55 seconds on the album. Since they never stop and go right into one song, thus that video was over 20 minutes long. You get my drift.

I am laughing inside from complete disbelief. God does listen to what I say and she has a sense of humor! My panic washes away. The song is like a cool bath. The band members are up to something and the fans know it! I got it. I look up to see all my friends standing around me, smiling. They had been there the whole time watching over me. John sits down next to me and says “I told you they were like God.”

With my regained strength. We leave the show. The crowd is quiet. Deadly silent after all those notes. Almost uncomfortably silent. I say to my friend, “dam, now it’s too quiet and my ears are ringing.” It’s dark and crowded and I know it’s gonna take awhile to get out of this herd of cows who moo again at just the right time. As we walk through what was once a the dancing anaconda, now it’s just a huge line to leave. Exit music is playing. I don’t know what it was, maybe the Dead. Like magic, a young girl dances in front of me with a green glow stick in her hand. I watch her, mesmerized, and wonder if I have found a guide because I was now enlightened by something. The girl with the green glow stick twirls her way through the crowd like a flashing persistence of vision map as if you’re in your car and hit every green light. She waves her glow stick through the crowd like Tinkerbell.

Effortlessly I follow her.

 Phishin At The Creek

by

Deborah Machon

Written for Nuvo Newsweekly, issue: July 6-13, 2000

July 9, 2014

Disclaimer: Searching through my “Hopeless Chest” I find a souvenir of my life. My first published story I hardly ever read because I knew it sucked. The artwork is offline and the colors have yellowed a bit. This story was the only cover story I ever did in my life and was lucky Nuvo even let me write it after presenting the idea, since I was not a writer on staff.  It took me weeks to write and had to be really cleaned up by editors. There was also things I wanted to say that I could not due to word count requirements and lets face it, I over describe stuff and repeat myself, repeat myself.

So here, almost 16 years later I think, fuck it. I will just re write the story the way I would have written it and take out the narcissistic need to promote a certain person in it who I once loved, who later kept over 25 bundles of 50 each of this issue, so he could someday sell them on Ebay to Phish fans. He hauled them all the way out to Seattle and kept them in basement. I got tired of his hoarding AND thinking he was going to sell my papers and my story. I was the distribution manager for awhile and he only got those because I gave them to him.  So years and years later in Seattle, he went to see some Nascar race out of town. I was pissed at him so while he was gone, I  took everyone of the bundles to be recycled. *Except for the numerous ones we used to kill our lawn in Seattle to create a garden. It’s easy really and not chemically harmful. You take newspaper. Cover the area of grass you want to kill with many layers of papers. So we used this story as the ground for a garden. Then you cover the whole area with tons of mulch. Voila! A few weeks later, you have fertile soil to plant living things like stick trees from The Arbor Day Foundation.

I did give Charlie two copies to save and two for myself. It’s always good to let go of the past.

What’s this got to do with the story. Nothing, but I’m in charge this time and I can be whoever I want to be. Even if I’m just some cell dancing in the light.

That’s the kinda writing Nuvo never cared about nor has anyone else, yet.

p.s. I don’t care about typos and incorrect grammer and neither did Kerouac. That’s not my job. I’m lucky I had the attention span or interest to retype this ancient attempt at trying to express myself starting at 6:30 am. Three hours of work. And people don’t understand why some writers make a shit load of money. It’s hard work to sit in a freaking chair for hours and constantly edit yourself and focus on nothing else. I’m exhausted.

k.

bye.

🙂

 

Flashbacks Of Anti-Psychotic Panic Attacks

As I type this, in my mind I am the image of this woman…..

…Although I must be very skilled indeed to even type this while being this.

I apologize if this does not read well.

I am not completely healed yet and writing is the only way to cope sometimes.

Why am I still suffering?

Why is this happening?

Am I normal?

Am I permenantely brain damaged for making the biggest mistake of my life- Taking a pill to push down emotions and thoughts I can’t explain nor could a psychiatrist.

Before you read my story, please view this video…..

1. In 1992 I had a child. I suffered badly with post partum depression. At six weeks post partum, my OBGYN gave me Prozac for a “natural condition” and I was told I would need it all my life. It destroyed my marriage. 11 years later I was having suicidal ideation and went to an ER. I did not know why. In fifteen minutes, I was diagnosed by a doctor as Bi Polar after mentioning I had prophetic dreams at times and was immediately locked up and that’s when the drugs went from anti depressants to anti psychotics. I took every experimental anti-psychotic and mood stabilizer for 11 years. Sometimes, more than one at a time. They never worked. I always felt like I was in a coma and I became disabled and very unhealthy. I always tried stopping the meds because the side effects were life threatening. Eventually after my life fell apart again, I stopped cold turkey. Then the nightmare really began and no doctor would help me. I did research and found out that the symptoms mimic the diagnoses so it’s hard to get off. When you go to the ER saying I’m having a reaction to these drugs and I have stopped them, they convince you it’s because your NOT taking your drug anymore so the insane cycle continues again and again. I did stop. I almost died doing it, but I’m better now, but suffer in a new way. There is no doctor near me that understands how dangerous the drugs I was on were and there is absolutely no support from family and friends who considered my behavior on meds as an indication that I needed more. The stigma, the ignorance and the isolation of going through this alone have caused me a new kind of suffering. There is no where to go for what troubles me in the town I live on the disability income I ended up on. I am University educated. I have incredible jobs. I ended up a zombie. My trauma now is that I have PTSD from the things that have been done to me, the things I have seen in psych wards and for the way I think and feel and believe.

2. I was torture in psych wards and forced drugged when I didn’t know I can refuse due to being allergic to side effects.

3. I have been off these drugs for almost two years except for last summer when I went to the ER for a condition I had that I did not know….interstitial cystitis (which through research I found that having IC can sometimes be labeled an mental illness and that doctors think you are seeking pain killers and some with IC have even  committed suicide due to the difficulty in diagnosing it) so after passing out on floor in pain I called an ambulance, eventually to  and wake up involuntarily committed to psych ward. I was sobbing out of control at 2am so the nurses shot me up with Haldol to sedate me. I informed staff I SHOULD NOT BE HERE  and I could not take antipsychotics but they ignored me and forced me on them. So my year of withdrawal, alone by the way, had to start all over again.

4. That happened on June 4th of 2013. No one treated my bladder that night in the ER. No urologist came to see me. They put a morphine drip in and left me alone in a room in stirups to push water out of me for an hour. I had told them the pressure pain felt like what it feels like when you are giving birth. I was on morphine. I was also hallucinating on the morphine. I called attorneys while in the psych wards and no one would help me and no one in my family advocated for me. The hospital had no patient advocate. I was stigmatized. I believe now after they charge Medicare 24,000 for my two week committment, that I was a profit making opportunity for this stress center. This anniversary of my last visit to a psych ward (I committed myself over 8 times in 10 years in Seattle) so this post is triggering every scary thing that has happened to me while being treated for “mental illness.” Five months later I began having bladder pain and contacted a urologist in that same hospital ironically. I had surgery for Interstitial Cystitis and it went away. Since then, no pain.  Finally I got the courage to go to the hospital that committed me  to I went to the hospital to get my psych records. They gave me medical records, but not my psych records they refused. I need to know why I was committed I said…. when I sought help from an ER for a physical condition. A staff member said I would not get my records and that the doctor who approves whether I get them was the doctor who I have the biggest complain with. (more on him later) I was also given no Informed Consent this psychiatrist I saw for three minutes. He refused to talke about why I was there and why they did not treat my bladder pain. He was required to tell me the side effects of the anti-psychotic drug he was trying to give me. He ask if I hear voices. I laughed because I’m a writer and I always have dialog for stories in my head. I decided to play with his mind. So I said, yeah I hear voices, like Jesus. I had told him I talk sometimes, just to see what he would say. He was a cold as ice. Never looked me in the eyes and said, “your delusional.” I laughed and said so are you saying Christians who pray are delusional. He did not like that. He know he had someone in his office that was quite knowledgeable about these drugs and their black label warnings. He said, you need to stay longer than planned and I’m putting you now on Risperdal. I told him that was the drug that cause the worst violence and hallucinations and suicidal thoughts.  I said I won’t take it. He threatened me and said I could not get out of facility and would have to go to court then. I had been to court in the past, wheeled in on stretcher in restraints even though I was completely clam…so I could not do that again and again..So, where was I, I apologize, it’s hard to stay focused on where I was going….Back to the psych records…I asked staff member in private room 8 months after commitment Why can’t I have my psych records? They make up their own rules and say “it could cause you trauma to read it.” Uh, too late. Damage done I replied…….. I’m writing a book about my experiences with psych wards. I needed my information and it seems like my civil right. They said I can sign off to have someone else get them, but not myself. Every attorney I called shut the door on me or wanted to charge me $5000 fee up front! Finally, I got the Indiana Attorney General’s office to take my case, but they said they really would not be able to do much…. and as I write this I am waiting for word but it’s been weeks. I think this doctor realizes the hospital did three things wrong and will he cover his tracks. I had been well behaved and quite drugged while in there despite the injustice but when he condemned me insane for praying to Jesus, which I said on purpose to see how sick these docs can be, he called me delusional. (I may be repeating myself so I apologize to the reader) So is anyone who talks to God insane? After looking at him with no expression, and he never made eye contact, I walked out of office in from of whole ward and all the patients who wondered why I was there in the first place because I was so helpful with other paitients and said loudly, “Fuck you! I won’t take your poison. I withdrawled a year ago and now you are starting me over!” I was so upset but kept my cool a bit because I didn’t want to be restrained for no reason because a year prior in Seattle I blacked out and ended up in another psych ward. They let me walk around while they waited for doctor. Eventually they gave me something to drink and  I WOKE UP IN RESTRAINTS and had an itch on my face and no reason why I was in them. I screamed for help and no one came. I saw purgatory and wanted to die because it was frankly like a horror film. I kept trying to hold my breath so my heart would just stop. I wanted to die. I was so scared. (See post called 4 Point Restraints To Purgatory for that story)  No one helped me. No one told me why I was  in restraints and it was horrific. ….where was I? So in the last commitment I just sat down and cried about how unjust the situation was. There was no patient advocate in this large hospital where I had 21 years ago given birth in. Ironically, I was back in Indiana, where I thought I was safe. More ironic, Eli Lilly is a big money maker in this town….The worst part of that last commitment was I was on three different anti psychotics in two weeks and at the last minute when I was to be released in two days, that evil doc tried to change me again to something worse than anything I had ever taken, Risperdal. It almost killed me. A nurse came over to me a bit later and said “honey, just take the pill for two days so you can get out.” I did and was traumatized all summer. The most insane part was no urologist ever saw me for my bladder condition. And when I left they told me I should get a shot of haldol every month and sent me home with new drugs and I actually went back to a psychiatrist because I was brainwashed again. Haldol? I had never been given Haldol in my life, but they said I needed every month for the rest of my life? What!? That is such a strong drug, you can’t even walk, speak or think on it. Why did they say I needed it. So against my better judgement I tried a new psychiatrist thinking they would help me stay off the drugs. I went with my Mother for support. For thirty minutes I told this female shrink the whole story, the unjust commitment, the withdrawals I had endured and the withdrawals I was going to have to endure again! At the end of thirty minutes this moron, looked at me and said “uh, I can give you Abilify.” I almost died laughing. “That’s an anti-psychotic! Did you even listen to me?” She looked at me with stupid dull expression. I looked at my 70 yr old Mother and she just shrugged. I walked out and told theshrink she was the crazy one. Later they sent me a for $60 for that waste of my time. (Much later I got another bill from the psych ward for my part of the deductable. Which was $1200.00. I called their collection agency attorney’s and said “you will never ever see a dime from me and your lucky your not getting sued.” They stopped asking for that money. I’m on disability since the Bi Polar diagnoses in 03. I lost my job, my mind, my friends, my faith….basically I lost my life. The psychiatric industry actually made me sick. They didn’t even give me my thyroid medication while forced into that last psych ward. I have taken that all my life.. Now I have PTSD from all of  this and am terrified of any hospital. If I had a heart attack, I would never in my life call 911 again.  I would just let it happen…. I’m no longer in a relationship and have no emotional support. So by going to an ER, I feel I will be stigmatized the minute they find out I have history of “mental illness”  I hope the Attorney General gets my records and reports or investigates it, but I  doubt it. This is like fighting a Giant industry that no one wants to take on. I’m am actually scared to read them those last records because I know they will be full of lies and I bet you the ER records from that night, won’t say I was put on morphine before they interviewed me.

There is always hope God will help or some guardian angel that looks out for people like me. My mother encouraged me to drop it.  I ask her, would you say that if someone raped me? This was psychological rape in my opinion. I need to heal I  thought. I need to know what happened. I told the records department I had no intention of suing, just needed it for my book and for healing. However, now, I pray this doctor and this hospital get in big trouble for what they did to me. I moved away from Seattle to be in my hometown in Indiana and what happened?…. the horror started again, here. It followed me from SEattle. This was the a realization that no matter where I go, this horror is something I can’t escape from. It’s happening to so many people. If I would win a law suit of great abundance, I would start an alternative crisis center, a Love Hospital where there is laughter, therapy, compassion, trips outside, massage,  therapy, art, spirituality, meditation and aromatherapy.  With no meds required at all. I pray for justice. I also pray I will get those records, but I must have someone else be with me when I read their lies.

Why did this turn ugly….Gave me morphine so initially they must have believed I was in pain, but then while hallucinating on this powerful pain killer, they ask me about my life and my writing. I have no idea what I said, but I do remember telling them I was a writer and a filmmaker as per my education. I said I write Sci Fi fan fiction and I am interested in Quantum Physics and like pretending in stories I know what I was talking about. There were moments when I was lucid on the morphine and the next minute I told them I felt like there was no gravity in the room..but when they found  they found  out I was unmedicated and “bi-polar”  they saw an opportunity to commit me. Profit driven?

 

I was given no informed consent. My right to refuse dangerous meds.  I can’t obtain my own records. The funniest thing is that while living in Seattle, I actually did get some psych records very easily. I told this 22 year old intake intern several years ago about my prophetic and lucid dreams of a certain living rock musician. (I have had prophetic dreams, telepathy and synchronistic experiences since I was 20 but was always pretty much a functional depressed person from abuse at home while young. Later when I read those records she had written it said…..”Patient thinks she is communicating with Kurt Cobain from the grave!” Oh my God. She didn’t even get the correct rock star right and I don’t talk to the dead. I have to laugh sometimes or I will cry.  That’s how sick the system is. Can I change those records? No. All my gifts, empathy, creativity, and happiness were all dampened when at 29, suffering from a natural bout of post partum depression, an OBGYN, gave me Prozac because it was new. Why? He should have given me some ways to cope and advised my family on how to get me through this time. My family only shamed me for crying the first weeks of my son’s life. Why didn’t my OB and say “this will pass.” Instead,  he told me that I would have to take anti depressant all my life. I was so trusting and blind to this advice i just followed it. I have to forgive myself because I was the one who put the pills in my own mouth off and on for 20 years. How do I heal that? And what does telling someone they need these pills for natural emotions? It creates long term customers for doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

I have been blind. I believed them and for twenty years I took every dangerous psychiatric drug there was. It ruined my life and changed my personality for the worst. I stopped writing. I stopped being me…….

In 2012, my teenage son who was 2000 miles away living with his father said on the phone when I called crying one day. He was the only thing that kept me from killing myself on these drugs. I used him  as touchstone to keep myself alive. I could not do that to him. He is the only person in my life I trust. He said… “Mom, maybe it’s the drugs making you feel this way. You have never been right since you started those anti psychotics. The voice of God to me… He was right!

I went off them cold turkey but it was awful. No family doctor would help me. No shrink would support me coming off. But what did happen was I began to get bouts of joy back. I began to write like I had never written. Producing videos, poetry, starting this blog and enjoying nature and life again. I would walk for miles along the puget sound looking for Orcas and enjoying life again. But I did have anxiety attacks for about two months, sometimes every 30 minutes. I had rashes all over my body, swollen like a tick, hallucinations, blackouts, need i go on?

A most important point to keep in mind. The withdrawal from these drugs mimic the reason they put you on them anyway, so when you go off, although you feel better at first, the withdrawal causes you suicidal ideation again and hallucinations, so you go to hospital and say I’m withdrawaling from these drugs and need help…they say “no, it’s not withdrawal, you need to take your meds again.” So the horrific insane circle starts over again and again. I had to stop it myself. I was never involuntarily committed in the past, I always went to an ER saying I felt scared and something was wrong. I was swollen so much I had no ankles. I had a fast heartbeat, rashes and my hair started falling out.

The other nightmare…while living with boyfriend of 13 years, who encouraged the medicine, one night liek many nights I went to an ER for help again. They would not take me because I did not say I wanted to kill myself and sent me home and said if you feel worse tomorrow, come back. I was due to move out in two weeks and had gotten my own place because my long term relationship was wrecked from the drugs. He thought I was nuts.  He never thought it was the meds doing it to me. He would say, I want my old Deb back and I said you won’t see her while she is on poison. The next morning he told me to move out of our home of ten years by the afternoon. He then proceeded to lock himself in the bedroom. I was terrified. I could not move yet. I had caused him pain. I had terrorized and worried him and he was done but it was wrong  to tell me at 7am when I was calm to get out. I basically lost my cool because I was still drugged and threw some plants  around and told him he needed to come out and speak with me like a man would. He hid. I lost my cool, I had no control over the rage. He said he had to go to work. I cried you can’t just ask me to leave in day after 13 years. My apartment is not ready for two weeks. I said you are not going to work until you talk to me and calm me down and be reasonable. He refused to come out of the room.  So glibbly I yelled I will cut the tires on your car if you don’t agree to talk to me. It was just words. I had no intention of doing that.  I just broke a few of my own  things. While he was in the room I went to my desk and cried. I calmed down and sat there. A few minutes later two police cars pulled up and 4 large male policeman began walking  up the steps. He had called police on me in the past when once I was  crying in my bed and ask him to not have band practice because I was feeling really scared. He called the police and they came and screamed at me in my bed and said you should just get out. So that morning, when the police came up the steps I thought I was going to throw up. I was very calm. I answered the door and sat down calmly and explained that I was ill, that he was kicking me out and that the hospital sent me away the night before and told  me to come back today. They took him aside and me aside and after about ten minutes, they ask, “Did you say you would slash his tires?” I said “yes, but I didn’t, I was just upset.” They handcuffed me. Arrestted me and I spent three days in an isolation cell in the King County Jail. I was photographed, stripped in front of men and locked away. I was in shock. Soon, a doctor in a white coat came to the cell door and passed me a valium through the slot. He said, “you should not be in here.” I said I know. I don’t remember those three days. I do remember I ate and drank nothing. Eventually I was put on mental health probation for two years and forced to keep seeing shrinks…another story on this blog called “Is it illegal to be mentally ill?” More trauma. The probation officer I had to see was next door to the jail. I did this for two years every month. Had to go downtown to see this guy and see that jail. I have hardly had speeding tickets in my life. It was like putting Princess Diana in jail. I felt well, raped emotionally. My ex moved in a new girlfriend two months after I left and continued to call my friends and threaten them that if I write about this, he would call police or my probation officer. He abused me too…but I can’t go on and on….

My gift, I left Seattle to be near my son again and now I have a two month old grandson, whom I watch a few hours a night several times a week. He is my angel. I’m so grateful I never killed myself on those drugs because I live to make a change in my son’s and his son’s life. But before the baby comes, I get scared. Scared that some leftover chemical from let’s say Risperdal, comes creeping out of my spine and heads toward my head, what if I see things when he is here. What if i break down from physical pain I endure from withdrawal and the mental anguish I have for losing 20 years of a life that could have gone somewhere, stunted and paralyzed by doctors who don’t understand my imagination and my gifts of telepathy and feeling like an empath. One day the child lay on my chest sleeping as we listened to love songs. I started to think of how I wish there were a champion, a gallant knight in armor watching over my fragile condition. My heart began to ache and the babe which was sleeping soundly, began to stir because he could feel the hurt in my heart. The pain was actually leaking from my heart and that baby felt it…as innocents do….so I left quickly so he could sleep. Ironically my family who think i’m nuts and don’t believe in the poisons i was on were making me sick, they say now, wow, you are so good with the baby. you may be nuts, but your the best Nana. Of course I am i say…that child sees me, not a label and he makes me sane. He makes me realize how strong I am. How I can trust myself with him. I have been broken, and now I unbreak by taking care of fragile things…I know this won’t change. This child brings me joy I have not felt since my son was born..It’s healing to take care of something that is more fragile than I.

The bottom line is through research, I have found that it can take up to four years to completely get these drugs and their side effects out of your body. That scares the shit out of me. I break down crying for no reason when I’m alone. Hysterical. More water coming from my mouth than eyes. The whole time standing outside of myself and watching compassionately as I forgive myself for not understanding why this happened to me and what will be my future. Will the shrinkage of my brain come back? Will I ever be able to obtain enough medical marijuana in Indiana that oh so helped my withdrawals in Seattle.

Mom says, no man will ever want you again with all your baggage. Is she right? Will there ever be a man who could love such a fragile and freaked out woman. I feel like I have been at war and I remember the horrific scenes, for which there are many. I write about them in this blog, but I also write fantasy to escape from my nightmare.  It’s so hard telling these stories sometimes to relieve these tortures, is too much to bear.

I want to change the world of how we treat emotions, but I’m not strong enough to deal with my own suffering. I’m lost. I’m in pain and there is not one person to rub the trauma out. I have never been without a man in my life. It’s been four years alone…at 51, I’m afraid my life is over…. I’m scared. I’m hopeful, I’m proud, I’m grateful I’m here and then out of now where, I’m crying hysterically. I live in an apartment. The walls are thin, I’m not able to cry like I really need to because I’m scared my “neighbors” will hear and call the police or a horrible ambulance where they tie you down. I have night terrors and wake up screaming somedays, other days I wake up to this natureless place and everyday is the same. Sometimes I just wish I would not wake up, but I get up and try. and try and try ..

Last week my sister let me stay in her lovely house and watch her cats and garden (which she would have never done when I was on meds because she hated me) but I stayed there with my grandson in a positive environment. I even had a day when a miracle happened and someone I admire that I have never met did a small thing for me to make me laugh. Laughter? Happiness? I don’t know how to handle those feelings anymore. I had a moment of bliss but later, found myself crying on the floor in hysterics because someone didn’t think I was insane and something, maybe God, maybe my ancestors or even a compassionate being from another dimension, listened to me and gave me a simple gift of hearing me. I was crying because I don’t know how to handle joy and grace. It could not find me for so long, now when I’m happy I can’t sleep because it’s the old me and I’m trying to remember who she was.

I didn’t go to my little part time job today. My best friend hired me. She wont’ fire me. She gives me a few hours a week to help with money and to help me have a purpose. But somedays, I can’t get out bed because I am in despair when I sleep and sometimes when I’m awake. Sadly, I do take an anti anxiety, clonzapam, given to me by my family doc who knows I can’t take the other meds and I keep them around just in case I split in two again and so i wont have to go to an ER again for help. But I know, I must let this drug go too, I don’t feel addicted to it..I rarely take it, but that’s a problem too because there is wthdrawal there as well. I will worry about that later. I’m quite good at meditation now and more than often I just cry it out and breath and do chakra work and not take a pill. I’m proud of this…but if things get unbearable and because I don’t have access to medical marijuana, I keep them because they work fast and have no side effects as far as I can tell.

so….I’m getting under my covers. I’m going to be good to myself knowing it’s not my fault I have PTSD from war. Not a man’s war. A mental war with doctors I trusted. I’ll let myself cry if I want. I’ll imagine I’m resting my head on the chest of my soulmate, whoever that may be…. sleeping on a kind brave man’s chest just so I don’t feel so alone and I will be ok with these tools. I will meditate and pray and maybe even watch John and Yoko’s Bed In.

….but I know it’s gonna take a long time, to be me again and handle who and what I really feel without a pill. i hope I wake up in a new world someday, where these things will have all happened for a reason and I can help someone too. Even though I’m fetal, I’m still mad as hell at the people and pharmaceuticals that did these things to me, but I will forgive them for they know not what they do, but you better believe, once I get someone to help me, I’m gonna scream out from the moon with giant speakers and microphone and they will know what they are doing to us who are just different that’s all.

I’ve stopped crying now.

I bless this writing for being with me.

I bless you for reading this mess and remember, the stigma of mental illness is alive and well. Don’t discard us. We might be homing pigeons carrying a message to an unknown yet great leader who will help all mankind with their suffering. We might even be examples of how brains evolve and we arent’ ill at all. We are gifted with something we dont’ understand.

This video from Maria is a message I needed all along and having survived the drugs, now there is the trauma of it all…and the need for courage to forget and resilience to go on. I’m awake. I’m alive and with finding my choir, I will survive and you can too.

Here are some of the people in my choir:

Deepak Chopra

Dr. Peter Breggin

Dr. Maria Sirois

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

Thich Nhat Hahn

My son

My Grandbaby

Myself

Buddha

God

Princess Diana

Mother Teresa

Nasa

Krishna

My journal

Micho Kaku

Love

This blog

Yoga

Music….

Stillness….

need I go on?

p.s. After it took all I had to type this, word press did not save it. Thank God a little voice said, copy/paste first just in case. Even this makes me cry. I should have become an actress and been paid to cry as I can do it on command.

Namaste.

may all beings be happy.

May all being be free from suffering.

may all beings be at peace.