herveryown

You Own It

Fitz-Hume had her first public tantrum yesterday.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.  She's been consistently ahead on her milestones for quite some time now.  Is it any big shock that she is currently throwing fits at a two year old level?

Akeeyu: "Okay, boo, are you done?"
Fitz-Hume: (nibbledroolnibble)
Akeeyu: "Boo, done?"  (signs all done)  "...okay, so you're not eating and we have to get going, and I am not putting you on my back with that much stuff all over your hands, so...let's go.  All done."  (confiscates drooly wad of biscuit, starts hosing off tiny wildebeest)
Fitz-Hume: "WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaascreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamOMG, my Mama is so mean!"  (signs Dada frantically)
Akeeyu: "Daddy's not here right now.  Oh, don't throw yourself back, I need to--okay, put your head in my lap.  Knock yourself out, kid.  It's your fit, Boo.  You own it.  Go right ahead and have it, okay?" (continues to go all FEMA on Fitz-Hume's face and hands, but without the handy staged photo ops)
Fitz-Hume: "Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam"
Akeeyu: (internally rolls eyes all the way to Peru, silently offers up apologies to the woman sitting behind us whose crappy mall lunch we have probably ruined even more than the fact that it's a crappy mall lunch ever could, hoists screaming baby onto back, gathers up Millbarge and trash and heads for the garbage can)

Conveniently, the woman behind us arrived at the garbage can just as we did.  God, kill me.

"You've got your hands full, huh?" 

"Yes," I said, bracing for whatever would come next.

"...but they're beautiful," she said.

Oh.

Ma'am, I would just like to say that you are beautiful, too. 

Oh, Dear(s)

Dear Millbarge,

I love you, sweetums.  For the record, when your sister screams like a purple nurpled banshee and I look up and you're fleeing the scene as if you've just crammed a grenade in her diaper and pulled the pin?  I hate to tell you this, but I don't buy your "I swear I didn't do it!" face, even for a minute.  Sorry, kid. It is cute as fuck, though.  Speaking of cute as fuck, some day I'm going to have to stop falling over laughing when you fart, look me right in the eye, then blow a huge raspberry and giggle.  Society demands that eventually I tell you that fart jokes are not funny, young lady.

Love, Mom 

PS. They totally are.

 

Dear Fitz-Hume,

I love you, little girl.  Remember back when you were a fetus and you kept throwing your head back and causing really painful contractions and I'd yell "SON OF A BITCH!" and rub your head, desperately trying to get you to cut that shit out before you ripped a hole in the top of my uterus and made a surprise exit via my armpit?  Oh, you don't?  Well, I do.  It makes your current "I must sit upon you or drape my floppy body upon you or attempt to burrow back inside via the bellybutton because the floor is hot lava.  HOT LAVA, MAMA!" phase that much funnier.

Love, Mom

PS. Yes, yes, I saw what your sister just thwacked you with.  Come sit over here with on me.

A Momentous Day

Oh, my sweet darling Internet, how I love you.  I can talk to you about, like, everything, you know?

Well, I've finally hit something that is so weird and unpleasant, I'm kind of speechless.  Don't worry, it's not the girls, it's me. 

I'm a little bit fucked up over here.  I've got a small clutch of doctors collectively doing the goddamned RCA dog head tilt, which I hate because it always precedes this: "I'm going to write you a referral to some other specialist that won't know what the hell to do with you, either.  Have fun!"  Okay, they don't say the last part, but it's implied.

Here's the thing: When I know something, you'll know something.  I swear.  I'm not trying to be coy, I just don't have the goddamned energy, and this is just so fucking weird, I just...don't know what to say about it, which doesn't make sense, even to me.  I mean, hi.  I've told you about my cervix and The Worst Yeast Infection In The World and that weird thing where they yanked on my pubic hair and twenty million rides on Ye Olde Wande, but suddenly I'm very tired of trying to make the mortifying into something funny.  Without that, what do I say? 

It's really kicking my ass.  I'm tired of being my own advocate.  Everybody knows that's just code for 'desperately trying to flog some competence out of the medical system.'  I'm sick of it.  I have appointments for tests I don't want to do and specialists I don't want to see.  I keep wanting to cancel all of them.

I'm not sure where to go from here.

So. 

Like I said, when I know something, you will, too.

In the meantime, what do you want to hear about?

O For The Love Of Crap

I don't usually read the magazines in pharmacy waiting rooms (for the same reason that I don't usually lick bathroom doorknobs), but I recently threw caution to the wind and cracked open an out of date magazine while waiting for a refill of my Crazy meds.  Too bad I wasn't there for anti-ComeOn,Really? drugs, because I probably could have used them.

Now, I don't disagree with this article's basic premise: Manic Depression is sometimes incorrectly diagnosed.  This is true of many diseases.  Why, before I was diagnosed with Endometriosis, I was misdiagnosed with Complaining About Nothing. 

Just so we're clear, I want to say that again: I don't take issue with the theory put forth by the article.  What I take issue with is...well, pretty much every other paragraph.

Let's start with this:
"After re-examining 145 men and women who said they'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, researchers at Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital found that more than half (57 percent) were misdiagnosed."

145 people?  Goodness, that's a very large and statistically significant sample, isn't it?  Um.  Look, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or make somebody feel inadequate, so I'm just going to say what a nice girl should always say in these situations to avoid scarring researchers for life: "Oh my GOD, it's the biggest (sample size) I've ever seen!" 

I would like to know more about this study, though (and would if Google could find me a copy), such as how it was conducted.  Who were these 'researchers'?  Were they psychiatrists?  Therapists?  Med students with check lists?  What was their basis for disproving the diagnoses of previous psychiatrists?  Who sponsored this study?  Did the study have an agenda?  Did the researchers know the study's agenda?  Was the point of the study to prove that Manic Depressives aren't always?  If so, how might this have influenced the outcome*?

Also, couldn't they find more than 145 Crazy people in Rhode Island?  I know it's a tiny state and all, but there must be more than that. 

Moving on.  Also fun:
"One possible reason for this, [Mark Zimmerman, MD] says, is the fact that "we have very good drugs for bipolar disorder but no clear-cut medications for these other personality disorders. Doctors, and even some patients, may look to bipolar disorder because it's something that's easier to treat.""

Now that the Manic Depressives have collectively spit out their coffee and rolled around on the floor in hysterical laughter, let's discuss this.  I'm not sure what to go with first.  I think I'll start with sarcasm, as that is my strong suit. 

"Oh, we have GOOD drugs?  When did that happen?"

There's something else going on here, something you might have missed if you're not pretty well acquainted with Crazy meds.  Manic Depressives frequently take anti-psychotics and drugs intended for epileptics.  Say you're depressed.  Not Manic Depressive, just garden variety depressed.  Will a drug intended to prevent mania help you?  Will a drug intended to treat epilepsy really improve your mood?  I'm not a doctor, a pharmacist, or even published in a big fancy magazine, so I don't really have any authority to say that they won't, but I can tell you this: To my knowledge, no major pharmaceutical company has repackaged Lithium and rebranded it for use in garden variety depression.  What does that tell you?

Better yet, what did Dr. Zimmerman just tell you?

1. There are "very good drugs for bipolar disorder."
2. There are no widely used drugs for the illnesses frequently mistaken for Manic Depression.
3. Doctors overdiagnose Manic Depression so that they'll have drugs to fling at people
4. ...which then won't work
5. ...because there is no magic pill for these other illnesses.
6. PROFIT!  No, wait!  Um, how is that supposed to help? 

Spit take, redux:
"Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD....agrees with Zimmerman: "Anytime an illness comes along for which there's an effective treatment...there's going to be a tendency for more people to be diagnosed with that condition for a while."

Cheap jokes first.  "An effective treatment?  May I have that one, please?"

And now for slightly pricier ones.  Did I miss something?  Don't treatments usually 'come along' after the illness is diagnosed in a couple hundred/thousand/squillion people?  Did Manic Depression really not exist in this country until the 70's, when Lithium was approved by the FDA?  If we stamp out all the pharmaceutical companies, will I be immediately be rendered sane by default, or is this just a very unfortunately worded article?  I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

I don't like this woman.  Why?

Regarding being evaluated by a psychiatrist, she helpfully offers some advice:
"Also make sure a family member is present. "This is essential," says Jamison, "because someone who is depressed won't remember that they were ever manic.""

I'm not sure what strikes me first.  The generalization?  The condescension?  The missing comma?  The perpetuation of the stereotype that The Crazies have no idea what's going on?  Most people already think that Crazy people aren't aware of the Crazy.  Do you really have to tell them that none of us remember the Crazy, either?  Lady, if this is your idea of help, please stop. 

I'd kind of like to have coffee with her***.  I mean, she's one of us, right?  She is Crazy.  She writes books on being Crazy.  It does beg the question, though, of how she can write books discussing mania and depression if Manic Depressives can't remember their cyclic moods worth a damn*****.

Ha!  Hahaha...no, wait, this whole article is depressing******.  Why?  Because its target audience isn't Crazy people.  Its target audience isn't people who know enough about Manic Depression to read between the lines.  Its target audience is people who want to know what kind of watch Oprah wears, and people who flip through magazines in waiting rooms.

It doesn't seem to be trying to educate people.  It's probably only truly entertaining to Crazies.  The most probable reaction I can imagine this article provoking is changing the kneejerk reaction from "Manic Depressives?  Those people are crazy!" to "Manic Depressives?  43% of those people are crazy!  The other 57% are merely fucked up.  Or faking.  Or Tools of Big Pharma."  I'm not sure that's really an improvement.

This article annoys me, mostly because it does not contain enough substance to be informative or enlightening, much in the same way that candy necklaces don't provide enough of anything to be nutritious, unless you are a hummingbird.

*My first guess would be "A lot."**
**Nerd points if you can identify that quote. 
***I could buy her a Latte!  According to the government, you're supposed to buy Crazy people Lattes****.
****Where is my damned Latte??
*****I thought about reading one of her books, but then I figured there must be an awful lot of blank pages and decided to save the trip to the library.
******If it made me laugh and then made me sad, can I sue this article for causing my Manic Depression?

Here's Why.

Being Crazy is totally fun. 

On the one hand, you have to put up with stilted crappy ad campaigns (which I wish with all my shriveled little heart that I could find again because the stupid was totally palpable, even over the Internet  Squee, Sam found it!  It's the "Friends" one.  Who knew you could jam that much lame into a coffee shop?) that swear up and down that It's Okay To Be Mentally Ill And Your Friends Will Totally Still Love You And Buy You A Latte And Stuff.  On the other hand, you are bombarded with messages that it is clearly NOT okay to be Crazy, in that you have to take some severely scary meds for the rest of your (un)natural life to be considered even marginally socially acceptable and don't you dare stop taking them.

Don't you dare.

If you do, even for a day, even for a really good reason, you will stop being taken seriously.  Even if you never stop, a phrase will jump out at you in news stories and Law and Order plot lines and made for TV movies: "...and they were OFF THEIR MEDICATION." 

This is always presented as something that the Crazy person does out of spite or ignorance or because they're, you know, CRAZY and can't be trusted with big decisions like, um, whether or not they want to take drugs that could kill them.  I'm not a big fan of this last reason.  If a person with a mental illness is unable to make informed decisions about potentially lethal medications, is it fair to risk their life?  Which is more palatable to society, locking them up until they can make the decision, or possibly killing them?  What if their informed decision is NOT to take the medications, and eff off, society?

Lest you think I am exaggerating the 'could totally fucking kill you' aspect of psychiatric drugs, I am voluntarily taking two drugs that have lethal side effects that are, as an added bonus, totally impossible to predict.  It's way fun.

Even the ones that couldn't kill me were not what I would call entertaining (except for that one, which was a fucking riot).

Remember how hard it is to get medication, period?

Well, here's how hard it is to get the right medication:

Fun Drug Number One:
Back when I was a n00b at all this Crazy stuff, I went to my GP (mistake #1) and told her that I had a strong history of Manic Depression in my family and kind of felt like I was going 'round the twist, OMG, help!  She helpfully prescribed an antidepressant.  And I took it (mistake #2).  It seemed okay.  I'm sure my boss at the time totally loved it, because it made me really mellow and tractable, kind of like a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Sloth.  And then I missed a dose or two (mistake #3) and became immediately suicidal.  I wasn't even sad, really, I just had a nigh irresistible urge to drive off a cliff.  And I lived near a cliff at the time.  It was a really bad combination.  I stopped taking that drug. 

Public Service Announcement: If you have anything other than garden variety depression, for fuck's sake, DO NOT see a GP.  See a shrink.  GPs are nice and all, but when it comes to mental illness, most of them are seriously out of their depth.  The shrink I saw in the aftermath of "Hey, look, a cliff!" told me that Manic Depressives really shouldn't take what she prescribed for me.  Why?  Because it makes us crazy.  Crazier.  Whatever.  Hey Doc, tell me something I don't know!  Incidentally, a couple of years later it was discovered that this drug (specifically, withdrawal from this drug) caused suicidal ideations.  Imagine my surprise.  But back to my pharmaceutical adventures.

Fun Drug Number Two:
My first shrink prescribed a different medication.  It was okay.  It gave me dry mouth for a couple of days, but it wasn't terrible.  I mean, until I stopped sleeping.  And couldn't concentrate on anything.  And did I mention the not sleeping?  And I cleaned the whole kitchen and refinished the butcher block table in the middle of the night.  And then I started having problems sitting still and would (I shit you not) rock back and forth while watching TV, once rocking so hard that I bruised my back on a chair.  I was totally aware that none of this was normal and that it was all a series of shitty side effects, but I still couldn't sit still or sleep.  Clearly, that drug and I were not good friends.  I stopped taking that drug.

Fun Drug Number Three:
Meh.  It wasn't awful.  After a while, though, I felt like the human equivalent of Wonder Bread: soft and doughy and utterly flavorless.  I could function, but it was like nothing really had any color to it anymore.  It seemed kind of stupid to take something for Manic Depression that basically mimicked a really long depressive state.  Also, I gained twenty pounds.  So I stopped taking that drug.

Fun Drug Number Four:
Okay, this one actually was kind of fun.  Among other things, it made me anorexic.  Yeah, the obsessive calorie counting and dizziness was kind of a drag, but my ass?  My God, people, my ass looked FANTASTIC.  I felt pretty good, although jittery and paranoid about people finding out about the anorexia and I was kind of a bitch (possibly because I was really hungry all the time), but other than that, it was okay.  Well, okay except for this one teensy weensy little side effect.  Minor.  Hardly worth mentioning, really.

It made me hallucinate.  Honest to God hallucinations.  WEIRD hallucinations.

Now, before I took that drug, I had always assumed that people who hallucinate don't know that they're doing it.  I was under the impression that they were completely convinced that what they were seeing was real and responded as such.  Yeah.  Not so much, or at least not in my case.  I knew that what I was seeing wasn't real.  I used to keep a journal: "Today I didn't see X," which meant "Today I saw X, which was totally not real, but it was kind of cool."

Things I didn't see, in random order:
A coworker walking into the room, even though she wasn't due in that day and vanished when I looked at her.
A huge gargoyle crouching on my roof, complete with huge leathery wings, who turned his head and watched me walk into the house.
A human head (decomposing) hanging from a truck's bumper during rush hour.
Two little girls wearing pink dresses walking on a sidewalk at midnight.
A man dressed in black leaning on my grandfather's car.  This one is by far my favorite, because I was walking the dog at the time and when I 'saw' the man and was frightened, the dog tried to attack the man before he evaporated.  This is the difference between cats and dogs: Dogs sincerely believe you when you hallucinate and will try to protect you from said apparitions.  Who knew?

Public Service Announcement, Part Two: If you are crazy, you should take your medication.  Why?  Because that gargoyle was super cool, and I wish you had seen it!  It was so...what, that's not a good enough reason?  This is why I suck at public service announcements.

The funny thing (to me) is that I didn't stop taking this drug when I lost thirty pounds and I didn't stop taking it when I started hallucinating, because overall, I felt pretty good.  I stopped taking it because I stopped feeling pretty good and crashed so far into depression that I almost had myself committed.

Instead of having myself committed, I went to my shrink's office and said "I Almost Had Myself Committed!  I Seriously Need To See Someone And No, I Can't Wait Four To Six Weeks For An Appointment, Okay?" and saw the doctor on call the next day, which led to...

Fun Drugs Number Five And Six:
I do not even remember what they were.  I think one of them started with an A.  I don't remember exactly how long I took them, although I think it was a week or less.  All I really remember is that they made me so sluggish and disconnected that I almost drove into the back of a milk truck.  It wasn't intentional, I was just so enchanted by the shiny shiny patterns on the back of it that I almost HOLY SHIT, THE BRAKES!  My regular shrink said "Yeah, maybe those aren't a good idea for you.  You should stop taking those.  Here, try this instead."

Fun Drug Number Seven:
Oooh, my first potentially lethal drug!  Clearly, I'd hit the big times.  And it mostly worked!  Sure, it was probably responsible for the demise of my thyroid and made a really unpleasant skin condition flare up like a motherfucker and then my GP refused to prescribe the most effective treatment for said skin condition because It Might Affect My Mood.  It also interacted with Every Known Drug and stuff and it was a major factor in that whole breastfeeding disaster, but it mostly worked.  And then I got tired of it.  Why?  Well, there was the ever present potential for sudden idiopathic liver failure.  Have I ever had good luck, medically?  Yeah, no.  Also, taking this drug was like having a big expensive messy pet that you don't even like.  And it bites you and shits in your bed every night.  And I really wanted to stop taking it.

Fun Drug Number Eight:
When I strolled into the shrink's office and said "I hate my meds," he said "Welcome to the crap they've come out with in the last ten years.  It's full of win.  Oh, and it might cause your epidermis to separate from your dermis and totally kill you when you first start taking it, but other than that it has very few side effects" and I said "Very few side effects!  Awesome!  Sign me up!  Wait, what was that first part again?" and then, living up to the title of Crazy, I said "Sure, what the fuck?  I'll try anything once!"

I am currently chock full of Fun Drugs Number Seven and Eight, as my shrink is a big fan of long, slow tapers when changing meds.  It's not bad.  My epidermis did not separate from my dermis, so that was nice.  It seems to be working, in that I am:

1. Not suicidal
2. Sleeping pretty well
3. Not bored out of my skull
4. Not hallucinating
5. Or anorexic
6. Not almost falling asleep on the freeway and making intimate friends with dairy at 60 mph
7. At reduced risk for liver failure
8. Feeling mostly okay

It is, however, making me think, and I want YOU to think, too.

I have been on psychiatric medications for ten years.  Ten long motherfucking years.  Almost all of the drugs I have taken have been at least mildly unpleasant.  Most of them have made me feel like shit and/or negatively impacted my overall health.  I'm guessing that Fun Drug Number Eight will not be the last time my shrink and I decide to make my brain into a science fair project.

There is no magic pill for Crazy, only a long series of decidedly unmagic pills.  Even the best doctors are unable to accurately predict what effect, if any, they will have on you.  You have to decide which of these pills have benefits that outweigh the massive helping of suck that they manage to cram into those tiny little capsules.  You have to make this decision while Crazy.  It's hard.

I made these decisions in the presence of a supportive family (although they didn't buy me a latte like in the video, the jerks) and while receiving competent psychiatric treatment and with insurance that fully covered mental illness and paid for a long string of supposedly effective drugs.  I had a roof over my head and shoes on my feet and my Manic Depression has never been severe enough to impact my ability to hold down a job.  I was also really persistent and willing to put up with a lot of crap.

Not everybody has that luxury.

Come to think of it, being Crazy has the tendency to remove some (if not all) of those luxuries from many people.

This is why, when I hear someone say "...and they weren't TAKING THEIR MEDICATION!" I always want to say "Hey, you're not taking their medication, either.  Maybe they can't afford their medication or are getting substandard medical care or were told to take a drug that wasn't right for them or the stuff they took didn't work or had side effects so severe that they almost died.  Or wanted to.  Maybe you should take some of those medications and get back to me, bucko."

It should be simple, but sometimes it's not. 

Some people can't afford to wait ten years while their doctors try to come up with a safe and effective regimen.  Sometimes there are valid reasons that people don't take their medication, even when society thinks that they should.  Sometimes being medicated is unbearable. 

Then again, sometimes it's pretty nifty.  There was that gargoyle.

Driving Me

This is a fairly delayed reaction, but Christ, it pissed me off: The blogger who had the cops called on her because she made an offhand remark, and you know, she's (hang on, I'll whisper) Crazy.  Much was made of it, but the general opinion was that yes, the busybody overreacted only not really because after all, that blogger is (whispered) Crazy, and you know what Those People are like.  Never mind that Crazy people are approximately ten jillion times more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crimes.  I suppose that means we should all be a bit more vigilant around the sane, but since that would take all damned day, let's just blame the Crazy.  It's easier.

I am Crazy.  You can call it any goddamned fancy thing you like, but at the end of the day, I'm Crazy.

I'm pretty much done apologizing for it.  I don't mind being Crazy.  Not anymore.  What I mind is other people being sane and acting like it's some personal virtue, a sign of better character, strength of will, whatever the fuck it is that people smugly credit when they judge the Crazy.  God knows, they judge.

The Crazy are to be feared or pitied or patronized or reported or locked up. 
We frequently receive substandard medical care for things completely unrelated to psychiatric issues. 
The state of our medical compliance is discussed behind our backs.
Our emotions (both positive and negative) are written off as symptoms. 
We are vilified when we don't (or can't afford to) take our meds. 
We are ridiculed when we do. 
Lithium is a joke these days.  Don't believe me?  Oh, and although all of these jokes are quite witty and in no way repetitive or, you know, stupid, I feel compelled to point out that the effects of Lithium are cumulative and it's frequently taken at night, so saying that somebody forgot to take their Lithium today (har har) doesn't really make that much sense unless there's uranium and a DeLorean involved.  You fucking dumbass.

Recently I've found that when I take psychiatric drugs, I want to slap someone.  Do you think that's a side effect?  I want to find a new person every night, someone who has made jokes about Crazy people or used Manic Depressive as a pejorative or talked about Those People, and slap the everloving shit out of them. 

I always want to tell them that I am taking drugs that could kill me just so I can be more like them, and why isn't that enough?  Why isn't it ever enough?  At what point will I be as good as a sane person?  At what point will my opinion, my medically induced sanity, my genuine emotions, my mere existence, be tolerable to them?

Probably never.

I will always be Crazy.

(Li)ing For Fun and (no) Profit

The humorlessness of Pharmacy Techs continues to vex mildly annoy me, possibly because I have to deal with them on a fairly regular basis, but possibly because damn, they always get really good straight lines and it's hard to resist playing off of them.

Recent Pharmacy Tech: (eyes computer suspiciously) "Are you...taking Lithium?"

In this case, it's not the question itself, but the hushed 'Oh crap, a Crazy Person' tone that they generally employ for this little gem that gets me.  It is about as close to the casual chatty tone used for "Are you taking Metformin?" as the Space Needle is to, say, Pluto.  The planet, not the guy dressed in a fuzzy suit at Disneyland. 

I always try to look especially sane when I say "Yes," although I'm not exactly sure what look I'm going for.  No wallpaper nibbling, that's for damned sure.

I usually want to say "Why do you ask?  If there's a drug interaction, I want to know what kind.  No, no, give me specifics.  Will I grow horns or what?  Really?  Well, what kind of horns?  Are we talking Hellboy or Tim Curry in Legend?  How about a cute little baby unicorn horn?  Would it be centered?  Hold on, I'm thinking."

But of course, I can't say that.  It would tend to interfere with my whole 'looking sane' thing, don't you think?

I also can't do the other thing I want to do, which is play to everyone's impression of Crazy People and get all twitchy and shifty eyed.  "What?  Lithium?  WHAT?  Who told you that?  Was it someone in that damnable glowy box with all the buttons?  Hey!  You in the box!  Come out and face me like a man!  A very tiny damnable box living man!  What?  He's not home, you say?  Oh.  In that case, I'll just sit over there in yonder corner and wait for those nice men with the butterfly nets." 

So I've decided that what I really want to say is this, stump speech style:

"Lithium?  Why, yes!  Yes, I am, and isn't it spiffy?  I take Lithium.  Every night I intentionally ingest a toxic metal, a substance known to most people as either a type of battery, a meth ingredient, or a punchline.  I take a drug with no easily calculated lethal dose, a drug that, let's face it, interacts badly with just about everything you've got in a box, bottle or jar back there."

(cue a swell of inspiring chords)

"I take Lithium, a drug that works, but nobody knows exactly how or why.  I like a little mystery in my innards.  I like rolling the dice with my livers every night!  After all, I've got two!  I'm sorry, what?  No kidding?  Only one?  Huh.  Well, fuck it!  If my liver can't stand up to a little toxic mystery metal every day for the rest of my life, maybe it should man up!  Where was I?  Bring up that inspirational music again!" 

(I like a little Rudy, myself.) 

"I take Lithium, and I'm proud of it.  Every day I put a new organ on the line so that my craziness can be socially acceptable.  I take Lithium, a drug whose side effects are so unpleasant that many people have to be compelled by court order to take it.  I take Lithium, and if I stop, given the current anti-Crazy sentiment floating around Puget Sound lately, I'm pretty sure half the population would support loading a shotgun with pills and delivering my daily dose that way.  I don't even think they'd care if they were the right pills.

(And hey, a shout out to the local Crazies?  Stop getting so fucking stabby!) 

I take Lithium because at the end of the day, you want me on that drug, you need me on that drug, you...

(You know, I just can't enjoy that movie anymore.  Mostly because he's a couch jumping loon, eh?  I have the same problem with Cocktail.  Is it just me?  But back to the question at hand.)

"Yes!  Yes, I take Lithium, for I am one of an elite group:  The few.  The proud.  The totally fucked."

Forecast: Batshit

I've got some posts saved up about Manic Depression and will be posting them in the next week or so. 

If Crazy people make you uncomfortable and you feel that nice people just don't discuss that sort of thing in public, dear...um...what are you doing here, again?

Afterwards, I will return to my (ir)regularly scheduled program of something or other.

The Circle is Optional

Me: "So, I have an appointment to give blood on Saturday.  I've been deferred for a whole year, which...I don't know.  They defer you for a year if you get a blood transfusion.  You know, a transfusion of blood from their own blood bank?  Fills you with confidence, I tell you.  But whatever.  I got two units of blood, so I'm going to put them back."
Co-worker: "Do you have to do that?"
Me: "No, but wouldn't it be nice if everyone did?"

I've been giving blood for a long time.  It's fast, it doesn't hurt, and the cookies are usually pretty good.

Last year was the first time I'd been on the other end of the equation.  I'm not going to lie, it felt kind of weird.  I felt incredibly grateful, but also undeserving.  What if somebody else needed the blood more?  What if I was hogging all the cool blood?  What if, what if?

When I left the hospital fortified by the blood of two strangers, I felt oddly humbled. Some total stranger(s) had cared enough about humanity at large to give me their blood.  Holy crap.

I gave blood today.  Usually when I'm lying there all hooked up to tubes and needles, I look away and try not to think about it too much.  Let's face it, the idea of having somebody drain blood out of your body on purpose?  Kind of weird.  This time I watched the tubes turn red and thought about it a lot.  I'm generally a pretty jaded person, but when they carried my chubby little bag of blood away, I sent my best wishes with it.

To the people who gave me blood, thank you.  You gave me so much.  I can never express it all.

To the people who get my blood: I hope it helps.  I'm thinking of you.  I care.

Or Else!

I've been trying to pick a good song for Karaoke (Yes, I am a total dork, thanks for asking!), something I can sing to Sam that will sound all tender and crap and express my endless love, bla bla bla, but when the girls aren't sleeping and are taking turns pitching fits (and toys), songs about staying together forever just sound like some horrible threat.