my pockets hurt

To Stick

2011-04-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I’m sitting here on my day off, watching “Eat, Pray, Love” and thinking about marriage. At its core, the movie is reprehensible. It’s about a scared woman who marries someone she shouldn’t (who I’m sure is lovely on some level but is predictably portrayed as a buffoon) and so abandons him to travel around the world with what seems to be an inexplicably large amount of money. And of course, it’s making me think about the fact that I am up to my eyeballs in a 15-year relationship (and almost 10-year marriage) and that IT is the adventure of my lifetime. I don’t need to travel around the world to find meaning in a plate of pasta or on a beach. I find meaning in the life I’m building day by day with my husband.

And dear god, is it SOME life. It is unbelievable what we have been through in these first ten years of our marriage:

The world fell apart on 9/11
I walked away a career I’d been building for 20 years
I went completely crazy and had to be hospitalized for over 2 straight years
I was arrested
We were POOR
We moved every 2 years on average - once, across a continent, leaving everyone we knew
We learned we could not make babies and fell apart for a while
We bought a house
We built 2 careers with some success
We decided that our families are unsalvageable and destructive forces in our lives
We discovered that one of us has an orphan disease
We spent SO MUCH money on therapy…

Lying in bed last night, we both discussed what to make of all this. A curse? A self-fulfilling prophesy? Behavioral patterns passed down by previous, suck-y generations? That one sounded the most likely. And how to proceed? Bury-head-in-sand sounded good as did pull-covers-over-head. But the amazing thing is that we both came to the same answer on our own.

We get up each day and continue to try to make a life.

Nothing else makes any sense. All other options are worse. I’ve tried them - I know. How amazing to roll over in bed and discover that the person lying right there next to you thinks the exact same thing as you do. And, on top of everything, loves you right back. THAT is an adventure.

(And funny enough, that’s what Julia Roberts discovers by the end of the film too…)

The Collector

2011-03-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

I have a new diagnosis (or two)! More to add to my collection! So far I’ve been told I have:

- Major depression

- “Double” depression (major + dysthymia)

- Alcoholism

- Borderline personality disorder

And now, drum roll please:

- Generalized anxiety disorder

- Obsessive compulsive disorder

Frankly, I think all these diagnoses are sort of all bullshit at this point. I know I’ve met the diagnostic criteria for all of them at one point or another and I currently meet the criteria for GAD and OCD, hence the new “diagnosis.” But honestly, these don’t mean anything to me anymore. Nor does the DSM mean much to me these days. I know what I have and I know how to fix it (brains + cash + support + time).

Yet when my doc sprung this on me yesterday, it was still a disappointment. Half: “well, of course” and half “oh no, not again.” He wanted to leap right into a discussion of treatment options and therapeutic interventions and I was like…. Stop. Let’s just process the fact that you’re saying this to me. Let’s just process what this MEANS and feels like. Let’s start with identifying what was the chicken here and what was the egg.

I dunno, somehow, it’s really important for me to understand what came first. If you had cancer, you’d want to know that it was the chemo that was causing your nausea, not the cancer or some other, horrible, underlying illness. And I kind of think that this might be what’s happening here: getting better is causing some things to get worse. It’s like trading one, horrible debilitating illness for four, smaller slightly less annoying ones. Watch:

Age 0-7:

I know I started with a genetic susceptibility towards emotional sensitivity. I own that. I’m sensitive in all the good and bad ways that word connotes. I’m also creative and intelligent – another asset/liability depending on what day it is. Growing up, my home environment preys on this. My parents’ inability to regulate their emotions spilled over and made me even more hyper-vigilant. Their invalidation & narcissism alters my perceptions of the world and necessitates coping mechanisms like dissociation and near-psychotic (albeit creative) interpretations of reality. (I cannot control trees, no matter how much I believe I can. (I think.))

- Diagnosis at 7: gifted

- Treatment: play Battleship with the school shrink

Age 8-14:

Now, add to this mix an actual, tangible reality that I had to LIVE in every day with things like school and peer pressure and adolescence and loss… and I get pretty worn out. It’s hard to be the crazy one. It gets old. I want to escape. I think about death. A lot. Remember, the rules don’t apply to meeeee!

- Diagnosis at 14: major depression

- Treatment: go directly to hospital. Do not pass go. But maybe stop in at your local liquor store.

Age 15-27:

Wow. That whole crazy/hospital thing really got everyone’s attention. Maybe a bit too much… but, WOW. I’m gonna tell everyone I meet about THAT. Maybe even make it my new “thing.” Oh, and alcohol works great!

- Diagnosis at 27: double depression & alcoholism & borderline

- Treatment: how much money have you got? Double it and mail directly to the nearest mental health provider. Also: cutting releases endorphins! Do that.

Age 28-36:

So. Maybe I went a bit overboard… That whole crazy thing tends to make nice things like husbands and jobs and car keys disappear. Maybe I should try getting - and then keeping - my shit together. But to do that, I’ll have to hold on tight. Really dig my nails in deep and keep everything under perfect lock and key. Measure it out to the nearest microgram. And worry. Don’t forget a heaping spoonful of worry. That’ll help the medicine go down.

- Diagnosis at 36: GAD & OCD

- Treatment: to be determined.

Groups

2011-03-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve done a LOT of group therapy in my life. Of course there were the endless hours of groups that came with every inpatient and partial hospitalization. There were various outpatient DBT groups, various AA meetings and even one outpatient CBT group. But nothing – nothing held a candle to the group my friends and I created on our own.

We all met in a PHP program run by a local hospital. It was a pretty good program, as these things go. There was the usual drama. A girl that no one liked killed herself. The damned “movement therapy” people forced us into sing-a-longs (with tambourines) in the middle of a day that bruised our self-esteem. There were insurance battles. The DBT therapist had a newborn and was so sleep-deprived that she couldn’t run a group to save her life. One of the social workers looked like a hobbit. We tried not to look enviously at the other outpatient programs for medical issues that looked better funded and frankly, cleaner.

Eventually though, the program ran out for all of us (did I mention the insurance battles) and we tentatively agreed to try and keep meeting. Maybe every couple of weeks, we said? A potluck at one woman’s house? We did it and it went WELL. Then one night, at the last minute, we couldn’t get in touch with our host. She was busy trying to kill herself we later learned. When she got out of the coma we started meeting again but now on a weekly basis.

Every Friday in Alameda we sat for hours and hours and listened patiently to each other. There were 8 of us. I was actually the youngest at 31. Everyone else was somewhere between 40-60. But it didn’t matter. We all had some variety of depression. Others had some axis II stuff going on and maybe some substance abuse thrown in for fun. But we all had something in common: at one point, all of us had wanted to kill ourselves and we just wanted to keep each other ALIVE. It became a support group for people addicted to the idea that suicide was an answer.

I’m going to stage a reunion in May when we go back for a visit. It’ll have been almost 4 years since we were all together. I’ve missed them all so much.

All of them.

All of us are still alive.

All of us.

Worst day

2011-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve had a lot of “worst days” in my life. Some of them were clearly terrible horrible days:

- The birthday my dad strangled me

- The day I tried to go to high school but was hospitalized instead

- The day they locked me in isolation

- The day I tried to die but was arrested instead

- The day I help my first set of commitment papers

- The day I tried to go back to the hospital voluntarily but was arrested instead

- A couple days later when the PHP I’d been attending for 1.5 years kicked me out over the phone for the above incident

On all these days, the defining characteristic was the sense that reality had completely broken down. Suddenly, all light and air was bent, as if through a lens. Anything off to the side was clouded in a blur but those things immediately in front of me seemed crystal clear. This Terrible Thing was happening and I could perceive every last detail of it in painful detail. I remember the way those rooms looked. The cracks on the ceiling of the first hospital’s admitting room. The size of the piece of birthday cake in front of me. The feel of the black, metal pay phone in the hallway of the hospital. The way sound reverberated off the Plexiglas window of the Side Room.

Sometimes this fracture of the fabric of space was helpful – a reminder that this shit wasn’t going to work anymore. There was something I was doing that I needed to Knock OFF. Get away from my parents. Get away from these hospitals, these policemen. These were not moments where I should linger.

Other times, it just felt as if I were living through a traumatic brain injury – a concussive blast in slow motion that was gradually creating tiny shears throughout my grey matter that would never heal. Afterwards, nothing would ever quite be the same - like an indelible mental limp.

I had one of those days a couple weeks ago. Nothing dramatic like a hospitalization or an arrest, just a horrible, horrible day where literally every possible thing that could go wrong did. All throughout, I tried to remember non-dramatic terrible days like this that I'd survived to tell about before:

- The day snow chains ripped out the ABS on my sports car just before my skis were stolen

- The handful of horrible, terrible, cry-all-night fights we’ve ever had as a couple

- They day we were thrown out of a B&B and went wandering across the muddy Scottish countryside, looking for a place that didn’t exist

- The day I met a professor who was having the kind of architecture career I wanted and realized I wasn’t nearly strong enough to do that

On all those days I still felt the same brain-splitting panic, the same cognitive overload during each of them. The feeling that

This. Is. A. Crisis.

And You. You are not capable of handling such things.

What happened a couple of weeks ago? It’s barely worth mentioning. I got up early to drive my husband to the airport through a snowstorm so I started the day exhausted. I drove to work a couple hours later through a subsequent ice storm to arrive at work a scared, angry mess. I returned home at 9:30 to discover that we had what I thought was a propane leak (terrifying) but turned out to be an empty tank (infuriating). For three hours I ran around the yard in the dark and freezing rain, calling anyone I could think of who could help, digging feet of ice and snow off of every surface, worrying that I was about to blow all of our worldly possessions and myself and the cat, sky high. I felt alone and terrified and confused.

- How could all this be happening and why had the fates conspired against little old me?

- How did I wind up so alone?

- Why did time and space seem so flexible and tangible all of a sudden?

- Why did everything seem so muffled and how long had I been shoveling?

And by the end when the heat was back on and my head was throbbing and sleep and food seemed like irrelevant novelties, I sat with that familiar old feeling: I don’t know how many more days like this can I face.

hidden in plain sight

2011-01-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

It has been an extremely long time since I last posted. I didn’t exactly abandon this blog so much as I forgot I HAD a blog.

Why…? Well, I’ve been in hiding. Not any kind of witness-protection, government-sponsored kind of “official” hiding. More like hiding from the world and everything in it. If you recall (why would you – it’s been 3 years) we received some bad news in early 2008 that we could never have children of our own. It was devastating in a fuck-this-shit-I’m-giving-up kind of way. And giving up looked different for each of us. For me it looked like: bury self in job and wifely tasks. I figured if I could just dig myself a predictable little groove then nothing (good or bad) could ever find me and I’d be safe from future disappointments. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I stopped answering the phone or taking vacations. It was more of a mental program to keep me busy so that I didn’t have to think or feel:

8-9am: get up, make coffee, feed cat, kiss husband good-bye as he leaves for work

9am-12pm: work on computer

12-2pm: shower, eat leftovers for lunch, drive to work

2-7pm: work at work

7-9pm: drive to gym, workout while reading iphone, drive home, shower

9-11pm: eat dinner while watching DVR’d shows, work on computer more

11pm-8am: read in bed, sleep

Repeat as needed. On weekends I just replaced work at work with housework and voila! A pattern that allowed me to fill all mental space with work and the other minutia of life. Have I been productive at work – absolutely. They’re delighted with the robot they hired. My boss said yesterday that he wishes modern science had progressed to the point where they could clone me. Have I kept a well run home – yes. Our house and personal finances are tidier than 99% of Americans. (that remaining 1% are people that live in those little mobile 200 square foot homes and own two changes of clothes – oh how I envy them…) But have I really been living the last couple of years? No. I’ve been hiding, afraid to even turn on a radio station for fear of what havoc that unoccupied mental space will wreak.

So what is it that I’m so afraid to think about? How about the final, unassailable realization that despite all our efforts, we have become the local weird-o’s; different enough from the rest of society to no longer take pleasure in any of the things that mankind has created to entertain/distract ourselves from the fact that life is nasty, brutish and short. About the only things that seem to make us crack a smile are old Simpsons reruns, the odd Robot Chicken Sketch, theoatmeal and some old George Carlin videos. The only things that hold our interest are long, complicated movies, work, books and the Internet. We have jobs that are purely academic – we trade purely in ideas – which is pretty different from most of 2011 America.

We don’t have kids so that immediately alienates us from our now child-obsessed culture – oh, and not to mention all our friends who are knee-deep in exactly what they should be at this point in their lives: child rearing. Add all this to the years of trauma we’re both recovering from and well, we don’t feel like we fit in ANYWHERE.

I have a desire to return to the world of the living. I do. But this desire is consistently derailed by the reality that life just keeps getting harder and harder and harder. The easiest way to deal with the mounting difficulty is to lose myself in the program. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Put on movie, zone out, go to bed. Turn on computer, surf around, go to bed. Take on more work, look up, years have passed.

Blame v. Shame '08

2008-10-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been watching the debates and it’s got me thinking about how I just don’t understand conflict. I know the stakes are very, very high for this election. I don’t fault them for being passionate. It’s the stupid underhanded crap that bugs me. The thing that bothers me the most is how they continuously call each other liars. McCain will get up and accuse Obama of something. Then Obama will get up and say that no, McCain isn’t right, that he really did vote for that bill or whatever. Then he’ll say its McCain who did the Very Bad Thing. Then McCain will mutter horseshit under his breath and the moderator will interrupt and the whole cycle will start all over again. I like Obama because I agree with his approach and his positions but ultimately they’re both politicians and they both bug me. In my perfect election, the two candidates would lay out their platforms on the internet and then people would choose based on whatever plan they agreed with. None of this partisan bickering and nonsense.

But I don’t even like listening to people argue on the radio. One thing that’s bugged me since I moved to the east coast is the predominance of call-in shows on the local NPR station. In California, it seemed like there were more informational programs. I figure, I listen to the radio to hear a summary of what the most intelligent people are saying about a certain issue. If I wanted to hear what some idiot with a phone who couldn’t formulate an idea to safe his life thought, I’d go to the local hardware store. I can’t stand listening to people go back and forth, back and forth without there being a clear winner. Surely someone must be able to make a complex and well-stated argument these days? It seems like nobody puts any thought into how they put their point across.

But I know that I’m a rare case – someone’s who’s almost allergic to conflict. I hate making even the smallest mistakes because I assume someone’s going to take issue with me. If only it was within my ability to just do everything perfectly, then nobody would ever have a reason to fault me. But perfection isn’t attainable and someone’s always going to judge you.

- - -

I’ve been worrying a lot this week that our neighbors are judging us. We had to cut down a very large, very pretty, very old tree that sits smack dab in the middle of our front lawn. It wouldn’t be so bad except that we live on one of the major streets in town – right on the scenic route that winds along the shoreline. Dozens of runner, bicyclists, and classic cars roll by every day. I was sitting in my living room this morning, watching the people go by and thinking about how we need to get the curtains hung. Because, now that we’ve chopped down the tree, I can’t stand the audience. Before, when people went by, I liked thinking about how they saw our house. It’s very cute and scenic and I liked to think they were admiring it and maybe even a tiny bit jealous. Now, I wonder if they’re thinking, “Those young whippersnappers – they cut down that historic tree. Obviously, they have no respect for anything and they’re going to just destroy that property.” I drove through the center of town this morning and saw a bunch of people talking in front of the hardware store. I wondered if they were talking about those weird new people who cut down that gorgeous old tree – didja see it? I’m almost expecting an angry note in my mailbox. I feel like I want to post a sign on the front lawn that reads: “I swear, the tree was dying and was a hazard and we hated to cut it down and we promise that we’re going to plant another one soon!” And then next to it, there would be another little sign that read, “No, we are not selling firewood.”

Where's the fire?

2008-08-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, we’ve officially been back on the east coast for one full year. Hooray. As it always is with these things, sometimes it feels like it’s been only a couple of months, sometimes it feels like much, much longer.

I had a lot of goals for this year – things I wanted to accomplish, changes I wanted to make. And I accomplished a LOT of them:

We bought (and moved into) a house in a cool little town
I made some new friends
I found two good therapists
I moved my piano here and started practicing again
I found a new job that I like and that pays well
We switched to all eco-friendly cleaning products
We got to know (and spend time with) our 2 year-old nephew

And when I look at that list – it looks like a LOT! Big stuff too. So, why is it that I only focus on the goals I haven’t accomplished?

I wanted to get down to Manhattan and see old friends
I wanted to travel (visiting my parents doesn’t count)
I wanted to volunteer and become active in the mental health consumer community
I wanted to hike and bike and paddle and get outside
I wanted to finish my book
And join a choir
And eat local and healthier
And, of course… I wanted to exercise more

I see other people doing these things I want to do and I get jealous. And then, instantly, I switch and judge myself. I call myself lazy. And then I try to do more.

Sometimes, I think it’s great that there’s so much I want to accomplish in this life. I’m glad that I’m passionate and engaged and have so many interests. And sometimes, I think I just need to RELAX. What is the big, fat rush? I’m only 33. I’ll get around to everything. Maybe it’s a vestige of being suicidal for most of my life.

Just like everyone else

2008-08-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

My husband and I bought a house. (Hence the hiatus in blogging.)

In general, it's been a nerve wracking experience. We’ve been renting apartments since college so we haven’t had to fix a faucet, mow a lawn or paint a wall in a very, VERY long time. It’s been a scary process - there’s so much to learn. We’ve had to learn about mortgages, taxes, septic systems, and home-owners insurance. They all seemed like stressful, grown-up things. What if you get them wrong? What if you make the wrong decisions? It was a lot to think about. It’s almost so much that some days, I didn't want to bother. I just wanted to curl up and stay in an apartment forever.

But, everyday, for some unknown reason, I didn't give up. I keep searching online for the best house. I kept driving around neighborhoods and talking to friends and going over our budget. At night, when I should've been sleeping, I thought about gardens and curtains and all things I needed to learn about. But something, some deep-seeded drive, kept pushing me to become a homeowner. I think that there’s a part of me that saw buying my first home as a rite of passage. It’s seemed like a necessary step to becoming a full-fledged adult - and I was curious to see what THAT was like.

And so we found a house - and fell in love. It's a beautiful house in a beautiful place. It's way better than we ever thought we'd have. It's like someone decided to make the perfect house, then put it on the market, and waited almost a year until we came to find it.

So we're learning - what it's like to be a homeowner, a member of a town. I keep wondering - will we develop a kinship with the people who have lived in this house over the last 150 years, with the people down the street? We’ll get to go to town hall meetings and decide if our tax dollars will pay for that addition to the library. We’ll get to rake leaves and plow our driveway and buy appliances and do all those things that everyone else does. Everyone else.

Today we bought mulch. It was wonderful.

Completely unrelated

2008-03-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was reading postsecret this morning and one of the secrets reminded me of something unusually hilarious that happened this fall.

I was deep in the throws of "account management" during the months of August and September this year. We had just moved and it seemed like all I did was try to remember all our important accounts - bank, insurance, magazines, ect. - and spend hours calling them up so they'd have our new contact info.

But when I tried to login to our new dental insurance plan, I couldn't remember what our login name was. I tried all the old standards, our email addresses, everything. But nothing was correct. So finally, I called their tech support line.

"Can you give me a clue?" I asked the lady on the other end. "Like a category or something?"

"Ummmm..." She said hesitantly. "Well, do you have a pet?"

"Yes!" I gave her our cat's name. "Is that it?"

"No..." She said. Then after a long pause, "It's ok. I'll spell it for you. A-S-S-M-O-N-K-E-Y."

"Oh. Um. Thanks." I said horrified. "Um, I'm sorry. When my husband gets frustrated he tends to swear at the computer. Let's change that to something else, ok?"

Now what...?

2008-03-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

So. I'm back.

And all the tests are back. (the incisions... they're still healing)

We can't have children. At least, not biological ones.

Apparently, we're going to be the weird people in the neighborhood who don't have kids and nobody knows why but frankly they'd just as soon avoid our house on Halloween because, well, grown-ups without kids are just depressing and creepy.

I just keep telling myself that we'll have lots of disposable income. That we'll be able to travel a lot. That we'll keep eating spicy foods with lots of vegetables and won't have to buy jumbo packs of frozen Costco chicken nuggets. My car will stay snot and goldfish cracker free. There won't be any knocked-up, meth-addicted, baggy-pantsed, fourteen-year-olds with 1.8 GPAs sneaking out to have oral sex at OUR house.

On the other hand... no strollers. No onesies. No first grade school music recitals with construction-paper pilgrim hats. No first Mets game. No grandkids. Nobody to take care of us when we're old. Nobody to give my childhood blocks or music box or matchbox cars to.

Sure. Maybe we'll try to adopt. Maybe we won't get our hopes up only to have them smushed down by the malevolent ogre we call fate. Maybe we won't get our hearts broken all over again. But honestly, if you know us, that possibility seems pretty absurd. For us, life = one bad thing after another.

Time flies when you're... fucked.

2007-12-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

Remember that last post? The one about the fertility clinic?

Right. So we went. We got lots of tests. (By the way, if anyone ever offers to take real-time x-rays while injecting iodine into your uterus - I'd pass. Ouch.)

And, (drum roll please) we're fucked. And not the good kind of fucked - we're screwed (and not the good kind of screwed). The "Houston, we have a problem" type of problem. A LARGE problem.

I'm not going into details but suffice it to say that the odds aren't good. According to our doc, there's a 10% chance we can still get pregnant with medication. There's a 10-20% chance it'll take surgery and IVF. And there's a 70% chance that we'll never, EVER, be able to have a biological child of our own.

And here's the absolute kicker. The odds that we'd be able to adopt are equally grim. Few people/foreign countries would be brave/stupid enough to give me, a thrice committed formerly suicidal, alcoholic borderline, a real-live human child. (Gotta tie everything back to the crazy - this is, after all, a blog about mental illness. Wouldn't want to disappoint.)

[many pages of bitter musings redacted]

So. Here we are. Potentially childless OR facing surgery on tender, unmentionable bits.

Fan. Tastic.

Maybe we'll just buy some more cats.

PS. If you know me in real life, don't call. We're in a bitter/nasty/tragic mood and we're not giving out details. I'll be in touch when we know more.

PPS. Yeah, I know, what did I expect when we moved back to New England... but, COME ON. Is there any freezing rain/ice/sleet left or is it all stuck to my car and my driveway? Dear god, I hate you too. Love, Juniper

Musings of my inner luddite

2007-10-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we’re at the point here where I think I can safely say…

I’m not getting a baby anytime soon.

We’ve been trying to get pregnant for fourteen months with absolutely no success. Yes, ok, we didn’t give it our BEST try every single month. We were stressed and busy and tired some of those months. In December and August we didn’t try at all. (Neither moving boxes nor my parents’ house at the holidays gets us in the mood.)

But most of those months… we did everything right. I read the books. I charted my temperature. I got real up close and personal with all my… well suffice it to say that I learned A LOT about my reproductive cycle.

And now, in addition to my baby-less state, I’m noticing some… unpleasant changes. At least five times since we’ve been trying, my period’s been a WEEK early. Not a few days early – a full, freaking WEEK. And when this happens, it lasts days longer than usual.

So this week, I went to see my new gynecologist. Seems like a nice lady. Wasn’t horrified by my psychiatric history.

She says I have “unexplained infertility.” Fantastic. Just what I wanted. Another diagnosis for my collection.

She referred me to the University Fertility Clinic. As if my weeks weren’t busy enough doctor’s visits.

You wanna know what I think?! (WARNING: No, honestly, you don’t and should probably stop reading RIGHT NOW.)

I think this is natural selection at work. I’m the weak zebra in the herd. I’ve known it for a while now.

My eyesight’s crap.
My GI system’s temperamental.
My psyche’s all broken and held together with scotch tape.
There’s massive gobs of heart disease in my family.
I’m a good 30 pounds overweight.
I have ingrown toenails and a urinary tract that gets infected if you look at it wrong.
I can’t even hold a freakin’ soda can for pete’s sake!

If I were left to fend for myself in the wild I’d be eaten by a cheetah in about 30 seconds. (Ok, I’m smart - maybe I could outfox it for a few minutes but that’s probably about it.)

So why, given all of the above, do I have the arrogance, the gall to think that I have the RIGHT to reproduce? I’d just be weakening the species. Sometimes, I wonder if the responsible thing would be to leave well enough alone, listen to nature and forget medical science. Maybe it’s better to let the bad DNA end with me.

Except for my husband. He's got some pretty nice DNA. It'd be a shame to let that go to waste.

How I got my (new) therapist II

2007-10-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

Step 4: Call my insurer. My new therapist’s clinic didn’t take my husband’s insurance, despite the fact that he works for the biggest employer in town… But really, who can blame them for not wanting to negotiate their rates down and submit to scrutiny from case managers. So, nervously, I called my insurance company.

Um… I said, I just moved here from California. I was seeing a therapist there. I want to see someone here. I have a history and diagnosis of major depression. (I didn’t say Borderline because – hey, insurance doesn’t cover personality disorders! Subterfuge - what fun.) Oh, no problem, they said. “You have unlimited visits and we don’t require pre-authorization for visits.” That sounds… good, I thought.

Um… what if I find a therapist I like but they’re not in your network? That’s fine, they said. “Just download the claim from our website, submit it and we’ll pay 70%.” Also, not terrible news.

Step 5: Paperwork. I asked my therapist if they’d help me with the claims. No, she said, “we’re not really set up for that.” Uh… I’m not really ‘set up’ for it either! I’m just the patient. But I don’t have a choice! Good point, she conceded.

So I did the forms. They were incredibly complicated. But I’d filled out similar forms in CA so I worked it out. I called the insurance company one last time, just to double-check some details. Oh yeah, I said, “as long as I’m calling, I wanted to ask. You guys pay 70% of ‘reasonable and customary’ for out-of-network providers. What do you consider reasonable and customary?” I was put on hold. For a long time.

Turns out, they consider $130 per hour a reasonable rate. My therapist charges $150. That meant that each week I’d be paying 30% of $130 PLUS that extra, unreasonable, uncustomary $20. Add to that the $15 per week for group. So my therapy was going to cost us about $75 a week. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a LOT of money.

Step 6: Negotiate. I went to my therapist and oulined the situation. I asked if the clinic would be willing to offer me a reduced rate. Would they lower their hourly rate just $20 or even $10 to make up for the difference in the insurance? It’s not my fault they don’t take my insurance. It’s not my fault the insurance sets their rates absurdly low… I picked THEM instead of some in-network bozo that knows nothing about personality disorders*.

*My insurance company did provide me with a list of hundreds of in-network providers. How would I use this, I wonder? How would I know if any of these people know how to treat my VERY controversial, VERY divisive, VERY tricky diagnosis? Should I call all of them and see who’s taking new clients? The good ones are likely booked up. Should I interview the ones who ARE available? That would take lots of visits and co-pays! And ultimately, I’d still be paying $30-40 a week for an in-network provider.

My therapist said that she thought it was a reasonable request. She’d talk to her partners and get back to me. She got back to me today. She said that neither she nor practice could afford to reduce their rates right now. She suggested we talk about it again in January and see if things have changed. I was disappointed, but I felt… responsible.

Step 7: Pray. I’m sure there’s a yearly maximum or some other catch hidden somewhere.

How I got my (new) therapist I

2007-10-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Research. I asked all my therapists in CA if they knew anyone in New England that specialized in Borderline Personality Disorder or DBT. (I figured if they do DBT, then they know all about Borderline) Then, I searched online for “DBT therapists in my state.” When I was done, I had a list of about a dozen people. I could eliminate a couple of people just based on their titles: One sounded too intensive. One ran a partial hospitalization program. One worked at a mental health center for low-income and low-functioning clients. One specialized in depression. Two were researchers, not practitioners.

Step 2: Phone interviews. I emailed or called the rest of the list. Most, but not all, got back to me and said that they’d be interested in working with me. Then I had a phone interview with the remaining few. By which I mean that I interviewed THEM. I eliminated one person because she was only available one day a week. I eliminated another because I didn’t need couples therapy.

Step 3: In person interviews. By now, there were only two left from my original list*. I made appointments to meet with them as soon as I arrived on the east coast.

*Along the way, the people I had contacted had given me more names of providers. I discovered, to my delight, that I had actually, on my own, already found and contacted almost ALL of the practitioners within 10 miles of my home! I decided to hang onto the other names in case the first couple didn’t work out.

When we finally met, I interviewed them, politely, in depth. I told them about what I wanted and needed. I asked them about their perspectives on Borderline. And I tried to listen to my initial, gut impressions. I liked one a lot. I didn’t like the other one. A lot.

But I’d found someone I liked. Now I just had to pay for her.

I can live without the bon-bons. But daytime TV... that's a different story.

2007-10-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

So I got myself some employment… and instantly became BUSY. (hence the lack of blogging in recent days).

I kinda had to get some part-time work – unemployment was eating holes in my self-esteem. I don’t wanna work full time but it turns out, I gotta do SOMETHING or else my head starts to feel all bored and slosh-y.

Getting the jobs was easy to the point of being embarrassing. Basically, I sent my resume to six Craigslist ads for tutoring positions. A DAY later, five of them wanted to hire me. It took the 6th a couple of weeks to read their email and then they wanted me too. This of course, made me feel completely proud and guilty and conflicted all at the same time. (Ah black and white thinking, my dear old pal… what would I do without you.) It’s nice to be wanted but getting a job shouldn’t be that easy! I’m left assuming that all those Ivy League words on my resume are doing the heavy lifting – and not me. (Cue the impostor syndrome.)

But could I just take one job and be satisfied? Oh no, I had to pick two. It’s like I’m “controlled by [a] Puritan Lady, some witch of industry who lived inside us, kicking us with her buckled shoes, making maniacal demands: every minute had to be accounted for, an arrow aimed at a target.” Also, It turns out that I’m a sucker who can’t say no. Must. Please. Everyone.

So, on Monday & Wednesday afternoons I’m tutoring at a non-profit charter school in the “inner-city." On Tuesday, Thursday & Friday afternoons I’m teaching at a for-profit, boutique tutoring center in a fancy suburb that provides tutoring from a psychological perspective.

The Monday/Wednesday job has been good for the soul. It's only a two hour commitment each day and I get to feel like I'm doing good - helping kids who really need it. On the other hand, it's a bit depressing. These inner-city kids are SO behind and I feel like my little interventions can only make a tiny dent. At least the student I’m paired with is finally starting to look at me like a human - not a very pale, alien, life form.

The Tuesday/Thursday/Friday job has been almost the polar opposite. Most of the kids I’m working with have limitless resources. AND they’d love to fill up all my free time. I'm supposed to work for four hours on Tuesdays & Thursdays and attend a staff meetings and professional development lectures for a couple hours on Fridays - only about a 10-hour commitment… right? But, add a couple of extra hours of training a day and last week I was working almost 20 hours. I mentioned that the Monday/Wednesday job ends in December and they’re already planning to fill up those days too.

It’s flattering that they want to spend all that time developing my skills and selling my services to clients but…

Do I let on that I have a mental health disability and can’t do everything? If I tell them I have a disability, I open myself up to possible discrimination and judgments. If I don't tell them I have a disability, I worry that I'll come across as this slacker dilettante who only works part time because her husband keeps her in bon-bons and daytime TV. (ok granted, I DO watch a lot of daytime TV...) I know I shouldn't disclose my diagnosis in some settings but sometimes I feel like people just won't SEE the real me unless I do. I know that this is probably the reverse of how people with other disabilities see the issue but then again, with mental illness, people can't see your broken bits.

I don't bite (anymore)

2007-10-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

So last Friday, I finally worked up my courage and wrote Paul & Denise a note. I tried to make it as non-crazy sounding as possible.

(although, I decided at the last minute to leave the note on their door instead of putting it in the mail which in retrospect may be construed as a bit stalker-ish...)

I said that we had just moved to the area because of my husband's new job (which I mentioned so they could Google him and see how nice and cute and respectable he looks on his website). I said that I heard they lived nearby and was amazed to discover (through the alumni directory) that they lived in the same apartment complex. I said that if they wanted to get together we'd love to see them but if they didn't that I wished them all the best. (I wanted to respect their sense of privacy. If I am/have become a horrible memory, I don't want them to feel... invaded. I mean, they lived here first.)

But I never heard from them. Now I'm thinking I probably never will. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I emailed a friend from college to tell her about the note. She congratulated me on being brave. She pointed out that it's good to say things that are lingering in our brains and won't let us move on. At least I won't have to worry about awkwardly running into them in the parking lot. They know where I am now. If they don't want to see me, they can take preventative measures. They can avoid me like the plague.

Still, the whole thing has left me feeling a bit... like a menace to society.

I keep trying to tell myself that lots of people (even people without Borderline!) get into feuds. Lots of people have an ex or a nemesis they worry about running into. But if that's true, why do I feel like this conflict (and it's associated anxiety) is yet another tax I have to pay because of this disorder? Why do I feel like there are scores of people out there who remember me as difficult, pathetic or just plain nuts? How do I explain to them that I've changed, that I've earned a second chance? That it wasn't really my fault that I acted that way but I AM sorry for my behavior.

I wish I could get all those damaged relationships out of the friendship freezer. I'd warm them up and tell them how much I've missed them for all these years.

All I want for christmas is a forklift

2007-10-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

So I’m back. Sorry for the hiatus.

To say I’ve been busy would be the understatement of the year. There were THINGS to take care of.

You see, every single THING we owned (including our car, our bodies and our cat) had to be carefully packed and hauled across the burning August wastelands of all those red states. Man is it hot and dusty and scary in those states. (They don’t clean their gas station restrooms very well either.)

Then all those THINGS had to be unpacked, cleaned and obsessively put away somewhere in an aesthetically pleasing pattern.

All the THINGS we couldn’t move had to be replaced – so in came new ink cartridges, food, toilet paper, spray cleaners, cat litter, and light bulbs.

Finally, every little THING needed to be re-registered and re-approved to exist in our new state.

Gotta organize the money – new checkbooks, grocery discount cards, jobs and IDs to park at the jobs. And 4 million change of address forms so everyone knows where to find us and our money.
Gotta organize the bodies – new health, dental & eye insurance, a new veterinarian, gym memberships, optometrists, and gynecologists.
Gotta organize the car – new oil, license plates, registration, and insurance policies.
Gotta organize the ass – new couches, scratching posts and security systems to protect the precious couches. Oh, and new gas, power, phone, and cable TV subscriptions to make sitting on the couch worthwhile.
And don’t forget the brain – new therapists to organize the brain, of course. More on that later.

So now that everyTHING is all clean and legal… now we just have to live.

Oh yeah. And buy a house. So we can do all this all over again in a few months.

Like “Goodnight Moon” only in reverse

2007-08-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well the movers were sure productive! They were supposed to come and pack yesterday and load the truck today but instead they decided to do everything in one day.

Soooo… we are leaving town in an hour - a day early.

Yesterday evening felt ODD. We furiously cleaned the apartment until it almost looked… well, it still looked like crap. This felt pretty stupid (since the place is a crap shack and the new owners tell us they're remodeling) but we don't want to take ANY chances of losing our security deposit. And then we spent one last night in our now empty home. My husband kept saying “it still feels like we live here… but we don’t.”

And honestly, it’s about time because this apartment well… it tried our patience.

Good-bye front door that stick so bad I have to yank it open with two hands and my body weight.

Good-bye ugly view of very loud neighbor’s balcony.

Good-bye seasonal leak and big ugly patch on the ceiling.

Good-bye dozens of cracks in the walls.

Good-bye filthy wall heater (yes the only heat in the entire 1000 square feet!) that smelled and threatened to blow us all up.
Good-bye porch so filthy we never used you except to grill.
Good-bye nasty-ass broken down old filthy cabinets. There is not enough fire in the world to clean you. And say good-bye to your friend, burnt formica countertop.
Good-bye rickety shower doors with not-so-decorative doves.
Good-bye window & bonus soap holder - each with hole rusted through.
Good-bye bathroom floor with so many, many uncleanable gunked-up caulk-filled patch jobs.

So good-bye apartment and good riddance. We never really liked you.

And good-bye Bay Area. We really liked living here for the past eight years. We’ll miss your sometimes green, sometimes brown hills. And your grass cutting goats.

Wish us luck.

A world of thanks

2007-08-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Oh jeez… this could get maudlin.

I had my typical pre-move day today – lots of cleaning, packing and organizing. But (interspersed with the 400 change-of-address calls to every company we have an “account” with) I could detect the growing scent of inevitability.

Tomorrow is my last session with my psychiatrist.

I’ve really liked working with this guy and I don’t know how I’m going to say goodbye. I worry it could go like this.

When I first met him four and a half years ago, he sort of reminded me of a young Santa Claus - heavyset and jolly with a graying beard and thinning hair. But THOROUGH. In all the years of meeting new doctors, I'd never had such a thorough intake. Besides the usual medical and administrative paperwork, we talked about my entire history. He asked me about each phase of my life: how it felt, what did others think of me, and what problems did I have. I gave him a sketch of my parents and all my other relatives. The interest he showed was so intense that he almost seemed a little hyper.

But that’s just what he’s like. Every day. So engaged he’s almost… wired.

We shared a relentless determination to figure problems out. When we made a discovery our smug satisfaction couldn’t be contained – it was like discovering an extra limb. I’d get pissed when I couldn’t make use of every second of our time. Our discussions could get pretty abstract, filled with odd metaphors and references. We traded favorite psychology books. Like sleuths, we traced my deepest motivations back through action, motivation and behavior. We decoded my history like a puzzle - discovering the structure of my oh-so-labile emotions. He always seems glad to have a patient who was analytical and smart.

He could be a bit too bold at times but I liked that he had opinions about things. We didn’t always agree - my job as a patient was to exaggerate my misery and explain how things weren't working. His job was to exaggerate his competency and confidence. Normally, I liked how his sense of humor contrasted the extreme seriousness of our task. Sometimes though, it gave me the sense he didn’t think my problems were a big deal, that I was making a lot out of nothing. I'd get annoyed and so we’d fight and bicker. I hated that he had all this experience and information I wasn’t privy to. He’s seen hundreds of patients so maybe my problems seemed tiresome. Maybe I was freaking out while he was just screwing around.

Most importantly, he let himself be warm and genuine and close in an appropriate way. When I was going through a particularly rough patch, he’d call me while he was driving home from the office. Doctor-patient bullshit be dammed. We were both living, breathing, human beings and treated each other like such. Were we a good match? Yes. Was it good luck? Sure, probably. Did he do a good job? No question about it.

Sometimes it made it harder, knowing that under any other circumstances we’d be friends. And I didn’t want to NEED his attention because… well, what would I do with all the other hours of the week? Besides, I was tired of being sick. I wanted to be better. And he wanted me to be better.

And so,

gradually

and with his help,

I got better. Finally.

Thank you Mike. When nothing else did, our conversations gave me a sense of purpose.

Plan B

2007-08-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

Wow. I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in almost a month. We have been busy – lots of good-bye dinners, last appointments, and calls to the east coast.

There’s so much going on right now… it feels like our entire lives are changing. We’re moving across country. My job has ended. My husband’s new job comes with double the prestige and salary. Not to mention the fact that we’re getting new sofas.

And thankfully (THANKFULLY!) very little of it has to do with my mental illness. Thus, since I started this blog as a forum to talk about how I live with my mental illness, I haven’t really been sure what to blog about lately.

But... I COULD talk endlessly about all the anxiety I’ve been dealing with lately. Or, more simply put, worry. Lots and lots and LOTS of worry. My fears stick (incessantly) to a few major themes – movers, security deposits, apartments, ect.

My biggest fears center on how I’ll manage my mental illness after the move - Will I fall apart without my therapists in California? Will I find new ones who aren’t idiots? Will our new insurance company pay or will I need to sell a kidney? I’m also worried about my tendency to isolate. Will I make friends and find support groups? Will I find some work or value to add to the world or will it just be the TV, the new sofa and me?

- - - - - - - - -

So where do I channel these fears? I obsess. About pointless things. Like liquids.

Um… liquids? Juniper?

Well, you know, you shouldn’t really move liquids across country. They can spill or leak. In the middle of August, they can get cooked and explode in the moving truck. And believe me… everyone’s house has a lot of liquids. There are three major categories: cleaning supplies, beauty products and food. Oh and don’t forget the propane and white gas for grilling and camping. Yeah… those really can’t come.

So Juniper, you may be thinking, throw them all away before you move. Done and done!

No way Jose. I paid good money for those bottles of shampoo and pasta sauce. I have this irrational need to use them all up before we leave. This requires some planning and discipline.

And maybe a few spreadsheets.

Don’t even get me started on the fancy mustards. HOW did we accumulate four jars of fancy mustard? There’s no way we’re going to finish all four jars before the movers come on Monday. And there is no plan B – I can’t give them away because they’re already opened. Sigh. I guess they’re going in the trash.

- - - - - - - - -

Betcha forgot that I what I’m REALLY worried about is getting depressed and isolated after the move. See how good I am at avoidance and obfuscation?

Postscript: after writing this, I discovered a can of spray shellac. Damn. How does one properly pawn this off on a friend?

My week in pictures

2007-07-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Damn! Has it been a week already? Man we've been busy!

Wednesday:

Put deposit down on new apartment!
Went for a run in 90 degree heat… ow.
Had dinner and watched fireworks with friends who gave us this (thus proving that they know us pretty well):

Thursday:

The moving company informs us we own 6000lbs of crap. Approximately ½ of which are books…
Sold husband’s car in less than 12 hours! (thanks Craigslist!)

Friday:

Went to my depression support group.
Attempted to do yoga DVD.
Finished this kick-ass biography about recovery from mental illness:

Saturday:

Watched 4000 hours of TV:

Attempted to do aerobics DVD.

Sunday:

Bought cheap sundresses for our upcoming vacation to Hawaii!

Monday:

Swam laps at my favorite pool. Tried to savor it since they don’t have outdoor pools surrounded by redwoods where we're going in New England.
Bought nifty Alyssa Ettinger coasters:

Late Monday night:

We notice (at 9:30pm) that the cat is limping badly. We get all paranoid and take her to kitty ER. $300 and one x-ray later we learn that nothing’s broken – it’s probably just a sprain. We are instructed to “jam some kitty Aleve down her throat and call us if it doesn’t improve.” Oh, and by the way, the x-ray shows signs of arthritis. Goody. (although, according to the article I read in “Cat Fancy Magazine” in the waiting room at 1am last night, 90-100% of 12 year old cats have some arthritis which makes me feel a bit better.)
We're woken up at 3:30am by a cat fight outside. Both my husband and I sit straight up, immediately worried that it's our cat crying out in pain. We call her name and she comes limping into the bedroom - ka thump... ka thump... ka thump.

Tuesday:

First day of the SAT prep class I’m teaching this week. 3 hours of defining words. “Juniper, what does justify mean? What does deception mean? How about alleviate and wary? Juniper, why do they make these questions so hella tricky?”
Bought mom a Recycled Kimono Handbag for her upcoming birthday:

I think it's safe to say, my ATM card doesn't know what hit it...

Now I ask you... who won the argument?

2007-07-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

WHEN: today
WHERE: inside my head
WHAT: a continuation of the never-ending argument between the nagging, anxious voice in my head and me, Juniper.

Juniper: I guess the UTI’s finally gone. It took a week but I’m finally starting to feel back to normal.

Voice: No thanks to you.

Juniper: What the hell are you talking about? When the gallon of cranberry juice didn’t help I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. I took the antibiotics and now I’m better.

Voice: Still. You did it all wrong.

Juniper: HOW. How did I do it all wrong?! You make no sense!

Voice: The urinalysis wasn't conclusive. You can't be sure you even HAD a UTI. Maybe you were just being paranoid.

Juniper: No. That can happen. I'd been drinking a LOT of fluids. The doctor didn't think I was faking it. That's what you're worried about right - that he thought I was a faker. If he thought that, he wouldn't have given me the antibiotics.

Voice: Still. You got the wrong antibiotics. You didn’t make the doctor listen to you.

Juniper: I tried… I told him I had good luck with old-fashioned antibiotics like penicillin in the past but he wanted to give me that ‘Macrobid’ stuff. He was just too busy and I didn’t think it was worth it to argue with him.

Voice: Whatever it was, it didn’t agree with you. Up until last night you thought it had messed up your stomach.

Juniper: I didn’t think that – YOU kept telling me it had. But it didn’t. I’m fine today. It was probably just my IBS. Or the lactose intolerance. I don't have the greatest GI system, you know.

Voice: Still. It could have. Don’t forget that Cipro you took in 2001 – it knocked out your intestinal flora. Or at least they THINK it did. You’re so irresponsible; you never even went back to the hospital the next day with a stool sample like the doctor told you too.

Juniper: It was September 11th. THE September 11th, 2001? I was a little busy. The world was coming to an end. Remember??

Voice: Still.

Juniper: What is that, your favorite word?

Voice: Ok, ok. So you’ve returned to health. Good for you. What are you going to do for the rest of the day?

Juniper: I’m going to the store. We’re out of canned cat food, vitamins and seltzer water.

Voice: Right now? The day before a holiday? The store will be mobbed! AND you just got your car detailed a few hours ago… now you want to drive it into a dirty parking lot? Aren't you trying to sell it?! And that seltzer water – it can’t be good for your stomach… Still, if you don’t get the cat food, you’ll be depriving the cat of wet food. Are you sure she’s ok? She’s been sleeping a lot…

Juniper: Dear god... If I beat on my head with a rock, would you go away or just shut up for a little while?

Havin’ little arguments with myself…

2007-07-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

WHEN: last Monday night
WHERE: inside my head
WHAT: argument between the nagging, anxious voice in my head and me, Juniper.

Juniper: Oh CRAP… I think I’m getting a UTI. Damn. Not another one! Why am I so susceptible to these?

Voice: It’s your fault Juniper. You’re just an icky, unclean girl.

Juniper: No, I’m not! Remember that ER doc who quizzed me about how to avoid UTI’s? He said I knew everything – that I could teach a course on how NOT to get them.

Voice: I remember. I remember that he SAID that if you know everything AND you still get UTI’s then there’s probably something wrong with your anatomy. You have bad kidneys or you have screwy plumbing. He said that if you keep getting them, you should get an ultrasound.

Juniper: Oh. Right. I remember. But my kidneys are fine - my shrink checked their function all the time when I was on Lithium. Besides, I had an ultrasound…

Voice: Yeah, when you were in third grade! You know, you saw that ER doc five years ago. You should’ve followed up on that.

Juniper: OK, I grant you, that was a while ago… but I’ve had other things to deal with.

Voice: Well, you don’t have the time right now to deal with getting to a referral and starting a series of tests with a urologist. You’re in the process of moving across the country, you know. Just add it to the long list of things to do when you get to New England. SIGH. Your new insurance company is going to LOVE you.

Juniper: Still, It’s not my fault.

Voice: Yes it is. Somehow it is. At the very least you should’ve pushed fluids. You knew you didn’t pee enough on Saturday…

Juniper: Ok, ok! You’re right. But I can do that now; I can nip it in the bud. I’ll go to the store first thing tomorrow morning and chug a huge bottle of cranberry juice. Ok?

Voice: Hrumph. We’ll see.

To be continued...

Let's give 'em something to talk about

2007-06-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

In the past week I've been emailing a lot of people, trying to make a lot of plans for our upcoming adventures. As a result, I've had the opportunity to read emails that other people sent about me. I didn't have to sneak around to read these - they were attached to replies or cc'd to me.

But reading them left me feeling strange, nonetheless. I assume people don't talk about me much - I'm not that interesting. But it felt odd to see what people say about me, even when they know I'm listening:

Example 1: from my mom to a friend who works at the Hawaii Tourism Bureau

"Hi J!

[paragraph of pleasantries deleted]

Our daughter and son-in-law will be moving from the west coast back to the east coast this summer. Our son-in-law just finished his post-doctorate work in the Bay Area. They have had a long struggle getting to this point. He will be going on to Very Famous University in the fall now. They’d like to take a much needed vacation to Hawaii, where neither have ever been, before leaving the west coast, in celebration of all their hard work. They’ve been at this for about eight years. Our daughter, Juniper, will be in touch with you soon to get some suggestions from you about where they should go. Any help that you can give them will be much appreciated by them and by us.

[more pleasantries] Hope all is well with you.

Best regards,

Juniper’s mom"

My thoughts: Jeez mom! "long struggle," "all their hard work," "at this for eight years!" You make it sound like we've been on a chain gang! OK granted, the past eight years have been hard, but the way she tells it, my husband barely managed to get by!

Example 2: letter from my husband's therapist to a friend of his in New England:

"Dear L,

I have a patient who is moving with his wife to take a job at Very Famous University. I’ve treated him for three years, with moderate success. V and I also treated his wife in group therapy for a time.

She is a borderline personality who has responded well to intense treatment and will be looking for a therapist in town. I would very much appreciate referrals for her. As you can appreciate, confidentiality is a high priority. Thanks.

Hope you and M are enjoying your summer,

B"

My thoughts: uh, apparently I've become a new kind of species: "A Borderline Personality." I know this is the way a lot of docs talk but can't I at least have a diagnosis? Do I have to BE my disorder?

My husband's reaction: "I've only had moderate success? What's he talking about?!"

Me: "Well, I wouldn't know since I've responded well..."

The Circle Game

2007-06-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Drum roll please…

We’ve made a decision. My husband took the job at Very Famous University (VFU) in New England. We would’ve preferred to stay on the west coast but none of those universities made him offers. Still, after we visited VFU a few weeks ago, it quickly became our first choice. It just felt right… familiar… like coming home. Literally.

You see, my husband grew up less than 50 miles from VFU. My hometown is less than 25 miles away. Most of our family and friends live just an hour or two away. When we moved to the Bay area in ’99 we tried to keep in touch, to visit at least once a year. But it’s taken a lot of effort. And a lot of the time we’ve felt pretty isolated. We’ve envied our friends who have the support of an extended family nearby.

I’m still scared to be leaving California, my therapists, my friends, my colleagues. But knowing that we won’t be so alone in our new home - it removes a lot of the anxiety. And, at our house, anything we can do to reduce anxiety is a good thing because we… we've been a little out of our minds with the stress of having to make such a big decision.

I can't believe we're going back home. My husband and I have lived in so many towns, so many states, even a couple of countries. I almost can't believe we have a home. It's surreal and eerie and kind of nice. It's like that song I've known since I was small... the one with the lyrics I can sing without even having to remember:

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on a carousel of time.
We can’t return, we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

- Joni Mitchell

Summer & Shame: part 4 - Full Circle

2007-06-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

But in the long run, I doubt the people at my camp would remember much about my troubled childhood. Maybe, somewhere in some file, it says that I was clingy and needy and troubled. But I’m sure there were lots of kids who wanted more attention from their counselors. Besides, it all happened so long ago… such ancient history.

But when I got into my late teens, I became a staff member. Whenever I wasn’t in school, I was working there. Those are some of the memories I cherish and regret the most. There are a lot of quirky kids in the world, but I was a needy, clingy, troubled young woman. In retrospect, I wonder if it was glaringly obvious.

I’d always planned to do the counselor-training program when I turned fifteen. It seemed like the perfect summer job; to become the strong role model I’d always looked up to. There was only one problem. I’d spent the spring in a locked psychiatric unit. My parents warned me that the camp might not want to employ me with such a history. When we called to ask the camp director said it was no problem. They trusted me – heck, they’d known me forever. My parents were slightly amazed but let me go.

It was wonderful. For the first time in months I was taking care of myself. At the end of the summer, I went camping alone, up in the hemlock forest for a couple of nights. It was part of the program, a test of our survival skills. At night, the sky was barely blue and everything else was black. I couldn’t see my sleeping bag just a foot away. The ground below felt hollow, layered with soft, brown needles. It was still warm and the air smelled clean, like the trees. I listened to the crickets and the rest of the world down by the lake. I felt strangely confident. I hadn’t just survived the hospitalization - I wanted to live.

For the next four summers, I was a full counselor. I loved being in charge. When the kids paid attention I taught them rappelling, respect, and the breaststroke. I became captain of the lifeguard team; my shoulders tanned while I watched the kids and twirled my whistle around my fingers. My hair hung almost to my waist and around my neck I wore a large green stone on a leather cord. I cuddled my girls through thunderstorms and gave them my hot dog when theirs fell in the campfire. At night, my campers climbed into their small bunks and I sang Joni Mitchell songs by flashlight. On nights off, the staff all went bowling or drank beer at bonfires in the woods. I had a station wagon so I was frequently the driver. The only time the police hassled us I was sitting in the back seat and they didn’t ask my age.

I wanted to look like I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. But inside, I desperately wanted a boyfriend – anyone – to love me. Every summer I’d try to find the right guy and wind up with a loser or someone who’d dump me in the fall. There was Chris, the drunk from Maine who never let me go all the way with him. There was Eric, the Trekkie who played the trombone in the marching band. There was the art history professor from London who I feel deeply in love with. On our weekends off we’d stay in nice hotels or go to Greenwich Village on the train. After we’d fool around, he’d order tea from room service and we’d drink it in our underwear. I fantasized about moving to London, about marrying him and having a home together. When I went back to college that fall, I went straight to the study abroad office and got brochures for all the London Universities. He met the woman he would later marry and dumped me via airmail.

My last summer at camp, I started wondering if I was barking up the wrong tree. Our director had just come out of the closet and I’d always wanted her to like me. One night while we were sitting around the campfire I told her that I thought I might be interested in girls. Then a week later, I hooked up with Joe, the counselor from Namibia. He was fun to work with - a charmer with an Afrikaans accent. I wasn’t attracted to his long thinning hair but he told great stories about Africa; Zulus, Victoria Falls, elephants, wildlife preserves. We stayed together through the fall but when I cut off his comb-over and I still wasn’t attracted to him, I ended it.

By that point, I was twenty and embarrassed. There had been too many boyfriends, too many cries for help. After all the different personas and personalities I’d tried, how could I look anyone in the face? Surely, I had lost everyone’s respect. I never went back to camp. And I never forgave myself for ruining my home away from home.

Until…

well, until I wrote all this and saw just how innocent it really was. I was very young and I was struggling. I did the best I could. I’m sure the people at camp didn’t notice a lot of what I was going through. And what they did notice, I’m sure they didn’t mind because… well, I think they cared about me.

Summer & Shame: part 3 - The Cape

2007-06-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

When I turned 13, I decided to go on the camp’s teen adventure trip, cycling up the length of Cape Cod. When I arrived at camp that July, the other teens were flirting and figuring out who would hook up first. I surveyed the situation and decided that the best I could hope for was a big, plain wrestler named Matt. He was a meathead, but he liked me and we made out in the back of the van on our way to the Cape.

The first night out, we camped in a scrubby forest in Sandwich. In the sandy soil, the trees grew short and twisted. Narrow paths crisscrossed throughout the vegetation, each one looking alike. I tried to navigate my bike through the maze but I got lost. I rode faster and faster in the dusk, panicking, convinced I’d never find my way back to camp. Later that night, safe in my tent, I felt like I might cry just thinking about it.

The next day we loaded up our bikes and left our vans behind. We rode across the fat, bicep part of the cape and stopped for the night at Nickerson State Park. After we pitched our tents and ate, we wandered around the place. There were strange abandoned buildings everywhere. It wasn't clear if the place had been a summer camp or a sketchy amusement park. We found an old bandstand so we climbed onstage and dangled our legs over the edge. It was pitch black and windy. All kinds of creaking and snapping noises came from the woods. The guys teased us by telling stories about ghosts and ax murderers until we screamed and ran off the stage.

Matt caught up with me and led me by the hand with his flashlight to a large building. The swinging door slammed shut behind us. It was an old gymnasium. We couldn't see much, but our sneaker squeaks resonated around the high ceiling. We lay down in the middle of the basketball court and I didn't say a word. We kissed for a while and I let Matt put his hand up my shirt. I could feel him on my leg and I pressed up hard against him. Soon, my shirt and Matt's pants were lying next to us. Suddenly, someone slammed through the screen door. Hey, the voice yelled, bouncing around loudly for a second. A flashlight scanned the floor and the person asked, 'who's in here?’ It was our counselor. He spoke our names and told us to get out. He sounded disappointed and annoyed.

I ran back my tent with my bra stuffed in my hand and collapsed, face up onto my sleeping bag. Oh god, I thought. I was so angry with myself. Now my counselors were going to think I was just a slutty little idiot. But that wasn't me. It was some version of me I’d created to impress the other kids. The real me went to camp to be ‘one’ with the woods. Why did I want to impress these stupid kids anyway? Just because they seemed cooler than me didn’t mean I had to completely change myself to match. I didn't see how I could do this trip now that my counselors had seen both versions of me. I couldn't be two different people at the same time.

My friend was still asking me if I was ok, but I didn't feel like talking. I started to think about how close we were to the ocean. I could walk down there, straight into the water. Maybe I could probably drown myself if I got out far enough. How would I keep myself from floating? The scene played like a film, over and over. By now, my friend had called for the female counselor to come over. She poked her head through the flap and asked me what was going on. I didn't respond to her either. I just concentrated on the noise of the wind and blocked out the sound of their voices.

Eventually, I realized that time must have passed because my friend was asleep. I didn’t want to let myself move or think, otherwise the momentum might carry me to the beach. My mind played thoughts like dreams, while I lay awake. When it started to get light, I knew we'd need to pack up and leave soon. Mary looked in to say good morning and to ask if Matt could talk to me. I tried my mouth and was surprised to see that it still worked. No, I said, I don't want to have a boyfriend anymore.

Outside, I could hear Matt swear, and then swear again louder like he was in pain. My friend dashed in delighted to tell me that Matt had punched a tree and had maybe broken his hand. Slowly, I got myself sitting up, then standing, and walked over to the campfire where everyone was eating. I still wasn't talking much. I was wondering what it meant that I was thinking about suicide again. The last time I’d entertained the thought was five years earlier, in the fourth grade, when I was eight.

By the end of the week I felt a little better. It had been good to push myself, to ride so far. I learned that it didn’t kill me to be sweaty, and gross and sore. We celebrated our last night in a youth hostel on the narrow wrist part of the cape. The town wasn't much more than a sandbar covered with huge dunes and sea grasses. Later that night, lying in my bunk, I couldn't stop thinking about the ocean.

At dawn, we all walked to the end of the sandy road and watched the sunrise from the top of a dune. The water turned gold for a minute as the arc of the sun appeared. While we watched, a familiar ache crept back into my chest - like I was an actor following a scripted play. There was a plot and I knew that the dramatic climax was about to happen. The play just took me along with its momentum and all I had to do was yell and cry at the right time. Damn it, I cursed, why does every thing feel so intense for me? This doesn't have to have some profound meaning. The sun rises every day, I argued. Still, my heart wouldn’t let go of that heavy, stepped-on feeling.

Next: last part - Full Circle

Summer & Shame: part 2 - The fire

2007-06-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

My favorite class at camp was called “Adventure.” For the first few days we’d make our way through the obstacle course: the wall, the swinging log, the swinging rope, the tight wire, the trust fall, the caterpillar walk, the parachute, and the trapeze. All the challenges built teamwork and leadership for the high ropes course later in the week.

The high ropes course was in a clearing, way up in the Hemlock forest. The main element was a log suspended forty-five feet off the ground. To get to this catwalk, you climbed an inclined log, and crossed a two-wire bridge. At the other end of the catwalk, there was a long zip line that sped you deep into the woods. At the end of the week, we spent the afternoon rock climbing at dead man’s cliff.

My counselor, Becky, let me belay the other kids and tie their harnesses. She was a sturdy coed with a mess of curly blond hair. Everyone called her ‘Grizzly.’ She called me “wild-woman’ and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

One afternoon, as I was securing our safety line to a tree, I looked up into the scrub above the cliff. Twenty feet ahead I could see a small wisp of smoke. When I looked closer I saw an orange smudge and heard a crackling noise. I called down to Becky “There’s a fire up here!” Becky told me to gather up the rest of the kids and lead them back to camp. On the path we saw other counselors running fast back towards the fire.

As we reached the field, we heard the blast of the air horn. That was the camp’s disaster signal and our cue to line up on the basketball court. I could hear the lifeguards shout as they swept the cabins looking for stragglers. We sat on the basketball court and watched the smoke spread above the trees as fire-fighters pulled into the driveway.

After the fire was out, I saw Becky walking out of the woods. She came right over to me to ask me how I was. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her that I’d found the whole thing exhilarating – almost electrifying. That wasn’t the way to keep her attention. Instead, I started to shiver a little so Becky sat with me a while. I only felt a little shocked but I played it up, crying and shaking so she’d stay.

At the end of the season, we had the candlelight ceremony. All the staff would stand around the campers in a circle. Each counselor would take two candles and then they’d call for a camper to join them. With each candle that was lit, the night would get brighter and you could pick out everyone’s faces. I never got picked. But I thought for sure that this time, Becky would pick me. When she called out the name of another girl I just stared at the outline of the trees and shadow of the lake beyond.

Next: Part 3 - Cape Cod

Summer & Shame: part 1 - I can't sleep

2007-06-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

When we were in New England last week, I worked up the courage to visit my old summer camp. I hadn’t been back in almost ten years, so I thought a visit was overdue. As we drove through the leafy, rolling hills over to the river valley, I had some time to worry. I wasn’t sure I should go back. Would anyone at the camp still remember me? Would they want to see me? Would they think it was strange that I wanted to visit? I looked at the late afternoon summer storm clouds pursuing us overhead. Would it start to rain?

And why was I so worried??? After all, I spent thirteen straight summers at this camp. This place was like my home away from home. For me, camp was a placed to be young, healthy, confident, and most of all, myself. Sure, most of the staff were seasonal college students and wouldn’t know who the hell I was. But I knew the director and her family were still there. They’d remember me.

But what would they remember? Or should I say… how much would they remember? These people watched me grow up. And it was a bumpy process. So many good memories and so many things to be ashamed of. Sometimes, at this time of year, at midsummer, I lay awake, thinking about camp and how intense each day felt.

- - - - - - - - -

There was a click and then the noise of a needle being placed on a record. Two seconds passed then a recorded bugle playing reveille bounced through the ancient loudspeakers. God, I loved camp. Last week, some of the British counselors hijacked the loudspeaker and played God Save the Queen. I slid out of my slippery sleeping bag and into my clothes. I didn’t even comb my hair; it just fell in place. Everyone moved slowly, especially the counselors who’d had the night off. I’d been awake when they came in at one in the morning.

I was the cabin waiter that day so I’d be spending a lot of the day at the dining hall. I headed out early, letting the cabin door slam behind me. I walked to the dining hall along the lake. The water was still and the cool air made the hairs on my bare legs stand up. At the dining hall, I grabbed my busboy bucket full of plates and silverware. I picked up sugar and syrup and butter from the kitchen. Outside, the flag raising song played. Everyone pushed in and the giant room filled with noise. When it was quiet and we were standing around the big round tables we sang grace. I omitted the words God and Lord as usual.

I munched on my frosted flakes and studied the names of foreign counselors that covered the walls. Each of their flags hung from the ceiling. I liked the symbols on the Korean flag. My counselor was going to be on lifeguard duty so I asked if anyone wanted to be buddies for free swim – just so I could be near her. After breakfast, I cleaned the table and ran back to my cabin. We had inspection today, so we took the towels off the rafters and shoved our clothes in our cubbies. At least I didn’t have to clean the bathroom.

My first class of the day was Jewelry. We braided strands of metal together to make bracelets. Then the noise was everywhere as we pounded them flat with big, wooden smacking mallets. I made one and spent the rest of the time wandering around the room; looking at all the cool stuff people had left behind. The arts and crafts building was built into the side of a hill and back by the kiln there was a huge boulder that protruded into the room. On the rafters, someone had painted old logos from 70’s rock bands I’d never heard of. My next class was windsurfing so I had my bathing suit under my clothes. I’d taken the class so many times I knew how to rig my own sail and board. I’d get the sail up and glide for a couple of minutes. Then when I lost my balance I’d leap into the cool, deep, water.

Lunch was gross and I almost got Sloppy Joe sauce on the card dad sent. After we ate, I cleared the mess and we stood up to sing “Father Abraham.” At each refrain we flailed part of our bodies until we were leaping around in spasms. After lunch I dozed on my bed. It was peaceful, listening to the small waves lapping outside the cabin door. If everyone was quiet, you could hear the kids yelling at the public beach across the lake. Sometimes, a motorboat would pass nearby and the waves would get slightly louder.

After the hour-long siesta was over, I ran across the soccer field to the rifle range. My 22 caliber bolt-action rifle had bad sights but I got two bulls-eyes in the prone position. Paul, my Kiwi instructor, tapped my foot and asked me where I learned to shoot like that. From you, of course, I answered, grinning, careful not to turn my torso to look at him. I was too tired by free swim. I sat by the water watching the raft rock and sway as the swimmers jumped off the diving tower.

At dinner, everyone was starving and I had to go back to the kitchen for thirds. We waited, watching for the chef to come out and hang the giant fork or spoon. Today was a spoon so we’d have pudding or Jello for dessert. When everyone had left, I wiped down the table one last time and waited for my turn with the broom and mop.

I found my counselor on the beach with the other girls, dragging a huge aluminum war canoe. My counselor sprayed us with bug spray and we climbed in. The mosquitoes could be vicious in the evening. Eventually, we got our paddles in unison and we sped across the lake, echoing repetitive camp songs. When we got close to the mouth of the river, we picked up our paddles and the canoe slid through a patch of lily pads. Noiselessly, we floated along, looking for turtles and lizards. A few years before, I’d walked through the swamp. I never forgot the feel of the knee-deep mud, the fear of the snakes and the leeches. We had a campfire on the beach before bedtime. Rob, the shaggy-haired counselor played guitar and sang folk songs. Michael told a story with sound effects and different voices.

By the time the bugle sounded the call to quarters it was past dusk. Everyone made their way back to their villages by flashlight. I went the other way, across the empty fields to the infirmary to get my nightly vitamin. When I got there, the kids were lined up, joking around as they waited for their medications by the light from the screen door. Once, when I was very little, I had passed out in the dining hall from heat exhaustion. My counselor brought me to the infirmary and I spent the day in the quiet screened-in sick room laying in bed and reading old MAD magazines.

After I got my vitamin, I headed back into the dark night. Halfway back to my cabin, I stopped and lay down on the dark soccer field. The sky was a clear expanse and I could feel the earth spinning underneath me. I wanted to hug the dirt - to embrace it - and never leave this place.

I got back to the cabin, climbed in my sleeping bag and pretended to fall asleep. The counselors crept over to my bunk and whispered how sweet I looked. After they left to go hang out on the picnic tables by the field, I pretended to wake up so I could talk to the other girls.

After an hour or two, everyone else was asleep. I lay there, searching my mind for the courage to go outside and talk to my counselors. I wanted as much of their attention as possible without seeming like a needy brat. I just wanted someone to hold me and take care of me. Last year, I told them I didn’t want to go home. They rubbed my back and sent me back to bed. I could tell them again but I doubted anything would change. They never believed me.

Instead, I lay there and tried not to think about all the snaps and creaks coming from the forest outside. I was supposed to be a brave and fearless wild-woman. I wasn’t supposed to need anyone to protect me.

Next: Part 2 - the fire

I have no life.

2007-06-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

I have no life.

No, seriously. Right now, I have NO life. My job is now officially over. Slowly, my relationships with my various therapists are winding down. I’m still cultivating the few friendships I want to keep when I leave the Bay Area, but the rest I’m letting go to pasture. My gym membership has ended and there’s no sense in renewing it just for a month or two.

(Granted things will probably get busier when we decide where we’re moving. I’ll have a new job title: Vice President in charge of moving, planning and anxiety.)

But right now, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve watched more movies this week than I have in the past month. I got my annual physical. I’m trying to become the housewife I’ve always failed at being. This morning, I even packed my husband’s lunch. I got the car tuned up. I’m even considering digging out our ironing board. Pretty soon I might have to crack open a novel.

Don’t get me wrong… the irony is not lost on me. When I’m busy, I want to have more free time. When I have free time, I look for things to keep me busy. Apparently, the damn grass is NEVER green enough to satisfy.

And once we’ve moved, I will have even less of a life. For a while (at least) I won’t have any work, therapists, support groups, routines… friends…

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of life I WANT to have. I know I shouldn’t complain. Lots of people would kill to have the kind of flexibility I have right now. Some would consider it a luxury to have this opportunity; to redo every aspect of their lives would seem… inviting.

But for me… I think about starting over, and I start to feel really inadequate – like I just don’t have a lot going for me. I wonder if I’m just getting by with my mediocre life, telling myself that it’s ok I’m not contributing much. I was sick for a few years and HAD to take it easy. My husband is going to get this new job and THEN I’ll get my life in order.

But. When I see how flimsy my life really is, I wonder if the future will hold any personal or professional success. I know that most people don’t have perfect lives, yet I can’t help but compare myself to those around me. It just seems like everyone I know has a more impressive sounding career or personal life than me. It’s probably not true, but that’s how it feels.

So I start questioning every decision I’ve ever made. Maybe I should stop tutoring… maybe I should go back to architecture… I know that’s probably not the answer, but at least I’d feel like I had a “title” that defined me when I introduced myself: “Hello, I’m Juniper the fancy, important architect… the one with a life?”

Postscript

2007-06-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, there is a real post below this one...

I just wanted to apologize for my recent lack of blogging. I know I don't have to, but I wanted to anyway.

I've been working a lot - trying to keep my students from failing their finals. I've had logarithms, quadratics, series, conic sections, and rational functions coming out my ears. "Rational means ratio... you know, ratio? Like a fraction? Functions in the form of fractions? Now what happens when you have a fraction with a zero on the bottom? Right! There's no solution! Now remember those asymptotes? See?"

And on and on...

And we were traveling and stressing out. A lot.

So, sorry.

Aaaaand... am I the only one who noticed when Tony Soprano said his mother had a Borderline Personality? I'm glad to finally have a celebrity with my illness but does it have to be a fictitious harpy who spawned a sociopath? That doesn't do much for the whole stigma thing.

Sorry Paul. And thanks for that saving my life thing.

2007-06-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

I didn’t sleep much when I was a freshman in college. I’d stay up late at night catching up on all the TV I had been denied as a child. Some nights, my friend Paul and I would hop in his four-wheel drive station wagon and drive aimlessly through the dark upstate New York wilderness. He had welded a skid plate to the bottom of his station wagon’s chassis so it was safe to take it off-road. We drove up abandoned dirt roads until they became open fields or impassable forest. Then he’d tease me, wondering aloud what we’d do if an ax murderer suddenly appeared, silhouetted against the horizon. Sometimes he’d reach over and pull the lever so my seat would slam back. Then he'd lean across me and growl suggestively, "Hey baby."

I couldn’t decide if I was attracted to Paul or if he was the big brother I’d always wanted. When we were cuddled up, doing homework on my roommate’s futon, I wondered if he might have feelings for me. I pretended to fall asleep, my cheek resting on the curly brown hair over his heart.

Sophomore year, Paul and my roommate’s boyfriend got an apartment off-campus. My roommate slept over every night so I spent most of my time there too. Paul was a cross between a renaissance man and an overgrown child. He spent a lot of his time repairing an old typewriter he found on the street or cooking macaroni and cheese on his camp stove in the middle of his bedroom. When it was time for bed, he’d make the twenty-minute walk with me back to my dorm. By late fall, I gave up on the dorm and just slept on the scratchy wool couch.

- - - - - - - - -

That winter, my summer boyfriend dumped me and I spiraled into the third major depressive episode of my life. My behavior had always been erratic and needy, but now I had become all-consuming. I lost my temper too much and some people stopped talking to me. I started stealing from my roommate’s liquor cabinet.

Paul was back together with his old girlfriend, Denise. Even though I was jealous, I started hanging out at her place because she was older and would still buy me alcohol. One night, Denise fell asleep early while Paul was at the library. I drank all the alcohol she had in the apartment and decided to kill myself. Then Paul came home. Why was my coat on and where I was going, he asked? I was going to fall asleep in a snow bank and hopefully, freeze to death, I said. He pushed me away from the door and I fought back. It was like shoving against a bull. He picked me up and pinned me to the floor. I finally passed out around three in the morning.

When I woke, Paul and Denise were making breakfast and ignoring me. Finally, Denise said, “Now I know why your roommate told me to keep you away from alcohol. You can’t come over here anymore, Juniper. Not when you’re doing this. I can’t take the responsibility.” I quickly walked to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Crying hysterically, I lay down and put my cheek against the cool tile floor. Denise’s razor stared at me from the shelf in front of my face. I held it to my wrist for a while. Eventually, they pounded on the door and I went home.

A few weeks later I told my roommate that Paul and Denise didn’t like her boyfriend. It had been a secret. Paul and Denise stopped talking to me. They were struggling to get through their engineering degrees and didn’t have time for my bullshit.

- - - - - - - - -

I missed them a lot. Especially Paul. But. They really taught me something.

I was tired of everyone thinking I was “crazy-Juniper.” Nobody saw how scared I was. Acting crazy and sick just left me alone and more depressed. Wanting to die was pointless, selfish, indulgent, and a stupid way to get attention. College students didn’t know what to do with me anyway. I realized that if I controlled myself, I could take responsibility for my actions and emotions, put away all this noise and be more mature. I stopped bothering my friends and tried to be more responsible. I didn’t want to drive everyone away.

I’ve always wanted to get in touch with Paul and Denise: to thank them and apologize. Occasionally, I Google Paul’s name to see what he’s up to. He married Denise a few years ago and now lives…

Oh my god. Paul and Denise live in the apartment complex my husband and I visited this weekend. We were in New England looking at my husband’s last job offer. The offer we’re probably going to take. Which means Paul and I could be neighbors again. I don’t know what they’d do if we ran into each other…

Denise became a psychologist so maybe she understands borderline now…

Maybe she’d think I was stalking them…

Woah.

In my spare time I'll see about that cure for cancer

2007-05-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

Even though we don't know where we're moving yet, I decided I better get started planning 'cause DAMN. We've got a lot on our plates over the next three months. Also, by the time we know where we’re going, we may only have a few weeks to get ready to go...

I don't know if making this list has increased or decreased my anxiety... oh who am I kidding. Of course it increased it. Right now I’m vacillating between feeling so anxious I want to cry and avoiding my thoughts with as much TV as humanly possible. Oh, and lots of trigonometry. All my kids seem to be doing trig right now. Which is good, since I love trig and anything (except worrying) seems like a giant hassle right now.

So here's my plan which will very quickly become completely fictitious, I'm sure:

Week of May 28 (next week) – Still working

Friend is visiting from out of town.

Week of June 4 – Last full week of work

Fly to east coast to look at last job offer.

Week of June 11 – Decide where to live and start planning move!

Last few hours of work.
Get complimentary 5,000 mile tune up on new car. (yes, I've driven 5,000 miles since March 1st. Feel free to blame all the hurricanes this on me this fall.)
Interview & hire whatever moving company isn't completely booked.

Week of June 18 – Planning

Celebrate 6th wedding anniversary (use gift certificate to Chez Panisse)
Get husband’s car cleaned, repaired & tuned up.
Plan upcoming vacation & buy tickets.

Week of June 25 – Planning

Sell husband’s car. (Anyone want a '99 Corolla with a couple dents?)
Look for new apartment online. Call and make appointments for next week.
Shop for husband's birthday gifts.

Week of July 2 – Visit new town

Find an apartment with 6 month lease.

Week of July 9 – Planning

Bake cake & celebrate husband’s birthday.
Sell furniture we’re not taking with us.
Get boxes from moving company.
Give notice on current apartment. (good-bye crap shack!)

Week of July 16 – Vacation (don’t know where yet)

have fun & relax. (ha!)

Week of July 23 – Packing

Throw (and maybe attend) going away party.
Donate and throw away as much as possible.

Week of July 30 – Packing

Change utilities, addresses, subscriptions, & insurance policies.

Week of August 6 – Move

Clean out apartment. Get security deposit back.

Week of August 13 – Drive across country

Stop at parents’ and friends’ houses on the way. (Spend entirety of signing bonus on $4/gallon gas)

Week of August 20 – Start new life

Find part-time job, therapists, fitness center, doctors, some friends, a baby and a house.
Live happily ever after.

Caution: I bite.

2007-05-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been ignoring this blog. I’ve been busy. And mad. Very very mad.

Why mad? Anger is my native tongue. Angry parents raised me so it’s the emotion I’m the most comfortable with. Sad? Just wait a few minutes and it turns to anger. Tired? Not for long… Scared = anger too. No matter what emotion a situation begets, it inevitably morphs into anger. Actually, more than anger… I feel pure, unadulterated meanness. Take the last week for example:

Friday: When I come home, there’s a note on our door. They’re selling our apartment building and are having an open house for realtors the next day. Great. Now I’ve got strangers traipsing through my house while I’m at work. Jerks. I hate ‘em all. I leave a strongly worded note on our door warning them not to let our cat out.

Saturday: I normally don’t work on Saturdays, but today, in preparation for an upcoming trip, I’ve scheduled three clients. Even though I know I’ve got the next three days off, I’m cranky and pissed off. Besides, when I get home I have to pack, a task I hate. I call a friend to complain.

Sunday: I fly to the east coast to meet my husband where he’s been at a conference all week. He’s been offered a job there and we’re supposed to spend the next two days getting wined and dined and showed around by realtors. Of course, the fact that this is a free trip is not enough to make me ignore the incredible inconvenience and pain that is air travel. I resent every minute of it. By the time I land it’s too late to get dinner at the hotel. I’m ready to murder someone until my husband takes me out for late-night sushi. It’s pretty good. Can’t complain about good sushi. Still, the ikura tasted a little different… maybe I’ll get food poisoning and die. Grrr.

Monday (morning): Why. Must. I. Get. Up? Jet. Lag. Bites. The horror.

Monday (later): I don’t like the first few houses the realtor shows us. Finally, there’s a few I do like but they’ll be off the market by the time we’re ready to buy. I become certain we’ll never find a good house. They’ll only be cruddy, dirty houses that need a lot of work. We’ll be too lazy or poor to remodel so we’ll be the ugly house on the block. My life will suck. That night we have dinner with some of my husband’s colleagues. They talk too much so they must suck too.

Tuesday: I have lunch with the daughter of my parents’ best friends. I’ve known her for decades but today, I’m certain she’s judging me. I feel awkward and fat and obviously crazy. This is all her fault. Bitch.

Wednesday: It is early in the morning AND I’m back on a plane. I’m so mad at the world I’m almost homicidal. The man in the seat in front of me is kissing his wife, repeatedly. They keep talking about how much fun they’re going to have on their vacation to San Francisco. PDA and visible happiness. How DARE he. I start fantasizing about punching him in the head. Hard. I want to do it so badly I worry I wouldn't be able to stop myself.

Thursday: Halfway through my appointment with my psychiatrist, he asks me if I’m excited to be moving. Excited? EXCITED? What!!?? He can’t be serious. Why doesn’t he want to hear how I REALLY feel about this whole process? I spend all day, every day, telling everyone how "excited" I am about all our upcoming changes, only talking about the bright side of things. At the same time, my head is filling up with all these worries, regrets and disappointments about the future. When I talk to him, I want to express how I really feel - not just repeat the platitudes I tell my parents, my friends, my colleagues, and random real estate agents. I leave the appointment early, in a serious huff.

Today, Friday: My husband learns that he’s not going to be offered the job in southern CA. Fine. Whatever. Wasn’t sure we wanted to move there anyway. Still, when we find out who they’re offering the job to… I'm pissed. It’s the same chick who’s beat out my husband for two other jobs. I ask my husband if we can have her killed. He thinks I’m kidding but I’m just wondering how we could avoid being caught.

- - - - - - - - -

What’s really going on? I am scared and sad to be moving. I've worked hard to make the life I have right now and I don't look forward to starting all over from scratch. In the 11 years that my husband and I have been together, we will have moved to six different towns and seven different apartments. Maybe when we know where we’re moving I can plan and get excited. Right now, I’ll just get angry.

Anyone seen my honorary phd?

2007-05-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Ok. So. Every time I make this assertion, my husband declares that I’m crazier than we previously thought. But now, after some… experiments… I’m certain.

At least one psychoactive drug cures lactose intolerance. CURES.

Here are the facts:

Age 22-27: I become increasingly lactose intolerant. Every time I eat ice cream… bad things happen.
Age 28-31: I take Lithium, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Seroquel, Ambien on a regular basis. I frequently crave ice cream and eat with no adverse results.
Age 31-32: I taper off all medications. I continue to eat ice cream. Each time I do, my intestines decide they need to leave my body ASAP.

Thus, I present to you my earth-shattering medical discovery. Alert the media and whoever gives out those Nobel thingies.

Maybe I should just invest in some earplugs

2007-05-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

You see… we have this annoying neighbor. I fantasize daily about writing an anonymous note, creeping over under cover of night and leaving it on her door. The problem is, I can never decide what kind of letter to write. It’s becoming a way for me to gauge how ill-tempered I am at any give time… like an anger litmus test. The more irritable I am, the meaner this fantasy letter gets. I start obsessing about the most effective wording, the right turn of phrase that will put her in her place. Here’s today’s versions:

Angry (7am):

What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you so loud? Were you raised in a barn? When you talk on your balcony we can hear EVERY WORD you say – you’re only standing five feet from our living room window, bitch!

Also, I think all the drugs you’re taking have completely destroyed your hearing because you seem to think you need to scream into your cell phone. How do I know you’re taking drug? Um, everyone knows! Since you don’t seem to care about privacy, we’ve all overheard your recent fall off the wagon and visit from the police. Yesterday, we all listened to your ex bang on your door while yelling: “Sue, wake up! You can’t do this to your little girl. If you keep this up, you’re never going to see her again. When you sober up, you better get your shit together!” Nice. Really nice.

How can you even afford your apartment anyway? My husband and I have five college degrees between us and you seem like an uneducated loser! We pay A LOT of rent so we don’t have to live with garbage like you. Thanks for making us feel like white trash every time we come home.

Oh, and by the way, normal people are usually sleeping at 6:30am. I know you have a little kid, but there is this amazing thing called a door. Close it!

Idiot.

WASP-y (11am):

Dear Neighbor:

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but we’ve been disturbed lately by the noise coming from your apartment. When you’re talking on your balcony, the sound of your voice bounces off the two buildings and is amplified. Because our two buildings are quite close together it sounds as if you are standing in our living room. Naturally, during the day, we understand that you and your daughter have every right to use your balcony. However, if you could keep your voice down at night and early in the morning, we’d appreciate it.

Finally, we have all noticed that you have been going through some substance abuse problems lately. I’m sure you’d appreciate some privacy as you deal with these issues. We would appreciate it if you used some discretion and refrained from exposing your neighbors to this kind of negative influence.

Sincerely, a concerned neighbor.

Friendly (3pm):

Dear Sue,

My name is Juniper and my husband and I live in the apartment directly across from your balcony. (We own the little grey cat who’s always sitting in the window!) I’ve noticed you and your little girl moved a few months ago and I haven’t had the opportunity to introduce myself.

We happen to overhear your conversations quite a bit and I noticed that you’ve been having a hard time lately. If you ever want to go to a meeting together, just let me know.

Take care,

Scared-y: (one that I’m actually going to send)

-- nothing --

Limbo = how low can you go?

2007-04-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to limbo. Please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are returned to their upright and locked positions. We’ll be circling your final destination for the next… oh, I don’t know MONTH or so.

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband has been interviewing for jobs. This process has felt never-ending at times. For example, here’s what I had to say about this process

In November
In January
In March
In April

Right now, I have no news to report. I have no idea where we’ll land. Seven of the places I mentioned in November are still possibilities. I have no idea when we’ll know. It could be a week, a month, two months.

People keep telling me what an “exciting” time this is. How “rich” it is. Perhaps…

Yet, every time someone says this, I want to punch ‘em. HARD. “Rich” foods are tasty sometimes but they also give you heart disease and high cholesterol. There's something to be said for bland and mild.

Neither my pathology nor I deal well with uncertainty. It helps me to have something to look forward to, something to plan for and keep me slogging through a tough dysphoria-filled day. With no idea of what the future will look like, my mind strains to fill up all that unknown with SOMETHING. And if I let the leash out just a little bit, my mind comes up with all kinds of crazy scenarios. For example, I worry that:

We won’t like our new town. It’ll be cold or cloudy or less beautiful than the Bay Area.
We won’t find any good doctors who really understand Borderline Personality Disorder.
We won’t have a good insurance company that’ll pay for more than a few therapist visits.
We won’t ever be able to get pregnant and nobody will let a crazy lady like me adopt. If I do have kids, they’ll be just as crazy as I am.
We won’t make enough friends and we’ll be lonely.
We won’t be able to afford to buy a home that we like. We’ll always live in a ratty apartment.
I won't find a job as good and as flexible as the one I have now.

But when I write down these fears, I’m struck by how normal they seem. Everyone worries about these things. Nobody knows what the future looks like. Nobody knows if today’s decisions will irrevocably mess up a later opportunity. I’m sure everyone obsesses over big life-changing decisions. So what makes our family different? Maybe nothing.

But maybe… it’s that big looming bogey-man of mental illness over there, lurking in the corner. My health has been stable for a little while now. And it’s scary to think that something we do, some choice we make could upset that. We wouldn’t want to do anything that’ll piss off the monster. It feels safer if we don’t poke it with sticks. It’s better not to take risks. It’s easier to stay put, wrapped up in our little cocoon and never change or challenge anything. It makes you wonder if I should just call myself disabled and live a smaller, quieter life.

Great concept. Still. I’d rather live my life to the fullest.

Caution: suffocation hazard

2007-04-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

So my dad visited last weekend. I’m not over it yet, but I’m working on it. Don’t get me wrong, It wasn’t a terrible visit. He didn’t openly criticize or yell at us. Still, it was tense and uncomfortable and HARD.

Like I mentioned in my last post, these visits never seem to go that well. For example:

The last time my dad visited was late October 2004. A week after he left, I started experiencing mild psychosis, the police took me to the hospital and I was committed for a week. Oh and while I was an inpatient, the outpatient program I’d been attending for a year and a half kicked me out.
The only other time my dad came to the Bay Area by himself was in September of 2002. Midway through his visit I started having intense suicidal urges. After he left, I spiraled down into a major depressive episode that culminated in, yup, you guessed it… the police and a month long stay at a local psych unit. Fun times.

So frankly, the fact that I’m still loose and wandering the streets a week after this most recent visit is quite an accomplishment. Or so my doctor says.

I wish I understood exactly why my dad’s visits are so toxic. The best answer I seem to come up with is that he’s just way too controlling. He’s a gigantic bully who demands that everything: every thought, every action, every moment to be the way he wants it. If it’s not, he’ll throw a hissy fit and make everyone’s life incredibly difficult. NOBODY would want to spend that much time with anyone who acts like he does.

In between our visits, I always seem to forget just how self-centered and full of anger he is. I want to believe he’s not that bad. But then when I’m with him again, I feel shocked and confused. How did I ever think he’d change? How did I live with my parents for seventeen years? Answer: I stayed away as much as I could.

Still, that’s the only kind of family I knew so that’s what I adapted to. When I’m with my dad, I see how I MUST have grown up warped. I’ve tried to unbend myself but thirty plus years of twisting has to leave permanent damage. Sometimes, it makes me feel like I shouldn’t even try, like I’ll always be crooked.

A while back, my doctor said that I had to shut down and drown my natural instincts and personality to survive with my parents. I stopped trying to be myself. I stopped feeling like myself. I shut down any and all natural responses that caused me trouble. The only time I ever let myself off the hook was to get drunk and that stopped working after a while. Nothing. Was. Ever. Right. And when you keep everything under such control for that long it causes a kind of paralysis.

I have to be very, VERY careful when I’m around my dad. He had me twisted around for so long that when I’m with him, I feel like I can’t even trust my own thoughts. I lied to myself and forced my real self down so I could exist with my parents. Still, it was the only way to survive, like the woman in that movie who muffles her baby’s cries to hide it from the enemy, only to discover that she’s suffocated it.

Analogy Lessons

2007-04-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Husband is to Juniper as Spinach is to Popeye

I’m going to pick up my husband from the airport this evening! It seems like this loooooong interview process may finally be winding down. If he goes on any more trips, hopefully there won’t be a lot more. Since January, he’s traveled to interview for 8 different jobs in 7 different states. Three jobs had him back for a second visit. That’s a lot of traveling!

Perhaps once he’s back I will return to life. Since he left at lunchtime on Tuesday, I’ve been bored and lethargic. I don’t know why I seem to become a dysphoric hermit when he’s out of town, but it’s the truth and it does me no good to ignore it. Sure, I’ve managed to get a couple of things done each day, but they’ve been interspersed with long hours of cable TV.

Parents are to Juniper as Kryptonite is to Superman

I’ve been a bit down since this weekend anyway. My dad was in town for a couple of days, visiting us and giving a speech nearby. It was not our best visit and my mood and sense of self is still trying to recover. It seems like the times when he comes to our house by himself go worse than when he visits with my mom or when we go to their house. There’s just something about getting him alone, on our territory that makes it impossible to ignore just what an…. pain he really is.

By the way, don’t ever try to mix Spinach, Kryptonite and Juniper. You get a new, unstable element that smells bad and gives off an unpleasant, tense vibe. Makes the Kryptonite much, much stronger. More about that later.

Goodwill? Yes. Good will? No thanks.

2007-04-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Now that we know that we're moving this summer, I've started trying to get rid of stuff. I took a couple bags to Goodwill this morning containing the items shown above. I was having a hard time last night deciding if I should let go of these things. I realized that I didn't really need or want any of it - I was just hanging onto this stuff because someone gave it to me and I thought i'd feel guilty for getting rid of it. So I took a picture. That way, I'll still have the memory without having to drag the stuff around too. It's amazing how every object has a story, no matter how long I've been hanging onto it.

A: Strange, ugly woven purse my parents brought back from Japan. Owned: 1.5 years

B: Bowls that came with “salsa” themed gift basket (salsa broken upon arrival). Contents: three small picture frames various weddings (were used as place cards). Owned: 2.5 years

C: Necklaces I never wear:

Wooden necklace from ex-boyfriend. Owned: 13 years
Faux pearl necklace from grandma. Owned: 20 years
Faux black pearl necklace from parents. Owned: 13 years
Silver necklace mom gave me for wedding rehearsal. Owned: 5.5 years

D: Soap dish from friend (soap long since used). Owned: 1.5 years

E: Wooden box from friend in college. Owned: 13 years

F: Blue bracelet a friend gave me in the hospital. Owned: 4 years

G: Glow in the dark “glasses” from (I’m not kidding) when my parents went to the last republican national convention. Owned: 2 years

H: Box I made from a kit I bought at a Japanese paper store. Contents: push pops & ring pops from our anniversary party last year. Owned: 3 years

J: Nice dragonfly pin I got as a Christmas present. I don’t wear pins. Owned: 2 years

K: Little felt dolls my parents got at a cool toy company in junior high. Owned: 20 years

L: Three decks of playing cards my husband bought because we once thought we might collect a deck from each of our vacations.

Old Chesapeake Railroad deck. Owned: my whole life
Deck we got in Yosemite. Owned: 6 years
Deck we got in Glacier National Park. Owned: 6 years

M: Travel game of Connect 4 my husband got me at target because my neighbors owned one and I always wanted to play it and they never let me. Owned: 7 years

N: Game of tiddlywinks we got as a stocking stuffer. Lame. Owned: 5 years

P: Loofa scrubby thing from my husband. Nice, but too hard on my skin. Owned: 2 years

Q: Photo storage box we got my mother in law as a gift at our wedding. Had the wrong initials so they let us keep it and we gave her the right one. Owned: 6 years

R: Tea towel embroidered with “love” we got for Valentine’s Day gift from my mom. Owned: 7 years

S: Candles:

Green one a friend gave me that smells too weird to burn. Owned: 0.5 years
Sparkly Christmas one my student gave me but is too ugly to put out. Owned: 1.5 years

And to think... all that came out of one box under my bed. It's scary what I hold onto just to keep myself from feeling any glimmer of guilt.

Ah Borderline… Act II & III

2007-04-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

ACT II: at home later Friday night

I got an email from Colleen. It was sent to me and Gwen, the other woman who had stayed after group to talk to her. It sounded bad:

“I can't remember being more depressed…. Why should I come to the "next" meeting, prepared to… do what? Ask someone why they don't like me? Why should I come back, and ask that person's permission to exist? What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? I am leaving the world. I can't bear it anymore… LEAVE ME. As I leave others.”

I called Gwen. She agreed to call Colleen. They talked for a while and then Gwen called me back. It was now 11pm.

“Colleen says that she doesn’t want to die but she still doesn’t want to live. I don’t know what to do. Do you think I should call her doctor?” Yes, I told her. If she were to hurt herself and we hadn’t called him, we’d never be able to live with the guilt.

Gwen called her doctor, whose voicemail message said that he was out of town. So she called the psychiatrist who was covering his practice and told him what was happening. He called the police who showed up at Colleen’s house at midnight.

Then, Colleen called Gwen and asked her why she had alerted the police. She wished she hadn’t – and said that it had only made things worse.

So Gwen called me back, wanting to know if I still thought we’d done the right thing. ABSOLUTELY, I said. I don’t fool around when suicidal people make threats. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to “turn in” a friend to an authority figure. They weren’t easy decisions, but I’ve never regretted doing it. I’ve watched too many people die.

- - - - - - - - -

ACT III: at home Sunday afternoon

I got another email from Colleen. Her mood had obviously changed:

“I'm so sorry for involving you in the Great Storm. Truth is, I was crying so hard I could barely read the screen when I wrote that message, and then just kept crying on and on after I sent it and so didn't really remember/realize how frightening what I wrote would be until the shrink-on-call gave my language back to me as a real reason to call the cops. I'm truly sorry I frightened you both, and involved you at all in this.

I wish I could have done better. I was overwhelmed, and could only feel that feeling in that moment. And part of me… well, part of me that overcame me then… was in so much pain that's all I could hear in my head and I guess I just wanted somebody to hear that, too. A form of selfishness brought on in the extremity. Please forgive me.

We all walk that ground together, and each of us knows its intensity. So you would have known the risk. But no hospital for me, I managed to talk them out of it, with the support of my husband. And now the storm deepens into the gut, as depression has its way.”

I was SO happy to read this. Not just to see that Colleen wasn’t mad at me; that our friendship was preserved. I was more impressed that she could look back at her extreme emotions and how they affected the people around her. Yes, it sucks to have this personality disorder. Yes, other people have to learn to accommodate us when we can’t control ourselves.

BUT. In my experience, it’s very, very important for a borderline to see how much their actions affect others. I watched many people walk away from me because I was too difficult, too emotional, too volatile to be around. I threatened suicide one night in their bathroom and the next day they didn’t want to be friends anymore. It hurt me, but gradually, I changed. I learned. My relationships became easier.

I want this for Colleen. I don’t want this to be the third support group she feels rejected by. I want her to have more ease and grace in her life and the people she interacts with. Yes, she’ll have to change who she is to accommodate them, but sometimes… it’s worth it.

Ah Borderline… a play in 3 acts

2007-04-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

ACT I: our Friday morning depression support group

I walked into group and noticed that Colleen AND Jane were both there. Uh oh, I thought.

About a month ago, Jane told us she was glad Colleen hadn’t come to group for the last few months. She didn’t like Colleen – she thought she was too emotional, too flamboyant, had too little insight and took up too much space in the group. If Colleen came back, Jane didn’t want to be in the group anymore. I tried my best to stick up for Colleen. She’s a fellow Borderline, I said. I know how Borderlines can turn people off, I said. I feel uncomfortable when Colleen cries at the drop of a hat too but on the other hand… I can relate. I just take her mood swings with a grain of salt and try to appreciate the depth and passion she brings to the group.

Well Friday morning, it became clear that Jane’s feelings had not changed. Every time Colleen started to say something, Jane interrupted her. She wouldn’t even look at her. It was noticeable; yet not so overt that anyone stopped her. I wasn’t sure Colleen noticed, but as soon as Jane left, Colleen broke into tears. She wanted to know why Jane disliked her so much. We told her what Jane had said in our previous group… as gently and sweetly as possible. Colleen did not take it well. She summed up her thoughts in a later email:

”I would have been very oblivious indeed if I didn't know Jane didn’t like me. I've known it from the very first meeting. It never changed. You confirmed what I already knew. Since the beginning of that group she regularly turns her back on me when I talk, won't make eye-contact at other times, turns her body away from me and makes sure I get that body language loud and clear. She wanted me to know, from the very FIRST time I came back to the group, that I was unwanted. Barely disguised disgust and downright aggressive cruelty were the means of delivering the message. I got it.

Maybe her not-so-latent anger and disdain are an automatic, buried response to women like me. Maybe I represent something uncontrollable, and unpredictable. Maybe she sees that I’m not living in awe of much of anything, much less psychoanalysis. So I CAN'T be controlled. And so I speak out. And I have a life, and an intelligence that is outside a predictable and known line. And I can match her wits, point by point. And maybe, just maybe, it's because I'm not the "normal" she used to: I have my own sense of it.

My best guess is that she will deny it, turn it back on me, and make me feel even more terrible. And then I would run out of the room in tears.”

We talked for a long time after group ended. When she left, Colleen seemed sad but not quite as despondent. Still, we were worried.

tomorrow: act II

Well, it's official

2007-03-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Or at least as official as these things get...

We're leaving the Bay Area.

My husband only interviewed for one job in the Bay Area and we just found out that they're not going to make him an offer.

Don't know where we're going or when we're leaving (yet), but we're not staying here.

Right now, I'm a little disappointed but mostly, I'm excited. I've enjoyed living here, but let's face it... it's extremely expensive. And since grad school ended, our social circle has disintegrated somewhat. Besides, we've spent the last nine years living with a major geological fault in our backyard. That can't be good.

I will, however, miss the grass cutting goats. (They use goats to reduce the brush and wildfire danger on the hillsides here.)

Postscript: I almost forgot to mention, in honor of our impending move, we played hooky yesterday and went skiing at Lake Tahoe! Do you think they'll let us take Squaw Valley with us when we move?

part II

2007-03-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

The unit consisted of a long, wide, carpeted hall. There were uncomfortable looking chairs scattered throughout and a window at the end. Wide bedroom doors lined the walls. Across from the nurses' station there was a darkened room separated by that kind of security window embedded with wire mesh. I could just make out a TV and some chairs. On the side of the nurses' station there was an empty room, covered with linoleum and labeled "isolation." Everything was pale green.

This was not where I was supposed to be. My heart was racing. Suddenly, a thin girl came running out of a room chased by a heavy-set black woman. Both were yelling. A nurse handed me a stack of papers and asked me to read them. It was a list of the rules. Apparently, there were five “levels” a patient could be. On level one, you were a constant danger so you couldn't be alone. Level two allowed more privacy but no daytime bedroom or bathroom access and fifteen-minute checks. You couldn't leave the unit without supervision. Your bedroom was unlocked on level three, you only had thirty-minute checks, and you could briefly leave the hospital under supervision. There were hourly checks on level four and you could walk to an appointment by yourself. Finally, on level five, there were no checks and you could wander around outside if you liked. Reading it made me tired. I wondered if they were serious.

Then I turned the page and saw the heading: Patient's Personal Belongings. It listed all the things that were denied at each level. Level five seemed reasonable, you couldn't have food, weapons, drugs, or firearms. Also, you couldn't have any recording devices, which seemed a little fishy. On level 4 you couldn't have any electrical devices. That one seemed odd to me. On level 3, battery operated devices and personal razors were banned. I wondered what they'd do with the radio I packed. That's where I started to cry. On level two you couldn't have your own bedding or pillows. I thought I'd be sleeping in a comfortable, normal bed. I was on level one. I couldn't have my own clothes, toiletries, or jewelry. I felt like my breastbone snapped and I drew in a long sob. I would be wearing a hospital gown. I'd look like a crazy person.

I got to keep my clothes for a little while. My parents finally showed up and the three of us were introduced to my new psychiatrist. Supposedly, he was the head of the child and adolescent department. That must be why he’s so old, I thought. My parents were telling him that we were the most normal family around. They painted a picture of a teenager who was bright, stressed, and overly imaginative. I wasn’t surprised; they felt invaded and had resorted to sardonic humor and weary cynicism to demand guarantees. I was amazed they weren’t challenging the doctor’s competence and credentials, accusing him of exploitation. It didn’t take long for my dad to anger and frustrate the best therapist. They wouldn’t even know why they wanted him to go away.

After half an hour, the doctor was paged and stepped out of the room for a minute. My parents focused their eyes on me intently. What did I think of him? I wasn't going to tell them anything anymore.

"He looks like a fish." He did. His head looked flat like a flounder. It broke the tension. When "Fish" came back he asked to talk to me alone. I should say good-bye to my parents since it was almost bedtime. Fine, whatever, good-bye I said. They hugged me and finally left.
Fish asked me what I thought about my parents' description of our family. "It's completely false. I don't know who they're talking about. I hate our house and I like my school." He just nodded and made a few scribbles on his notepad. Then he led me back to the unit.

"Juniper, we went through the things your parents brought and we confiscated a few things. We'll hold them here for you. Now we have to do a strip search." I looked at the nurse with wide eyes. You have got to be kidding, I thought. "I know this is hard but it will just be you and me and it'll only take a second." She led me by the shoulders into one of the bedrooms. I went in the bathroom and took off my dress and sweater. "I'm sorry honey, it has to be everything." She had draped a bed sheet in front of the door, like a partition. I threw my underwear on the floor. "Ok, that's fine, I just need you to turn around and, no stop. I need you to bend over." When she was done, she took off her latex gloves and asked for my clothes. I could keep my underwear, but I had to put on a hospital gown. "Ok, so this is Lucy." She pointed at the large black woman who was standing in the doorway. She had been watching from behind the bed sheet. "You're on what's called 'one-to-one'. That means you have to have Lucy with you at all times. And she has to be within an arm's reach, ok? So you're all set, Lucy'll tell you the rest." Lucy was wearing a pretty cardigan and had long, fancy nails.

"You're just in time Juniper. The wrap-up meeting is just starting in the day room. You can take some socks and a blanket if you're cold."

- - - - - - - - -

That night, I couldn't sleep with Lucy staring at me. She had the desk light on so she could read her book. I was cold and I pulled the blanket over my head.

"I'm sorry Juniper, I have to be able to see your face." I turned over and stared at the ceiling while tears ran down onto my pillow. I looked back at all my choices that led me up to that point and saw mistake after mistake. I thought I’d feel safer, more protected at the hospital. But now, even life with my parents sounded like freedom. I was sick and just wanted someone to hold me. Instead, everyone just held tighter and tighter until gradually, all the blood to my brain was being cut off. I knew that if I stayed in here, I'd lose my mind and never find my way out.

Postscript: Eventually I did find my way out. Three months later on June 16th. A much, much better day.

March Twenty-Sixth. Worst day of the year.

2007-03-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

PART I:
It was March 26, 1990 and we were in the car driving towards Hartford. I kept trying to convince myself to jump out of the car onto the highway. After a while, we passed the courthouse. I recognized the nice part of Hartford near the symphony and the museums. Then there was a long, tall brick wall on the left side of the car. When it stopped, we were at the entrance to the hospital. There was a gatehouse and all I could think was: why are there two guards? Directly in front of us was this gigantic, white building. It looked ancient, with steep rooflines and creepy dormers poking out in awkward places.

It is so dark in here, I thought as we walked into the sterile, white lobby. An intake nurse appeared out of the dark hall. She asked us every conceivable question. My parents answered most of them so I examined the cracks in the ceiling and wondered how the hell this had happened.

- - - - - - - - -

Earlier that morning, I woke up thinking I was going back to school after my spring break. It was the first day of spring term. I was pulling my new blue, plaid dress over my head when my mother and father came into my room. Both of them are taller than me, I thought, as they drew closer.

"Juniper, you're not going to school this morning. We're going to New Haven. You're going to go see the school's psychiatrist." They must have known about this all night I realized.

"But it's the first day of school and I don't want to miss my classes. They give out all the important stuff on the first day. What time do we have to go?" They said eleven o'clock. "Ok, so I can still go to my first three classes. Can't I just go and then you can pick me up in a couple of hours. School is on the way to New Haven." My father's eyes relaxed as he considered this. I knew he liked to optimize his time.

"Ok, fine. But you have to be waiting in front of the student center when we pull up at ten-thirty. We're trusting you here." Whatever, I thought as my mind raced.

On the way to school, I tried to remember where my friends would be at this time of day. For the first time in my life, I skipped my classes and looked for anyone who had a free period. Finally, I ran into a girl in my class.

"Heather, can you do me a favor? When you see Brooke, can you tell her that my parents are dragging me to go see the school shrink and I don't know if I'm coming back?"

“Oh wow… that sucks. No problem.”

I ran down to the arts center. My advisor wasn't there but I almost ran smack into another teacher. I told her what was going on and that I needed to see my advisor.
"Oh honey…" she said. I’m not coming back, I thought as she gave me a hug.

We made it to the doctor’s office on time. He and I went into his office and left my parents in the waiting room. Why was he wearing cowboy boots? I kept picturing him in a ten-gallon hat as we talked and I decided I didn’t care much for him. He wanted to know how frequently I thought about suicide.

What’s your unit of measurement, I wondered? I guessed and said every five minutes or so. I was just too tired to lie. I wanted this to be over. He nodded, got up, and asked my parents to come in.

"In my opinion, Juniper needs to go to the hospital immediately. She is at great risk of hurting herself sometime in the near future." My mother was crying and I didn't know why. This seemed like what we’d all been wanting. I pictured the hospital as a large Victorian house where I would have my own room and be able to sleep as much as I liked. I would have a break. "Locally, the hospital she would go to is…” My father cut him off.

"Actually, a friend of mine is on the board of directors at The Institute of Living in Hartford. We can probably get her in there." The doctor nodded in approval. Back at our house my mother wouldn't let me go to my room. She made me lunch and watched as I didn't eat it. My dad came in and said that it was all arranged. We’d leave in an hour so he and I went upstairs to pack. I was filling up my green, monogrammed duffel when I heard him crying. I didn't know what to do so I tried to cheer him up.

"Dad, it's ok. I'm going to be fine. I'm not upset. Don't get so upset."

“Ah… Juniper… you don’t know what this is going to be like.”

- - - - - - - - -

When the intake nurse finished with her paperwork, she called for someone from the adolescent unit to come get me. Two men in white scrub suits entered. They told me to come with them, my parents would join me later. We went to the end of the hall and entered a dingy back stairwell.

It was at that moment that I realized my mistake. I shouldn’t be here.

Why was there was water flooding the steps? A leak, they told me. We exited into an underground tunnel lined with dull yellow tiles. Tunnels linked all the buildings, they said. Every so often the tunnels connected and there was a series of locked doors. I had to get inside the vestibule and the men wouldn't open the next door until the last one was locked. Who they hell did they think I was, some dangerous criminal? Finally, we ascended another stair to a blue-carpeted hallway. At the end of the hall there were two desks and two locked doors. A nurse pressed a loud buzzer and I flinched. And then we were on the unit.

Tomorrow: Part II

The emotion du jour = intense

2007-03-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

Ya wanna know what Borderline Personality feels like? No. You really don’t.

Ok... are you sure?

Well, it's easy. Just pick an emotion, any emotion and jack it up about 100%.

The end.

More details? Keep reading.

Monday = sad:
I see a VW beetle that looks like the car I just traded in. I start to wonder where my old car is. And if it misses me. Or resents me for trading it in. Or if it has been (god forbid) stripped apart into pieces by a wholesaler. I start to get misty eyed over my old friend… the machine.

Wednesday = anger:
My DBT coach asks me how my latest visit to my parents’ house went. I proceed to tell her. She listens and suggests I do a chain reaction analysis worksheet about it. I get miffed. It feels like she asked me to talk, then cut me off and told me to shut up and do a worksheet instead of wasting valuable group time on my pathetic whining. Although somewhere deep down, I know this interpretation of events is totally inaccurate, I now resent her and contemplate never going to group again. Oh yeah, that’ll learn her.

Friday = guilt:
I get an email from my boss telling me that he needs to change my job description a bit. He needs me to do more tutoring and less administrative duties so the company can bring in more revenue to cover my salary. At the end, he wrote: “I'm sorry that we didn't better understand all these details at the beginning of the year. It turns out that we did calculations based on kids never missing a single tutoring session, and on every week being at the top of your average tutoring hours.”

So basically, he’s admitting that he did his calculations wrong and I kept up my end of the deal. But how do I interpret this? I feel incredibly guilty. I feel like a slacker whose slacking has ruined the company. Even though I’ve been tutoring almost exactly the amount he asked me to since September, IT’S ALL MY FAULT. He hates me. Even though there's only 10 weeks left in my contract, I should just quit and stay in bed and never work again. Ever.

Update:
the car dealer called yesterday to see how I liked the new car. He told me they sold my old car yesterday. Now I’m worried that the new owner is mean and drives it… I dunno, cruelly? What would that even LOOK like? Cornering too hard? Not changing the oil frequently enough? Leaving numerous soda bottles strewn about the floorboards? (Oh wait, that last one was me.)

The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

2007-03-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Well, if anyone needs any nuts, bolts, screws or nails, I know where to find ‘em. ALL of them. They’re ALL in my father’s woodshop.

I just spent the last few days helping my father organize his new woodshop. Now that he’s retired, woodworking is going to be his main hobby. So as a Christmas present, I promised to come out and help him get everything organized. And when I say everything, I mean everything. The man has amassed a HUGE collection of every woodworking tool, gadget and accessory possible.

But this collection was useless in its current condition. You see, while waiting to retire, he stuffed everything into thousands of boxes and let it ripen... in his basement. Then he stuffed those boxes into larger boxes and shipped them across the country. (You don’t even wanna know how much it costs to ship a lathe.)

So anyway, since one of the not-so-destructive coping mechanisms I developed to combat dysphoria is a mild case of OCD… I’m really good at organization. I actually kinda like it. It sets my mind at ease to see everything all neat and orderly. (Also, years of mental illness have carved out nice little places in my mind where I can escape the crushing boredom, just for occasions like this. Ah, dissociation...)

So suffice it to say, this is not the first time, I’ve attempted to help my dad get his shop organized. Which brings me to The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Seen.

I was sorting through old metal cracker tins filled with nuts, bolts, screws, nails, rivets, and all kinds of microscopic metal bits. Once sorted, the bits got filed away into neat little plastic drawers that my father will never look through. (That would defeat the purpose of the daily trip to the hardware store.)

Inside the little plastic drawers I started to find little scraps of paper with writing on them:

“Misc wood screws – copper” or “Hex head bolts – 2 ¼ in”

They were leftovers from an old attempt to help my dad get his shop organized.

But that’s not the saddest thing.

The saddest thing was – it wasn’t my handwriting; it was Anonymous Mom’s. You see… when we were about 14 years old, she was hanging out at my house during one of our school vacations. My dad asked for our help down in the basement woodshop.

AND I AGREED.

I should’ve said: “Gee dad, since I’m a 14 year old girl, and my friend is too, I don’t think it’d be a really great way for us to spend our vacation. You know, she might think I’m a weirdo and not want to hang out with me anymore if we ask her to do this. Instead, we’ll be upstairs doing something more enjoyable with our time. Like watching paint dry.”

But no. It never even occurred to me. I went along with this crazy idea and we spent some long hours sorting screws. All because I was too wrapped up in pleasing him, to say no to my dad. The man is a master of control. With an upbringing like that, it’s a wonder I know how to talk to people, comb my hair or engage in other human niceties.

For the record, thank you Anonymous Mom for still speaking to me.

Postscript: The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Seen – 1st runner up: the 17 ft x 16 in x 1 ¼ in slab of Honduran Mahogany I watched my dad buy Saturday morning. I don’t know what made me sadder; the fact that he spent $300, the fact that you never see a giant piece of wood like that anymore, the fact that we had to chop it in half to get it home, or the fact that my father couldn’t just admire it… he had to possess it.

The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Seen – 2nd runner up: people are selling those saltines cans on ebay for $25. I stuffed three into a hefty bag on Sunday. Sigh.

You win some, you lose some

2007-03-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Update number one:
I talked to my boss about The tutor I wrote about last time and we decided that she might be able to help us at the after school drop-in center we run. We've been looking for extra help there anyway and, at the center, she'd have other tutors around if she needed support. AND she wouldn't have to deal with parents.

But first, just to be sure, I asked my colleague who runs the center to interview her too. I didn't tell her anything about the tutor's history or disability - I just said that she was a friend of a friend and I didn't feel that I could be completely objective. Yesterday, my colleague called after their meeting and said that she thought we should hire her!

"Her math seems a bit rusty, but I think she'll be ok." She said. "I have to ask you though... she seemed SO nervous when I met with her! When she first sat down, she was trembling. We talked for almost an hour so by the time we were done... it seemed like she'd relaxed, but I was just a little worried about how nervous she seemed."

"Yeah..." I said.

So I filled her in a bit more. My colleague was really understanding about the tutor's disability and my desire to advocate for her. (I'm very up front and matter of fact with my colleagues about the fact that I have a mental health disability.)

Now it's all up to the tutor. I hope she turns out to be good. I really want this to work for her.

Update number two:
The kid I blogged about a month ago? Doesn't want to work with me anymore. I guess he originally wanted to work with my boss but he wasn't available so he said he'd try me. Now he's insisting on working with my boss. His only complaint about me? There was ONE math problems on the SAT I couldn't remember how to do. ONE stinkin' problem.

DBT's great and all, but there's something to be said for relying on your instincts. One of the fringe benefits of having Borderline is my heightened sensitivity to the emotions of the people around me. I'm pretty good at detecting if people are uncomfortable/annoyed/upset around me. I don't always know why, but I know something's up. Still. I KNEW the kid didn't like me. Twerp.

Together, we shall take back what is ours.

2007-03-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

I do all the interviewing and hiring for my tutoring company. I like this part of my job. It's nice to meet people who like algebra and essay writing as much as I do. Sometimes, it gets more complicated. Like the woman I interviewed on Thursday.

She was referred to me by a former therapist who knows that I help run a tutoring company. The therapist told me that this woman is a member of a group I used to attend - a group for people with severe, chronic mental illnesses. I left this group about a year ago because I felt like I had improved to the point where I became too high functioning to fit in anymore.

From her resume, this woman seemed perfectly qualified, so I called her and we chatted briefly on the phone. She has a car, she has free time, and most importantly, she can teach calculus and physics. She sounded like an ideal candidate.

Then I met with her in person. Her academic and teaching skills seemed fine… maybe a bit rusty, but adequate. But her social skills seemed poor. She made eye contact but she seemed very anxious and awkward. And she was extremely shaky, probably due to medication, I assumed. Moreover, she seemed a little disheveled and distracted. Nothing extreme, but these mannerisms were still quite noticeable.

I wasn’t sure I should hire her. Students and parents might pick up on her shaky awkwardness and might realize that she’s not completely well. They may not feel comfortable with her. We offer a lot of scholarships at our company, but we also work with some very wealthy, powerful and often difficult and demanding families.

Personally, I think everyone should be exposed to people with a visible mental health disability. It helps to de-stigmatize these illnesses and can prove to people that their fears of the mentally ill are unfounded. Even though she’s disheveled, this woman can probably tutor just as well as our perkiest, preppiest tutor. And they should learn that.

More importantly, I WANT to hire her. I like helping and advocating for the mentally ill. I know that other interviewers at other companies might see her quirks and reject her out of hand. The mentally ill deserve employment, just like everyone else.

Yet, I know it's more complicated than that. More about that tomorrow.

Yes, the title is from tonight's episode of the Simpsons.

Well, there went February. That was fast.

2007-03-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot going on lately. Here's the highlights.

We got our new car. It was quite an ordeal requiring multiple visits to the dealership and some borderline-y and bitchy behaviour on my part. Believe me, they deserved it.

My friend that I blogged about last time got out of the hospital. Picking her up and driving her home was surreal.

My husband has completed most of his job interviews. The result: lots of trips to the airport and one tired husband. Oh yeah, and one job offer so far. He would prefer I not blog about this part of our lives so that's all I'll say.

We went skiing for four days last week in Utah. I thought about Dooce a lot... what it would be like to move there (it's a possibility). Tuesday it snowed a foot. Wednesday, sunny and in the 20's. Thursday it snowed another foot. Friday, sunny and in the 20's. We came home and it was 65 degrees in the Bay Area. Hmmm.

Both my husband and I got colds this weekend. I hate airplanes.

Still. Not. Pregnant. And I've even given up caffeine for the past month. Grrr.

I'm going to visit my parents next weekend for three days. Again. Yes, I know. I'm crazy. Look... I have the paperwork to prove it.

Boring but FREE

2007-02-22T21:37:00.001-08:00

Oh right. I have a blog.

No… I didn’t forget. I have no excuse for not posting. It’s not like I’ve been super busy and nothing bad has happened. I just didn’t think I had anything interesting to say. Frankly, I felt downright boring.

One interesting thing did happen this week. A friend of mine was hospitalized again at the local psych hospital. It’s the same hospital where I did an outpatient, partial hospitalization day program – and where I met her.

I have a student very close to her house, so on Tuesday I offered to pick up some toiletries for her and bring them to the hospital. Today she was discharged and I picked her up and drove her home.

Both times, when was in the psych unit, I was struck by how depressing a place it is. Even though I’ve been hospitalized three times (once for a week, once for a month, and once for three months) I tend to forget.

I forget about the constant florescent lighting, the recycled air and the non-operable windows. I forget how sad the family members look when they’re visiting. I forget how noticeably loud that door sounds when it locks you in. I forget how much it hurts to see the staff leave at the end of the shift – to realize every eight hours that they have the privilege of a life in the real world and YOU don’t.

Each time I left this week, I took a tiny, secret delight each time they buzzed me out. They’re letting me leave, I thought! And when I got home… whew! This apartment may irritate me, but wow. What a delight to have a home and to be allowed to live in it.

Oh, and I'm not a Protestant either.

2007-02-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

Our homework assignment this week in DBT was to write down things we want people to know about us. I thought about it all week. There are things I’m proud of… things I’m ashamed of… things I guess I’d like people to know about. But mentioning them seemed more like bragging. So I started thinking about what I REALLY wanted the group to know. Then it came to me.

I want them to know that I’m not what I seem.

I think people see me and think that I’m easily understood. Maybe they see a stereotype, a cliché. I look like a WASPy, white bread, upper middle-class girl from the northeast. Someone who got a degree in liberal arts and has generally had life handed to her on a platter. But that’s not true (well, not entirely… I did get the liberal arts degree.)

I’ve always felt that people have misread me. In the past, people have taken an almost visceral dislike to me. Some people have thought I’m snooty because I’m usually well spoken. Some people have thought I was manipulative or needy because I have this mental illness. But what really bothers me were the people who didn’t dislike me… they just didn’t GET me.

What they don’t see is that there have been these huge rifts, these huge extremes in my life. Hell, these make it hard for me to understand myself

For example, there’s a big difference between my background and my education. My parents may be wealthy now, but my mom’s family is straight out of Appalachia. That whole side of my family has had little education or comfort. I grew up in a very rural town and had a somewhat… primitive childhood; think homespun, old-fashioned.

On the flip side, I’ve had these fantastic opportunities because of my education. I’ve met fascinating and important people. I sang with Dave Brubeck, I got to go inside a nuclear reactor (before it was running) when I was eight. I’ve been to the top of the Parachute Jump at Coney Island (doing an architectural survey).

But the biggest discrepancy by far, between how I look and who I am lies strictly within the confines of my head.

A lot of the time, I think I look normal or sane on the outside and feel completely insane on the inside. I’ve felt this way my whole life. When I was hospitalized or in a residential program, I finally felt like I belonged; like I was surrounded by like minds. I finally felt comfortable.

tap-a, tap-a, tap-a...

2007-02-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

So last night, my husband and I were sitting on the couch, chatting. I was tapping my fingers.

As usual.

I've always compulsively tapped my fingers, usually in time to some repetitive jingle or rhythm that gets caught in my head. It's like I'm working out fingering on the piano (I'm a musician). Sometimes, it's been a problem. When I've performed on stage with various music ensembles, I've had to hide my hands or force myself to just stop tapping. I didn't realize this until kids in middle school used to tease me about it.

Last night, I didn't even notice that I was tapping.

"Why are you tapping your fingers?" My husband asked.

"I dunno... " I said. "I'm just tapping."

"I don't buy it." He said. "When you tap your fingers, it means you're thinking about something. It's like when the cat twitches her tail... it's hardwired to her brain. When you tap your fingers, it's a little warning sign. And when you think too much, your thoughts build up until your head explodes and every thing's covered with the bits."

If the man didn't already have a phd, that comment alone would qualify him for an honorary doctorate in psychology.

Personality Disorder + gift with string attached = hate^3

2007-02-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

I hate, hate, HATE the fact that life exhausts me so much.

We went car shopping today. I managed to look sane in front of strangers. In front of my husband, well, I’m sure I looked a bit more… unhinged.

On Monday night, my husband went online and submitted a request for price quotes from dealers who had the car we are interested in. Six emailed us back by Tuesday morning. Most of the emails didn’t include a price quote and didn’t say whether or not the even HAD the car. I found this troubling and didn’t know how to proceed.

What if the first dealer we talked to was right and nobody had this car on the lot? We’d have to order the car and pay full price. That would not please the people who are paying for the car… namely, my parents. I hate, hate, HATE this process, I kept saying. Buying a car with their money feels very stressful. Maybe it wouldn’t bother others, but if you knew how judgmental my parents are, you’d get it.

--- --- ---

Finally, on Thursday, I worked up my courage and emailed the dealers back. I said that if they had the car and told me how much they wanted for it, I’d come in this weekend and talk to them. I asked them to EMAIL me back.

Three called. One of the callers didn’t really have the car I was looking for, so I made appointments to go see the other two callers today. This morning, we drove out to the first one in the East Bay. We took a test drive and I liked the way the car handled.

It turned out that he really didn’t have the color with leather seats like we were looking for, but everything was pleasant enough. He looked around and thought he could get one for us.

Great, we said, here’s the price to beat.

He beat it.

Great, we said, make sure you can get it.

He got it.

Great, we said, here’s a deposit. We’ll be back to do the paperwork.

No, his manager said, we won’t take a deposit. You have to do the paperwork RIGHT NOW.

Uh… no, we said, we have to get our finances in order and frankly it’s a $30k purchase. We require 24 hours to make sure we’re happy with this decision. (and honestly, we needed to shop his price around a bit and see if we could beat it.)

No, the manager said. Paperwork. Now.

Good bye, we said, and walked out.

--- --- ---

So, we drove over to Target. Where I tried not to have a panic attack about the whole thing. I started in with the familiar negative thoughts:

What if the first dealer we talked to was right…?
Nobody has this car on the lot…
What if we have to order the car…?
My parents are going to think I’m stupid because I can’t buy a car…
I hate, hate, HATE this.

But… one dealer in the North Bay actually READ my email and emailed me back as I requested. He said that he’d be getting the car I wanted in a week and would hold it for me with a deposit. So as soon as I got out of the East Bay dealership, I called him up. Yes, it was the car I wanted. Yes, he could go slightly lower in price than the East Bay dealer. Yes, he’d actually TAKE a deposit (what a concept). Done.

--- --- ---

When we got home, we called my parents to tell them the news. My dad was less than exuberant. “Well, that’s $1k less than the MSRP. But the dealer’s still making $2k. Are you sure he’s not adding on a bunch of extra fees? Make sure he’s not adding a cleaning or polishing fee. And what’s he giving you for the trade in?”

I don’t know dad, I said. It’s probably not gonna be the $6 or $7k you want… the car’s got a small dent on one side. And it’s got 95,000 miles on it.

“Yeah, I know” he said. “These guys are all crooks. If they try to give you less than $5k, then you gotta be prepared to walk outta there and wait for someone else. These slime balls… “

And as he launched into another rant, my negative thoughts came marching in…

What if the first dealer we talked to was right…?
Nobody has this car on the lot...
What if we have to order the car…?
My parents are going to hate me…

“Aren’t you excited about all this?” I heard him say. “You’re getting a brand-new car!”

I hate, hate, HATE this.

*update: right after I finished typing this, I got a call from another dealer. He'll give me the same model for slightly less. Sigh. Now I guess I have to pit him against the North Bay dealer to see who will give me the better trade in price. Oh, that'll be fun. I can see it now... this guy won't want to hold the car for me while I run off and see what the North Bay guy'll give me...

depression + PMS + cranky = meme

2007-02-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

Since I've been in a bit of a funk this week (depression + PMS + cranky) I haven't blogged much. Thus, I'll resort to a meme.

10 Firsts

First best friend: Anonymous Mom (met when we were 1, friends when we were 2)
First car: 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser wagon with bench naugahide seats. The thing had a V-8 engine and idled at 20mph.
First love: according to my mom, Mr. Strobitzky, my art teacher in 2nd grade.
First vacation: Nantucket… I think?
First job: assistant counselor at a YMCA camp in New England.
First piercing: none!
First concert: I’m almost too ashamed to admit… Huey Lewis and the News somewhere back in the 80’s.
First record/cd bought: something classical probably.
First real love: an art history professor from London at the YMCA camp. At least he married the girl he left me for.
First screen name: Juniper

9 Latest

Latest beverage: drinking Calistoga sparkling water as I type.
Latest car ride: home from tutoring in Tiburon tonight.
Latest movie watched: I went to see “Because I Said So” on Monday. It was ok, not great. Mostly, I was annoyed because all the characters have impossibly nice apartments.
Latest phone call made: called UT to reserve a room. I’m joining my husband on an interview trip in a couple weeks so I can ski for FOUR days!
Latest jacuzzi bath: hmmm… long time ago.
Latest played cd: CD? I think we actually played a P-Funk CD while setting up the Christmas tree.
Latest time you cried: Almost every day this week! Again.
Latest meal: Reheated leftover pizza for dinner. We were tired.
Latest curse: Dunno. I’m sure I swore sometime today though.

8 Things You Wear (I’m assuming they mean on a regular basis)

Do contacts count?
Trying to start wearing a bit of foundation. Makes me look less blotchy all the time.
Underwear & bra
Wedding & engagement rings
Socks. It’s been too cold lately.
Watch
I’m trying to wear shoes that make me look taller.
A scowl.

7 Have You Ever

Dated one of your best friends: yes. Married him.
Been arrested: yes
Fallen in love at first sight: yup. My husband.
Been in a TV program: no
Had your heart broken: yes. See above British professor.
Said you love someone without meaning it: no
Made a prank phone call: probably.

6 Things You’ve Done Today

Tutored the SAT.
Went to my depression support group.
Watched 2 episodes of The Simpsons, of course.
Read part of the New York Times.
Wrote work emails I should’ve ignored until next week.
Showered.

5 Favorite Things

Sushi
Joni Mitchell
Grey cats
Sleeping
Being in the woods

4 People I Can Tell Anything

Psychiatrist
Therapist
Best Friends
Husband

3 Choices

Black or white? Black
Summer or winter? Summer (provided I have some shade)
Chocolate or chips? Chips

2 things to do Before You Die

Be a parent
Finish my book

1 Thing You Regret

Getting arrested (and the things I did to get arrested)

Something you could happily do an infinite number of times:

Wake up next to my husband

assume = ass + u + me

2007-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

For homework in DBT this week, we were asked to observe and describe various situations. One reason we do this is to compare these descriptions to our own, internal assumptions. We all make assumptions about our experiences - but they're not always correct.

Sunday AM:
OBSERVE: I felt self conscious and insecure while tutoring my noon client.

ASSUMPTIONS: I am a lousy tutor, a lousy adult and an even lousier woman. Also, this is not one of the families who treat me like an educator. They treat me like hired help.

DESCRIBE: I was late because I couldn't find parking. I was surprised when I saw that the student lived in a very modern loft-like building in a very trendy area of town. He looked neat, thin, and kinda athletic. I was wearing old pants and a fleece that were very loose. My hair was still damp from a shower and I wasn't wearing any makeup. I started to think that I looked fat and frumpy. He briefly introduced me to his dad. I started comparing myself to the dad who I saw as a "real" adult. The kid acted unsure of what to expect... he didn't know how much tutoring he wanted. I started worrying that I was talking too much. I forgot to introduce myself and tell the kid about my background. The kid is very smart and I wasn't quite sure what help I could be to him. He was already getting a 780 on the verbal section.

REALITY: Both the kid and I were a little unprepared and uncomfortable. Things'll probably go smoother next time. And I'll wear a nicer outfit so I feel more professional. It wasn't such a big deal and I don't need to beat myself up over it.

February fourth. Best day of the year.

2007-02-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

Arthur's Seat. Kinda looks like a camel, doesn't it?

Tomorrow’s our anniversary. Not our wedding anniversary, or the anniversary of our engagement, but the day we became a couple. Eleven years ago, I met him on a hike to the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. We were both studying abroad on the edge of the North Sea in Scotland.

My husband fit the image of an Irishman, intense and enigmatic. He was infamous for being opinionated and funny. I thought he seemed too smart, too confident for twenty-two. A tormented writer, he claimed his work turned to crap the instant it hit the paper. You got the sense that he would be very famous, although his disposition suggested his fame might arrive posthumously.

The second week of school, we went sightseeing. We walked down the wide Georgian streets of New-Town and up the hill to the famous kirkyard overlooking the castle. The granite buildings seemed relaxed with their plumbing hanging out their backsides. At the National Museum we sat by the pools of carp under the nineteenth century glass arcade. In the mediaeval cathedral, a small, old man approached and asked where we were from. When we told him we were from New York the man showed us a plaque donated by a New Yorker. I watched my husband listening patiently and realized how proud I'd be if we were a couple.

The next week, my husband helped me buy a bike and I lent him the use of my laptop. We spent a week of evenings together. We sat up drinking and I’d play with his feet. One night I had a dream we were married. Finally, on February fourth, I kissed him. The first time, it was the way you kiss a corpse, softly, slowly, and on the forehead. I thought, if I marry this man, and spend the rest of my life with him, I might kiss him for the last time in the same way.

For our first weekend trip we went to Glasgow. We both had grandparents born there. My grandfather had been a steam-hammer man and his had owned a brass works. I’d read about how dire the tenements had been. I remembered the tintype pictures of blackened oval staircases hanging from ship's steel and rust. The narrow closes filled with washing hung from every window and the buildings coated with coal dust, too heavy for the ocean gales to blow away. The tenements had been torn down but we saw the rows of warehouses and "to let" signs. The streets led to no great cities, only thousands more granite houses with walled gardens and sodium lamps that paced out, up to the tops of the hills.

Back in Edinburgh, we liked to walk through the residential streets by our dorm. The tiny stone houses squeezed into plots of land that could be more than a sixteenth of an acre. Hand in hand, we analyzed the gardens, talked to dogs, and described what sort of house we'd like to live in. We paused at one window, looking at a room filled with bookcases and plants and deep red walls. The street signs were bolted into the granite walls.

One night, we found ourselves back at Arthur's Seat, sitting in the tall scrub. It was June, but cool, and he put his jacket around me. He told me about his family as we watched the castle lights. We were so far north that the sky never really got dark. It always stayed a deep indigo blue.

We spent Sundays in bed that year, watching the slanting sun while we fooled around. I knew that I'd remember these days when I was old and know that this was what it felt like to be twenty-one. I lived abroad and fell deeply in love with a very kind and interesting man.

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday (a day late)

2007-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

Search me

2007-01-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

I've been keeping a list of searches that brought people to this blog. Some themes have appeared.

By far and away, there were three EXTREMELY popular searches. I don't want to mention the keywords here because frankly, I kinda hope these searches will taper off. Someday. Here's a hint about the general areas:

A LOT of people are having trouble with the cars of a prominent German manufacturer. Specifically, one dashboard light.
Nobody seems to understand what constitutes a good score on the standardized tests students take to get into private high school.
An oddly large amount of people want to take karate. In NJ.

Otherwise, the searches were pretty hilarious. Or depressing, depending on how you look at things.

There was a lot of hate out there. Some was reserved for husbands:

my husband hates me
dealing with hurt husband
i think my husband hates me
hate husband
i love my husband even when i mean to him
my husband seems to hate me
borderline personality disorder i don't love my husband
why my husband hates me so much
husband hate

There was a lot of parental/in-law hate to go around too:

my parents hate me
is ok that my mom wears a long
narcissistic mother controlling
my parents hate my husband
my father hates me
my husband hates my parents
my husband's parents hate me

A lot of you need to see a doctor:

2006 never ending cold virus
i really had to pee
my glands hurt
she apologized for her voice hoarse laryngitis
chest wall muscle pull
my glands hurt when i turn my head to the side
fall forward ikea poang chair dangerous

And you need to talk to the doctor about how to take your meds.

seroquel and ambien
seroquel taper
tapered off seroquel
desiprimine recreation [Recreation? Seriously?]
desiprimine
diazepam tapering have the morning but not the afternoon
taking darvaset while pregnant

There were some interesting perspectives on borderline... characteristics:

borderline personality unusually perceptive
do borderlines really hear voices
how do borderlines goodbye
what's annoying
my therapist is annoying me

Apparently, it is a borderline characteristic to try to find your DBT homework online:

dbt workbook
dbt opposite action worksheet
linehan invalidating environment cry about
dbt emotion regulation homework sheet 1

And to track down the real identity of the best borderline autobiographer out there:

rachel reiland blog
rachel reiland pseudonym
who is rachel reiland
rachel reiland parents

Sure, I had some favorites, ones that made me laugh and scratch my head with puzzlement:

entropy explained
standing motionlesssubmissive
how to make curly fries
george seinfled t-bone

But if the author of these last two searches ever comes back here again... I wanna talk to you. At length. How come you're interested in this topic? Contact me. Seriously. We gotta talk.

institute of living/hartford is crazy
institute of living underground tunnels

Dear Future: any day now...

2007-01-29T21:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Future:

I've got a bone to pick with you. Lately, I've begun to notice how many things are, well... hanging. Too many things. I'd like to have SOME concept, some vision of what my life will look like in five or six months. This lack of direction is starting to annoy me. Here are the items I would like you to resolve ASAP:

1. All future travel plans. Are those trips to Utah, North Carolina and Santa Fe going to happen? Are they going to happen by the end of March? Will I need to make more trips to prepare for relocation in April-June? Will my father be visiting in the coming months? And who will watch the cat while we jet around the country?

2. My husband's job. Will he get one? How soon? Will it be nice? Will he like the salary? Oh yeah, and where the hell will it be located? Can we narrow it down to one time zone at least?

3. My job. If we stay here, will I keep it? Do I even like it? If we live somewhere else, would I continue tutoring or will I go back to architecture? Full time or part time? Hmmm?

4. Babies. Like... will I ever have one? I know we've been only trying for six months and some months have been half-hearted attempts. But, I'd kinda like to know. NOW. And if I'm not pregnant this month (I don't know yet) why is my chest so swollen and tender? And why is my GI system all screwy? Just for fun?

5. The new car. What color will it be? How much will it cost? And when will I get it? How much will they give me for the trade in? Will it run ok or will it be a lemon? When will it get it's first scratch?

6. Our home. Ok, I realize that I won't be living here in this particular crap-shack in six months... that's good. But what will I be living in? Will we have purchased our first home? Will we still be in an apartment? Will it be nicer? Will this furniture be coming with us?

7. Will all the spiders and mold hiding in this apartment eventually rise up in the night and suffocate us? Or will the gas heater finally explode? Will this shack eventually do us in before we make it to our new home?

8. Will my patience give out?

'cmon future. Let's see a few results here. Understand? Good.

sincerely,

Juniper

Blame the graveyard shift

2007-01-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

Soooo… did you all have a good week? Yes? Good. Glad to hear it.

Oh me? Uh… yeah, I had an ok week.

What did I do all week? Uh…

Nothing. No seriously, nothing.

Hence the lack of blogging. Early Wednesday morning, my husband left town for his first job interview. He got back yesterday afternoon. So, in celebration of my three days as a single woman I became…

a zombie.

Don’t get me wrong; I did manage to leave the house occasionally. I had one client each afternoon and group therapy on Wednesday and Friday. But other than those commitments, I did as little as possible. Lots of TV, hours of sleep, and some quality time with my couch. Sometimes this happens when my husband’s away. It’s like my brain tells the day shift to go home and lets the graveyard shift take over just the necessary operations.

I wasn’t exactly PROUD of this. I avoided a lot of things that shouldn’t have been avoided. Work, friends, exercise, housework… Most of the week I was pretty hard on myself about it, worrying I had become a permanently lazy slug. It’s hard to know what comes first with depression… being depressed or being depressed about being depressed.

But, let’s face it, after last week’s trip to New Jersey, I needed the rest. When I got back I felt discombobulated and rattled. I was exhausted from the journey itself, the jet lag and my busy schedule. But I was more emotionally exhausted. Spending time with my parents always wears me out, especially when the visit is intense, like this one was.

I’ll write more about that later.

Finally, on Friday morning, I woke up feeling more like myself… like I had a vague interest in doing something that might not include my couch. Yesterday I made it to the gym and today we actually started the onerous task of car shopping.

My husband leaves for another interview trip first thing tomorrow morning. He now has eight interviews! Eight! And an invitation to a conference in Madrid! It’s going to be a busy couple of months… Hopefully I won’t resort to being such a hermit, stuck in my own head. It’s a lot nicer to be out in the REAL world with the day shift.

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday (a day late)

2007-01-25T20:28:00.000-08:00

So, I know that this one isn't exactly "hand-crafted" but I can't keep making onesies until I have a baby to put them in!

For now, the onesies are going to be digital.

I love my job... ?

2007-01-23T20:40:00.000-08:00

Today I went to see one of my regular clients. She's a 7th grader at a local private school; one of the most academically challenging in the area. I've worked with her for a while now and her homework kicks my ass.

Right before Christmas, she was asked to write an outline for an English paper on "a controversy." Some of her classmates wrote about why they should offer lunch a bit later. My kid... she wanted to write about racial profiling. Hmmm... Did I mention that she's African American and I'm so white I'm practically translucent? I tried to be... delicate. Ultimately, she did a lot of great research and has since written a pretty good rough draft.

Right after the holidays, she told me that she had a new history assignment. She has to lead a class discussion on a topic relating to "race." Not again, I thought. She then proceeded to tell me how she'd decided to talk about "scientific racism." Um... did I mention that she's in 7th grade? (When I was in 7th grade, the most challenging thing Mrs. Oliver asked us to do was a research paper on animals in poetry.) When we looked at the assignment, we discovered that she was supposed to find a primary document (relating to this topic) to present and discuss with her class. Did I have any suggestions, she asked?

Oh yeah. I'm just a wealth of primary documents. I drive around with a reference section in my trunk. Better yet, I have a microfiche reader and 100 years of the New York Times in my bag. The only thing I could think of off the top of my head was The Bell Curve.

Well, thank god for the internet. We looked up scientific racism on Wikipedia which led us to the Eugenics article. Which led us to the Nuremberg Laws. Perfect, I thought! Nazis + racism = social studies gold. Why don't you focus on one kind of scientific racism like eugenics, I suggested. Everyone was happy.

Until she talked to her teacher. Who reminded her that this was an AMERICAN history class. Fantastic.

So tonight, we spent 1/2 of an hour trying to get her dad's laptop to work and the other 1/2 of an hour trying to find another primary document. We found part of the Immigration Act of 1924 online... not the interesting part, of course. Finally, I had to leave and we'd made no progress. I told her to talk to her school's reference librarian and I'd be back in a couple of days.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like this job asks the impossible. Find a primary document on scientific racism in one hour? Sure. That can be found online? Uh, ok. That can be comprehended by a 7th grader? Wait... does that exist?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Postscript: Next month, she has to do a presentation on socioeconomic or class issues. Thank god we read Nickel and Dimed this summer. Can you believe this is 7th grade!

You don't know what you want... 'til it's found

2007-01-22T20:36:00.001-08:00

Last week, I blogged a bit about some tension I was having with my therapist. Here's what I wrote at the time:

"Three years ago, when she was my counselor at the residential program, she confiscated four pocket knives that I was occasionally using to cut myself. I don't cut myself anymore so this summer, I asked for them back. They were gone. Someone had taken them from the "locked" medicine cabinet that only staff have the keys to. Thanks guys. To replace the knives would cost about $200. She said she'd talk to the director (who hates me and kicked me out two years ago) about getting my money back. For the last six months, she's chickened out. Finally today, I told her that if she didn't talk to the guy in the next two weeks, I was going to skip two sessions with her to recoup the $200. I told her that I didn't think it was fair that she should lose the business and I should lose the therapy, but what other choice do I have??"

My husband was NOT happy about this decision. He said that the only person I was punishing was myself.

My doc wasn't crazy about my decision either. He thought I shouldn't penalize my therapist since she's not the one who lost the knives. He suggested that I should write a letter to the director of the residential program.

Just Me had some similar advice:

"I wonder... if maybe the therapist is in a bad situation but doesn't have the balls to say THAT either. The gripe really is between you and the hospital. The therapist is the go-between. You can't really blame the messenger, right? So suck it up yourself and go to the hospital... and ask for your personal property... [and] put in a deadline... If [your therapist] doesn't want to do it, she should say that. If she does, why doesn't she do it? you should GO to the two sessions but NOT PAY."

Oh and there was an added bonus: I felt like a complete LOSER, blogging about how much I missed my knives. How unfair... some nice people tried to keep you from cutting yourself. Boo hoo you big baby.

Well... last week, (only two days after the conversation with my therapist, by the way) she called and said that she'd finally spoken to the director. He promised to look for the knives and if he couldn't find them, he'd cut me a check.

"I know you didn't want to do this, so I really appreciate it." I said. "I just didn't want to have this between us any longer."

"Actually, I thought you handled it pretty well." She said. "You were pretty skilled about it."

Really? Glad she thought so.

So I was getting pretty happy about the situation. Soon, I'd have a big fat $200 check! And the check is from someone I truly hate. Beautiful.

Then today, when I met with my therapist, she said that she had good news.

"[The director] told me that he thinks he found your pocket knives!"

Yay. Four pocket knives. I think I really just wanted the check.

For my 100th post, I shall attempt to demonstrate how labile emotions can make you weep with exhaustion

2007-01-20T21:54:00.000-08:00

So… my dad’s retirement dinner on Tuesday night… Many have asked how it went. And, I don’t have a great answer. That’s probably why I haven’t blogged for a few days.

That, and the extreme psychological exhaustion. Allow me to explain:

Tuesday was a blur: After 3 fitful hours of sleep, I meet my parents for breakfast at 7:30am. My parents dislike the waiter and leave him no tip. A stellar way to start the day… After breakfast, we drive to see this school my dad helped build. Apparently, it wouldn’t have been built if it weren’t for his leadership. The faculty and staff seem incredibly appreciative and fawn over him. This is… nice, but confusing to watch. I’m proud of my dad but embarrassed at the same time. Oh yeah, did I mention that the school is still under construction? Walking around the job site reminds me of my abandoned architecture career. My dad introduces me to everyone as “an architect.” Throughout the tour, I feel my emotions welling up… like I’m about to cry.

Mom and I have a couple of hours before our appointments at the salon so we drive back to her old neighborhood. We try to catch up with a meeting of her old garden club at the local library but miss them. We go to lunch instead. Question: if you order a “Thai shrimp wrap” would you expect that to be a do-it-yourself plate with separate piles of lettuce, cold shrimp, various nuts, rice, and spicy clear goo? No, you wouldn’t. For $20 you’d expect them to, I dunno, COOK?

We spend 3 hours at the salon. I submit to the most painful “blowout” I’ve ever had which leaves me with a puffy head of straw. Yes, I did suggest “volume” but… OW. After that torture is done, the nice lady applies so much makeup that I look… plastic. She complements me on my eye color and tells me that I could even wear blue eye shadow if I wanted. Ummm…. Really? Let’s just stick to browns, I tell her. This is as much conversation as we will have all afternoon. The rest of the time she just frowns and I try to dissociate. I’m feeling REALLY uncomfortable… kinda like a whore.

We drive back to the hotel, change and go to the retirement dinner. More about that tomorrow.

Wednesday, I spend the day with my friend, her wife, and their one year-old son. He. Is. Adorable. And only bit me once! I had a great time hanging out with them but… I am extremely tired at this point. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep for five days. And, it’s a little depressing to see my friend’s baby. Why can’t I have one of those? What’s wrong with me?

Thursday morning, I wake up at 6am. Shower, dress, and say good-bye. Then gas up the rental car, out to the Belt Parkway, drop off the car, take the air train to the terminal, check in, walk what feels like FIVE MILES through the terminal to the gate and onto the plane by 8:30am. Whew. The guy next to me orders four drinks. Thanks buddy. I enjoyed watching you drink those three bloody Marys and that beer.

When I arrive at SFO, I’m shattered… emotionally and physically worn out. I wasn’t feeling that great when I left for this trip (see last week’s posts) and now I feel even worse. When I call my husband’s cell phone and see that it’s not turned on, I lose it. Where is he? Is he on his way to get me? Will I be sitting outside on the curb for hours? Why can’t he turn on his phone? I’m starting to panic. I leave him a cranky voicemail. Then, I see him walk into baggage claim. And I start to cry.

Sooo… I’ve spent the last 48 hours trying to get my feet back under me. There’s been hours of sleep, lots of unpacking, cleaning, and many, many hugs from my husband. And slowly, but surely, I’m starting to feel like myself again.

I hate how… weak all this has made me feel. It seems so… stupid. Why should a trip like this wear me out? I was only gone for 4 ½ days! It’s so hard for me to accept the limitations of my diagnosis. Even though I’ve spent the last four years working hard to treat my Borderline Personality Disorder, it still slows me down. Whenever I talk to my doc about this, he reminds me that some people deal with this by cloistering themselves. They never travel, never do anything new, never break out of their rut. And you know what? It helps them deal with their symptoms… cuts down on the dysphoria and anxiety and mood swings that come with this disorder. But, he always reminds me, they miss out on a lot.

So those are my choices… slow way down and regulate my emotions more easily OR live my life and get bounced around by the ride. Aaaand… the only way I’m going to know what too much looks like… is by experience. You know, like this past week? Whee.

As they say in Jersey...

2007-01-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

The hair and makeup are done.

Oh.

My.

Gaawwd.

Where's a good rut when you need it?

2007-01-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

The trip was going pretty well up until this point. It’s now 2am and I can’t sleep. I slept poorly last night so I probably COULD sleep, but every time I close my eyes, my lovely brain won’t shut up. Have I become such a creature of habit that I can’t sleep without my… my what? My own bed, husband, apartment, state… time zone? I have my little habits and bedtime rituals and apparently, the comforts of a nice cushy Hilton just mess that all up. No… just let me stick in my nice familiar rut please.

Yesterday went pretty well actually:

Got a decent night’s sleep and woke up halfway rested at 6am.
Everything at SFO went smoothly and the flight was on schedule.
JFK wasn’t too bad and neither was the traffic into NYC.
I had a good time at my friend’s house and didn’t feel like too much of a fifth wheel around her family.
Her one and four-year old daughters seemed to warm to me a bit.
I had a nice talk with her husband last night.

Today was mostly ok too:

I didn’t get much sleep, but I didn’t feel wrecked this morning.
I had a good time playing with my friends’ little girls in our pajamas.
My friend and I snuck in some decent conversations about parents (although I worried that was talking about myself too much).
Not too much traffic in NJ and I even got an hour to myself at the hotel (which is very nice and has wireless Internet.)
Running errands with dad wasn’t too bad.
We had a good, light, talk at dinner.

Then, on the way to the airport to pick her up, I mentioned the clothing thing. Really casually, I just said that mom seemed really focused on what we were all wearing tomorrow. He said that she told him she "can’t talk to me about clothes anymore.” That kinda stung. It makes it sound like I’m the difficult one. He also said “You don’t normally hang out with all the senior executives at his company.” True… but I still felt like he was saying I couldn’t dress myself. Things felt more stilted once mom showed up. Back at the hotel, mom and I tried on our outfits for each other. Honestly, the skirt looks really stupid on me and now I’m worried.

Last night, when I couldn’t fall right asleep, I wasn’t too hard on myself. Even though I didn’t get a full night’s sleep the previous night, I just don’t sleep well in strange places. I know this. I just lay there patiently, drifting from one thing to another. Tonight, that wasn’t happening. I just started thinking about well… I don’t know, EVERYTHING. (And thinking about how silly and unattractive I was going to feel all day tomorrow didn’t help either. Now I’m going to look tired as well as fat and pasty and weird.)

Nights like this, I miss my buddies, Ambien and Seroquel.

Tomorrow could be be rough. There’s the tour of the school my dad built (well, project managed) in the morning, the afternoon of staring at myself in the mirror at the salon, and then, the evening of awkward conversation and feeling like a bloated Barbie.

Maybe, I’ll just overload on DBT skills. Be mindful of myself. Take care of myself. Be mindful of the brevity of the day and it’s importance to my parents. Take care of myself but remember it’s not about ME tomorrow. It's a big transition for my dad and I want to support him.

And then Wednesday (which is now, technically tomorrow) I’ll get to hang out with my friend in Queens. And the next day, I’ll get to go home and squeeze back into my nice little rut. My nice little comforting rut that keeps my moods from flying around and banging into all the nice people.

Oh hell… and now one of my glands on my neck feels sore and swollen. If I get sick as soon as I get back… well there goes the rut...

My mom dresses me funny

2007-01-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

After posting my last entry, I walked away from the computer a bit worried. I don’t want this blog to devolve into a forum for my rants and whinging. I worry that I’ve been doing too much of that lately. I’d prefer that this blog illustrate what it’s like to live with (and recover from) Borderline Personality Disorder. Yes, along the way, you’ll get a healthy dose of the everyday, but hopefully the everyday as seen through the (oh so perceptive) eyes of a Borderline.

So yes, in my last post, I bitched about a lot of things: my apartment, my car, store clerks, my ass… But the topic that stood out the most, the topic that was largely to blame for my bad mood in the first place…

My mom dresses me funny.

So, how does this illustrate what it's like to live with Borderline? Ummmm.... Well, for starters, it illustrates how my emotions swing between extremes that are hard to manage. Like my intense anger. And it explains (pretty well, in fact) the kind of invalidating environment that CREATES Borderline. Like how my mom trying to dress me invalidates my individuality and oh, I dunno, my adulthood.

I’ve spent a lot of the last few days trying to explain to people (ok, mainly therapists and my husband) how I wound up in this situation. Again.

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to. It happens by degrees. It’s not like my mom just walks up to me, slaps me on the back and says “Well Juniper, it’s obvious you’re a wreck and can’t manage to look presentable in public. To avoid a lot of embarrassment, your father and I are going to strap you down and make you look like the good little preppy clone we always wanted.” Maybe that’s what she’s thinking, but these situations tend to unravel more sloooowly.

Here’s the chronology of this current mess:

ACT I:
Among my birthday presents are a black skirt and white sweater. I don’t love em’ but then, you don’t always love birthday presents. I feign happiness and gratitude. Mom suggests I wear them to my dad’s party. Hmmm. I hadn’t even been thinking about what I was going to wear. The party’s not for weeks. I don’t want to spend money on a new outfit… I make some non-committal murmurs, not realizing that in her mind, this equals “Yes, thanks mom. Don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t save me from my own ineptitude.”

ACT II:
Christmas morning, I get a gift certificate for shoes at Nine West. I like Nine West. I need some dressy black sandals. Good gift. I’m happy. “Maybe you can use this to get some nice shoes to go with your new outfit!” Mom happily suggests. That’s NOT gonna happen, I think. But do I have shoes that go with that outfit, I wonder? Maybe I will have to use part of it.

ACT III:
Mom tells me she’s getting her hair done while she’s in NJ. She loves that salon and has missed it ever since she moved. Would I like to get a haircut too? Uh, yeah, sure. I was gonna get a haircut in January anyway… why not. Saves me the time and money. And that way they can “style” my hair too. She says. That way I’ll look nice for the party. Ummmm… ok. I don’t usually do that much to my hair but I always let the stylist do something to it after I get a haircut. It’s fun to have “styled” hair for a day.

ACT IV:
On the last day of our visit, mom asks us to try on our new clothes and see if everything fits. The white sweater doesn’t fit that great. Probably because it’s incredibly ugly and unflattering. I tell mom that it’s not going to “work.” She sighs. “Oh noooo, really? And that’s the one I had to go to two stores for and then they had to order it in another size and have it shipped… “ Well thanks mom. Thanks for being so gracious about it. I’m trying to save her the money and she’s giving me a guilt trip. “I’ll just give you a check for what it’s worth and you can go get yourself something that works with that skirt.” Uh… what? Did I just agree to go shopping for an item of clothing I don’t really need to match a skirt that I don’t really expect to get a lot of use out of?

ACT V:
In the week and a half since we’ve been home, mom has reminded me to get some new shoes and a new blouse. About six times. In emails, letters, and phone conversations. Here’s the most recent email:

“Just wondering – did you get some new nice dress shoes yet? And also did you find a top you like for the black skirt? Hope so. Let’s talk about outfits for Dad’s big “do” next time we talk. By the way, when we go to the salon, Ann Marie, the tiny one with long black hair, who is from Maine will be cutting your hair along with shampoo and styling. Would you like her or someone there to do a make-up application for you while you are waiting for me to get beautified? Might be fun.”

So now the shoes and skirt have become mandatory. Great. I leave in less than a week and now I have to fit in a shopping trip.

As for the makeup, this was my reply:

“I’m ok with them doing my makeup... As long as it’s not too “NJ.” I’ll have to be firm with them and remind them that I’m a CT/CA “natural” girl. But it’s a nice idea.”

This was NOT what I originally wrote. This was probably the third draft of my reply. The polite draft. Don’t wanna seem ungrateful, now do I.

So you see… I agree to a new skirt, and a few days later, I’m in over my head. It’s not for any lack of will or spine on my part. It just sneaks up on me… like sinking into quicksand. THAT”S what makes it so hard to escape. (thrashing makes you sink more quickly, right?)

What's annoying me:

2007-01-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

today... EVERYTHING

But I'll give you the top ten:

My apartment - specifically, its inability to come clean. When will my landlord ever learn that a millimeter of caulking is not the way to fix everything. Also, how can one 6 pound cat shed 100 cubic meters of fur?
My car - specifically, how much time I spend in it. Today, for example, I left the house at 8:45am and didn't get home until 6pm. Throughout the day, I had three, one hour long meetings. The rest of the time... driving from one store to another.
Those stores. Yes, shoe shopping is usually a happy occasion, but not today! Today, I had to use half of a Christmas gift certificate on shoes I didn't want. My mother was dead set on me wearing new shoes for my father's retirement dinner next week. I didn't fall in love with anything at the store, but I don't have all week to go hunting around. I have this thing... maybe you've heard of it... it's called, A JOB. Oh, and ladies (the ones working at the shoe outlet) not everyone else loves R&B as much as you do.
Oh yeah, my job. What is wrong with our company's tutors? Today a young man told me that he couldn't take a student because it wasn't worth his while to drive to the kid's house for only one hour. If I could magically whip another student (immediately afterwards and in the same neighborhood, of course) out of MY ASS, then maybe he'd consider it. Dude. Sorry work is so much... work. Suck it up.
My ass - specifically, its large size. Thanks to years of therapy, I now actually care enough about myself and my appearance that it's finally starting to bug me. Thanks doc. What a gift of health.
My therapist. Three years ago, when she was my counselor at the residential program, she confiscated four pocket knives that I was occasionally using to cut myself. I don't cut myself anymore so this summer, I asked for them back. They were gone. Someone had taken them from the "locked" medicine cabinet that only staff have the keys to. Thanks guys. To replace the knives would cost about $200. She said she'd talk to the director (who hates me and kicked me out two years ago) about getting my money back. For the last six months, she's chickened out. Finally today, I told her that if she didn't talk to the guy in the next two weeks, I was going to skip two sessions with her to recoup the $200. I told her that I didn't think it was fair that she should lose the business and I should lose the therapy, but what other choice do I have??
Waste. Today, I brought two bags full of stuff to Goodwill. One whole bag was full of awful clothes my mother has bought me. Exhibit two: these socks. Seriously woman. I used to be an architect. I used to dress all in black. Do these look like they're for me?
My mother. She's always dressed me funny and now she's trying to get me appropriately gussied up for my father's retirement party. I already mentioned the shoes. Exhibit 3: the sweater I managed to avoid at Christmas (similar to this but in white): Exhibit 4: the skirt from Talbots I did not manage to avoid. It's got a very special 1950's Donna Reed, big hips kinda thing happening. Thaaanks. Oh yeah, and did I mention, she wants me to get my hair and makeup done that afternoon. Hair and makeup. In New Jersey. Why did I give up medication?
My freaky subconscious and the sleep it robs from me. For some reason, I've slept horribly the last two nights. I've particularly hated all the disturbing baby dreams. In some, I have a baby and then I lose it. In some, I have a baby and its deformed. And then in others, I have a baby and it's wonderful but then I have to wake up to realize that I do not, in fact have a baby yet.
PMS. I wish I could say that my intense emotions today were due to raging pregnancy hormones but most likely, it's just PMS. Let's just say that spending the holidays with your family = great birth control. And if I'm not pregnant, why did I wake up at 4:30am craving dim sum?!! That's just adding insult to injury. (See number 5.)

Special bonus annoyance: Those T-Mobile commercials that end with the ring tone. The ring tone that sounds like my work phone.
Oh yeah. And her. She just looks annoying. Grrr...

The flip side

2007-01-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I promised to write about the flip side to an "intellectually balanced life." After posting, I realized that I kind of alluded to it already:

"I was ill a lot in high school.... I was stressed out and irritated and frequently difficult to spend time with.... I felt fortunate to have survived those four years. Prep school put me through the wringer.... my high school experience was hellish..."

It was thrilling to work so hard. But mostly, it was exhausting. If someone could've taught me the pleasures of doing nice things for myself at a younger age, I would've learned what REAL balance is. At some point, we all have an obligation to ENJOY life. What a concept!

"now that I’ve been out of school... there’s even less time and money for these things. There are dishes and dinner and laundry and work..."

Oh yeah... money. I wasn't exactly supporting myself in high school. To support oneself, specialization becomes somewhat... necessary! It's fantastic to be a generalist and renaissance woman, but how many people get paid for that? (Um... ok, tutors frequently do. Perhaps THAT explains my affection for my adopted profession.) And I wasn't exactly keeping a house, a husband or a child in those days (as anonymous mom so rightly pointed out). All those things require work. Hard work. And loads of time.

Finally, I'm learning that this desire to recapture every lost bit of knowledge, every abandoned pursuit is really just another way for me to be hard on myself... how I beat myself up, compare myself to others. I hold myself to the high standards that were suggested to me when I was younger. And there's nothing that says that those were the RIGHT standards. Or that such a thing even exists.

How I SHOULD'VE explained entropy to my student this afternoon

2007-01-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I feel as if I’ll never live up to my earlier self – that I’ll never be as good as I was when I was younger. Specifically, my high school self. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not trying to glorify high school. Far from it. I was ill a lot in high school (there’s an understatement…). And I still lived at home, which was miserable. I was stressed out and irritated and frequently difficult to spend time with. It was a period of my life when I made everything a dramatic crisis. When I graduated, I felt fortunate to have survived those four years. Prep school put me through the wringer.

But ever since then, I’ve wanted to get back to the sense of perfection I created while I was there. There was something so… balanced to my high school experience. Parts of the day were spent discussing science, math, literature, history and foreign language. In my spare time, I’d go hang out in the book stacks and pick through the school’s collection. I was well read (for someone my age). I kept a journal and wrote and even published pieces in the school’s literary magazine.

In the summers, I took care of children. I taught canoing, windsurfing, art, swimming, rock climbing, cycling and team building. I was a lifeguard. I was BLOND and even a little tan. Back at school, we walked miles around campus in the New England air and after school there were mandatory hours of exercise. I was in GOOD shape (and of course, didn’t realize it). And then, in the evenings, there was little time for TV. I still took piano lessons and practiced an hour a day. I performed in two choirs and took classes in music theory. I sang a lot. I had solos in front of orchestras. I sang with Dave Brubeck for God’s sake. And on the nights when I wasn’t practicing or performing, there were lectures and concerts and plays to watch. I even went to the symphony with my parents.

Yet, as heady and educational as college is supposed to be, your focus inevitably narrows. I purposefully pursued a liberal arts degree so I could keep taking classes in a variety of fields. But most of my time was spent reading literature and architectural history. I kept writing. But after a while, the singing faded away. I volunteered and learned about popular culture but the daily swimming workouts faded. I went to lectures and readings but I also stayed home and watched a lot more TV.

Graduate school was three years hunched over a drafting table, drawing and making models. Lots of art, but any free time was spent building my relationship with my husband. There was less and less time for reading, concerts, piano and the like. And now that I’ve been out of school for 6 years there’s even less time and money for these things. There are dishes and dinner and laundry and work and yes, my constant obsession with TV.

On New Year’s Day, we went to see The History Boys. It’s a film adaptation of a play about a British grammar school. What struck me was how well rounded the student’s education seemed. These boys don’t just quote literature and history but also debate it and relate the topics to their own lives. And the music! They sing beautifully. I walked out of the movie thinking a lot about high school. About how good my education was and how much I value it. How much I’d like to give that to my students. Most of the high school students I work with are given just a brief taste of each discipline. They might play an instrument, but usually they’ve abandoned it by that point. Even though my high school experience was hellish (as we’d say in our 80’s vernacular) it was a wonderful time of intellectual privilege.

I wish there was some way to create that in my adult life. I try. But I spend most of my time beating myself up over it – comparing myself to others. Here’s my current inventory:

Language: Right now, I finish a good book about once a month. Not bad, not great. I still write (here, of course) and over the last couple of years I’ve finished the first draft of a book.
Music: I still play the piano but I don’t practice every day. I did in 2003 when I was in the residential treatment program and miss it. I’m currently trying to learn my favorite Mozart sonata. I joined an orchestral choir a few years ago but I only stayed for two years. I think a lot about taking it up again. I think it might be cool to sing in a choir while pregnant. The kid might like that…
Art: Abandoned with my architecture career. In NM though, I got some ideas for some new paintings…

Culture: When we move this summer, I’d like to start going back to live performances, lectures, and readings. Right now, we don’t do much. Sigh.

Science: I’m married to a scientist and we watch a lot of nerdy programs on TV. It should be enough for a layperson… but when I try, and fail, to teach chemistry or physics, I feel like a loser.

Math: I teach math every day but I can’t remember calculus. I suck.

Social Sciences: I used to read a lot of the New York Times every day. Now I read some of it on some days. Did I mention that I suck?

Fitness: A couple years ago I got back into cycling quite a bit, but that’s since lapsed. I try to swim once a week and we hike and paddle on occasion. We ski whenever we have the time and can afford to.

There’s a flip side to this… perhaps tomorrow I’ll tackle that. Right now, it’s time bedtime. I read old comic books over and over again to get to sleep. Sometimes, when I look over and see my husband reading a thick book I feel like a bimbo. Still, better to be a bimbo than an insomniac.

aaaaand we're back

2007-01-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

Soooo, we made it home. Right after my last post, my parent's satellite TV died (probably too much snow in the dish) so we never got to watch that movie. Instead, my dad and my husband went outside and cleared out the driveway a bit. Finally, at noon, we were able to leave. I managed to keep my cool and didn't get too bitchy.

Once we were underway, the bad weather didn't cause us too much trouble... except for the two hours we were stuck on hwy 40 just west of Albuquerque. I wouldn't have minded the wait, but I really had to pee! I spent most of the time trying to figure out which was the lesser of two evils: peeing in a ziploc bag inside the car or peeing outside in the snow with all the truckers staring at my naked ass (in the middle of the desert there are no trees to hide behind) Luckily, the traffic finally started moving and I made it to a truck stop.

We finally got home on Saturday around 5pm, completely exhausted and smelling of In-and-Out burgers. When I called my parents to let them know we arrived home safe, they told us that the snow STILL hadn't stopped. It's a good thing we left when we did... or else we'd still be there! Whew!

Best wishes for a Happy 2007!

Imprisoned

2006-12-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

Ok. Ok. Ok.

I just have to keep breathing. Right. Breathing. Breathing is good.

We were supposed to leave New Mexico this morning. We were supposed to hop in the car and drive away. I certainly wasn't looking forward to the 16 hour drive, but it was TIME. Time to go home. You see, we've been hanging out with my parents for a week. We've been with them for SEVEN straight days in a row. It's been ok. Difficult, and sometimes challenging, but ok. I'll provide more details at a later date. About 48 hours ago though, I started to hit the wall. Apparently, I had one nerve left and everyone was poking it. I just kept telling myself "Friday morning, you get to go home. Home. Friday morning. You."

And now we're snowed in. It snowed a foot last night.

When I opened the curtains this morning, I thought I was going to puke. It didn't help that I had a fitful night of sleep filled with nightmares. There's one nightmare that sticks out in my mind: My parents and I were on a boat trip. We stopped at some island where my father proceeded to piss off all the natives. We left, and then, for some reason, I went back later in the day. They recognized me and since they were mad at my father, they locked me in their prison and tortured me. When I finally got out, I refused to speak to my father.

When I told my husband about my dream this morning, he frowned and looked at me.

"That sounds like you're close to the breaking point." He said.

"Movie." I said, shaking. So we're going to watch a movie now.

God. Damn. Labile. Emotions.

All shook up

2006-12-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

DBT started with a rumble this evening. We always spend the first couple of minutes of group in silent meditation "following our breaths." I hate it. A lot. Forcing me to spend a few quiet minutes with my thoughts is more like a form of torture for me.

Tonight started off the same... my thoughts were racing, preoccupied with how much I hated meditation, how much I had to do when I got home, how busy and stressful the day had been, and a few thousand other thoughts. Especially packing. How much I Hate packing. Hate. It requires me to make decisions... why can't I make any decisions??! My pulse was racing.

And then we had an earthquake. It was only a 3.7 but it was centered less than 1km from where I was sitting. That's enough for the whole building to go shhh-aaake, shake-a, shake-a, shhh-shhhake.

And then, finally, my brain was distracted enough that it shut the hell up. I immediately calmed down and was able to relax. I guess it was a little reminder that all that crap buzzing around in my head wasn't really that important. Plate tectonics... that's important.

When I got home, I threw half my clothes in the biggest bag we own and called it a day. We're driving - I'm taking as much luggage as that rental SUV can hold. And toiletries... I'll deal with them tomorrow.

Postscript: I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing for the next week. I'm a little paranoid about blogging from my parents computer... In case I totally flake out and don't post at all, take care and have a safe and happy holiday. And enjoy the happiest day of the year... December 24th - Christmas eve, and my 32nd birthday!

New Jersey in January. Lovely.

2006-12-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

I promised yesterday that I’d mention my impending trip to NJ. Since Law & Order: Criminal Intent is coming on in twenty minutes, I’ll try to be brief. (Oh don’t worry, I’m gonna do a post about my insane crush on Vincent D’Onofrio’s character someday. How can you help but love “Edgar Suit?”)

So I’m not real excited about going to NJ in January.

When I talked to my dad this weekend, he invited asked me to come. He’s retiring at the end of January and his company is throwing him a dinner/roast to celebrate. (I should probably mention… my dad’s a Big. Wig. He’s the president of a company with almost $30 billion in assets. Yes. That’s billion, with a B. It’s a LONG story.)

So he asked if my husband and I would come to his party.

“It’s the sort of thing where people’s families usually come.” He said.

“Hmmmm” I stalled. “I assume mom is flying out from NM, right?”

“Yes, your mother is probably coming. Even though she’s making a face right now.” Yeahhhh…

My husband bowed out. He has four job interviews (4 now!!) in January and February. One is near home, but the other three are on the east coast. There may be more interviews that we don’t know about yet. The NJ trip would be just too much. But that doesn’t mean I can’t go…

I talked to my doctor about this on Monday and he and I agreed that I’d probably wind up going. But since I really don’t want to go, I’ll just resent going the whole time I’m there. My doc “challenged” me to feel good about my decision.

“It’s one of those 60% yes, 40% no kind of decisions.” He said. “This isn’t a nice and easy one where you know what you should do. So it’s good practice for you - to feel good about making a choice, sticking to it, without beating yourself up for it later.”

Yeah. Great idea doc. Sounds fun.

So here’s the pros and cons of going on this trip. What would YOU do?

CONS

My dad’s been a real jerk to me in the past. His abuse is part of what caused my mental health problems. Does he deserve any kindness from me?
My dad’s chosen work/career/power/success over his family 9 times out of 10. Because he neglected his family, doesn’t he deserve to sit there at his retirement dinner alone. I don't want act like we're all a happy family just so his colleagues think he's normal.
It’s a long-ass plane trip just for one corporate dinner. And plane ride = virus.
I’m going to spend all next week with him.
As a Christmas gift, I’m going to go to NM this winter and spend a long weekend helping him set up his woodshop. (He wants to do woodworking in his retirement) So I’m going to see him a lot in the near future.

PROS

He’s going to pay for the plane ticket. Having to pay to fly people to your party seems kinda sad to me… and pulls at my sympathies.
The inheritance. The one he’s going to leave me. The really large one. I don’t want to piss him off too much. (Trust me. I realize how truly HORRIBLE that sounds. Still… it’s something that’s always in the back of my mind.)
I can easily get the time off of work & I can probably squeeze in a visit to see a few friends in NYC.
My dad hasn’t always been a dick to me. He’s paid for my education, my wedding, and some of my psychiatrist bills. And he’s even occasionally nice.
My dad has almost no family. There’s my husband, my mom and me. He has no siblings, no other kids, no grandkids (yet), nobody else. And that’s sad. His choice, but still sad.
It’s pretty mean (but totally typical) that my mom’s not even pretending to want to go, like I am. I feel sorry for him.
My dad is self-made. He worked hard to get where he is and I have benefited from this. This should be recognized.
My dad is not in great health. He's only 60 but has very serious heart disease. He may not be around for that long.
I’m not a mean and spiteful person. I’m still really angry with him but deep down, I don’t want to hurt him.

Missing: one co-pilot

2006-12-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

I had an good talk with the mother of one of my students this evening.

A little history: My student, “Jenny” is a very sweet, precocious little girl in the 6th grade. I started working with her this summer, helping improve her math so she could start at a private girl’s school. When the school year started, she was still having trouble with math so we resumed tutoring. She’s a warm kid with a great sense of humor and a beautiful head of curly brown hair. She incredibly creative, always painting, practicing her violin, the piano or working as a mother’s helper. It’s always a delight to work with a student like her.

When I got to her house today, Jenny wasn’t home, but her mom was. They had forgotten I was coming and Jenny couldn’t get home in time to meet me. After her mom and I rescheduled for after the holidays she offered me a cup of tea and some homemade cookies. How could I refuse?!

She invited me to sit and we started chatting. She’d just had her wisdom teeth pulled that afternoon and made a passing comment about hating to be in pain and “alone.” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about… I’ve never seen the student’s dad and they’ve only mentioned him in passing, so I assumed that they were separated or divorced.

I told her about our plans to go to see my parents in Santa Fe for Christmas and in New Jersey in January. (More about THAT tomorrow!) She asked which place my parents lived. I told her that my mom has lived in NM for the past year while my dad finished up his job. She asked how that worked for their relationship. For them, I said, it worked pretty well… In fact, for THEIR relationship, it worked better than when they lived together! “Independence can be a good thing.” I laughed.

“Yeah…” she said, “Unless it’s forced upon you…” I got the feeling that she was hinting at something, so I decided to ask.

“You mentioned that earlier… about being alone when you’re sick… I wasn’t sure, are you and your husband separated?”

“No. Jenny’s dad died a while ago, when she was five.” I told her how sorry I was to hear this and she thanked me.

“Jenny’s never mentioned it to me, so I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good thing. There used to be a time when she felt like she HAD to tell everyone she met.” I agreed.

“Is Jenny a lot like her dad?” Her mom nodded and I thought I saw her eyes get moist.

“Yeah, her dad was an artist and a musician like her. He was a chef and a stay at home dad so they were always together.” I wanted to keep talking to her but I wasn’t sure what to say next. I remarked on how hard it must be on her – losing her spouse and being a single mom. I knew they’d been married a long time before they even had Jenny. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose your husband of 17 years and father of your 5 year-old daughter.

“Yeah, we moved into this house almost exactly 20 years ago. We were really great friends… always got along really well. It’s like we started this plane trip together and halfway through I lost my co-pilot.” She said. I told her that my husband and I are in the process of trying to start a family.

“I’ve had a lot of health problems in the past and I know that’s a huge concern for my husband… that something will happen to me and he’ll be left a single parent. He almost lost me a few years ago and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do... to watch him going through that.”

And so she asked about what had happened to me and I told her. She didn’t seem to freak out or get uncomfortable. I’m pretty good about talking about my diagnoses and past in a non-threatening way. She’d never heard of Borderline Personality Disorder, of course, so I got another chance to educate someone about it and put a good face on the diagnosis. It’s a little embarrassing, but it helps to de-mystify the illness. I try to remind myself that I have nothing to be embarrassed about.

“Wow, so you’ve been through a lot.” She said, very warmly. “So you understand… you never know what’s going to happen in life.” We talked about Jenny a while longer and then her mouth started hurting so I said goodbye, wishing her a Happy New Year.

When I got home, I felt bad that I hadn’t asked her more about her husband – like I had talked too much about myself. I Googled him and found out that they used to run a local restaurant. I knew the mom was a foodie, but I never realized that she was a chef. I was so struck by what a unique and lovely family they were and still are. Hearing about a tragedy like that… I dunno. It’s heartbreaking and strangely… uplifting. It’s heartening to see how well Jenny and her mom have done on their own. Impressive really.

Postscript: The homemade cookies were chocolate with hot pepper. This seems to be a big trend right now – adding spice and heat to chocolate. I like spicy food and I like chocolate, but the combination… eeech! I don’t get it!

My (odd) adoring public

2006-12-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

I've been keeping a list of recent searches that led people to this site. They're gettin' weirder and weirder.
Some were predictably mental health related:

wellbutrin alcohol -buy bupropion -pharmacy (by the way, don't do any of these things in combination!)
the movie proof mental illness diagnose
dayquil makes me less depressed
rachel reiland blog
im not supposed to be here rachel reiland
hurt self respect
i hurt my parents
my parents are childish
DBT

Some were related to The Simpsons:

pockets hurts
hurt our pockets
kill the alligator and run my pockets hurt

A surprising amount were related to academics, specifically the ISEE:

independent school entrance examination interpret
sick for the hspt 2006
the gatekeepers- steinberg
christmas geometry proof
math theorem
average isee scores (twice)
good isee scores
isee scores
ISEE scores interpretation (twice)
BISHOP O'DOWD HIGH SCHOOL
isee scores and what is a good score for admissions
non-profit

There were some pregnancy related searches:

using proactiv while pregnant
cold eaze
cold eaze pregnant

And to boost my readership, I should apparently devote this blog to problems with VWs (I guess I'm not the only one with an annoying EPC light!):

polo epc
volkswagon polo epc
auto review, polo,epc
epc vw mean
for 2000 vw auto warning lights anti-slip and epc lights up
epc check polo
polo epc warning light
epc polo
VW Polo EPC light come on
volkswagen polo epc light cause

Oh yeah, and Tiger Shulman's pretty popular too:

tiget shulman karate good or bad?
tiger shulman in philadelphia, pa.
tiger shulman south jersey

And the rest are just... well, see for yourself:

hallmark movie hospice
seinfled episodes t-bone
complaints about allkidsstuff.com
kate bingaman-burt website
christmas toast nice boss
skiier’s thumb
stigation
hot mom
hostage situation in the south
how to tell junipers apart
skinny dipping wi (I know people like the new Sony Wii, but skinny dipping?)

And last but not least, my two favorites:

how to make curly fries curly?
love making lists

Were you all raised by wolves?

2006-12-16T18:40:00.000-08:00

Warning: I'm going to get a little bitchy here.

I’ve been interviewing new tutors for my company. I can’t say this is my favorite task, but I do meet a lot of… interesting people. I have some feedback for some of them:

1. To the five people who never replied when I asked them for an interview - What’s wrong with you? I don’t see how you could lose interest or take another job since I emailed you back less than a day after you sent your resume. But if you did, wouldn’t it be courteous to decline and thank me? To the two people who started scheduling interviews with me and then just disappeared – Is this how your mothers raised you?

2. I know I work for a non-profit in the Bay Area. I know we work with under-served student communities. But we don’t require our employees to take a vow of poverty! It seems like none of you have a car! Sigh. I know you want to be all eco-fabulous and ride your bikes everywhere, but that makes it harder for us to get you client’s houses on time. Why don’t we compromise and you can get a hybrid. (Which reminds me; one of my students last week told me that she thought a hybrid car was “like ½ Ford and ½ Toyota or something.” Cute.)

3. To all the highly qualified humanities tutors I’ve talked to – Look. I want to hire you. But I can’t. It just… students usually need more help with math and science. When kids aren’t doing well in English or history, they get C’s and their parents assume they can help. When students aren’t doing well in math and science, they get D’s and F’s, their parents freak out and realize that they can’t help them. Then they call us. Don’t get me wrong, we DO tutor students in the humanities. But when we hire tutors who can teach math and science, they’ve probably managed to pass their humanities courses in college and can teach those subjects too. I’m sorry, but English tutors are a dime a dozen.

4. To the acrobat I interviewed last week – I was willing to look past the unicycle you rode to our interview. I was willing to believe that your previous job, teaching trapeze at Club Med, was… a youthful indiscretion. I’m even young enough to think that living in a warehouse with your acrobatics troupe is edgy and cool (although probably drafty). But dude. When you divide a negative number by another negative number, the answer is positive. Sure you remember calculus. Sure.

5. To the nice older lady I interviewed yesterday – If your three huge witch-like moles on your nose were distracting ME, how the hell is the student supposed to concentrate. You seemed very nice, and I think it’s cool that you used to be a journalist. But you’re just not our “type.” (And the test is called the S.A.T., not the Sat, like the abbreviation for Saturday. It was really getting on my nerves. Almost as much as when my students learn sine, cosine & tangent for the first time and pronounce it “sin” like as in the 7 deadly. Makes. Me. Nuts.)

6. To the failed substitute tutor turned part-time librarian – I’m sorry I couldn’t hire you. You seemed kinda pathetic and shy and I kept wanting to fix your hair. (It was soooo stringy!) But when I told you that your math skills were too rusty for us, how was I supposed to respond to your reply:

“I appreciate your honesty and want to thank you for meeting with me. I will say however that with any preparation, I would have been able to answer those questions. I can do that stuff. Honestly, you just happened to catch me on a bad morning. I felt pretty silly not being able to answer that stuff off the top of my head so I went home and looked up a lot of those questions. I was able to figure it out right away by just seeing the equation. I've helped a lot of kids understand math/science on a lot of levels and when I have a book in front of me and I have a minute or two to remember it, I feel I can be really helpful. I respect your decision and understand you have to do what you think is best for your students as well as your company. I just want to express that I feel like I can really help kids out. Maybe I couldn't remember the m=(y1-y2/(x1-x2) equation off the top of my head but as soon as I saw it, I remembered and knew that I would be able to explain it to anyone who did not understand it. I also understand the reasoning behind your methodology of ascertaining a tutors skills. I would like to also venture that observing my girlfriend teach, she never enters a classroom unprepared. I'd like to think that any student I would tutor, I would prepare myself to be able to help them the best way possible. Again, I respect your decision but I feel like I need to vouch for myself a little bit.”

Yes. That’s what tutoring is all about… preparation. When I hire you for this job, you get a little implant in your brain that allows you to read your student’s teacher’s thoughts. That way, when you walk into a student’s house, you’ve already had a chance to spend the day boning up on whatever subject material the teacher dreamed up when they were revising their lesson plans this summer. Oh yeah, and the company’ll pay you for that prep time too. In fact, we’re a non-profit because we use all our revenue to send your ass back to college to re-learn all the stuff you should’ve learned the first time around.

Oh, and dude, get your “girlfriend” to fix your hair.

Just call me Miss Cleo

2006-12-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

When I sat down with my shrink on Monday, the first question he asked me was not the usual: “Rate your suicidal thoughts on a scale of 1-10.” Instead, he bounced happily on his couch and asked “So when did I get a new girlfriend?”

“Ummm… “ I replied. “I dunno… do you have a new girlfriend?” Even though I knew why he was asking, I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

It’s part of a little running inside joke we share, namely that Borderlines can read minds. (Borderlines do tend to be VERY perceptive. We’re really good at picking up on people’s cues and non-verbal signals. I know that I’m good at it because I was always watching my parents as a child. I had to learn to predict their bizarre and often violent behavior.)

You see… about two years ago, I noticed one morning that he looked different… his hair looked disheveled and he looked like he was wearing old clothes. He also looked tired and stressed. I asked him if he was ok.

“God, you borderlines are perceptive!” He said shaking his head. “I’m curious, why do you ask?”

“Well, you’re wearing different clothes, you look exhausted and you’re not wearing your wedding ring.”

“Yeah, I’ve been going through a rough time lately.” We left it at that since I knew I couldn’t ask for details.

Early this year, he admitted that he’d been going through a separation and that he and his wife were now divorcing. I had already figured all of this out and told him so. We talked about it a little and I told him that I hoped he was taking care of himself. I also got the sense that he was back in therapy himself and that it was helping. Soon afterwards, he hired a personal trainer and lost some weight. After a while, his mood looked lighter too. He bought himself a little house and told me about how he was fixing it up.

So I’m sure, when he asked me about his new girlfriend on Monday, this was what he was referring to. I actually hadn’t surmised he was dating anyone, but I had noticed that he seemed very happy lately.

But… his question made me a little uncomfortable. We have an unusually close relationship for a therapist and a client. It seems to work for us. We’re very similar and we get along very well. Still, I feel a little odd when it’s out in the open like that. I like it better when I just read his mind and we laugh about it.

The whole thing’s a little tricky. What do you do when you’re friends with your doc? And do I use my psychic powers for good or evil?

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday

2006-12-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

husband > macaroni

2006-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

My husband is off on a play date tonight so I'm on my own for the evening. His grad-school buddy's wife is on a business trip so they are enjoying large amounts of x-box, HDTV and whiskey. And of course, no man play-date is complete without some ball scratching and swearing (I imagine). He doesn't do this on a regular basis.

And it's a good thing. (Not because I don't want him to have friends) It's just... I don't know what to do with myself when he's not here.

When he's home, I have guidelines. Eat a nice dinner. Clean up afterwards. Don't spend the evening doing work or staring at the computer. Interact with the other person in the room. Go to bed around 11pm.

When he's not home, all bets are off. I might decide to eat something odd (like a bowl of brussel sprouts) or not to eat at all. I might use the time to catch up on work and get myself all burnt out and exhausted. One minute, I'm tempted to let the house get all messy and the next, I want to start taking apart all the closets. If I can't make any decisions and get really fed up, I might just go to bed right after dinner. It's like the committee in my head can't decide what's most important. The various facets of my personality always seem to want to do different things. The only time when they agree is when someone else is counting on them.

So this is what I've decided to do tonight: eat a bowl of Annie's mac & cheese, lie on the couch and stare at the TV. It's like a big, glowing pacifier when I don't want to think anymore.

Postscript: soon after writing the above post, our neighbor came home. The cat thought it was my husband and ran expectantly to the door. I guess I'm not the only one who misses him.

Caution, Pollyanna alert

2006-12-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

I read a thought provoking post at Anonymous Mom’s site last week that I’ve been meaning to comment on. She wrote:

“Throughout the past year I feel like I have been a traveling cloud of bad karma…. everywhere I go, the people I deal with on a daily basis are also experiencing this…. I am really starting to feel that I have the Midas touch of shit.”

When I first read this, I REALLY identified with it. My husband and I have frequently lamented our “bad karma.” I sometimes joke that I am the reincarnation of someone very evil. Ever since we got married in the summer of 2001, it’s felt like our lives have been surrounded with misfortune. Yet, this past week, I started to wonder if this was really accurate.

I decided that I would make a list of all the bad things that have happened since then.

2001
• World Trade Center Attacks. Our matron of honor, a NYC policewoman is nearly killed.
2002
• Business in NYC dries up and our friends lose their store in Chelsea.
• A family friend is brutally murdered at age 24. We later learn that the killer was planning to kill the entire family.
• I spend all year being verbally abused by my employer.
• My suicidal thoughts return and I’m incorrectly prescribed Paxil.
2003
• I’m arrested and charged with DUI.
• I spend a month in a psychiatric unit of a local hospital and then another month at a residential psychiatric program.
• I’m diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Alcoholism.
• I end my career as an architect and spend all year in a psychiatric day program.
2004
• I spend a week in a psychiatric unit of a local hospital.
• I’m kicked out of the residential psychiatric program.
• My disability insurance runs out and we struggle financially.
• We battle with our insurance company and ask the CA state Board of Insurance to intervene.
2005
• Over the course of the year, six friends kill themselves.
• A friend’s marriage ends in divorce.
• We battle with our insurance company and ask the CA department of Managed Health Care to intervene.
• A friend is diagnosed with a fatal genetic disorder.
2006
• Our friend with the genetic disorder contracts colon cancer at age 29.
• Anonymous mom’s mom (who I’ve known since I was two) almost dies.
• A business deal my dad is orchestrating falls through.
• A family friend’s son drops dead of an aortic aneurysm at age 24.
• Our good friend, Betty, moves away.
• Just this month, a friend’s son was changing a tire on the highway and was struck by a drunk driver.

So… it doesn’t look very good. That’s a lot of bad stuff.

But then, I started thinking. There’s a good side to a lot of those things.

• Our friend who lost her store in Chelsea can now be a stay-at-home mom.
• Yes, I ended my career as an architect, but I got rid of the verbally abusive employer. This allowed me to became a teacher – something I’d always wanted to do. And since I started this career path, I’ve never been at a loss for work. In fact, people have let me run three different companies!
• Yes, my suicidal thoughts returned, but I finally got help for them. Yes, I was in multiple hospitals and day programs, but I met good, decent therapists (for the most part) and got good help that I’d been needed for ages. Yes, I got those lousy diagnoses but frankly, they were correct and helped me finally understand myself.
• Yes, I was arrested and deserved it. But I came close to dying that night and I lived. AND I’ve been sober for the past four years. Something I thought I could never accomplish.
• We have fought many battles with our insurance companies, but so far, we have forced them to pay for nearly everything.
• Six friends did commit suicide, but I’ve made great friends and met amazing people. And I’ve finally met and connected with other people with mental illnesses and hospitalizations – something I’d always wanted.
• Yes, we’ve struggled financially but my husband got his PhD, has had a successful post-doctorate fellowship, and is now looking for professorships. For the first time, our financial outlook is not so bleak.
• Our friend with the fatal genetic disorder was glad to finally know what was wrong with her. Even though doctors doubted there was anything wrong with her, she kept pushing for an answer. Her perseverance meant that she was able to catch the colon cancer before it had metastasized.
• Our good friend, Betty, did move away, but she is building a wonderful new life in her home state.
• My parents retired to a beautiful estate outside of Santa Fe and we get along with them better than we ever have.
• I’ve been off meds with the goal of getting pregnant for five months. And although I’m not pregnant, YET… in the past few years, tons of our friends have had trouble-free pregnancies and have given birth to happy, healthy, wonderful children.
• Despite all my troubles, my husband hung in there with me and we have been together for 11 years.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying for ONE SECOND that anonymous mom has it wrong. There are years where everything just goes to shit. And there certainly are events that lead to no happy endings – our friend who was murdered, September 11th, and near-death experiences are never good. NEVER.

I guess I was just surprised to look up and realize that I no longer have a black cloud hanging over my head. A lot of the things that I thought were terrible tragedies have actually made my life better in the long run. They were incredibly painful (or “hella painful” as one of my students would say) but they were sorta… worth it.

Hey, I did warn you that I was going to sound like a Pollyanna… (Ah, Haley Mills, so talented and yet so possessed looking in the above picture.)

If this tree had candles, they'd be burning at both ends

2006-12-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

So it's been a few days since I've posted... nothin's wrong. I've just been busy. Here's a little summary to catch you up:

Wednesday:

I worked without stopping from 9am - 6pm. An unusually long work day for me. (I've been interviewing new tutors for my company - a task which takes a lot of time.)
From 7-9pm, I had DBT. Then we watched the Mythbuster's holiday special.

Thursday:

In the morning, I made the 100mi round trip to Palo Alto to meet with my doctor. (Yeah, I know, that's too far to drive to see a doc, but what can I do? I used to live down the street from his office and then we moved.)
That afternoon, I tutored from 12 - 5:30pm.
Then I picked up my husband and we drove back down to Palo Alto! 100 more miles on the car, but it was worth it to wish our friend a happy 30th birthday. We had a nice time and even got to meet another friend's 3-week old baby. Ah, jealousy.

Friday:

In the morning, I interviewed four potential tutors in person. Hired two tutors who are dating each other and just rode their bikes across the US. Hired another guy who installs backyard vegetable gardens part-time. Nice people who could all do math! Didn't hire the acrobat who juggles fire and rides a unicycle. (you're welcome Betty!)
From 12-2pm I went to my depression support group. There was pizza! (depression? What depression?)
More interviews and tutoring from 2-7pm.
After dinner, I went to Sparknotes and read up on "The Gilded Age & the Progressive Era (1877–1917)." (Yes, I'm a nerd. But, earlier in the afternoon, I was helping one of my students study this period for a history test. I'm always chagrined by how little history I retain.)

Saturday:

House was filthy so we cleaned all morning.
An old friend from college came over. He came with my husband and I to get a Christmas tree. (Considering it's a 7-8' tree, I thought $50 was a pretty good price. Of course, we did go to the tree lot next to the highway in a rather sketchy local town... ) We then spent the afternoon setting it up.
Spent a nice evening with my husband - went out to a local diner, browsed at a good bookstore, and then spent some "quality" time together.
I fell sound asleep at 10 while debating baby names for our yet-to-be-conceived future child. (I no longer like the name Gabriel. In fact, we like NO boy names. Hmmmm. Any suggestions? It can't contain an "oo" sound like in Juniper or end in the letter n.)

Sunday:

Sunday mornings are devoted to the New York Times, of course.
I tutored all afternoon from 12-5pm.

I need to have a bit more down time next week. Whenever I get too busy, I burn out fast.

But the tree does looks great!

ah, adolescence - a play in two acts

2006-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

Scene One:
I had to reprimand one of my students yesterday. It was Michael, the infamous son of “Hairy” who I’ve blogged about before.

When I showed up, I discovered that he STILL hadn’t done any of the ISEE homework I’d assigned him. Two weeks ago, I asked him to write a 20-minute practice essay based on one of the questions in the test prep book. He didn’t do it.

At our next lesson, I helped him write an outline and asked him to finish the essay for homework. As soon as he showed me that he knew how to do it, I’d get off his back, I promised. He turned the outline into one, six-sentence paragraph. Not good enough, I told him.

He told me he had a hard time with the essay question. He couldn’t think of an answer. So I gave him a different question and told him to write another essay. He didn’t do it.

“Basically, there’s no point in studying for this test anymore.” He whined. “I just suck at it and I’m not going to get better before Saturday.”

“Uh, first of all, you don’t suck at it. But how do you expect to improve your score if you don’t practice.” He didn’t have an answer for this. “So you’ve just decided that you’re not going to do any more work I assign because it’s a lost cause, right?” He nodded.

“Honestly Michael…” Now I was starting to get annoyed. “This is a waste of my time and your parent’s money. If you don’t want to do any more prep, that’s your choice. But you should have the guts to tell your parents so they can call me and tell me not to come.”

“But my parents don’t listen! They’re going to make me do this even if I don’t want to!”

He has a point there. His dad IS the main problem. We have a company policy that when a student doesn’t complete their homework, the tutor is supposed to leave. The parents still get charged (and, of course, tell the kid never to pull that again) and the student learns some responsibility. It’s a little harsh the first time, but ultimately, the student does the work and gets more out of the tutoring. But the one time I left early (Michael didn't have any assignments to work on and I told him I'd credit him for the time) his dad called and yelled at me.

“Ok, that’s fine. But I’m trying to help you. If you don’t prepare, you’re just wasting my time. When you act like this, I feel like you’re treating me with respect.” He sat there glaring at his shoes. “Do you disagree?”

“No.”

“Ok, well then, would you apologize to me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” He actually sounded sincere.

“Thanks. I feel much better now. I’ll tell your mom that we’re done with test prep tutoring.”

We left it at that and had a pleasant rest of our session together. I got heard and he got the chance to make up, in part, for his bad choices. He actually seemed a little relieved.

Scene Two:
Michael had to write a book report on Last of the Mohicans for his 8th grade English teacher. He had a hard time even finishing the book (which is quite long) and now I’m wondering if he really finished it or was simply fibbing. He admitted that he’d looked at Cliff Notes’ website for help and insisted he HADN’T plagiarized it.

When I read his essay though, I was skeptical. His essay was sprinkled with phrases like:

“Fort William Henry, which is besieged by the French near Lake George…. the villainous Huron escapes…. the Huron coldly proposes to Cora…. Hawkeye effects his escape and Alice's through disguise….
Tamenund sadly comments upon the worsening historic plight of the American Indians and particularly upon the tragically accomplished demise of the wise and noble race of Mohicans.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a lot of 13-year-old boys who write like this.

I told him that I thought that the writing sounded too mature. He insisted that he hadn’t copied it. I told him I was going to check the website when I got home. He said, ok.

I checked tonight. He’s right. He didn’t copy it word for word. But otherwise, it’s almost exactly the same. Sigh.

I called his mom and told her that he should re-do the essay completely. She was nice about it. I guess this is yet another chance for him to learn a lesson about responsibility. If only I thought his dad wouldn’t come down so hard on him.

I like it when my students learn… but I hate it when they insist on learning the hard way.

images: N C Wyeth, "The Last of the Mohicans" (1919)

Mormons 1, cold virus 0

2006-12-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

I got a lot of yesterday’s list done today!

I’m almost finished with my Christmas shopping! Maybe one more little thing for dad and I’d like to check out one more store for my husband. Then all I have to do is wrapping and shipping!

I talked to my mom today. She wasn’t pissed.

I sent out the work-related email that I’d been avoiding. I also emailed my friend who I was worried about and my other friend about Christmas tree shopping.

I EVEN went to the post office and mailed everything!

Tomorrow I’m going to tackle the laundry, Barnes & Noble, the rental car and the bills. I might even try to go for a walk!

Of course, the cleaning, writing, reading and piano… that’ll have to wait a bit longer.

God… it feels good to be healthier!

PS. I found out my strangely nice boss is a Mormon pastor. This explains a LOT. I wonder if he's a member here:

Believe it or not, this is our local Mormon temple. They seem to be doing rather... WELL for themselves, no?

Progress

2006-12-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

I actually got something done today!

I woke up at 10am, actually ready to get out of bed! For the past two weeks, in a desperate attempt to get over this never ending cold, I’ve tried to wring every drop of sleep out of every available minute.

And so I got up and read the paper. Then I went out and tutored three students.

And then I called Betty! I finally had enough time, energy and voice to call. We had a nice conversation.

AND then I finished our Christmas cards. OK, so only 1/3 of the people on our list are getting a photocopy of a short letter and the rest aren’t getting a note. I consider that a half-assed job, but at least I finished them!

AND I did the dishes (my husband made a lovely steak).

So that’s all good.

Now. Here’s a list of all the things I should’ve done, but didn’t:
1. Catch up on the laundry that built up when I was sick last week.
2. Finish my Christmas shopping, online and otherwise.
3. Talk to my mom. I thought she was going to call??? Great, now I’m worrying that she’s pissed at me.
4. Send out the work-related email that I’ve been avoiding.
5. Rent a car for our Christmas vacation.
6. Call my depressed friend and see if she’s ok. She cancelled a get-together on Friday.
7. Go to Barnes & Noble and get gift certificates for all my nieces and nephews.
8. Email my friend and ask him if he wants to get a Christmas tree with us next weekend.
9. Pay bills.
10. Mail some letters and packages that have been lingering in my car.
11. Clean any part of my house.
12. Work on my book.
13. Practice the piano.
14. Turn off the darn TV and read a book for a change.
15. Exercise. Right. What the hell is that?

This is the not so fun thing I do to myself. Even when I should feel a sense of accomplishment… like today, I just start to think about all the things I should ALSO have done. Sometimes, it’s easier to be sick and have an excuse. Mental illness can be enticing that way too. If I’m crazy, then I don’t have to be responsible.

But. I don’t want to be crazy. And all that stuff is less important than me.

Self Respect, now with FREE Super Saver Shipping

2006-11-30T21:05:00.000-08:00

First, a quick illness update: We’re both still sick. My voice has improved from a squished mouse to a heavy smoker choking on a clarinet. At 3:26am last night, my husband started coughing so loud that he woke up the neighbors. I’m not exaggerating. He’s going to the doctor tomorrow, thankfully. Maybe someday, if we ever get a decent night’s sleep, we’ll get better.

In other news: My boss called today to chat. He wanted to know how I’m doing… where my stress level is.

Sigh.

I like having a nice boss that I can be honest with, but I can’t help by feel that it’s incredibly unprofessional that he has to worry about one of his employees like this.

I told him that I was feeling less stressed. I mean, how could I not??!! In the little over two weeks since I tried to quit I have avoided work by:

1. Going to Santa Fe for five days
2. Coming back during the Thanksgiving holiday week
3. Getting sick for over a week

Everyone (ok, mainly my therapists) has been telling me that it’s ok to take a lighter load when you’re sick. But honestly, it feels like I’ve been throwing off my responsibilities left and right. I think I’ve spent more time this week feeling guilty than I actually have recuperating.

I start to wonder if maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe I could be doing more work, I think. I’m not THAT sick. It’s not like I have a high fever or anything. Maybe I’m just milking this for all it’s worth, just using this cold to indulge in even more avoidant behavior.

“Juniper!” My doctor said this morning. “I think if you were milking it, that would be progress! I’d say, good for you! We’re trying to get you to take better care of yourself, remember?”

Oh right.

I’m not so good at that. I used to try to ignore kidney infections. When I went in the hospital in 2003, I told the doctor that he didn’t have to wean me off the Paxil. I had a high pain tolerance and thought I could handle it. Oh yeah, and that strep throat a few years back. No matter how much I drank, the whiskey just didn’t kill the bacteria. Every so often in college, I’d decide that sleep was no longer a requirement for me. It was usually a sign of trouble.

Being kind to myself is kind of… a novelty for me. It seems like a cute idea but isn’t a basic necessity. Like something you’d find on QVC.

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday

2006-11-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

translation: chick magnet

Dumbstruck

2006-11-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

I have laryngitis. I can barely talk. This isn’t very compatible with my job.
1. I can’t answer the company phone.
2. I can’t teach.
3. I can’t participate in meetings.

Sigh. I don’t even feel that sick today. My voice just sounds like a mouse that’s being stepped on. I’m just trying to catch up on email.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about tonight.

I watched the movie “Proof” again last week. (Thanks to my many hours riding the couch of illness)
The movie is based on the Broadway stage play by David Auburn. A brief synopsis: Gwyneth Paltrow plays a daughter who has curtailed her math studies to take care of her aging father. The father, played by Anthony Hopkins, is a brilliant mathematician struggling with an unnamed mental illness. After her father dies, she begins to deteriorate into depression and her own fears that she’ll inherit her father’s illness. Fearing the same thing, her sister misreads her eccentric behavior as the early signs of madness. At the same time, a young colleague befriends her and discovers an impressive new math proof in her father’s office. Paltow’s character claims she wrote it but nobody believes her. After a while, she starts to doubt it herself.

To say that I identified with this move would be an understatement. It didn’t help that when this movie came out in 2004, everyone kept telling me that they thought I looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. Um… I do not look like her. We both have long blond hair. That’s it. Otherwise, she’s probably about half the size of me. Apparently, the only time there’s a remote resemblance is when she’s playing a sleep deprived, unwashed mentally ill nerd.

And then there’s the math part. Once upon a time, when I was 15, I accidentally wrote an original geometry proof. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that I answered a problem on a pre-calculus test in a way that my teacher had never seen before. (BTW: I failed the test.) Anyway, I spent the next year teaching myself calculus and trying to prove my theorem. Why did I do this? I thought it would be cool to have a theorem named after me. Turns out, it was a corollary to an existing theorem. I never learned enough math to finish or publish it.

When I first saw the movie, I was struck by how confused Paltrow’s character becomes. She should know whether or not she wrote the proof. But when everyone doubts her, she grows confused. You can see her mind go around and around. Did she write it or is she just crazy? I really identified with that. If there’s one feature of my illness that annoys me (and my doc) the most it’s my distrust of my diagnosis. Sometimes I get confused – I can’t really TELL if I have a mental illness… what if I’m just smart enough to convince everyone?

And that’s the thing that struck me when I saw the movie again last week. Madness IS made more complicated by intelligence. When you’re highly competent (or intelligent) the disparity between your highs and lows becomes confusingly large. One day I’m a successful architect and the next, I’m dissociated and nearly psychotic. One day I can write a math theorem and the next, I’m in the throws of depression, fantasizing about suicide. There’s a certain… unreal quality to this. How can these two extremes exist in one person? Surely, it must be an illusion, a deceit or trick of my mind. I must be faking it.

It’s hard to say which extreme feels crazier... When I do something really mad like cutting myself or getting lost in my own mind, it feels kind of familiar. Almost predicable. But when I do something competent, like conduct myself professionally or fix some problem at work… THAT seems foreign. I’m supposed to be the crazy lady. How come I just got offered that promotion? Did that really happen? I must be imagining it. It’s a delusion. Commence the internal debates. Cue the confusion.

Sometimes, I think it might be easier to be a bimbo. That way, when I did something dumb, at least I’d know it was real.

A pox upon our house. A never-ending, annoying, icky pox.

2006-11-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

Alternate title for this post: Ode to a Grey Couch

Saturday the 18th:
My husband came down with a cold. (He probably got it from the coughing guy sitting behind us on our flight to Santa Fe.) My husband almost never gets sick so we assumed that it must be a pretty a bad bug. Thus, I assumed I’d probably catch it soon enough.

Tuesday the 21st:
I still wasn’t sick. (Even though my husband’s coughing had worsened to resemble a cross between a foghorn and a moose.)

Wednesday the 22nd:
Finally, I woke up feeling… phlegm-y. I stopped by the drug store and picked up some Airborne and Cold Eaze. By noon, I thought I might have a low-grade fever. So, I called the student I was supposed to tutor that afternoon, apologized, and cancelled. I drove home, took some DayQuil, climbed on my couch, and prepared to rest. When the DayQuil kicked in I felt… not that bad. I figured I’d feel rotten the next day.

Thursday the 23th:
We slept in until noon… but I didn’t feel that bad. Still, I didn’t feel fantastic and I figured I was probably pretty contagious. So we lay low all day and watched more TV.

Friday the 24th:
More of the same. I slept until 9:30, tutored for a few hours, and then came home. I didn’t feel that bad… but I didn’t feel that good. We decided to brave the day-after-Thanksgiving crowds and go see “The Queen” at our local art-house theater.

Saturday the 25th:
We slept in late again. Still not that sick. A lot more TV. Maybe I’m getting over this, I thought. If I had to be semi-sick, at least it happened on a long weekend when it wouldn’t screw up work too much. Not fun timing, but convenient.

Yesterday, Sunday the 26th:
I’m sick. My throat hurts. I’m congested. I’m tired. Fan-freakin-tastic. I sleep until 11, tutor for a few hours, and come home. I dig out the cough drops and resort to… more TV. I even watched half of a Hallmark movie last night.

Now I’m starting to feel guilty. I’m becoming a lazy slug who lives on her couch. I’ve had almost five days off and I feel like I’ve gotten very little accomplished. My house isn’t cleaned. I’m not done with my holiday shopping or cards. I feel like I’ve watched WAY too much TV in the past two weeks. Even before we got sick in Santa Fe, we watched a Star Trek marathon (the 60’s version) and all three Star Wars movies back-to-back one night. Too much more of this and my brain is going to start oozing out my ear. Someone will come to my door and ask for my college degrees back.

Today:
I wake up at my normal time of 7:30am. I am now Sick. Capital S. I sound hoarse. My nose is congested and my stomach feels queasy – full of a night’s worth of post-nasal drip. I shower and stumble out the door at 9:05 – a full twenty minutes late. I manage to get to my psychiatrist’s office only three minutes late. It’d been two weeks since our last visit so I really wanted to be there. My doc seemed happy to see me. (Actually, he seemed amused by my weakened state. He told me I sounded out of it… like I’d had a few drinks!)

I tried to make use of the full 50 minutes but after 45 minutes – I was toast. My wonderful grey couch was calling to me. I got back in the car, grabbed my cell phone and canceled everything else I was supposed to do for the rest of the day. I drove home, lay down on my couch and promptly fell asleep for four hours. My husband came home, we ordered a pizza, and now we’re watching a movie.

If this keeps up, by Friday, I’ll be out of bed (or off the couch) for only about 30 minutes a day.

The searches keep getting stranger

2006-11-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

Recent searches that led people to this site:

Some were medical related:
- Dermatologist in Mazatlan
- pregnancy topical "benzoil peroxide"
- using proactiv when you're pregnant
- pregnant using proactiv
- hospice care columbia,south carolina

Some were psychology related:
- object relations
- positive aspects of stress
- do borderlines run away intimacy
- dialectical behavioral therapy bay area
- psychiatrist denver
- help me god to taper off ambien
- dbt and zen
- united behavioral health and palo alto

Some were Volkswagon related:
- 2001 vw polo epc warning light
- epc polo fault recall

Some were education related:
- yale berkeley "bishop o'dowd" marsha
- difficult scoring test OR exam "catholic high school entrance"

Oddly enough, a few of them were Tiger Shulman related...

And the rest were just plain odd (especially the last!):
- reality
- utah horse adventures d&d
- timmy s. still
- Shaved by my husband and proud of it

Oh and thanks to shoelover who reassured me that 25 pairs is not a lot of shoes. I'll inform the husband.

How can 25 pairs of shoes not be enough?

2006-11-24T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's getting cold here in the bay area. (And it was colder last week in Santa Fe.) It reminded me that I need new shoes. Most of the shoes I own are sandals (shown below).

These are all the "closed toe" shoes I own.

Two pairs hiking shoes. Two black, high-heeled ankle boots. Two black ballet slippers. Two black medium-heeled loafers. Two non-black flat-heeled loafers. (The fact that I have two of each seems redundant.)

Not pictured above: one pair running shoes, one pair cycling shoes, three pairs of flip-flops. Oh, and one pair of ski boots... but those hardly count.

As I was taking these pictures, I was reminded of an interesting article I read recently. It's a profile of Kate Bingaman-Burt, a designer, advertising art director and artist. Her interest in customers' purchasing choices led to a project she called Obsessive Consumption, which involved documenting all of her purchases and collecting the images on a Web site.

I love making lists and organizing my things. I like to see what I own - to see if there are things I need or things I can get rid of. It calms me and makes me feel like I have all my thoughts straight in my head. I used to think this was a bad thing... that it took up too much of my time. Until my doctor pointed something out.

"Imagine what you'd feel like if you didn't make all those lists." He said. As far as coping mechanisms go... it's far less destructive (or addictive) than other forms stress relief.

Forget architecture, forget tutoring. My true calling in life is to be a professional organizer.

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday

2006-11-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

In (ve) stigation: To dig.

2006-11-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today, one of my students was confusing two vocabulary words. He meant "investigate" but he kept saying "instigate." I was trying to explain the differences.

Then when I got home, my husband and I talked some more about our visit with my parents. I started thinking; this is what we do when we get back from visiting them… we conduct an investigation into my parents instigations. We compare notes: What did they say to you? Did they bother you? Did they give you a hard time about anything? Are you OK? Did they provoke you?

But this visit was so brief… I didn’t think was anything much to discuss.

Oh… I was wrong. There’s always something to discuss. This evening, my husband filled me in on a conversation he had with my parents. There was one hour on Sunday when I was out of the house (I went for a swim) and that’s when this conversation happened.

My parents were asking my husband how I was doing. At least, that’s what they said. But it was just another typically weird conversation, my husband said. There were three weird things about it:

1. It seemed like my parents’ real motivation in asking about my mental health was to figure out how it would affect them.

2. They asked him about what I’m getting from reading the old records I ordered. (my records from my hospitalization at age 15) My husband said that it seemed like my parents wanted to chalk the whole incident up to me being a difficult and defiant teen.

3. My mom commented AGAIN on how “grown-up” I seemed during her visit last month. She said that I talked less about my illness and seemed more focused on her well-being.

My husband's theory is that my mom resents me. A lot. Basically, when I was born up, I stole all the attention away from her. Especially my father’s attention. (He and I get along a lot better than the two of them do.) So when I get sick, she gets annoyed because I steal even more attention away from her. To her, my illness means I’m immature and childish.

I know this sounds a little harsh. I know there’s a lot of alternate explanations for my parents’ behavior. Maybe they really care about my health, you might be thinking. Sometimes I feel guilty for even thinking these things about my mom.

That’s the REALLY difficult part.

My mom rarely says anything really overtly mean… (although when her back is up against a wall, she says the most venomous things!) All her “concerned” comments can usually be interpreted in a variety of ways. It’s more the WAY she says these things. There’s NEVER any real feeling or emotion behind what she says.

So what my husband says… it feels right. He also said this:

“The reality is,” My husband said. “You’ve been grown up for a long time. And you’ve always been a considerate person.”

But what a mind fuck… to have your own parent always trying to convince you of the opposite. It's what causes Borderline Personality Disorder.

By the way, here's the differences between the words (I like looking up the history of words. I find the origins tell you more than the definitions!)

Instigate
1. to cause by incitement; foment: to instigate a quarrel.
2. to urge, provoke, or incite to some action or course.

from the latin: "instīgātus or instīgāre": to goad on, impel
the root of the word is "stīg": to goad, prick, dig (simmilar to stigma or stick)

Investigate
1. to examine, study, or inquire into systematically; search or examine into the particulars of; examine in detail.
2. to search out and examine the particulars of in an attempt to learn the facts about something hidden, unique, or complex, esp. in an attempt to find a motive, cause, or culprit: The police are investigating the murder.

from the latin: "investīgātus or investīgāre": to follow a trail, search out, dig.
the root of the word is "vestig or vestigium": footprint, token, trace, hint