Busted on the Bloor Line: This Sounds Much Worse Than It Is

First, before I dive into the guts, and, well, grumpiness of where this post will necessarily go, I want to post this — a portrait of my son as if we were sending him off to The Wall with Jon Snow and the rest of the Night’s Watch. Can you tell we’re a little excited about the return of Game of Thrones?

Anyway, for members of my family who might read this, please don’t be alarmed, and don’t be upset, please feel free to not read this, it’s okay.

So, I saw the psychiatrist last week. I am freely going to admit that I’ve been in some form of therapy for well over a decade now. If only to cope with the disease, to right some difficult patterns in my head, and to be able to understand how my mind works just that little bit better. And when I was there, rambling as I do, I told her that I feel unhealthy in my body, unhealthy in mind, and unhealthy in my spirit — that not a single part of me feels like myself, and I don’t even know where to begin in terms of getting it back.

In the past, long episodes of medication generally lead to very bleak places for me. I end up scrubbing bathrooms with bleach at 3AM or hiding in my closet. Luckily, therapy has given me the chance to overcome those coping mechanisms for when what has happened in my life threatens to overtake me, as a person. As of late, I’ve got more positive ways of dealing with stress — I make obscure, intense lists. I do math around a budget for hours. I zone out over iTunes and collect a huge amount of single songs I’ll probably never listen to (and actually go WTF when they show up on my iPod). You know, typical things people do, right.

And, I write. I write short stories and poems and an entire novel. None of which really ever get passed my writer’s group, but that’s okay. I write in the bleak spaces. I write in the happy spaces. I write and write and write. Except now, when I simply don’t have the time, energy or adventure to try and even move this part of my life forward. I’m disappointed and drugged out. I’m exhausted and overwhelmed. I’m a little desperate at times too, and all my coping mechanisms simply aren’t working at the moment.

So, I sat there and asked the doctor if all I needed to get back on track was one giant to-do list. She laughed. She said that it’s probably okay that I can’t make lists these days because it’s not entirely healthy to be up until, well, 3 AM creating insane lists of 158 items that I will never be able to cross off. But the essence of what I was talking about — the extreme unhealthiness, well, that’s the crux of it — I don’t even know where to start.

An old friend took a picture of me the other day. She was in town for a reading of her latest work at the Harbourfront. I am ecstatic to still know her, to be able to tell her in person how happy I am for her, that I got to celebrate her book even a little with her, and that I got to introduce two people I adore to another I have adored for ages, even at a distance. But my response to being photographed put it all into focus, in a way — I absolutely don’t want any pictures of me floating around the internet at the moment. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself, and that response is not rational. I know it’s the disease and the meds and the sixteen-plus months of prednisone, but I can’t face seeing myself as the “sick” person I am at the moment. And I find it hard to honestly talk about it without falling down and feeling like a puddle of sorry-for-myself-sorrow.

The blood work is yet again wonky. I took a gross course of antibiotics to finally fight the never-ending lung infections so I could actually breathe. And yet, I’m in between. One day, one part of the tests are high, scarily so. The next, I’m anemic and my ESR’s off. I’m repeating tests and having to stay in close touch with the doctor when all I really want to do is burrow down deep with my boys and maybe watch a movie or two. I want to be in denial. I want to not feel overwhelmed and eat poorly and fail in my new year’s resolutions and frighten my staff at work by being so ditsy and almost throw up after a really nice meal at the thought of anyone judging a photograph. In short, I want to feel like myself again, but this refrain is nothing new, I’ve been saying it since I gave birth. Maybe, in a way, I still haven’t adjusted to having three people in my life, myself, my husband and my son. I adore two of them for obvious and important reasons, the third, well, the jury’s still out.

Like I said, it’s all sounding so much worse than it is — this is the open parts of me that I unloaded in the doctor’s office. Most of what I talked about with her was about how overwhelmed I feel with just about everything these days. Work is busy, too busy; home is busy, too busy; and there’s only minutes left for me by the time everything is done and we’re off for another whirlwind adventure. I wouldn’t trade this new life for my old one, but I would like to integrate the two together just a little bit better. Another refrain: I was the healthiest I had ever been since being diagnosed with the disease before getting pregnant. I am now the sickest that I have ever been or, at least, for the longest sustained period of time. The good always comes with the bad with me. There’s never any even ground, despite how I search for it every single day. We go up. We go down. The tests go up. The tests go down.

The SFDD asked me how my “mood” was, and I told him that being disease-sick and then daycare-plague-sick for the last months has dragged me down. I wasn’t going to lie. And judging from my reaction to something as silly as wanting to post a photo of me up on the internet (I almost broke out in tears at a conference I was attending), I’d say it’s a bit battered at the moment. However, the antibiotics, even though they were so hard on my stomach, did clear up my cough. I’m still having some disease symptoms — sore fingers, a bit of sinus pain, but these are the same symptoms I’ve been having for months. I can’t put my finger on whether or not it’s the disease or just exhaustion from anemia. I don’t know if I’m overwhelmed because my work is really fun these days or that I’m feeling a little torn in two — I’d love to be at home but I also love to be at work.

I suppose, I’m desperate to find a little balance, and I’ve been writing on this theme for ages. I’ve been blogging about this theme for ages, how do I sustain this life, give the best bits to the RRBB, find time for the RRHB, find peace in what I do, the decisions I’ve made, and finally get back to writing. I’ve thought a lot about just giving it up, and would I be okay with that, kind of like I did with the dream of doing a PhD all those years ago after grad school, I knew it just wasn’t for me. Before I had the RRBB, writing filled up all kinds of hours, and without that time, without that definition, I’m not quite sure I know who I am. I’m not successful, not by any means, but I have made a living, in part, from my pen, and I am proud of that, and perhaps, that’s enough.

A few years ago now, I ran into a friend of a friend on the subway. She and I published stuff in Taddle Creek many moons ago. We had a lot of conversations about writing, about publishing, about the work in general. She had a baby. And then, she said, she gave it up. She said to me simply: “It took up a lot of time and never really got me anywhere.” And, at first, I thought to myself, “how, how on earth could you do it?” But now, now I kind of get it — I spent over four years writing a book that is quite possibly not any good. I know it has good points. I know it has flaws. And I know I can fix it — but I’m missing the hardest part, the time, the space, the freedom, the flying fingers, the basic energy to sit up straight and type.

Going back and back again to how I have always defined myself. Never by sickness. Never by the lack of what light went out of my life in the “tragic” years, the real essence of the loss of my mother, but by what having my own family has healed in terms of filling up all that space. Never thought I would have a career, and even if it isn’t perfect, it’s what I’ve got at the moment. So where do I go next. Do I wait it out and keep plugging away? Do I admit defeat? I wish I had a crystal ball that could tell me how it’ll all turn out. I wish I had a map. I wish I had a metaphor that would better fit.

The psychiatrist is ever-helpful. She’s offered to sit down with me and work out a way back from the edge. I might be getting the blues. I hope not. I’ve survived sixteen, seventeen months of prednisone without falling prey to the crazies, but I see clouds on the horizon, they’re not in my mind just yet, and fresh air helps, but if I don’t make a list soon, well, I’m concerned that I’ll never find my way back from this “me” that I’ve become. She gets a lot accomplished in a day, and now I just need to figure out exactly what it is that I need to do, maybe the problem is that I’ve never really known myself at all. That could be something, right?

I read an article in a magazine this week about a writer-man, who shall remain nameless, and I felt moved by his plight. And then, the more I thought about it, the more I felt manipulated. And then I did something even worse, I judged he and his wife based on the words they put out into the world. Realizing it’s not fair at all to be so judgmental, I wanted to be all high and mighty about what’s real and what’s not when it comes to blogging.

For me, I leave it, usually, as it’s written, it’s a time-stamp of my mind at a particular moment, I don’t tweak or polish, I am often embarrassed by my grammar; but I am always trying to be authentic. I am authentic at yet another doctor’s appointment. I am authentic at yet another meeting. I am authentic at lunch. But by dinner, I’m just plain worn out from being any version of me that existed in the day. And it’s a shame because the RRHB gets the dregs of me — the down and outs, the exhaustion, the bits and bobs that have been pulled together on the TTC ride home, after a particularly long day, of thinking, of making decisions, of doing work, and then the baby takes a good portion of what’s left, and then I want to give a little something to my RRHB, even those dregs, and then, by the time I’m in bed, I realize that the only person who didn’t end up with an authentic part of me that day was me. And how meta-how existential, how boring, how indulgent, how silly, is that? Only, perhaps it’s not silly at all.

Or maybe I just need to let the blood curdle in my brain for a moment or two put my legs up the wall, and surrender. I’ll take fifteen seconds. I’ll take thirty. In the end, I’ll make no decision. Maybe I’ll quit. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll string some word together. Maybe I’ll add more structure. Or maybe I won’t but eventually I’ll get to a place where both are absolutely okay. Won’t I?