30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 30 + OctPoWriMo 2017 Day 13: Suicide Ideation

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Hannah Hoch, 1930

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Notes:

With this image, I am caught up with 30 Days of Haiga. Too bad I can't use it for Inktober, which I am severely behind on, but that requires actually drawing something. I didn't draw (or paint) this.

The image references living with a mood disorder which includes suicide ideation. I've said it before, but it bears repeating, please respect me enough to know that, as a person of 52 years old and having at least average intelligence (even though I sometimes think I'm dumber than a box of rocks) who has lived with mental illness for her entire life, I know very well what meds are, what counseling is, and what an emergency room is. If I went to the ER every time I had a suicidal thought, I'd have to live there. I don't want to live there. 

When people tell me I should "think about seeing a counselor" or I should "consider getting on meds," it's pretty much the same as telling me that I should "consider seeing a doctor" because my blood sugar is elevated. Yes, I have diabetes. Insulin and metformin have worked pretty well for me, but sometimes, depending on what food is available and circumstances not entirely in my control, I may still have elevated (or diminished) blood sugar readings. As a veteran diabetic, I know the score with my blood sugar.

As a veteran of the mental illness wars, I also know the score. However, people tend to treat those with mental illness as if we are stupid children who don't know our own minds and bodies.

My life contains certain aspects that would probably depress a person who didn't have a screwed-up brain like mine which likes to exaggerate every emotion I feel. I work full time but don't have enough money to buy adequate food, which is crappy any time but has an added element of crappiness when you're diabetic. I "make too much money" to qualify for aid programs. When I started making "enough money," my Medicaid got cut off. I'm still behind on all the payments I fell behind on when I was underemployed after losing my job back in March. Like I said, GOOD FUCKING TIMES!

It seems that I no sooner catch up a little than something else comes along to run me over like a Semi barreling down a one lane road.

Last night I was thinking to myself "why don't I just do it? Nothing ever gets any better."

This thought wasn't one of the hyperbolic ones where I imagine flinging myself into a canyon a la Wile E. Coyote. I had some pretty realistic ideas on how to top myself. These are actually always in the back of my mind because I will utilize them toot sweet if I am ever diagnosed with dementia. I am not putting myself or my son through that shit, no way, no how.

Some folks will say "but the Conventional Wisdom when you're having suicidal thoughts is to go to Emergency Services."

As a veteran of the Mental Illness Wars, I can tell you that there's a myriad of reasons why that's the last thing many of us would do, one of them being the fact that I don't have the fucking time to be on a three-day psych hold. Guess what I wouldn't be making while I was in the psych ward arguing with a bunch of by the book types about the fact that SSRI's make me worse rather than better. That's right, a paycheck! I'm not stupid and I'm actually not delusional. Cold, hard logic dictates that I need money more than I need to seek help that isn't going to help me anyway.

The Haiga references the fact that on one hand I care very deeply and hurt very deeply. On the other hand, I've had so much pain in my life that I'm pretty well numb a great deal of the time. My heart feels like it's been shot full of Novocain which is wearing off. I hurt so much that I don't feel much anymore, and that hurts.

There's my story. I don't expect anyone to necessarily know how it feels, but I do expect respect for my experiences. 

No one would ever tell me to "stop being so hypothyroid," although, sadly, I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to tell me about the latest quack miracle cure, such as rubbing myself in black salt while standing on my head and drinking liquid Vaseline. It doesn't happen as much with hypothyroidism, but with diabetes, this is certainly something that happens quite often.

The point being, no-one would ever tell me to stop being so hypothyroid or even stop being diabetic (although they might tell me how I could cure my diabetes.) However, people think nothing of telling me and others like me to "just stop that stinkin' thinkin'," "just get on some meds," "maybe you need to go to church," "mental illness is caused by demons, wrong thoughts, bad karma," or one of my favorites, "stop looking for attention." 

I've also gotta love the people who post things like "how can anyone be a Negative Nellie when God has made such a beautiful world for us to live in? I just don't understand Teh Negativ Peepul!"

I used to feel really hurt and defensive when I saw such posts. At this point, I feel that these people are ignorant and lack empathy. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be wired to Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Even when I'm happy I'm always somewhat sad. I know that makes very little sense to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but it does not make me any less worthy of having a decent life than someone who is always Ms. Pollyanna Sunshine.

So, this is my last Haiga/Haibun for this year's 30 Days of Haiga. I can't say I hope you enjoyed reading it, but I do hope you might have learned something.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It + 30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 29: Desert of Dreams

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Original background image copyright Devesh V. Tripathi

Verse and text manipulation by The Real Cie

Thoughts:

The image and the prompt made me think of all the things I planned to do in life, most of which fell through due to fighting with a very misunderstood disease, the prescription for which was pills that made me feel even worse and the edict that I should "just stop that stinkin' thinkin' and be happy for what I have." 

While western society has a somewhat better understanding of mental illness than it did when I was younger, the treatment of both mental and physical illnesses in many countries, including first world countries such as the United States is out of reach for many citizens.

I do not respond well to medications or to this particular aspect of me being treated in a completely clinical fashion. I have often felt that I, as a person, have been ignored in favor of seeking textbook symptoms and outcomes. One of my son's EMS instructors wisely said: "treat the patient, not the chart." This is something that practitioners treating both body and mind all too often fail to do.

I would have done well to learn skills to cope with my particular mental presentation, rather than having wrestled for so many years with failed attempts to turn me into something I am not: a happy robot, gleeful to take my Soma and take on my prescribed role as a cog in the machine.

At this point in my life, I am no longer devastated by not being famous or adored, but I am awfully tired and a bit sad at the way some things have turned out. I try not to feel like a failure. I deliver groceries rather than speeches on the Red Carpet (or what have you) as I accept an award for my wonderful performance or book. 

Delivering groceries while clad in modest attire does not make me any less worthwhile than those delivering acceptance speeches for their grand performances while clad in glamorous gowns or sleek suits. However, I am tired and I ache and I am sad to see so many people I have known both in real life and through their work which inspired me becoming ill and dying. I would like to stop working for a living and start simply living. 

This isn't likely to happen anytime soon, and I fear that what happened to my father will happen to me. Less than a week after taking full retirement, my father had a hemorrhagic stroke which forever altered his life and the lives of his immediate family. He went through six years of decline, including more strokes and congestive heart failure. In the end, he was like a frightened child trapped in an adult body.

I don't want that to be my fate. But I fear a similar fate awaits the majority of us who live in a society which sees people as flesh androids rather than souls operating through corporeal vehicles.

The most humble of us and zir dreams is equal in importance to the most celebrated among us. Perhaps it is time to celebrate the most humble members of society and give weight to their hopes and dreams.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: 30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 28 + OctPoWriMo 2017 Day 11: Play For Me

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Verse and text by The Real Cie

Note:

This image features Malcolm Young doing what he did so well before dementia robbed him of his ability to remember how to do this or to remember who the people he cared about most were.

I hate this damn disease. It makes me sick, sad, and angry.

Even if it seems unrealistic, I have to believe that he either no longer functions through this body (his brother has stated that he isn't in there at all anymore, and I think few people would know better than one's soul mate) or one day he will wake up free of that body and remember everything.

I believe in at least the possibility of some pretty esoteric shit. You're free to believe it or not. It's really no skin off my nose either way.

This man did not deserve what is happening to him. It's horrible and it's wrong. To quote young Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame, "it's either mean or it's arbitrary, and either way, it gives me the creeps."

Isn't Calvin middle-aged now?

Even so, you know Hobbes is still with him.

In closing, fuck you Dementia. 

This is why horror movies don't scare me. Real life is far more terrifying.

I hope that we get at least a bit of respite between lives.

Yes, I actually do believe in at least the possibility of reincarnation. You're free to believe the same or not. I'm not here to argue. 

Quoth the barista: "I'm just here to express."

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 27: Foggy Finish

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Inspiration from my dear Gem
Another Haiga for Gerry and Pepper as well

30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 26 + OctPoWriMo 2017 Day 10: Seeds of War

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30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 23 + OctPoWriMo 2017 Day 8: Box of Truth

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30 Days of Haiga Day 23 + OctPoWriMo Day 6: The Hand Dealt

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The Story:

This Haiga-turned-Haibun started out being about me and my chronic condition of being overworked, broke, and tired, but I decided instead to dedicate it to someone who was tough yet tender, a kind gentleman with a rough exterior who cared about others but would suffer bullshit from no-one.

Lemmy Kilmister has been gone from this world for close to two years now, but his music will live on forever. He can never be imitated, but his influence will continue, to be sure.

This one's for you, Lemmy, with thoughts of love, friendship, and admiration always from one of your fans from way back. I hope the Afterlife is amazing because you deserve nothing less.

Love ya,

Cie

30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 22 + OctPoWriMo Day 5: My Autumn

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Verse and text manipulation by The Real Cie

30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 19/OctPoWriMo 2017: Day 1: Opening a Can of Worms

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Cie's Notes:

With the addition of prose, the Haiga becomes a Haibun.

This is today's Haibun. As it happens, the prompt for 30 Days of Haiga and the prompt for OctPoWriMo both work well for today's post, so I'm going to use this  Haibun for both. 

This is not a happy little tale of colorful flowers and chirping birds, unicorns farting rainbows, or boy meets girl and they live happily ever after in a glorious palace in twoo wuv forever.

This is my story, it's sad but true, about a crazy old curmudgeon that some of you knew.

Let's go back to my childhood now, boys and girls, so maybe you and I can understand some of the things that make me the way that I am.

Even today, when I am approaching 53 and my mother will be 79 in the middle of next year, my relationship with her is still complicated. But I won't convolute things by talking about the current dynamic between us. For now, we will stay with the incident that happened long ago which prompted the creation of this Haibun.

When I was a young child, no more than five or six years old, my mother took to singing The Hearse Song to me.

The Hearse Song dates back to the time of the Crimean War. Here are the lyrics.

"Don't you ever laugh as the hearse goes by,
For you may be the next one to die.
They wrap you up in big white sheets
and cover you from head to feet.
They put you in a big black box
And cover you with dirt and rocks.
All goes well for about a week,
Until your coffin begins to leak.
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout,
They eat your eyes, they eat your nose,
They eat the jelly between your toes.
A big green worm with rolling eyes
Crawls in your stomach and out your sides.
Your stomach turns a slimy green,
And pus pours out like whipping cream.
You'll spread it on a slice of bread,
And that's what you eat when you are dead."

When she reached the line of "that's what you eat when you are dead," she would poke me in the belly and laugh. I would run to my room screaming. My parents found this quite amusing.

A little background on my mother. On her mother's side, she came from a very strict religious family, the kind which believed in End Times prophecies. One such relative believed that even the legs of tables needed to be covered and that animals such as cats were Satan's creatures because they are prone to lifting their tails in the air and showing off their privates. Pretty much everyone was thought to be going to hell because there were so many rules that it was nearly impossible not to break them.

This family did not produce a lot of happy people.

I don't know much about my great-grandmother on this side of the family as she died before I was born. I do know that she had a lot of children, the last one of which was born when my mother and aunt were already in their teens. This child fell off a piano stool and injured her back when she was two years old. She subsequently developed meningitis and died. I saw the picture of her in her casket. I initially thought she was lying in a bassinet. When I was younger I thought this picture was "gruesome." Now I just find it sad, and, in its way, beautiful. These were people who came from a time when there were not a lot of pictures taken. Sometimes a "memento mori" was the only image they had of a loved one.

My great-grandmother was a stout, sturdy woman. She was only five feet tall and weighed around 300 pounds. I am not pointing this out to shame or berate her, and I do hope others who may choose to comment will have the maturity and courtesy not to do so as well. From learning more about her and the other members of the family, it's clear to me that she had endocrine problems, which I share. I'm taller than she was, courtesy of my father's side of the family, but I have a large body type, which my father's slender relatives would find shameful and something that "needs to be dealt with."

My great-grandmother died from acute myelogenous leukemia at the age of 79. Within the space of a year, she went from 300 pounds to 95 before passing away.

My great-grandmother held beliefs such as a red moon being a sign of a coming war. She was also extremely religious, and, inadvertently, religiously abusive. The superstitious beliefs she clung to came from her predecessors and were passed down to her descendants.

When I entered puberty, my bipolar disorder onset, but being type 2, which is harder to diagnose, the true nature of my psychiatric condition was misdiagnosed until I was nearly 40. Looking back, it was easy to see the ways in which the religious paranoia and the bipolar disorder fed each other. I used to study my Bible, particularly the Book of Revelation, for hours on end, looking for prophetic signs. I was devoutly religious until I got into my late teens when encountering far too many judgmental and hateful people calling themselves "Christian" caused me to start questioning my faith.

I went through a New Age phase which lasted nearly 30 years and also ended in disappointment as New Age ideals share more than a little of the judgmental, victim-blaming attitudes of Christianity. 

At this point in my life, I'm an agnostic. I dislike organized religion and feel it spreads a lot of harm, but I acknowledge having met people of faith who are genuinely Christian in their attitudes. I find full-on Atheism far too depressing, and, while most Atheists I know are good people who simply don't have any religious or metaphysical beliefs, I can't tolerate the acerbic sort who love to sneer at anyone who does. Thus, I fall in the middle and garner criticism from both sides.

I no longer fear the worms, but I still can't sleep in total darkness. It feels too much like being trapped in a coffin. Also, I've left instructions with my son that when this old carcass goes belly up, he is to arrange for it to be cremated. Although I'll no longer be in it, I can't abide the idea of it being stuffed into a coffin and buried in the ground. 

My attitude about my corpse is similar to my attitude about the zombie pancreas which currently resides in it. When I inject the insulin necessary to maintain my life in a body with a non-functional pancreas, I gleefully think: "take that, you stupid zombie pancreas! I don't need you after all."

With my vacated body, my thought is "fuck you, Worms. You ain't getting none of this!"

However, I still wish I could reach back in time and tell the frightened and overly sensitive child that I was that it's okay, that the worms aren't going to get me, that it was wrong of my mother to sing the Hearse Song to me.

My mother wonders what I did to cause myself to have all my endocrine and psychological problems. I've never said it out loud because it wouldn't be worth the trouble, but my thought is always "I'm related to you."

And now you know what you're all dealing with. So you can avoid it like the plague, which most people do. Or you can stick around because there's lots more to come.

~Cie~

Here's the Hearse Song as performed by Harley Poe for your listening pleasure.

Prompts:

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 18: Autumn Approach

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Words and text manipulation:
The Real Cie

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 16: Crushed to Dust

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Verse by Gem Moondreamer and The Real Cie

Text manipulation by The Real Cie

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 15: The Harvest

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Verse by Cie, Gem, and Opal
Text manipulation by The Real Cie

30 Days of Haiga: Day 14: Lament for My Flag

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Copyright: milena1234 / 123RF Stock Photo

Fighter planes image (upper left corner) source NPR News

Racist graffiti image source: Olean Times Herald

Misogynist quote source: Donald Trump

Notes:

I like to think the piece speaks for itself, but I will include a little personal history. 

When I was a young child in my early school years, I was very proud when it came time to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I sprang to my large and far from dainty feet, puffed out my scrawny chest, put my hand over my stalwart young heart, and spoke those hallowed words in my biggest voice. 

I was born in 1965. I didn't go to Kindergarten. Many years later I had a nightmare that Ronald Reagan ordered me to go back to school starting with Kindergarten. Initially, I attempted to comply, but then I realized that there was no legally binding reason for me to do this and I said "I quit," and walked out of the classroom to the sound of Mr. Reagan's voice berating me as a loser.

From first through third grade, the Viet Nam war was still taking place. I believed that the United States would eventually see that the war was a bad idea and would end it, so I said the Pledge proudly because I believed that my fine country would eventually do the right thing because we were the Good Guys.

During the next several years, the country was healing from the aftereffects of the Viet Nam War. I believed that we were headed in the right direction, and I thought that Jimmy Carter was a fine president and would continue to take us that way.

The Reagan era began when I was fifteen years old and I came to believe that we were all doomed to either eat flaming death in a nuclear holocaust or freeze to death in the nuclear winter which would follow. The Pledge of Allegiance lost its former wondrous appeal to me, but I still said it because I felt it was my duty as a patriot to try and believe in my country.

As my son says, the United States is still one of the best countries to live in, but we have a lot of problems. The election of Donald Trump brought a plethora of pathology boiling to the surface. 

We are not post-racist or post-misogynist and we are severely intolerant of anyone who isn't a God-fearing American "Christian." I put Christian in quotes because I don't think the behavior of those who subscribe to the ideals of American religious fundamentalists is Christ-like in any way. There is a frightening new wave of nationalism, and free speech is under fire. There is normalization of bigotry and intolerance.

This is not the America that young me believed in when she put her hand over her heart to proudly say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school and even at home in her bedroom on Saturday and Sunday because she thought it was the right thing to do.

This America brings tears to the eyes of middle-aged, working class me as I write these words. I despair for the loss of innocence in the heart of the child I once was and fear for the future of who I have become, for those I love, and for my fellow citizens of this world.

~The Real Cie~

As real as it gets

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 11: End of Story

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Text manipulation by The Real Cie

Notes:

Without going into too much detail, which would detract from the viewing of the image, I have had a difficult year. I have changed jobs six times and eventually ended up changing careers entirely. 

There are aspects of my current job which I really appreciate, but it is not an easy job and I do not make as much money as I did in my previous profession, which there are several reasons I can't go back to, the biggest one being changes in my diabetes which lead to fatigue and weakness if I don't pace myself.

I feel like I have lost the things that made me who I am: my imagination and my ability to enter other worlds astrally and psychically. My heart is heavy and I feel broken. I feel that I am constantly being punished and that there is no need for external hells when all the hell I need is here in the loss of that which made me who I am.

Cross-posted to:

Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp

Dark Hearts Love Too

Dream About Me Sweet Brother

Encyclopedia Netherworld

Esoteric Escape

Fetch

Netherworld Writer's Guild

One Love

Starry Demons

Strands of Eternity

30 Days of Haiga 2016: Day 26: Spice

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Tears of the Moon 2

Photoshop manipulation by The Real Cie

With love and tears for Malcolm Young

Dementia destroys beautiful minds

30 Days of Haiga 2016: Day 14: To Catch a Thief

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Words and Photoshop manipulation by The Real Cie

A little something I was inspired to make for Gem