OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 26: Mixed Messages

Copyright Pezibear

I need to be more open, I am told

Not to keep my truth a secret, to be bold

Not to be introspective, to reveal

Every thought I think and feeling that I feel

But when I follow this advice, then all I find

Are those who say: don't be quick to speak your mind

You must maintain an air of mystery

Don't be in a hurry to set your secrets free

Have an open heart but don't wear it on your sleeve

Don't let the sun catch you crying, no-one wants to see you grieve

Be real and true and honest, but don't be an open book

Don't keep your light hidden inside, let the world have a look

With all this conflicting information

I just want to catch the train and leave the station

~Cie~

My Musings through life: The Song of my Desires

My Musings through life: The Song of my Desires: Day-24 OctPoWriMo-2018 Prompt: Opening (Form: Free Verse) I am a flowing stream Don't bind me In worldly tangles. ...



This is an amazing piece, and the photograph fits with it perfectly. I often wonder what I could have become if I had been allowed to BE.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 24: Out of the Attic

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

Outside

She stumbles out into the sunlight

No longer will she hide

Fling 

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

The people hide in the shadows

To see her in the open is quite a shock

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

Fling

How dare she try to approach the good people?

She's such a hideous thing!

Gape 

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Surely she doesn't fancy herself equal to us

Who does she think she is really?

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

~Cie~

Note:

I have type 2 bipolar disorder which was not properly diagnosed until I was 38 years old. I first noted symptoms of bipolar disorder, then termed manic depression, in myself when I was taking a psychology class in high school. I approached the teacher with my thoughts, and she told me that I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis, and I evidently wasn't psychotic.

Bipolar disorder has since been recategorized as a mood disorder rather than a psychosis.

Bipolar type 2 can be difficult to diagnose because it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Bipolar 2 does not have psychotic features. Bipolar 1 may or may not present with psychosis.

I have experienced mania and psychosis when they were triggered by SSRI's, the darlings of the psychiatry field. It was terrifying and upsetting. While taking Effexor, a patient in the long-term care center I was working for at the time asked me why I was so happy. I wasn't happy, I was manic as fuck and felt completely out of control. I never experience mania if I don't take SSRI's. 

Just another reason why people suggesting that I should "try medication" makes me want to go all Norman Bates on their ass. I did, and the cure was worse than the problem. Having a psychiatric anomaly does not make a person stupid.

I realize that sometimes it can be difficult when dealing with people who do improve with use of medication and who then feel as if they have been cured and quit taking the medication. Psychiatric dysfunctions are not one size fits all. 

I do best using a low dose of Lithium Orotate. It short-circuits the irritability that is part and parcel of my condition.

I once had a doctor tell me to "just stay on" a medication (Zoloft) which made it feel as if my brain had developed tiny hands and was trying to pick its way out of my skull. To this day, I would like to know how the fuck he thought that was an improvement. That was a psychotic reaction to the medication. I normally do not experience psychosis. I knew it wasn't really happening, but it sure as fuck FELT as if it was really happening, and who the hell knows what I might have done to stop it if it kept on. 

These medications are not "happy pills." They change the brain chemistry. Some people are helped by them. For some, they don't work at all. For others, the cure is worse than the disease.

I think that one thing which desperately needs to change is the idea of making people who live with neurological or psychological differences into "normal" people, and to stop acting as if those of us who live with these conditions are "broken." 

It would have been nice to learn how to live with a brain like mine from the time I was in my youth rather than being told that I had to be "fixed," to be "normal." 

I will never be normal.

I will only be me.

Stop the stigma.

Haiga copyright The Real Cie

You are welcome to use it with a credit back to me.

The Weak and The Strong

The weak seek leaders to lead them, to follow them, to be ruled by them. 

The strong seek inner strength and the ability to be responsible for their own actions.

The weak seek to control.

The strong relinquish control.

The weak seek power.

The strong don't need power they are powerful unto themselves.

The weak seek possessions.

The strong are in possession of all they need.

The strong know love does not possess it empowers.

The strong know love doesn't control it liberates.

The weak fear change.

The strong embrace change.

The weak fear the other.

The strong know there is no other.

My Musings through life: Silent Stream

My Musings through life: Silent Stream: Day-19 OctPoWriMo-2018 Prompt: What do you want? (Form: A chant) I know you want to say a lot more And still, you don't s...



Sometimes we learn to be quiet because we're always shot down when we reveal our true selves.

I think now to be quiet: Under the Bridge (for Paul)

I think now to be quiet: Under the Bridge (for Paul): I watch the fire. what do I want like a burning desire what do I want the coals glow red what do I want so does my head what ...



In my younger day, I wanted sex, money, and excitement.

These days, I'll just take the money. ;-)

Nice chant poem! It's one of my new favorite forms.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 19: Suicide Ideation

Flowers and a Grave

Copyright Raivn_70

Is it death that you desire

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Are you questioning whether to end it 

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Do you search for a means of suicide

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Do you doubt your will to live

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Will you fulfill the threat to end it all

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

~Cie~

Notes:

The form is a chant poem.

I am aware that the go-to when one believes that someone is suicidal is to tell them to go to the emergency room or tell them to call the suicide line.

Please don't tell me to do either of those things.

I have lived with suicide ideation for as long as I can remember.

If I went to the emergency room every time I felt suicidal, I'd have to live there.

If I may be so bold, fuck that shit.

I'm afraid that in my experience, suicide hotlines are, well, not that helpful, if I'm to be blunt. I had one asshole who laughed at my distress. I had one kind but not at all helpful fellow who wished me luck. So, that has been my experience with suicide hotlines.

Suicide ideation is in a different class than someone threatening suicide, particularly if they have the means and a specific plan to complete the act.

A person may have a high degree of suicide ideation but a low level of planning, which tends to be my case when my suicide ideation flares up.

A person like me is not likely to telegraph it if they are actually going to commit suicide. If I were to commit suicide, no-one would know until after the fact. Thus, telling someone like me to go to the emergency room if I say I wish I was dead isn't going to accomplish anything except for wasting my time. With someone like me, it works much better to ask what's going on to make me feel that way. I might say that I'm on a downswing, or it might be something more concrete. But asking why I'm feeling as I am will make me feel as if you care rather than causing me to make a mental note to myself that here is yet one more person I can't tell anything because they just don't fucking get it.

It is a fact that people who experience suicide ideation are more likely to complete suicide than people who do not experience suicide ideation. It also is a fact that people who experience suicide ideation over the long term tend to have mood disorders such as major depression or bipolar disorder. A lot of us do not respond well (or at all) to the "magic medications." For people living with a chronic mental illness, it tends to be unhelpful and demeaning to suggest that we "try meds" or "seek counseling." Many of us have had bad experiences with "mental health professionals" and will avoid them like a bad case of athlete's foot.

If I could find a therapist who did cognitive behavioral therapy and whose services were covered by Medicaid, I might consider it. Such beasts, however, are rare as the proverbial hen's teeth. I find artistic pursuits to be a far more soothing balm than spilling my guts to someone who a) probably doesn't give a fuck, and b) will frustrate me by just not fucking getting it. I can find someone who fills those criteria by walking out onto any street corner and yelling "hey, come talk to me!"

That is your psychology lecture for the day, class. Thank you for attending the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Academy!