Getting Your Arm Gnawed Off by a Shark

Back in 2007-2009 ish, I kept a blog, The Oxygen Chronicles. The Oxygen Chronicles was about breathing in all forms -- physically, psychologically, philosophically...on and on. It talked a lot about American Idol, too; this one won't.

At essence, it was about how we all are just trying to breathe. As it says in the header, I popped into the world back in 1971. I came out backwards, and no doctor had prepared my mother for a breech birth.

Right away I was a pain in the ass, but you really can't blame me:

First, imagine coming feet first out of a scary 1970's vagina. Secondly, I was like a plane on a clogged runway, waiting for permission to lift off and head for... Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester aside, being stuck must have been horrible, plus no one dropped an oxygen mask.

I got back at all of them by being dead silent and the color of a plum. Then, I disappeared.

My mother cried, and cried. My father paced and fumed. My mother thought I was deformed. That was her worst-case scenario - not that my organs were rotting away in my mucus clogged chicken body, but that I was a cyclops or elf-eared.

Eventually, a nurse strolled into the hospital room, cradling my lilac-hued self and presented me to my mother. I was starry-eyed and gurgling with reflux. Same as today.

Then, I coded, but at least I had a nose.

Breathing has never been intuitive to me. Aside from a lifetime of asthma, when I become anxious, I hold my breath and stiffen my muscles.  I stop myself from breathing. (Do you do that, too? Next time you feel anxious, check your breathing. Exhale for a little relief.)

But, so many of us are struggling to breathe. We don't want to get out of bed; not only that, but we wonder how anyone else does. Who are these alien life forms - these people who actually want to pull from bed, put their corny feet on the floor and get out of their fuzzy pj pants?

On my worst days, during the most challenging periods in my life, I view people through my high school eyes. I see human beings as happy or miserable. Winners or losers. Popular or unwanted.

But, when I'm feeling more rational or challenge my thinking, I know that's not true.

My unhealthy self sees a fixed caste.  Some folks are just perfect. Their lives are a song. When I measure myself with that kind of yardstick, of course I feel like a failure. There is no grey area. But, being static is not a natural state for anything. There's the old adage that "The only constant is change." Something like that. But, it's true.

People's lives exist on a continuum. There are wonderful years when their marriages are working well, life is prosperous, jobs are well-paid -- all is doing well. But, all it takes is a minute, or an event and everything changes.

As a teenager, I listened to America's Top Forty with Dick Clark every Sunday. One Sunday, Whitesnake was sailing high at #1 with "Here I Go Again." Weeks flew by at number one, and Tawny Kitaen kept twerking on Jaguars. One day, she fell off the hood. Then, she noticed David Coverdale's acne pits. She realized they both had severely damaged hair.

If that song didn't stay at number one, what chance do you and I have?

If we want to stay fixed, we'll live fixed. But, we're not meant to. Change is our true nature.


I'm sure you can come up with incredible boundaries that get pushed every day. Animals that transcend abuse to ride on Zoombas. People whose arms are bitten off by a shark, yet they still find a way to surf. Two months later, they either win the world surfing championship or are carried away like a hoagie into the deep sea.


**The documentary about the blond chick who got her arm bitten off my a tiger shark was on today, so I had a healthy shift in my thinking. Tomorrow, my back pain will be raging or my hormones will be swinging, and I'll see myself as a forever loser living in a cruel, brutal world.

Stay tuned.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: CALL

1-800-273-8255

1-800-273-TALK

A handful of years ago I was in a critical place.

I was 39 years old, and safe to say things hadn't turned out the way quite the way I'd planned. I hadn't been able to have children. I'd lost my first and only house to foreclosure. My then-husband had been fired the year before for sexual harassment. On top of that, he'd been lying and cheating for at least a year, all piggybacked by a (his) porn addiction that blew up a good desktop. I'd become isolated from old friends and family. I was humiliated.

Mental and physical health problems had conspired until I was a hideous mill churning out weakness. I watched my friends from college buy beautiful houses, gather more degrees, get higher paying, increasingly impressive jobs and have more beautiful children.

I felt worthless.

My life circumstances had eroded my dignity so badly I barely existed anyhow. My career had gone kerplunk. I was in relentless physical and emotional pain.

I was a clown-car of insults, worries, pain, and problems.

The only image I can offer is this:

After so many years of hard work, I held nothing in my hands but a square of antique lace. No matter how I tried to keep it, no matter how I gripped it, it was disappearing thread by thread.

I watched it disintegrate until it disappeared. Everything felt weightless in my hands.


In terms of a moving-on strategy, I had none.  Money, car, credit, a place to live? Nah. Why breach to the surface after a ten year marriage with anything to show for it?

Oh, and there's that self-respect thing.  That was all gone too.


I was just a shred of the lace myself. I had no hope.


It was all so unfair, I thought. I had spent a lifetime kicking through endless problems like a bunch of dried-out leaves; I felt I had clearing paths that just got cluttered again.


Before I knew it, I was in an unfamiliar state, surrounded by unfamiliar people. I was more alone than ever.

I had no one to listen to me.

I was actively suicidal. No one knew how severely fucked up I was. I tried to keep a good face on, but I knew I couldn't.

I called these guys.  They were awesome.

You will not be judged. Your particular story will be valued.



These are people who will hear you, not just listen.

They also referred me to a great counselor in my area.

Please call.

Please.

The world needs you. You are here for a reason. Please just hand on long enough to start finding what that is.


Get help --- YOU CAN FEEL BETTER!


If you need more info, email me at hinsleyspsyched@gmail.com.






24/7 Suicide Prevention Hotline: Make the Call



"No matter what problems you are dealing with, we want to help you find a reason to keep living. By calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) you’ll be connected to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area, anytime 24/7."


Answers to Your Questions About the Lifeline

Moving When You're a Hot Mess of Disorganization, Asthma & Depression

Everything feels impossible to understand these days -- from how a reality TV star Donald Trump has ascended this far in the GOP polls, to how the term "affluenza" has become part of our vernacular...

What I do understand is that I am moving at the end of the month and I am terrified.

I'm pretty stumped about how I'm going to execute the move. For anyone who has issues with disorganization (something that is characteristic of  people with mood disorders/depression/chronic illness), a move is exceptionally terrifying.

A hot mess of an apartment becomes an even a bigger hot mess while in transit and upon arrival it expands like a sea monkey.


I dread all of it. If you're broke as a joke, the fear quadruples because you feel so vulnerable.

 If you have an animal(s), you dread if for them. I have one 17 pound orange tabby cat named He Who Will Not Be Named. This time, I have had him for 13 years. Altogether, we have spent three lifetimes together, soaring hand and paw through ice-covered sparkly tunnels while eating powdered donuts.

He has never had a urinary or fecal oops -- unless we move. As soon as the poor guy is loaded in the car he pees everywhere. Yes, I bring towels, but it's a pain in the ass because I then have to pull over to clean the the carrier, and of course his paws and belly are all pee-soaked, and he's anxious and wide-eyed and desperate to escape. Of course, he has no idea that escaping the warm jalopy would be a poor choice when it's 8 degrees outside and coyotes like cats.

Once his bladder empties, the horrible howling echos through the car. He sounds like a cat who is in her first heat, and happens to still live right up the road from her perverted father and brother, both who like her, like her. I don't know if the familial bond made the lovemaking worse for this particular female cat (this story is obviously from personal experience), but seeing the coitus certainly screwed with my head for a few days. Slipping on an icy driveway wearing a nightgown and slippers, I attempted a fierce tug of war, but learned that cat penis is a mighty opponent.

So, she was knocked up and on the run. I felt like shit about the whole escapade, so took her home and named her Bertha. This story has a great ending. Bertha had two adorable kittens in a box in my living room. They both have heads and legs. I wasn't sure if the kittens would be properly assembled, but cuteness transcended incest and wah lah...two adorable babies.

All three have good homes and none are sluts.

So, I'm procrastinating about the move, which stems from fear, which makes everything worse.

Currently, my life is as scary as one of those dungeons where witches were kept during the Salem Witch Trials, and are now used as museums and scary, expensive haunted venues. This is also from personal experience. It was Halloween. I have no idea how I ended up in a freaking witch museum by myself. I froze and cried. They had to turn on the emergency lights (which ruined things for everyone), then backed me up like a bus  - beeeep, beeeep, beeeep.

Everyone behind me was pissed or laughing. I mean, little kids were skipping through the thing like it was Disney's Clubhouse and I was pissing myself.

I am similarly anxious about this move. I'm really scared and stumped, which just edges out being a scared stump.

IN ADDITION, I've had lifelong cold-induced asthma and am not supposed to do anything in sub-30 degree weather but walk from warm building to warm building with a scarf wrapped around my mouth to keep my respiratory system all moist (I HATE THAT WORD!). Since steroid and rescue inhalers don't help enough to keep me from dying in 3 minutes or less, I have to now buy a 100.00 portable nebulizer so I'm not found face down in yellow snow, which would just be my luck.

Even better, I'll be face first in a pile of snow and no one will notice except for the neighbor's dog who will trot over and lift his leg over my head.

This all just sucks and I'm freaking myself out writing this, so me and my frog pjs will go collapse in a ball of horror.

A True Introduction: And My Story Begins...(with a shark pillow named Junior)

Mental health diagnoses are funny. I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean tricky; these disorders are so difficult to identify, diagnose and treat.


I am not a doctor or mental health counselor. I am just a 44 year old woman in pajamas covered with little foxes who is writing to you on my newish laptop that I sat on a few months back, breaking the touch screen. And, I had wanted a touch screen so badly! Well, I do have one. It just doesn't work.

But, given the fact that I'm a plump kind of chick, I'm lucky the outcome wasn't worse. Seriously. I'm a couple Ding Dongs short of a motherboard fire.

The Universe gave me a gift that day -- a bitchy reminder to watch what I'm doing ( I have a hard time staying in the moment and not being distracted. Look! There's a squirrel!), but not a full admonishment in the form of breaking it completely. So, I have to keep reminding myself to pay attention. Forty-four years of that message, and I'm still busting things with my ass.

So, that's me. I will unfurl the flag that is my unusual life as we go along in my new blog.


I opened Making Love in the Psych Ward as a New Year's offering. I don't want to make resolutions this year. I always break them, probably because anything I have been wanting to do better at I am either already doing better, or else have failed, failed again and have recently failed, but much worse, sooooo I will get back to it when I freaking want to. A date on a calendar will not make one toss the Friendly's Jubilee Roll that's still in one's freezer (plus the one in the back), or to remind one to get one's fat ass in bed at 11:00 and not 3AM.

Obviously, I am the one.


ANYWAY -- back to what I came here to write:

As I assemble this blog (as you can tell it's quite new), I will provide information in an informal, conversational way. I will openly discuss my experiences, both horrible and good - though you'll see the one that starts with "h" more frequently.

My road has been long and it might as well be yellow, because yellow is a bright, cheery color, and why not be bright and cheery tonight?

(Because my life has really sucked for the last few weeks with no end in sight - but, one thing I can promise you when you're coping with a mental illness, or your loved one has a mental illness and you're totally lost and scared, you gotta try to find something good, or funny, or heartwarming to get through the experience or day or hospital stay or whatever -- some kind of thread that winds through your life and experiences that you can touch/hold to/reach for when you're having a hard time.

I am 44 and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in my teens, and bipolar disorder when I was 19. At the age of 26, I was "labeled" in my medical file as schizo-affective, which is not the case. Imagine when surprise when I saw it.

But, that was before I had done much swimming in the murky swamp of coding and insurance billing. The "steeper" the diagnosis, the better the rate. Garden variety depressives aren't even a blip on the screen anymore.

Or something like that.


Everything in this blog is based on my own opinions and experiences, unless something is based on other's opinions and experiences.

I am not a doctor or therapist or even someone who sells them their coffee in the morning I don't want any lawsuits. Not that you will get anything good, though I might still have a few nuts left over from Thanksgiving.

I will also provide more formal information such as statistics, historical information about mental health, media issues - that will be fun! - doing the best I can to make it
interesting and readable.

We don't want a bunch of TL;DRs on here, but this post is already super long, so I'm sure a few of you have dropped off along the way. Those who have hung in there, awesome.

Though, that's assuming that anyone is here at all and by the looks of my stats, I am talking to my cat.



OK, I'm gonna go watch the Travel Channel and snuggle with my great white shark pillow. His name is Junior, but you have to pronounce it JUNE-YA!

I have no idea why, but that's the rule for tonight.

A New Year's Tale from a Behavioral Health Professional

My friend who is a BHP (Behavioral Help Professional) works for a pre-K program that offers kids with behavioral disorders a fun, safe place to play, endless learning opportunities, a gaggle of similarly mischievous peers, and plenty of workers to punch in the face and verbally abuse.

At the end of the day, the workers usually go home exhausted, bruised and bitten, and feeling downhearted and doubtful about the results of the program.

But, today, on the crest of the new year, my friend Penny witnessed something of a miracle.

She was playing a board game with five year "Austin," who was calm and "making good choices" (daycare lingo). Since this behavior is infrequent, she praised him several times for his good choices, and then added, "You're such a cute kid."

"No," he replied. "I'm bisgusting."  (Bs and ds are obviously an issue, as apparently is his self esteem.)

From across the room, two tykes who ordinarily act like little asswipes piped up to offer Austin some support:


"You're handsome like a super hero!"

And the other, "You're a great man!"

--

Wow. Crickets. The workers were stunned.


The program strives to teach these little hooligans about empathy, and amazingly, at least for two of them, it seems they've learned something.

A New Year's gift indeed, but Penny is still going out tonight to drink herself into oblivion. There is still so much to forget.


For example, she came home tonight with a few bruises on her collarbone from a 3 year old who was clearly dissatisfied with the "fucking stink assed snack," as well as irritation from the five year old who spit in her eye because he "hates [her] eyebrows."

She was also called a "fat dick" by a  5 year old who was dropping the toilet seat on his penis over and over again and screaming in pain.

I'm sure a bunch of them shit their pants in retaliation for something, but let's focus on the positive.


Here's to our hard-working punching bags called BHPs.


Happy New Year!

If You're Fighting a Brain Disorder Like Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Acute Anxiety - Remember this:

Your life is not a sob story; it's a SURVIVAL story.

How on Earth do You Pull it Off?' 

Do you know how strong you are to battle depression, or any mental illness? If not, let me tell you. 

You're braver than you realize. Your walk is tougher than anyone without mental illness can imagine. You hang in there because of your loved ones, but also because inside you're solid as a rock. 

I salute you! I recognize your strength. I'm in awe of how hard you fight to put one foot in front of the other. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you're "complaining" about nothing. 

Bullfreakingshit.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Brave on, fierce warrior!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Self Sabotage and Dumpster Diving

Finally, here I am!
While I'm aware that this proclamation means nothing to any human, plant or animal besides me and my  78 year-old mother (who spends her days bored silly so that's not that great), its personal significance is pretty darn astounding.
Why? I am a self-saboteur of divine proportions. 

Specifically, success and failure terrify me equally, and I've only recently admitted the reason for the fear. I probably knew the "why" all along, but speaking it aloud would have pushed me do something about it, and that's also scary. 
Case in point: say my teenage novel or even a non-fiction number based on this blog's concepts ( though no one, including me, know what they are) make it so big that I'm up for a major award.
Laden with fear, I hastily buy an OK gown for the red carpet, then proceed to puke all over it from anxiety on the day of the event.  
OK, so scratch that. There are always options. 
In one, I see my tree-trunk legs stretching skyward as I rummage through the leaky dumpster behind Dress Barn. Sometimes clothing is tossed out by crappy stores if garments are torn or crusty from sweat or other bodily fluids. I find myself in the dumpster because Kmart had sold out of the generously Kut Kardashian number I had been eyeing for three seasons -- a full length, red and topless (strapless is so old, pukey and lahamme) gown strewn with masterfully placed images of Saint dancing in a fur onesie. 
Aside from the typical trash, the dumpster offers up nothing helpful but a coffee (I hope so - shudder) covered slipper and a few unraveled shower poofs. The clock is ticking and I'm due at the ceremony in an hour. I find a slice of bologna that was nibbled by rats into the shape of Jesus, so that's a serious bonus.  I return to my apartment with spaghetti in my hair. I sob until my eyes are swollen, blow my nose into a cereal box or whatever snot vessel is closest, and decide to skip it all.  I swathe myself in flannel jammies for the next week or until I smell too much like vinegar. (Anyone else think that sweat smells like vinegar, especially in the underboob area?).
I could have worn something else from the Kardashian Kollection, so all of this - the dumpster diving, the coffee grounds that I still can't get out from between my teeth - was just me being the terrified version of me. I chose to keep myself stuck instead of throwing caution to the wind and wearing the mauve kowelneck number in klearance.
I opened this blog partly to keep me writing. I think I'm ready...ish... to pursue the dreams that I've carried since early childhood: publishing all genres of books, ones that are funny, wanted and needed, and of great consequence. My love for books started with Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell Hoban, and then the writing bug set in around 6 years old.
 I know it's what I am "called" to do and I must never stop dreaming big. 

With the proceeds of my work I would like to purchase a 100 square foot, marshside lean-to that I will share with my cat, Mikey Likes It, the amazing novel Written on the Body by Jeannette Winterson, and my sand-clogged nebulizer that I use for my Status Asthmaticus, a condition of severe asthma attacks that often lead to asphyxiation, such as the one I had on December 8, 2014 and somehow survived. (Ha! I should set up a Go Fund Me for a new nebulizer - everyone else appeals for assistance and you know some of it goes to 75 inch plasmas.)


Wellll....
my butt hurts, so it's time to wrap this up.
Success and failure bring some form of change, and to me change is a massive green monster with acid-soaked fangs that I avoid as much as possible. How weird is it that many people protect the stagnant nature of their lives? Even after getting an education worth a couple hundred thousand dollars back in the 80s and 90s, I protect being poor. I protect mediocrity. and disappointment I protect the status quo even though THE STATUS QUO SUCKS BALLS. 
I can rely on the routine of my less than satisfactory days. I can rely on selling myself short because I have been doing it for so long. I can rely on not filling my dreams because I haven't allowed myself to do so for a very long time. I like to help others succeed, and toss my talents by the wayside.
You know, I hadn't planned to blog today.  I thought I'd take some time to get my head together before New Years, so I hadn't bothered to throw myself into blogging. 
Guess what that was? A stall tactic. Fear. Once I realized it, I pushed myself to write a post, and I don't think it's all that bad. 
::Golf clap::