Transfer #19

Subject: update Posted Date: Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 6:15 AM

Alright Sportsfans,

I tried to keep this blog to issues about being ill. Ok, to be honest, for those of you who are long time readers, you will recognize that I didnt intend this to be a blog at all, but through a complete misunderstnading of Myspace, started posting what I thought was an electronic journal on line.

I find I have the most time to write when I have the least time to write. And I have no time to write right now, so here you go...

I have nothing fun to report. No visual disturbances, no voices, no thought disorders, no painful migraines, no twitching, no paranoia, no swelling, no depression, no unusal exhuastion, no dizziness, no disorientation. Nothing. I mean, I am not completely well, but I am so close, that I am entereing the realm of normalcy. So do I contiue to write? Oh yes. We are not home yet. There are still dissonances that need to be adressed. Digestion is still a sometimes thing, and there are all sorts of interesting things that come up when you come to one day and realize you missed a decade of living.

BUT- I have this fantasy in which I have a blow out party to celebrate my recallection to life. I will have this. I have been saving for it. I think it should be wedding big, but then again, the turnout will be lower. I want to make it a big party for everyone who made it through this with me, and invite those that never understood. There would be precious little speech giving, but it would be a celebration of mental illness. Wee. Crazy people party. Sometimes by themselves and with huge dance halls of people you cannot see. Anyway, I am going on a bit...the point is that I had always wanted to do this on my birthday, you know, tying in the rebirth theme, and I figured the year would be 2007, exactly one decade from onset, but..drumorll...I recently realize that I might be able to do it this year. I mean, forget logistics, but the point is that I feel confident this is the end. If you know me, you know I am many things, but unrealistic about my recovery is not one of them. I have been accused of being too hard on myslef. This is for real.

So...I will figure out what to do with this blog, with the missing 10 years, the expectations, sense of responsibility, the pharmacopia and encyclopedia of cures stuck in my head where Ted William's OBP is supposed to be.

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Subject: Triggers Posted Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 5:24 AM

They say, ok research indicates, that a stressful event precedes onset of schizophrenia in the vast majority of cases. It did in my case. I moved to Italy, and did not have enough money for food. I dropped 30 pounds and I worked 16 hour days for months.

Could I have avoided this by having treated myself better? One thing is for sure, once out, the genie does not go back into the bottle. Genes, I am told, are best understood as swtiches, subject to if/ then rules. Perhaps the genes I have never said "schizophrenia", but rather, "if the stress threshold is exceeded and exhaustion is maintained without letting up for too long- then express gene X". Could I have avoided this?

Its not just schizophrenia you know. Think of diabetes. Once you ahv punished your panscreas badly enough for long enough, it just gives up and you are on your own, a life time of medication. After that you can manage it, but you are always diabetic. Most chronic conditions seem like that Epstein Barr, Krohn's, MS, IBS, candiadiasis. JFK- one horrible night on PT109, and his adrenal glands never funcitoned properly again. He took adrenal extract the rest of his life.

So its a nasty thing. We all have a gentic stress threshold. For some people it is a wash tub, for others a thimble, but one thing is certain, once you exced that limit, through small daily stresses over time or one cataclysmic event, your body will break in gentically preordained ways. Want to know what yorus are? look at your parents. Cancer, heart attack, whatever. Thats your little ticking time bomb. Mine came early. Enjoy.

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Subject: double bloggin' Posted Date: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 - 3:12 AM

Ok, short one.

Why is it that everytime the symptoms get bad, it feels like someone threw a grenade into my gut. Seriously, it feels like there is broken glass inside. And its not my imagination. My gut swells up and looks kinda mini pregnant. It hurt, and it burns. When the symptoms subside, the gut is fine. When it is in pain, I cannot eat. I fear eating.

Have I mentioned this sucks?

I did watch Murderball the other night. Quadripelgia also sucks. A lot. I would hate to make a choice between schizophrenia and quadrapalegia. I guess, since I am healing, I know whihc I would choose, but I want to acknowledge that just becuase this is a crappy roll of the dice I got, I understand there are many others as bad or worse.

By the way...its all getting better. Started passing away at 2. I thought this was going to be a 2 day affair. If this holds true to course, by tonight I will feel better than I have since onset. This should last at least a week.

ok, get back to work.

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Subject: down Posted Date: Saturday, March 04, 2006 - 1:13 AM

bad couple of days. I thought I was climbing out, but I was wrong.

Sh*t.

I really dont know if I cna hold on much longer to this life I lead. That is, I dont know if i can go on working, at least as an atttorney. Some rare days, my brain is working, and I like my job very much, but most days, my head is filled with cotton, and reading is hard, and thinking is hard, and I am overwhelmed with exhaustion, and ideas dance through me, and the halls twist when I walk doen them, and I wait for it to pass, and everythign takes me too long to do, and I ...I cant do this anymore. I know I can do this job, but not everyday. And they need someone everyday. And I mess up when the symptoms get bad, and that is not my fault, and it is my fault. At some point here, I need to realize that I am imparied. That I am nto normal and might not ever be again. At some point I will need to accept my limitations, and reign in my expectations, becuase hoping, expecting to be better is killing me.

I read about people who have "recovered" from schizophrenia. ANd ususally, of cours,e these cases are for people whose symtpoms were worse than mine, but theier recovery means managaing the symptoms, and finding ways that they can find some happiness in this life and a way to stay off the public dole and contribute to the econmony. Bleah. That sucks. But I am beggingin to realize that might just be something I need to inspect. I am an attorney based on who I was when I was well...for the most part. And I cant be him everyday. Most shizos have trouble with maintiniang a job, but I cannt be dependant on others for my well being either. I am scared. I need someone to hold out a candle of hope for me becuase it is awfully black. Someone to tell me I am going to be alright. Sometimes it gets too hard.

Yesterday was hard. Really hard. I wanted to cry all day, I was so pissed. I was so angry and frustrated. I can see, feel that person I was right on teh periphery, but I cannot get to him. Every person I talk to, I talk to through a haze of disperceptions. They warble, and their voices jar, and their faces move. And each person I do not know well, and some I do, sets of anxiety attacks that might last the day. I am lonly, but company makes me feel so ill.

I feel like I am living in that twlight of a sunday afternoon, with saturday wasted, and the week about to begin again. Isnt there a Johnny Cash song about that with swoonign orchestral moments? I wish someone had refused to indulge Johnny in sweeping orchestral moments. "Johnny? you do many things well, symphonic poetry is not one of them."

Well, thats it.

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Subject: not much Posted Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 - 4:16 AM

Havent really written much, mainly becuase I have been susy,but also becuase I have been rapidly improving and for the most part I try to limit this blog to my head and problems associated with it. And frankly, I have little to comaplain about. And that seems like an odd silence.

Last night, I was cracnking away at a breif, adn I realized that I had bigger problems that schizophrenia. You might think...my gosh Michael. those are some problems, but you would be missing both the problem, and tact. And there would be the issue that you use the word "gosh", but I would let that go to make this point: for 8 years, nothing was a bigger problem than this. Oh, thats not entirely true, there have been some really hard times that have overshadowed my immediate condition, but the point of last night was that I was working, thinking of the future, and thinking about money, and location, and happiness, not "When will this end?" Thats a breakthrough. I think the human orgnaism has a tenecious preference for balance, and stasis, and not illness, or dis-ease. It fights to regain itself. This is one reason why being ill is so hard, it feels so odd, and every cell is clamboring to be returned to proper functioning. In healing, we always try to heal faster than we can. So did I and so must you. But over time, the mind learns to appreicate its limits, and so did mine. It has taken a long time to reclaim that assumption that everything is going to be ok.

I went to New ORleans last weekend. One night. I went with W, and we walked the mississippi, over to Jackson square, down Bourbon, for effect, then out to the far side of the French Quarter to the area that seems to be inhabited by denizens and not tourists, and we stopped for dinner, and I ate a roastbef snadwhich and potato chips. Can I tell you the last time I ate potato chips? 19---something. I mean, they have been giving me problems for years. I had a boudin, and all this simple diner fare, and, AND, never even thought about it.

In law school, a mere 3 years ago, I was so bad, that I trmebled before I ate. I knew it would hurt. First my gut, then my joints, finally my head in a slitting migraine. Every meal. I ate alone, I ate a carefully monitored menu of safe foods, foods that had less of an effect. I gave myslef a near master's degree in foods, learning which ones were hypioallergenic, which ones gave me the ebst chance to heal, which ones were healing, which ones made a body strong, and which ones made it weak. All that I toted in my head a like a paranoid encyclopidea. Every meal I could tell you macronuitrient content, approximate claories, vitamins, preapration, the cultural background that produced it, from what tradition it was derived, what it would do to your hormones... I had no choice, I just knew all that stuff.

Well, saturday night, I just ate a sandwhich, and talked with W about movies and nothings. W paid and we left. that is, dear readers, where this narrative will stop, but it was a magic evening to be normal, to walk in NO, to be with W, and to be able to take it all in and appreciate it.