Transfer #22

Subject: was that help? Posted Date: Monday, May 15, 2006 - 4:12 AM

My pcp recommended for me a pscychologist. Well, the guy works in a mentla health clinic, so in order to meet with him, I was assigned a case worker. A social worker. Great. Thanks. So I spent an hour today, in a building manned with security officers and patients wandering the halls talking to themselves, talking with a case worker about what I wanted from them.

Huge waste of time. Oh wait, not a complete waste. I was, of course, free of charge freaked out by seeing face to face, my fellow schizos. People, this is where they keep the padded rooms. Noone of the intake forms were set up for the patient themselves to sign, because, I guess, that is rare. It was depressing, and now I need to wait two weeks to discover if I will even be accepted for treatment. Not encouraging.

Meanwhile, I could serously use someone to talk to. I feel like this work this is a hanging on by the fingernails moment. Can I have a redo? Send me back to 98 and I can try it again, this time without mental illness?

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Subject: An investment in youth Posted Date: Sunday, May 14, 2006 - 10:46 AM

I just talked with my father this evening. He said something that made me think. I told him about my decision to extend a trip in CA last week that cost good money to alter the ticket, and he said: "you know, Bud Thomas was the first person I ever heard talk about it in these terms, but he used to talk about an making investments in your youth. "

Dad went on to remind me that I have a lot of youth left, but not an unlimited amount, and that one must make investments in being young, lest they grow old before thier time.

Its true, you know, everyone is saving for retirement, but who do you know that puts money aside for youth?

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Subject: treading water. Posted Date: Thursday, May 04, 2006 - 6:19 AM

wow. I just lost a lot of data. THis myspace blog really stinks.

I will give you the quick and dirty.

Recently I have seen my peers step up. It is that time in thier lives where they have experimented, focused, experimented and then re-focued thieir efforts. I cannot tell you how I admire the lives of the people who surround me lately. They are concerned constantly with the impact of their work. They think and re-think how they will improve the world around them, the impression they will leave. And many of them have changed lives.

The worst thing about my position is that I feel like I have been but treading water, just playing defensively while waiting to heal. Sure, it is neccesary, but it makes me feel less a man. less a human. For a decade while others have been slugging it out, putting thier time and effort on the line, I have been protecting myself. I feel cowardly. I really want to be like these amazing people who are dedicated to a bigger cuase. But I have been on the side lines for a decade.

Sure, I can make that time up, and I may have a golden resume, but I feel flat footed and inexperienced and my courage comes from recklessness instead of confidence.

Wherever you all are out there, you really inspire me. I hope you do not think less of me for taking care of myself for the last 9 years. I hope you know that in those last 10 years when you were making peanuts, and crying from exhaustion and frustration, and working yourself to exhaustion on projects that you believed in, you were doing something beautiful.

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Subject: How does it travel? Posted Date: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - 10:23 PM

How does being crazy travel [I know I know I am not crazy, but darn it its convenient to say so and fun sometimes. Even Scizos have to have fun]?

I went to CA last week. In may ways I was looking forward to it, in may ways I was dreading it. You see, when I go back to CA I can tell how far I have have fallen. I left the bay area in 1998 and have not returned except to visit since. It still feels like home, which is precisely why I have not returned. Being sick makes you want to hide, to go underground adn lick wounds. I was heartbroken to be with my friends and not be with them becuase of perceptive difficulties. It was so hard. I was in a relationship when I left, all those years ago, and one of the reasons I did not go home to her was that I was ashamed to be mentally ill.

Years have passed and I have grown healed and changed, but still home is a yard stick that kicks the legs out from under optimism. I was nervous to return to the BAy. I did not stay with my mom, but did something I could not have done even a few months ago---stay with others for a protracted time. I used to get so wiped out by that, that I would have to recover for weeks, and I was assured of feeling loopy the whole time.

THis time I stayed with good friends, some of my best friends , and it worked. I had rough days, such as saterday, which I had to get through while really hurting, but I still got a lot out of that day. The otehr days were better, and I had mainly very clear moments. most of all, i did not feel like an invalid, a freak, or an imposter. I felt cherished and loved and it was good to be back. Back home.

I took all my pills and ate at restaurants. Ask anyone who knows me, I avoid restaurants if I can. The food choices always excacerbate symptoms. but not this time. I did what the Romans did and really felt like the trip was not all bound up in my illness, but let the sun shine on everyone.

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Subject: what's in a name Posted Date: Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:09 AM

I left the bay area and moved to Italy. In Italy the anxiety became a blanket, which suffacated me to depression. My mind started to wander, then to whip and whirl around. I counld not trust my eyes, or my stomach. I lost weight, I lost perspective, I lost hope. I never really came home, not to the Bay, but I wandered in NYC and later to VA. I made new friends, people who knew me ill. It hurt too much to talk ot the older ones, the ones who could tell how I had changed. I wanted their love, but somehow, I could explain all day that my guts were shredded, and that I could not think, and that the neologisms that poured forth from my mouth were becuase my mind was messed up.

I tried to give them as cause for it all as I tried to explain it to myself. Allergies, brain allergies, a yeast infection, inability to metabolize fats, all sorts of wrong turns and false starts. They looked at me blankly. I think they all suspected I was making it up, that I should snap out of it, that I was always a little conceited and that it had taken over. They drifted away. Noone asked how I felt, or how I was doing. They seemed embarassed that I insisted that something was wrong.

All that changed with a simple phrase. Schizophrenia. It doesnt mean anything, that. They do not know the cuase, or the cure, so all it is a group of symptoms that are similar. It is medical for "I do not know". But all the same, all those shrouded looks of disblief became acceptance and pity, and help began to find me. and the people who wanted me to act normally, now accepted what I had told them and who I was.

What is in a name? A lot. It gives people a frame of referecne, and like itor not, a healthy strong 30 year old, who complains he is sick is questioned, doubted and suspected of having mental indulgences. Enter a word like schizophrenia ans he is transformed into something that can be approached. It was hard, all those years, watching those I loved and respected tune me out. Somehow, its weird, I feel part of a family now.

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