Happy New Year
Happy New Year everyone.
I love the New Year. I love the Newness of it. The possibility. I love celebrating a calender flip. I love the bitter disspointment of waking up January 2 and having everything as it was January 1. Life is like that. Change is subtle. Time flows onward.
This New Year was of particular importance to me. It is the end of 27 months. While the PTC estimates that full recovery from SZ takes 8-12 months, for histapenics, Abram Hoffer, and Carl Pfeiffer estimated half the time sick. Because of issues with lab protocols and specific gravity, detailed in previous posts, I did no begin my effective theraputic doses of nutrients until...27 months ago. I did the rough math some time ago, and realized that 27 months would conclude on December 23 2007. I chose the new year as my date of celebration.
Thats 81 months of mental illness at an end. 6 and 3/4 years for those of you whose math is as poor as mine. That is a long time. That was my 20s. Really, it all began when I was 22, so all told, 9 years. I subracted out the 2 years of PTC treatment which were not addressing the problem adequately.
fuck.
That is hard even to look at. It makes me want to cry. People tell me that the 20s are hard. That everyone has a hard time in them. I want to shake those people and remind them how wonderful life is. How easy they had it. My 20s were terrible. And I loved them. The brief windows opening in my illness that allowed me to peer out and connect with the world in any limited way were breathtaking. Like a high. I remember watching clouds from the concrete childeren's park in washington heights. I remember touching pine trees in Chrolottesville. I remember crying when Gilda hit her high notes at the Met in Rigolletto, and how the perfect clarity of it penetrated all the mess in my head and for a moment I was not crazy. I remember lying on a bed in an apartment in Park Slope staring up at the tin celing, and listening to the soothing hum of the fan in the humid New York summer. I remember laying on Gil's floor in an apartment in Manhattan, crying, laughing, and crying again. I remember writting poems to keep the black at bay beside the hudson. I remember how walking knee deep snow in Charlottesville, and laying on couches reading books every day when I could not stand. I remember seeing the basketball court undulating under me at the gym there, and laughing becuase I had to run up and down hills no one else saw. I remember central park, and hikes with Anne on Skyline drive.
But there is a lot I do not want to remember. I do not want to remember how awful it felt to be inside my head. How things swirled and ran fast and sideways. how thoughts moved to fast to capture and emotions crashed huge and impossibly violent inside my heart. I don't want to recall what it felt like when I wrote drafts of suicide notes in my journal, or that it seemed like a good idea, or that it still seems reasonable under those circumstances. I dont want to think about crying quietly on the phone with E---- because I could hear her, but not understand what she was saying. I dont want to think about the day I could not make it to the ballet, and was left, alone, in the dark, lying on the couch in my suit, and how I remembered then a hundred other evenings that ended that way. I don't want to recall how I wanted W to be with me, but did not want to tell her. I dont want to think about the disspointments, the pain, the haze, the loneliness. I do not want to remember sitting in fear that I would not heal fast enough for W. I do not want to remember the crushing depression, that would leave me breathless and imobile for days, each cell in my body crying out for release. I don't want to remember watchin young people in bars and on dates and in movie houses and living, while I watched and watched, and watched, from inside.
Happy New Year to me. Happy wellness. There are still variations, disperceptions, and distortions, but they are minimal. Now I have the privilege of being alive. I am grateful to feel love, and happiness, and sadness, and hurt. I am grateful to be able to get whatever I can before my body inevitable sinks again to old age and death. I will not squander it. For the last few months, I have appreciated it all. The long nights in the office, the flights, the insomnia, the frustration, the bliss of moving, the feeling of stillness. Everything.
You have no idea how lucky you are.
I wanted to celebrate. I wanted a blow out, loud music, late nights, irresponsible behavior, but my new years plans fell through. I was able to join some friends out on the cape, but they did not know what I was celebrating inside.
Anyway, this is not the end of this blog, but I am characterizing myself as well now.
Well.
I love the New Year. I love the Newness of it. The possibility. I love celebrating a calender flip. I love the bitter disspointment of waking up January 2 and having everything as it was January 1. Life is like that. Change is subtle. Time flows onward.
This New Year was of particular importance to me. It is the end of 27 months. While the PTC estimates that full recovery from SZ takes 8-12 months, for histapenics, Abram Hoffer, and Carl Pfeiffer estimated half the time sick. Because of issues with lab protocols and specific gravity, detailed in previous posts, I did no begin my effective theraputic doses of nutrients until...27 months ago. I did the rough math some time ago, and realized that 27 months would conclude on December 23 2007. I chose the new year as my date of celebration.
Thats 81 months of mental illness at an end. 6 and 3/4 years for those of you whose math is as poor as mine. That is a long time. That was my 20s. Really, it all began when I was 22, so all told, 9 years. I subracted out the 2 years of PTC treatment which were not addressing the problem adequately.
fuck.
That is hard even to look at. It makes me want to cry. People tell me that the 20s are hard. That everyone has a hard time in them. I want to shake those people and remind them how wonderful life is. How easy they had it. My 20s were terrible. And I loved them. The brief windows opening in my illness that allowed me to peer out and connect with the world in any limited way were breathtaking. Like a high. I remember watching clouds from the concrete childeren's park in washington heights. I remember touching pine trees in Chrolottesville. I remember crying when Gilda hit her high notes at the Met in Rigolletto, and how the perfect clarity of it penetrated all the mess in my head and for a moment I was not crazy. I remember lying on a bed in an apartment in Park Slope staring up at the tin celing, and listening to the soothing hum of the fan in the humid New York summer. I remember laying on Gil's floor in an apartment in Manhattan, crying, laughing, and crying again. I remember writting poems to keep the black at bay beside the hudson. I remember how walking knee deep snow in Charlottesville, and laying on couches reading books every day when I could not stand. I remember seeing the basketball court undulating under me at the gym there, and laughing becuase I had to run up and down hills no one else saw. I remember central park, and hikes with Anne on Skyline drive.
But there is a lot I do not want to remember. I do not want to remember how awful it felt to be inside my head. How things swirled and ran fast and sideways. how thoughts moved to fast to capture and emotions crashed huge and impossibly violent inside my heart. I don't want to recall what it felt like when I wrote drafts of suicide notes in my journal, or that it seemed like a good idea, or that it still seems reasonable under those circumstances. I dont want to think about crying quietly on the phone with E---- because I could hear her, but not understand what she was saying. I dont want to think about the day I could not make it to the ballet, and was left, alone, in the dark, lying on the couch in my suit, and how I remembered then a hundred other evenings that ended that way. I don't want to recall how I wanted W to be with me, but did not want to tell her. I dont want to think about the disspointments, the pain, the haze, the loneliness. I do not want to remember sitting in fear that I would not heal fast enough for W. I do not want to remember the crushing depression, that would leave me breathless and imobile for days, each cell in my body crying out for release. I don't want to remember watchin young people in bars and on dates and in movie houses and living, while I watched and watched, and watched, from inside.
Happy New Year to me. Happy wellness. There are still variations, disperceptions, and distortions, but they are minimal. Now I have the privilege of being alive. I am grateful to feel love, and happiness, and sadness, and hurt. I am grateful to be able to get whatever I can before my body inevitable sinks again to old age and death. I will not squander it. For the last few months, I have appreciated it all. The long nights in the office, the flights, the insomnia, the frustration, the bliss of moving, the feeling of stillness. Everything.
You have no idea how lucky you are.
I wanted to celebrate. I wanted a blow out, loud music, late nights, irresponsible behavior, but my new years plans fell through. I was able to join some friends out on the cape, but they did not know what I was celebrating inside.
Anyway, this is not the end of this blog, but I am characterizing myself as well now.
Well.
posted by warnerk | 8:45 AM
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