Thanks giving.

My father, my hero, just confided in me that if he had it to do over again, he would not have gone into the Navy. He told me that he is thinking about law school. Its amazing what people will share when they sense that you love yourself and that you can be trusted with thier love.

I have forgiven myself for being ill. I have reconnected with that love aand pride in just being me. Its like growing wings. It IS growing wings. I am growing wings. I failed the bar exam...and it did nothing more that bruise the ego for a few days. Bruises heal. I am the only judge of how I did (besides of course the official scorers), and I did fine for me.

These days I sometimes feel like I am in the embrace of the world. Protected and loved. Its weird and perfect. It slows the choas in the mind. Like waking up and realizing that all those ghosts were you and that they were only waiting for you to love them back. Like me, they just wanted to know they were ok as they are. And I am.

If anything, the calm initially makes me feel more lonley for company, not to heal, but to share in the world and grasp a hand tight adn share a sunset. So. I take my own hand, and the tears squeezze out in the enormity and beauty of it all, and I wait for the universe to open the next door and close this one. Open. Close. Like a peep show for the soul. If you try to hold on, its maddening. But just enjoy and ahhhhhhhhh.

Today I held my parents so close to my heart, it felt like heaven. There was no film or guaze of self reproach or wishing things were different than they are. It was normal and perfect and I am thankful. I dont think either of you will ever know I write this, and thats fine. I love you. And I bask in your love. My life is all the blog you will ever need.

Today my friend M was naked and pure and amazing to me. Her love and support were clear and diluted from 6k miles away. She trusts me now because I trust me. I can feel her love because I love me. I love you M. You are my kind of nutcase.

I wonder if I was going to live my whole life trying to prove myself to other people, waiting for them to feel good about me. Maybe, but I have a feeling no. I have a certain strong pull to health. Like the swallows to Capistrano. Still, the amount of time I mucked around, I learned this lesson deep and well. No one can heal you. You heal yourself, even though that means trusting others. if your heart is closed, nothing matters. If your heart is open...its like a buffet.

I am going to learn to sing this:

Your voice is adrift I can’t expect it
To sing to me
As if I was the only one
I’ll follow you
A leaf that’s following the sun
When will my weight be too much for you?
When will these ideas really be my own?
This moment keeps on moving
We were never meant to hold on

Well this was a scene worth waking up for
When I woke up
You planted me in my own pot
I don’t know why
But somehow it just feels so wrong

When you set I will be lonely
When you rise again I'll have become the sun
And I will shine down upon you
As if u were the only one

Your voice is your own I can’t protect it
You’ll have to sing
A verse no one has ever known
Don’t be afraid
Because no one ever sings alone
You weight will never be too much for me
Your ideas have always be your own
This moment keeps on moving
We were never meant to hold on


Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Wish me well

Today was a big day.

Tomorrow will be bigger. Biggest.

Peeing in a bottle

Well...that title pretty much sums it up.

I am 33 years old. I am a practicing attorney. This weekend, I will pee into an orange liter and a half bottle instead of something more primitive, like, for instance, a toilet. AND I get to carry around that bottle, full or urine, if I am planning to leave the house. My life, is ENDLESSLY sexy.

Fuck it whatever.

(its a 24 hour Urine analysis for copper).

Why I dont take drugs/State of the Noggin 2008

Deep breath:

The movie A Beautiful Mind, talked about John Nash, who recovered from Schizophrenia but fabricates a critical detail of his recovery.

In the movie, Nash -- just before he receives a Nobel Prize -- speaks of taking "newer medications." However in Sylvia Nasar's biography of Nash, the author notes that Nash stopped taking antipsychotic drugs in 1970 and slowly recovered over two decades. Nasar concluded that Nash's refusal to take drugs "may have been fortunate" because their deleterious effects "would have made his gentle re-entry into the world of mathematics a near impossibility."

I have taken, not anti-psychs, but anti-depressants. They stabilize, a bit, but they also, I found, numbed me. Since they were not helping much and I felt more alive, if less stable off them, I ended that experiment. One year I took them. Since then I have decided that I would recover drug free. THis has been revisited lately as many people in their concern for my depressions have recommended taking a med for it. I am considering it, and recently have been revisiting the idea of anti-psychs. After all...am I getting crazier? After reflection, I am standing by my decision to get through this drug free. I have felt the stuff in my system, and it may be right for some, but I never liked what I felt and I never felt that was the right path for me.

Most Americans are unaware that the World Health Organization has repeatedly found that long-term schizophrenia outcomes are much worse in the USA and other "developed" countries than in poor ones such as India and Nigeria, where relatively few patients are on antipsychotic medications. In "undeveloped" countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis; about 40% have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill. The outcome differences are so marked that WHO concluded that living in a developed country is a "strong predictor" that a patient never will fully recover.

Various reports conjecture that another thing missing in developed nations are close familial and community bonds that support the Sz while recovering, or, in fact, help them navigate the illness. I will address this later.

There is more. In 1987, psychologist Courtenay Harding reported that a third of chronic schizophrenia patients released from Vermont State Hospital in the late 1950s completely recovered. Everyone in this "best-outcomes" group shared one common factor: All had weaned themselves from antipsychotic medications. The notion that schizophrenics must spend a lifetime on these drugs, she concluded, is a "myth."

In 1994, Harvard Medical School researchers found that outcomes for U.S. schizophrenia patients had worsened during the past 20 years and were now no better than they were 100 years earlier, when therapy involved plunking patients into bathtubs for hours. And in 1998, University of Pennsylvania investigators reported that standard antipsychotic medications cause a specific area of the brain to become abnormally enlarged and that this drug-induced enlargement is associated with a worsening of symptoms.

How does this apply to supplements? Jesus, that's tough. Do they "count"? Could they be holding me back from health? They have a much better track record than anti-psychs, but aren't they all just foreign chemicals? What is the difference between one molecule and another? Ill stick with no, right now, because I would be scared pissless to stop them and I have recent experience that I get bad fast. Also, I know the PTC is planning to wean me off or down on some or all.




Why am I writing all this? Well, today is roughly my 6 year anniversary of supplements and the PTC. Its the 9.5 years of being mentally ill. Almost a decade. Lately I have been turning down the noise in my life. What is left is a reminder of what is still there and going on. It scares me and if I let it, terrifies me. And it overwhelms me.

Is it getting worse? Is it getting better? Am I ever going to be ok? Will I lose this battle like so many others before me, or will I, like John Nash, make my peace with it and build a life in spite or because of them? Hell, throw on that list, what the fuck is even going on? Is this classical Sz? Does that matter? Is this just a stress disorder brought on by abusing my reserves? Is this indulgence? Am I mad? Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......never mind.

Its been bad lately, or maybe I am just hiding from it less. Today is a particularly bad day. Crushing dispair, voices. Negative voices, feeding every bad thought and presenting even worse ones. They are my voice, giving me scenarios, acting out outcomes, narrating, chipping away at my confidence. Days like this I cannot hear my own voice above them. I have been crying alternatively since I got up. Somehow, that helps- maybe because it is the real me who is crying, and when I do that, the voices back off for while. But, strangely, not strangely, I really cannot cry by myself.

I feel really alone and I am reminded that the only thing that has reliably improved acute symptoms has been feeling loved and supported and nurtured. I pretend I am a lot stronger than I am. Doing this has kept me from getting the love and support I need. SF has been a big stressor because I dont have my support community here like I did in Boston. My family too has always put an emphasis on self reliance, and, form my mother, that illness is weakness and shameful.

I suffer, at times like these, from feelings that I cannot be loved, or that I am not loveable. Traditionally I have pushed people away in times like these. Hidden. It takes a lot to trust and to feel worthy of love. Plus, I am scared- and vulnerable animals get mean. Try taking a cat to the vet. They will cut you. But I need and want that help and support so badly; unconditional love, love that will be there for me no matter how this roller coaster rides.

You know what? I am sick of fighting this alone. I mean, I know I am the only one to pick my voice out from the others, and I know that I am the one who needs to make the peace with them, but I need someone there to cry with. To pick me up. To hold my head occasionally because I don't win every day. I want that so badly. I am human. this is hard and I panic sometimes.

I need someone to know it all, and be in my life. Not one but many someones. I am working on that, letting more people in. I need them. All of them. All of you.

So, what am I doing? Shit...I dont know. I...I am trusting it will be ok. For years, almost a decade, I put my faith that supplements would clear it all away. But I am realizing and now accepting that I need to make my peace with this. So, its on. a battlefield. I am listening to the voices and trying to calm them by giving them whatever they need. Ignoring them only makes them louder. Besides that, you can pick one out from the others that way, instead of a chorus of choas.

I am going to stop feeding the chaos, and accept that this was how it was all meant to be, and that this stand is being made because I am ready

What I am going to do is this: feel the love. Love from myself and the world. I am going to know that this is meant and that there is a path for me. I am going to work to find what I am meant to do with this. I am going to let the energy flow through me and not let it feed the voices. I will not deny the voices, but I will nto feed them either. I will struggle to find my won voice in the mess. I will be open about my limits. I will drive toward nourishment and support and be naked and vulnerable. I am going to stop with the band aids- the noise, the babble, the talking, the chatter, maybe this blog, the movies, the music, the unnecessary. I am going to listen. Listen Listen Hear.

Oh, god, do I want to go down this path? I am so scared. I read and I get more scared. I need faith. I need a direction. I need to believe...
ok. Ok now. Deep breath now. Its going to be ok. And go...

Cp

Is that the notation for ceruloplasmin? I got my test back from Dr. W, and its is, again (still) low. Out of range low. After 6 years of targeting it to get it up. Its BETTER, but not even in range.

Another thing

My hands are trembling more and more these days. Tiny little tremors. Anyone else get this? It could be from my Nana, whose hands always shook so that she could not hold things.

Back

Yup, by 9 the negativity and irritability was backing off. By midnight I was fine but exhausted. My hips still hurt from the surfing, or walking, but thats not a symptom, I was born with right shitty hips. I stayed up and watched "Ricordati de mi" (remember me my love). Its great BTW.

So anyway, today I feel tip top. Just thought I would let you all know.

Also, received a couple new test results. Complete panel showed normal everything, including, for once, normal AST and SGOT, and elevated biliribin- which is ALWAYS the case. I was born jaundiced and when I get stressed, the billiribin hikes up. Wanna know if I am sick or tired? My eyes go yellow. Its not that bad. I know people whose eyes go full yellow moon. They call it Gilbert's syndrome and its supposed to be harmless.

ok, thats it. Hugs and kisses.

Waiting for it to drop

12 pm and all is still well...

-----------------------------
update: got a lab result back- fasting insulin 11.5. Thats well within the range (<20), but I don't like it. That seems high. Ill bring that up with Dr. W.
------------------------------
2:15 and all is well....starting to feel it, but really minorly. Usually by 4 we have a flat tire. Lets see.
------------------------------
4:16 All is wellish
-------------------------------
4:30
And we have lift off. Though not what I expected. Still, this has the potential to be even MORE fascinating.
-------------------------------
Ok, it seems to have crested. About 7pm I got some space.

Interesting. So, the study observed the effects of heavy physical stress on symptoms. I hypothesized that I would suffer from seeming blood sugar irregularities (confused thinking, blurred vision, argumentative, irritable, paranoid, negative, slurred speech, etc) and some general blueness. I was a bit wrong.

I surfed OB on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was well twice overhead Sunday a foot or so overhead. The winds were blowing out, which NEVER happens in SF and the water was warmed by over 80 degree air. So perfect conditions. Day one, I surfed 3 hours, which is my personal limit. Within that time, I tried to go easy on myself- not paddling for every wave, taking breaks, resting. This is because I have a much lowered stress threshold- which I am trying to honor. Still, there was a rip and all of us spent the full 3 hours paddling north to stay close to one spot. Still, I got pulled down nearly a half mile.

I was really tired and respected that. I meditated on the beach and then just sunned myself. I then drove to Mt. Tamalpais to watch the sun set. I did hike, but only a couple hundred meters. Then I sat in the golden grasses and watch the sky fade out. I slept, but as always after a taxing physical day like that, lightly.

The next day, the surf was still kicking. I was going to go reeeeeeaally easy, but I was absolutely killing it. I still held back, but when God wants you to rip, you rip. Another hike to watch the sun set. Another good meal. Another active day of trying to mitigate damage with active relaxation.

Monday- wound up. Expecting Tuesday we would see symptoms.

What did we see?

interesting.

I have noticed this before: long stresses lead to increased symptoms. The narrative voice in my head become increasingly more negative and insistent. When I am completely wellish- its almost silent, and positive. When I was sick and after stresses, I can hardly stop them. I am irritable, indecisive, angry, depressed, critical, defensive, selfish, etc...

You have no idea how much better this has become. A flight of stairs used to put me out of commission for a day. Now, it takes a lot more. A lot. Still, I remember after the bar, after 5 weeks of really stressful studying, having my stuff arrive, doing full lit projects while trying to study, negotiating a really stressful Partner, and engaging in a new relationship, I was fried. F-R-I-E-D. It took me several weeks to get back to normal. I remember my ears ringing so loud during that time and I could not get out of my depression. But I digress.

Today, there was no low blood sugar. There was the speedy negative voice and inability to calm. Irritable, but then, at 4, a profound depression. No, wait, a despair. Deep and heavy. Me drafting Rule 11 motions and crying in my office and feeling painfully lonely and pointless. Then, it broke at 7:30. Peaked. Not as bad as last week, but I am seeing a correlation. I already took the gym off yesterday and turned down water polo tonight. I had planned that on Saturday, knowing I need to recover. Cool to see the bounce back so fast.

* caveat. I dont know that its a "voice" but more of your internal monologue being really demanding and negative. I think everyone gets like this when thier energy is misdirected. Its not like it sounds like someone else or tells me to do weird things people. Stop watching so much TV. Still, its a symptom because my internal monologue when I am well adn rested is positive and supportive, or quiet.

Clearest day ever

Today I have been clearer than I ever was before sickness. Its not the supplements though. I am pretty sure its the work I am doing outside the scope of the PTC plan. Its not really lack of symptoms, but orientation through them.

Just thought I would share since I always turn to you all when I am down.

Prediction

I am not introducing anything new into the equation. What I am doing is observing and predicting. According to one hypothesis, look for serious bad symptoms Tuesday.

Isnt this EXCITING! Stay tuned folks.

Mundane

New set of test results from Md PCP on thier way. Dr. W took a lot of blood, ran ceruloplamsin, biliribin, normal liver panel, basophils, etc. I had the nicest and worst flabotomist. The flabotomist lobotomist. Note- DO NOT let someone who is telling you about traumatically breaking up with her boyfriend stick you with needles. Good policy. Ouch.

I also get to pee into a container for 24 hours. So, if you are chilling at my house and looking for ice...that is NOT lemonade. (they are checking copper levels. Again).

Since I went to the PTC over a month ago, I should be getting results in by July. Little Sz humor there.

Catch me when I fall

Thank you all. Everyone whose support poured out. Even those who don't even know I keep a blog and that I am thanking you.

R, J, A, A, F, X, BB, M, Dr. W, J. You all helped me in your way. Every call, text, offer, email, futon and herbal whatever-the-fuck I have on my second chakra, was a brick of support on which I stood. Or laid. (or is it lied?).

This was the day/night that instead of fighting it, instead of demanding I do it myself, I just let go and trusted to the help of others and that I would be ok. Profound change for which I was profoundly ready. How much time have I wasted trying to do it on my own? This...all of it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbQl14tJIWM









Today I am shaken, but shaky/better. No, wait, something is different. I accepted this, and therefore I guess me, and somehow it makes it all different.


----------------------------------
update. My therapist, who gave me her home phone and told me to call whenever I might need, just called to check in and see how I made it through. How fucking awesome is that? Thanks J.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

storms a brewin'

Yup.

I woke up today and its going to be a bad one. The question is whether to sit with the depression, or fight it, or ignore it, or try to think yourself around it. The wrong answer is to listen to it.

The emotional response is: lie down and cry and wait for someone to put their arm around you. There is no one to put there arm around me right now though, so I am going to try to do it myself. Cool though that sometimes you cannot comfort yourself. makes us dependent on one another.

Oh Jesus, this one is going to be rough.

If you are reading this, please put an e-arm around me.

Buckle up.


---------------------------------------------------------
Update:
ok. I am not on top of this. Somebody help me.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Upside

If you are a marathoner, over time, the long slow distance will signal your cells to design the body, and you will, among other things, slowly convert muscle cells into slow twitch muscle cells. This is true even if you dream, every night, of sprinting. This is true even if you think of yourself as a powerlifter. This is even true if you, in fact, spend an hour or so a couple times a week jumping. You become what you practice.

I swam in high school. I discovered that the longer the race, the better my competitive advantage. I went from swimming the 100, to the 200, to the 500, the longest race in short course high school. I was, for the fact I trained only 3 months a year, good at it, and made sectionals as a sophomore. My junior year, and last season, I asked the coach if I could swim the 50. We negotiated and she let me swim the 100 if I would also swim the 200. I accepted. I accepted because this was important to me. I had noticed, over the years, that my mind had become like my body- enduring, persistent, able to manage pain, able to run people down, wear them down. I bring this up to show that the mind also reflects how you use it, not to debate the relative merits of thinking as analogized to sporting events.

I practice law. When I was sick, I was pretty bad at it. Not being able to be careful was a major set back. I worked hard and I am a pretty good attorney now. I am managing a large case with only the oversight of two partners. Point is, I have been at it over 5 years. There is danger there.

I knew, from day one, it was a bad fit. It was not consistent with my path in life, and while I could do it, and can, its not for me because my journey to happiness and fulfillment does not lie in that direction. Its not the law, but the practice of law and the process of law that constricts.

But even in "sucking it up" and "paying your dues", there is a danger. There is the danger inherent in ignoring your heart. Ignore it too long and it gets confused or stops talking to you. Specifically though, law is a practice of identifying risk and focusing on minimizing exposure. It completely devalues the upside to risk. And the more you do it, the better you get at it.

This is where I am really feeling frustrated right now. I have 5 more months left in the firm, and every day I need to change my perception of how I see the work to teach me useful lessons and not to numb my heart. Upside is so important. Without risk, usually on nothing more quantifiable than instinct, you get bogged down in the safe play. You are not going to get the amazing, only the safe. Sure, you are not going to get hurt, but good god, you are never going to find your path and your story and do something amazing.

Law is not the only thing that has made me playthings safe. But I have. FOr years it was "when I am well", then" when the economy is right", then "when I know", then "lets play this out". Fuck it. its over. Moving to CA is about risk. There was not good reason to come except those that I made. It was a risk. I want to start a company. I know nothing about it. Guess what? Ill never find out in this safe law office collecting my pay checks and doing good, but safe work.

Risk. Upside. Reward.

When I got ill, I got ill fast. Within months I went from being a normal 22 year old to bed ridden, paranoid, in pain, and hearing and seeing things strangely. I was paranoid, and anxious and digesting nothing. I had migraines 24/7. I never asked for help. Not from my parents, not from friends, not from lovers. I was exhausted and felt so alone. Well, alone is worse than proud. It sucks. In fact, its the worst thing. Its living without trust. You cannot trust without risk. trust = risk. It means faith. Because if you are waiting to know its safe, it aint trust.

Trusting me, and trusting others, and trusting I will be ok not in control is the biggest and most important risk of my life- I need and will have the upside- an amazing, supportive, nurturing wife, family and friends; a clear and brave heart; a calm mind and a gentle relationship with life. Playing it safe will not return what I need. So, into the breach.

I have been practicing risk again. For the last year. At first, it was hard, but I got a lot better. Just ask PR. And in the hardest spots, the scariest trusts, I still cling to the wall afraid to jump, but in more and more of them, I am trusting, I am jumping, I am letting go. I am ready.

So, for you too, trust, risk, and dont live a life that wears down your confidence that you know what you are doing. Take that chance. And go all the way. You will be tested, and the only way to go through, it to keep on believing in what you know. Fuck the safe play.

[How does this relate to SZ and healing? Well, I have SZ, or something like it. I am doing the best i can to heal it. But I was also using it as an excuse to play everything safe. It needs to be respected, but not used to play safe.]

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Plans are afoot. There are an infinite number of excuses not to do things. There are precious few to take risks, but in this case I know its right.

Invoices

Sent in another invoice to BCBS. This is the one irksome factor of working with the PTC. A clinic that actually heals, and insurance will not cover it. Nor my vitamins. If I was taking an expensive anti-psychotic they would, and if I was hospitalized they would, but they will not spring for zinc.

We will see what they pick up this time, then I will object, then they will add one or two more tests and I will let it go.

Veeeery interesting

...If painful

Dead head going on right now something fierce. Still, decided to work through it. Vision is blurry, but so far, so good.

Still, the interesting part is this...noting recently the interaction with stress and muddy headed syndrome, I expected come-uppance today. Its been over a week, almost ten days, since I slept more that 6 hours in a night, and little of that sleep untroubled. Then this weekend, I surfed for hours, hiked steep hills, did a water rescue of a kayaker, sailed for 3 hours, danced for three hours, moved a friend of mine, and ate very little. This was expected.

What was interesting is that an attempt to get through it by eating over 100 grams carbohydrate, failed. Not even an improvement, though my heart is beating fast and I have plenty of energy. All this is showing me is that stress has more of an effect that I had previously realized.

Back to work.