I get nervous like a little kid whenever I think about the email I sent MOrpheus.

OH--to feel something, anything now but deadening depression.

I found Morpheus's work email through major stalking (by paying for it with one of those people finder services). I know the address is correct because it is close to one that he dictated to me back in 2009 (I never remembered it correctly, and all my emails then kept getting sent back). I sent him a short letter, just saying, hi, how are you? earlier today.

A few people have asked if I do any writing besides what it is in this blog, and the answer is no.

I usually write more than this, but the drugs and the disease is taking a toll on my page number.

While I was psychotic, I was writing 40-80 pages per day. Most of it was nonsense, but it was writing.

One of the saddest things I face is my lack of creativity every day. My writing is extremely important to me, and I haven't been feeling like the writing is up to standard.

When I was psychotic, I would write pages after pages.

ON September 24, on the last line, I wrote, "Clozapine" in bold letters.

That was the last of the manic rush of files.

“The D.S.M. has been taken too seriously,” another expert told me. “It’s the victim of its success.”

--The D.S.M.'s Troubled Revision

For those of us who take our diagnosis as part of our image, changes in the D.S.M. are taken to heart.

I have not put much weight into STanford's evaluation of me and the change from bipolar I to schizoaffective.

My current psychiatrist thinks I'm still bipolar I, and I hope that's true.

Where's the Immaterial ARgument?

"But if our brain’s chemistry does affect our moral behavior, the question of whether that balance is set in a natural way or by medical intervention will make no difference in how freely we act. If there are already biochemical differences between us that can be used to predict how ethically we will act, then either such differences are compatible with free will, or they are evidence that at least as far as some of our ethical actions are concerned, none of us have ever had free will anyway."

--ARE WE REady For a 'Morality Pill'?

The Right to Love

"Among adults, the right to love whom you’re moved to love — and to express it through sex and maybe, yes, marriage — is surely as vital to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as a Glock."

--GAy Won't Go Away, Genetic Or...

One of my professor friends (he was my drama professor) once told me, ''You're only as good as the people you surround yourself with."

I look around for inspiration, and I have found none recently.

"But I don’t want the Lexapro, I wanted to protest. I only want the euphoria-inducing abusable controlled substances. Even those I didn’t want every day. They made me very sleepy, and also made it easy to eat entire pies without noticing. I just needed something to take the edge off when I flew on planes, and other high-adrenaline scenarios. Like waiting in line for a bagel."

--Anxiety: An Appointment

As Justice Alito blithely said: “New technology may provide increased convenience or security at the expense of privacy, and many people may find the tradeoff worthwhile.”

--In the GPS case, Issues of Privacy

the bookstore's last stand

“Anybody who is an author, a publisher, or makes their living from distributing intellectual property in book form is badly hurt,” he said, “if Barnes & Noble does not prosper.”

--Barnes & Noble, Taking On Amazon

“She went to friends of ours and asked: ‘Do you know what’s going on? Is Marni upset with me?’ ” Ms. Zarr recalled. “The friends just said, ‘Oh no, she’s just really busy.’ I was. Anyone can be busy. But when you really want to have people around, you make time for them, even if it’s a few minutes.”

--It's Not Me, It's YOu

For those of you who remember the old book, my love language is quality time.

A New KInd of War On DRugs

"Second, the large-scale medication of children feeds into a societal view that all of life’s problems can be solved with a pill and gives millions of children the impression that there is something inherently defective in them.

Finally, the illusion that children’s behavior problems can be cured with drugs prevents us as a society from seeking the more complex solutions that will be necessary. Drugs get everyone — politicians, scientists, teachers and parents — off the hook. Everyone except the children, that is."

--Children's A.D.D. Drugs Don't Work Long Term

A new kind of war on drugs.

"One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience."

--Children's A.D.D. DRugs Don't Work Long Term

Yesterday, while my mother and I were driving through an intersection, I saw Morpheus sitting in his black Denali. I pointed him out to my mother. He was looking right back.

He was wearing a white shirt. He looks good.

I got a little high just from seeing him.

"When you're a success, you're going to draw 90% critics and 10% supporters."

--Morpheus, from the last time I spoke to him back in July, 2011

"I like you, you like me, and I like me..."

--Morpheus

At the time when he said it, it sounded as if he was less confident with the last part of the sentence.

People are capable of a finite amount of support.

Wurtzel was the first I ever heard to say how more so are you aware of those limitations when you are depressed.

I didn't think I have been doing any good even when we meet. You barely would talk to me. No judgement [sic] here, just an observation. It seemed like I could not break through some barrier you had up. [email from friend]

"You're a fighter. You got that from me."

--Mom

I'm stuck in barely survive.

How did I get here?

How in the hell do I get out of here??

By the WAy

I know that you are super busy with students and with the quarter schedule, but this is one of the worst times in my life, second only to 2008 when I was dealing with severe chronic pain.

I'm sorry that you can't seem to be there for me. You don't even know what psychosis is ,what it does to a person.

I have left a couple of messages for you, which you have not responded to. I know you have things going on, but I need a good friend right now, and I know you can't be there.

WE shouldn't talk until I am healthy.

--another email to a friend

"I'd fall in love with you if you had a penis."

--email sent to Rosa

"Among the crucial questions that the researchers were not able to answer is whether the heavy use of media was the cause for the relative unhappiness or whether girls who are less happy to begin with are drawn to heavy use of media, in effect retreating to a virtual world.

But the researchers hypothesize that heavy use of media is a contributing factor to the social challenges of girls.

The reason, say the researchers, is that on a basic, even primitive level, girls need to experience the full pantheon of communication that comes from face-to-face contact, such as learning to read body language, and subtle facial and verbal cues."

--Does Technology Affect Happiness

This disease is stealing bits of my life away, one day at a time.

I haven't quite learned how to fight back.

I had an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday.

Apparently the Clorzaril is lowering my white blood cell count.

I don't know how much longer I'll be on it.

The voices have been vicious lately.

Do they change you over time?

I have a sense that yes, this disease will change me.

And there's no stopping it.

More About Emily

"He won't wear that shirt even though it's the only one that will go with it because that was the shirt he wore when Emily died," My mother explained why my stepfather won't wear a particular piece of clothing that went with one of his suits.

I was shocked. She hadn't mentioned Emily's name in years.

"He remembers what day she died?" I asked.

"I don't know, but he remembered what clothes he was wearing..." My mother responded.

The voices came back full force today, saying derogatory things like, "You're a piece of shit...fuck you!" etc. It felt like yelling.

God curses a man who walks with this.

When I am my most emotional fragile, I do a lot of walking.

Back when I was living in Ridgecrest, CA, whenever someone would stop because I was walking long the highway in the desert, they would ask if I needed a ride--

My answer would be, "GO FIND ANDREW!"

All I am has been poured out to you. c.f. 9.

IF you think about it, I play my friendships like my romantic relationships, and have for as many years as I have since I was in junior high school.

I love you long time. x. o.

I love you far away.

My best friend in high school lived in Michigan. WE communicated mostly through emails, occasionally through IM, and sometimes through phone calls. WE saw each other twice during two week long trip to each coast.

WE broke up when her crush asked me out when I flew out to visit her one cold spring.

After that, I pretty much vowed against females.

But it seems I have a habit of making my intimate relationships far away.

I have friends, but I've found a recent, but cliche discovery:

I have no one to pick me up on the side of the road at four am.

There's no phone call from jail, as Hades use to say about [N----].

There's no girl or guy to get me out of any jam I might find myself into, the hand to grab when I'm backed into a corner--that kind of best friend.

"That Year Was Humiliating..."

"I don’t tell anyone about the year I spent on Depakote from ages 24-25, which damaged my liver, caused all my hair to fall out, and packed nearly 40 lbs on my small frame. I don’t tell anyone about that year because A.) it was the wrong diagnosis – within a year another doctor declared I wasn’t Bipolar, and B.) that year was humiliating."

--And This is Why We Don't Talk

EAting Bender

"I spent the next several days after that session being pissed off and feeling unheard and I just ate whatever I wanted. I ate chips, and sweets and regular food too. I hated every mouthful and I could literally feel all the weight coming back, which of course it did. What I had managed to lose in 9 days came back in 3, well minus one little pound."

--Feeling Angry And Went On a Three Day Eating Bender

Suicide Letter Found

"Hello,

I decided to die. I don't want any more help, I don't want to take one more single breath. Why I write here? I have no family and no friends, no one to tell my last words. I had a relation that lasted for more than 12 years and colapsed last September. I can't live with my childhood memories any longer and also can't take the void of my life no more. She (my ex)... the only person I virtually could tell this words, laughed in my face... called me a coward and told me I don't have the balls to do it. Unfortunatelly for her, I already arranged everything. I win. I picked up the date of my mothers birthday for everything she has done to me. I picked up the perfect mix of poisoning plants and medication, will not miss. I arranged my life and I am taking care of my funeral last details. No one in my funeral will be permited to enter. Only a priest and the undertaker.

I am fed up of 30 years of $#%^. I have been diagnosed with 5 disorders and I am more ###$ up than I could describe to anyone. Bipolar... PTSD... Dissociation... Schizoid... Pyromania... labels labels labels, I am ######6 fed up! I am fed up of having people in my life screwing with my head. I seriously hate people. If I could live the rest of my life without any human contact... I would. I just want to burn everyone, it's enough for me.

After I told her what I am going to do... she sends me messages and calls me... telling me things that I wouldn't say to the people I hate the most. Seriously? Someone I spent 12 years of my life with... whom I left... because she hits me and harasses my psychologicaly... knowing the reason of me ending the relation and wanting to restart everything.... does that?! How am I supposed to feel?

I decided to end my life before she calls me saying $#%^... and now? I am going to have pleasure doing it. Will drink that tea and eat those pills with a smile in my face. I win.

It is impressive the lack of humanity people have. I don't want to live in a world like this. I want to thank the people that talked to me in here during my short stay, don't loose the humanity you have in you... it lacks in the world.

Oh well... Goodbye."

--Trenus

When I was younger and naive and diagnosed as a major depressive with psychotic features, I use to wish for bipolar I disorder because at least then I would have the high's and it was "easy to treat" with mood stabilizers like lithium.

I highly underestimated how difficult things would be for me in the future.

However, God granted my wish.

"Denial, An Ever-Present TEmptation"

"Trying to manage his symptoms gets a bit complicated, as we first must peel back the layers of denial, slowly and as painlessly as possible: No, bipolar disorder is a real illness. You know this. We wish it wasn’t so, but it’s here and will always be. There are no magic cures, and there are no missed diagnoses. There are ways to make it tolerable, but it is impossible to make it go away...Some people would call my dips into denial naivety or even stupidity. I sometimes call it hope. But, really, it’s neither. It’s wishing that what’s real isn’t so. It’s looking for a quick fix that doesn’t exist but hoping that we missed something along the way. Is it stigma? I don’t think so, because I do the same sort of denial thing with my own health issues. Rather, I believe it’s one of those steps in the grieving process – I’m mourning what I wanted my life, his life, our life, to be."

--Denial, an Ever-Present TEmptation

"Our son, Nathan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of two. For 7 years we played the med, therapy, new Doctor game. There were times we found stability, but more often than not we were searching for stability. After seeing several specialists in the field, we came upon Dr. Papolos in August of 2011. After talking with him, it was clear to all of us that Nathan fell into the Fear of Harm phenotype, a new subtype of childhood-onset bipolar disorder recently identified by research studies. As silly as this sounds, what a blessing that he was in that category!! Without having the FOH aspect to his disorder, we would still be searching for relief.

Nathan began the ketamine treatment in September of 2011. "

--Nathan's Fears WEre Debilitating

That's a bizarre drug to give to a kid. It's a analgesia or anesthesia.

He's not a horse.

I think about taking a month's worth of lithium, knowing that high levels of that drug is very fatal.

HOw many brushes with death do I want or need?

What do I want to feel?

I want to feel like life is worth feeling?

I want to feel something powerful and different from this.

I've Lost a Few Buttons Myself

"At some point..what with all the electricity arcing between us...it becomes difficult to keep buttons buttoned, but I do, because after all, I have a point~ a solid stance to maintain, amid all the attendant details of life (& insanity)..."

--Mary

Some Friends

I've come to realize that some friends don't intend to accompany me through the crazy trail.

They stand back, and wait for it all to end.

For the most part, I understand this, but there is a child inside me, who yells and pouts selfishly, "Why weren't you there? Why didn't you care more? Why weren't you more kind? Why didn't you know how to fix me up better?"

I miss Morpheus more than I have ever missed anyone, and when people tell me different, it's like laughing.

I hear laughing.

What do you hear?

Someday I'll find a man who understands humanity's need for folly and failure in love--

Only to struggle and cling together while crying out against one another.

Or some day I'll find a man who understands my compulsive need to write daily letters of woo and passion.

He'll kiss my nose afterwards, and then praise each one, saving them all in a binder on the shelf.

Morpheus Calling

Some day he'll stand before me, and he'll say, "But I called you all those days..."

I'll hand him over an envelope. "I wrote you letters."

I was in my psychiatrist's office when I said, "[Morpheus] is the best part of my life...I know what you're thinking...you're thinking that's sad..."

"NO, I wasn't think that...." He says, and talks about when he was in college.

"I ran around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor at high speed, exulting in all my energy. For several days, I woke up at dawn to see the sunrise and take pictures of it. I felt sure something big was going to happen soon in Baltimore and only I could foresee it."

--My So-Called Bipolar Life

Today is the one year anniversary of the last time I had sex, and the last time I had sex with MOrpheus.

I feel no wiser.

My therapist at the last session, "I think [Morpheus] would be surprised at how much he took of your head space."

I'm so happy 'cause today
I found my friends
They're in my head

--"Lithium" by Nirvana

There's something immensely lonely and frightening about binge eating right there in the front seat of a truck in the parking lot.

I had been having sugar cravings all day--different from simply being hungry. People who binge all the time or even in the past know that the feeling is unique. It's like a craving for alcohol or any other drug.

YEsterday was not me at my best.

I had a lunch set up with the LSU Professor and one of his students who is also a friend of mine but I couldn't get through the meal. WE all sat down together, and I couldn't make polite conversation. I got up, excused myself, saying that I wasn't feeling well.

I am at war with myself, with my psychiatric symptoms, with the weight gain, with how much I miss and love Morpheus.

"If you're out on a Monday, it's because you have a drinking problem."

--Life in the AGe of Byrony or my favorite, Benedict Smith the ORiginal

[not to confuse people, my favorite name for him, Benedict Smith]

Yesterday, I had an emergency appointment with both my psychiatrist and my therapist.

"And why aren't you dead?" The psychiatrist said in reference to my suicide attempt back in August of 2008.

"I dialed 911," I replied.

"You know, suicidality is always dealing with ambivalence," he said. "I've lost patients before, sure..."

We spoke mostly of Morpheus.

"You would probably be less suicidal if you wouldn't in love with him...you want to hear his voice..."

"What?"

"There's a part of you that wants to hear his voice, right? He says he's coming back, etc."

I shake my head.

"You love him."

Yesterday, I did a very bad thing, which I haven't done in years thanks to Topamax:

I binge ate.

IN the parking lot of Von's.

"...he also couldn't think for himself. That's what Zyprexa did to him..."

--Zyprexa Suicide

Whenever I see the coffee shops give out free cups of coffee to the homeless, it makes me think that the world inherently is a good and decent place.

WE just aren't looking hard enough.

Acts of kindness are everywhere.

Do I really want to die or do I want to be a Sylvia Plath?

I think about the pills in my bedroom. There's enough to OD on.

I have no idea if it will kill me, probably with no emergency medical intervention.

I think about the things I wanted to do with my life that I never did.

Facing death before has taught me how I treat death.

No one really wants to die, we want to look at death, and then turn around with a consuming idea of what we are supposed to be living for.

Bland, Washed Out, Washed UP

Life is bland.

I'm on a reduced calorie diet because I gained a few pounds over the holidays, and I refuse to become a statistic over this Clozaril (read: causes major weight gain). Mostly, I'm bored with food.

I have no particular passion with school.

There's no man currently who incites me intellectually or physically.

The truth is always embarrassing. [in an email to Harry]

I don't remember how long CAROL stayed in my head, but eventually she went away on her own without the need for antipsychotics.

When I was about twelve years old, I heard what I believe to be now auditory hallucinations. The worst offender was named Carol, the same first name as my grandmother. At night was always the hardest times because she was in my head, tearing me down. The other voices were there too, rallying around, trying to buffer CArol's damage.

I was an absorbed girl at that age.

My mother would yell at me sometimes while we were out in public, "Lacey!"

"What?"

"I was talking to you."

"Adolescents can also use an imaginary audience as an internal sounding board to mentally try on various behaviors and attitudes, which allows them to analyze their own thought processes in order to gain insight into themselves and the behaviors and intentions of others."

--Human Development: Theories and Learning Futures, Bae, YOung

"In essence, looking back on one's life should create a feeling of satisfaction and meaning. And, the aged person should be willing to defend the dignity of his or her own life-style against economic and physical threats. However, if an individual, when looking back on life, has a feeling of wrong turns and missed opportunities, he or she will feel despair and fear death."

--Human Development: Theories and Learning Futures, Bae, Young

"You turned out to be the (best thing I never had)
And I'm gonna' always be the (best thing you never had)"

--Beyonce and "Best Thing I Never Had"

"I try to quiet my own pangs of suicidality."

--from yesterday

A long time ago, while watching a movie with a sex worker in it with my stepbrother, he turned to me, and said, "Do you know what a 'hooker' is?"

I was young then, I said, "No."

"Someone who is paid for sex."

It was the first time I had ever heard of the concept.

"I am a part of [Morpheus] that lives inside of you."

One of the voices.

"If this [heart] is empty, then this [mind] doesn't matter."

--Jerry Maguire (1996)

It's a sorry day when the only voices you have to talk to are those in your head.

The doctors, they never tell you the truth, about auditory hallucinations, about living with them, about the odds of getting rid of them completely, about the humanity of medicine, about its absence--

About the isolation.

They only serve you pills, and give you some poorly researched prognosis.

They set you loose onto this world, which has been so unkind to the point of splitting up your mind. They care not for your triumphs nor for your failures, but the voices still persist in the hallways of your psyche.

"Other psychologists argued that psychologists cannot predict all of the people all of the time but they can predict some of the people some of the time (Bem & Allen, 1974;
Biesanz et al., 1998; Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980)."

--Psychology Fifth Edition, pg. 441.

You never notice how alone you are until someone comes into your life and then leaves.

I actually cried today in the middle of downtown over Morpheus.

"Tell me you love me...."

Morpheus in a auditory hallucination.

Morpheus talks to me through an hallucination.

I knew when I kissed the back of Chase's neck, and he didn't respond that there was something wrong.

That morning would be the last I would see of him.

You read stories about grief and mourning. People hear loved one's voices calling them or see their deceased mate appear to them in their house or on the street somewhere.

I think about that whenever I hear Morpheus's voice (an auditory hallucination) tell me that he loves me, that he's coming back.

That all hope is not lost for us.

Do you ever love someone truly that he never leaves not even in physical absence nor in death?

"You played your cards well. NO sex. No drama."

--ONe txt-message to Chase yesterday

My mother use to say, "Don't play with your food at the dinner table."

Don't toy with the men after they dumped you.

My sense of humor in the TXT-messages he received was probably lost on him.

"sorry to hear this. He seemed really like a nice guy. [The LSU Professor]"

--in an email

They all seem like really nice guys in the beginning.

And even really nice guys can be mean on occasion under the right circumstances (or wrong, depending on your view).

Sex doesn't have to be intimacy and/or intimate. It depends on who you have it with, how it's done, and how you feel at the time.

Cuddling and kissing are more intimate acts often.

"Slighted."

This isn't the check out line at Wal-Mart. YOu didn't accidentally give me the wrong change back.

This is "dating."

STOP!

"I'm done with this. I won't respond to, read or listen to any more messages. I'm sorry if you feel hurt or slighted but STOP! Goodbye Lacey."

from Chase.

My instant response was:

"I suppose this takes out us being friends then huh [Chase]?"

"be realistic, we never got to the point of intimacy and part of the reason I don't want to meet up is your overboard reaction to the situation."

Chase.

"On a more honest note. Be a man and grab your balls. WE were intimate. WE deserve a face to face conclusion. Jesus."

--TXT-message back

"I appreciate you wanting to say goodbye but don't know when I'd be able to fit it into my schedule and feel it will complicate things more than helping."

--last message from Chase

I wish you would buy me freedom out of the burning gates of painful bipolar psychosis. I wish you were there, standing at the edges, waving me along.

I wish you knew what it was like, if only for a moment.

I wish life called you to such a path.

You would see then why I loved you so, why I was angry--so.

You forgive me--so?

You love me again--so?

I'm a wish inside your psyche, a freedom inside your ear, a dance against your consciousness, a rebellion fire down your consciousness.

I am the light against the tile during the day.

I am three glasses of wine.

I am the silence that stays even when you were promised to come.

I am Jack's last Sunday.

I am your ol' sour sore.

I am trouble yet to become.

I wish I could say buried things stay buried, but here they are for show and tell, all to see.

I am, but a wreck on the shore of a beach for tourist to wander about lazily.

Chase is shy, modest even.

It's one of the things I like about him best.

And now, he too is gone.

Once Was That Girl

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just not that girl, already trained and conditioned to rather be alone by witnessing my parents verbally beat each other up over the years.

I feel no emptiness when I sleep by myself--I've become immunized to the basic pulls of the need of affiliation.

What have I done to myself? What have others done to me growing up?

'Wow. How do men shut down so effectively? I'm half horrified and half jealous."

--"ROSA SAYS."

There's a button on my browser: "[Rosa says...]"

Why I have no idea.

It's a perfect set up for romantic disaster.

Guy is leaving in x-amount of days.

Girl is swimming in pharm-soup, carefully balancing every day, just to get through those days.

How many would even chance it this far?

WE laughed off the honey lotion discovery.

"Do you want me to go home and shower?" Chase said.

"NO."

"I think I know who it was. She gave me a hug," he said.

Chase is the kind of guy who got up and drove me to get coffee the next morning after I spent the night with him.

WE were at a sushi restaurant.

"That's a honey lotion. I know the brand," I told Chase [The District tRaining Manager]. "I can smell it." I use to wear it. It was in fact my favorite, but hard to find.

"I don't know where it came from."

It wasn't his scent. It was clearly a woman's.

"Someone rubbed all over you," I said.

Who you crying over?

Yeah, I don't know either.

Where's the Wine??

My alcohol consumption has come up, partially because I've learned that it doesn't make me extremely drowsy when I mix it with the Clozaril, and because of the relationship stress of being with Chase [The District Training Manager].

I know this is a road with no good end, alcohol is for the healthy brains with no mental illness. I already have cravings, a sign of future addiction if I continue to drink.

There are all sorts of excuses for drinking, but my stability has been hard fought, and has taken almost a year.

Right now--still--I can smell the red wine in the kitchen.

Chase [The District Training Manager] and I have broke up since he is leaving the state this FRiday or sAturday, and literally has evening plans every night up until FRiday.

I sent him a text-message telling him that I hoped we could re-connect and say goodbye in person, but have not heard back yet.

I fell for all of psychosis' old tricks, including thinking that license plates had messages in them.

"I'm sorry, I know this sounds weird to you," the psychiatrist said, going through the red flags, mentioning the license plates, thinking you are receiving special messages from your computer (I once went to a grocery store locally because one of their ads "told me to"), etc.

"No, no, it doesn't, " I replied, honestly. I recognized them all.

My New Year's EVe consisted of me walking to a couple of bars, overly dressed and sitting by myself, drinking three shots, and then finding a taxi for a ride home around eight o' clock.

I wasn't even happily buzzed drunk.

I was just numb.

The voices started to join in as a chorus as The District Training Manager was doing down in between the sheets.

I had to make him stop because of the noise going on in my head.

SEx: Anxiety, Part III

I was what it best classified as a stripper/prostitute.

Now, I'm afraid to have sex.

I don't understand my own change in attitude.