I sent Morpheus an email yesterday, telling him that I am going to be hospitalized for depression on Monday.

[WE last spoke over the phone on February 9, 2012.]

Writing right now is like struggling to breathe.

A Cure For Schizophrenia

"Great. Can I please have a cure schizophrenia & get my house back kit? I'll wait over by the rich people poster while you mix it up."

--Stalled at 12

I am afraid to go under for ECT, I'm afraid of the black out, the memory loss, the unknown that lies on the other side of treatment.

When you're depressed, the ticking of time is painful.

I can hardly bear the passing of my own existence. da.

Depression has taken almost everything away from me, time, life, love, talent, creativity--

I wonder when I'm going to come back, if ever. d.

Somehow I had hoped life was going to be more than this.

Perhaps we all think that at some stage.

I remember I was in group therapy at STanford, and I was bemoaning Clozaril--was it going to work? If it didn't, what was left?

One of the other patients told me he had the same thoughts, but then, he said, "There's ECT, and after ECT, there's other things to try, and so on and so forth."

It's like being caught in a medical wheel, around and around we go.

When do we live?

When do we take out time to live?

"And the air of something knowingly grad school philosophy student superior that is hard to distill into a sentence."

--STalled At 12

"It's not too soon," the psychiatrist said in reference to my pending hospitalization. a.

I had asked him, "Are you sure I'm depressed enough? Shouldn't I be like staying in bed all the time, and stuff?"

I am going into the hospital at STanford on Monday with the possibility that they may treat me with ECT.

"The depression may never go away," said The psychiatrist.

I feel a bit like my whole life was leading up to a point,

ONly the point never existed,

NOw I'm living past point X with no direction, all my hopes of my childhood are gone

A group of gay men at a dinner party are surrounding a heater outside a home, all smoking cigarettes.

ONe of them said, "That house has seen way too many Crisco parties."

I ask, "YOu can use Crisco?"

I spent way too much money yesterday, drinking and eating, trying to forget the voices, the disease and Morpheus.

everything crashing in all at once, waves of madness and grief.

someone's daydream's port in the storm.

I was there, upon-a-time.

Now, on the edge of ocean's horror.

It makes me want to stick a bottle of lithium down my throat.

I'm tired of hearing voices. "Lacey, you're a wimp."

Most of me knows that this is the end for Morpheus and me. a. However, there is the denial.

Denial of reality.

He'll come through--he'll still be there--he'll call. d.

I have mentally prepared myself for the end, but there's no way to do it. I still wish--

I tell myself I don't need him. I have been living a year without him--I can live one year more, and on and on and again. d.

Wishing and needs and wants and love are all different.

Dr. Trout, a REformed Protestant, once talked about staying away from the fire (temptation). You don't dance around it, you stay feet from it. He demonstrated this in class.

I think about that when I think about Morpheus.

You don't talk to the fire or edge as close as you can without being burned. a.

You run with your back turned and your ears covered by your hands.

"Can't do it. Book idea will sell to someone.

I am happier with you. I enjoy being with you.

You are the love of my life. I miss you. I still want you.

You chose your wife, to stay with her.

Okay. Then i respect that. Be well and happy with that decision. I want the best for you.

Love you more than you know."

--email sent to Morpheus on February 14, 2012

In Lorain as elsewhere, explanations for marital decline start with home economics: men are worth less they used to be. Among men with some college but no degrees, earnings have fallen 8 percent in the past 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the earnings of their female counterparts have risen by 8 percent.

“Women used to rely on men, but we don’t need to anymore,” said Teresa Fragoso, 25, a single mother in Lorain. “We support ourselves. We support our kids.”

--For Women Under 30, Most Births...

“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania

--For Women Under 30, Most Births...

"I'm the bad guy."

-Morpheus

Male voice whispering in my mind, "I love you." ad

I was out for a hike when I stopped myself and realized, "I'm having racing thoughts" (which is a manic symptom).

"I'm the man in the fish bowl..." MOrpheus said.

"She said I had to give you up or else," Morpheus said over the phone.

NO News is Good News, and Bad News Comes All At Once a

I asked Morpheus out for coffee.

His response next email was, "Cant do it." d

"...Too many issues, and I'm leaving..." d He continued.

AFter reading that, I felt like someone just snapped me in half, all broke in an instance.

Then I hear the voices.

Morpheus in my head, "I'm coming back."

d

I don't want to live to see this love die. I've idealized it for so long, what will I be without it?

Conversations with Morpheus have been going poorly.

Is this the end for us?

I've been struggling not to go deep under the water of the depression.

"Did you ever thinking about leaving for me?"

"NO....hmmm...yes..."

"I love my kids more than anything." Morpheus.

"She's not leaving, and I'm sure as hell not leaving," MOrpheus said.

And then on Valentine's Day of last year, a fight broke out between us,

"I don't care if you hate me for the rest of your life," I said foolishly.

He's still angry with me, but he talks to me, he hangs up on me, and remembers me.

He refuses to admit he once loved me. d

"I don't think you have a dissociative disorder," from my mother, who yesterday was in so much pain she was crying. "Because you are very caring. YOu just don't show your emotions."

Affairs

This day one year ago, I sent the Wife a FAcebook Message telling her that I had relations with her husband, and that he was "her problem now."

I was staying at a Motel 6 at the time, and planning on flying out to Ithaca, NY on Valentine's Day.

My rationale was simple: he would dump me, never speak to me again, for her. d

I was wrong.

I Don't WAnt To KNow

Sure, you can unfollow, unsubscribe, de-link or tune people out. “At least the Internet gives us the option of blocking them, consigning them to oblivion forever,” Andy Borowitz, the humorist, “shared” in an e-mail. “The only equivalent option in the real world is strangulation.”

--I Don't Want to KNow

Yesterday, I walked into town (about eight miles), and I got drunk.

You just can't take it back--love--

You can't say that.

"I thought I better call you before you sent another email to my wife," MOrpheus said.

"You know, you're right...I don't trust you," Morpheus said.

"Do you love me still?" I ask MOrpheus.

"No," he responded. "I never felt in love."

I hung up on him.

He called back once and then the phone went silent.

I purged again today.

They say that cutting releases the same fix.

I beg to differ. I like purging better--no marks, no mess, just brush your teeth, and wipe your face.

Out for a WAlk at Midnight

I want to believe that those restricted number calls at midnight--at one am--are from someone who misses me so much, he has to dial my digits right then just to hear the sound of my voice--I want to believe that those waves, those honks of the horn while I'm out for my walk are the same man, who is out of reach, but is telling me in a small way to hang on until we can be together again.

I want to believe those things.

But truth could be hard and cold and unfeeling and unfriendly.

The truth could be that these are all random occurrences.

Suffering

My therapist keeps recommending to me ECT, to get me out of this black hole they commonly refer to as depression.

I know from experience and from reading that depression goes away on its own--and bipolar depressive episodes tend to be shorter than unipolar depressive episodes.

I just have to suffer through it however long it takes.

That's what I told her.

"Our hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences."

--Freud, 1909

"If it's not a big deal [to you], it's not a big deal," my therapist said about my rape in the May of 2007.

It's unclear if I have PTSD and/or bulimia. I have been diagnosed with both from previous psychiatrists, but it's unsure if the labels will stick.

"You hide your emotions better than 99% of the population."

--my current therapist

Rosa on Eating Disorder

"If you look at bulimia as a secret lover, to me she's an old friend who I mostly avoid but think about often. She's the friend who always walked on the edge, got you in trouble, encouraged you to do shit you knew would get you grounded or arrested, but you followed anyway because when you did, you could forget everything. With this troublemaker you live in the moment. You can admit to feeling weak and scared, but you do something about it that counters the weakness and fear. With this friend, you look into the void, you fill it with everything you can find and then you push the button that makes it all go away. Bulimia is the bad girl friend that makes you feel like you have a say, you have a secret. You have some power. You feel cleaned out and light again. And then you can tell yourself you're better than her when things are safe, easy. You look down on her until you're down low again. And there she is, waiting for you. Flask, joint, fresh pack of smokes. Some pills, a sexy stranger and an open bar. Dangerous, reliable. Always there when you need her. That's me and my ED. "

--Rosa on ED

Shakespeare would say that bulimia and I are star crossed lovers, though.

WE were always meant to be together.

Forever.

Until the cold ground covers me.

Bulimia and I are like two lovers who flirt alot and give head jobs.

We haven't done six hour fuck-a-thon yet.

Out of all of my therapists and psychiatrists, only one ever paid attention to my ED issues, and that psychiatrist is the one I'm currently seeing.

Put the Fork Down

When you're bingeing, there's no one to hold your hand and tell you, you're beautiful.

most importantly,

no one to tell you, you're beautiful and please stop--

hating yourself.

Love instead.

Put the fork down.

I don't purge.

I'm a binger. I can gain more weight faster than a feeder (steer). I've made a science out of doing the dirty deed (carbo load of 2,000 calories or more in a single sitting).

Purging? That's for those real bulimic types who aren't me.

Right?

Purging

With my fingers down my throat, fishing around, leaning against the toilet, purging, I was wondering, "What am I doing?"

Can Follow Satan if They Want To

Starbucks, you see, is under fire for its public support of the same-sex marriage legislation that recently passed the State Senate in Washington, where the company has its headquarters...Steven Andrew, the president of USA Christian Ministries, has called for a national boycott of the coffee chain, saying that while its executives “can follow Satan if they want to,” God-fearing Americans shouldn’t join them on that caffeinated road to hell.

--Java and Justice

I sent Morpheus a second email.

Doing that just makes me a little happier, like sending love up in the air for him to catch.

Where ARt thou?

I wish people were there for me, I wish people knew what to say.

As it happens, most people don't know how to handle it (the psychosis).

HOw do you get a friend to help without being swallowed up into the paranoia?

Now, as I'm just battling depression, I expect my friends to be supportive and comforting--not absent.

STill, people run away from what they don't know, what they don't understand, and what they fear.

I'm a scary creature. I'm a few bad days from downing lithium pills mixed with booze.

Run away from me, please, if it makes you feel better.

The heavy depression has returned.

I'm tired of being hungry all the time.

I'm actually lonely. I haven't felt lonely in a really long time, but one of my friends and I have broke up. I told him I needed more support right now. He is unwilling or can't give it to me. We have been close since 2006, just before my first manic episode. I was snotty to him in the last email, "I'm glad you're concerned about me."

I thought with the symptoms lifting--that I was finally getting through this--I guess not.

News On Depression

"Ultimately, the men and women who routinely worked 11 hours a day or more had more than double the risk of developing depression compared with those who usually worked eight hours or less."

--REally? The Claim: Long Work...

"As the author, I reserve the right to not portray my characters in the worst way. You don't do that to someone you love."

--Hades

Morpheus.

I just want this to be over.

You, on my mind all the time.

It came to mind that perhaps I have a fear of success with school by leaving a paper (turning it in) which is 200 words short of the minimum requirement.

I fear achievement.

I wonder what the best I could have done.

However, I have a hard enough time writing on a blog, much less for college.

I feel stuck. d

IN a senseless pain that has no reprieve.

I grow weary of talking about it because it never changes.

It's just there.

I was in the hospital at Stanford, it was night time, about ten o' clock.

The nurse came by to give me my meds.

I spit them out because the voices told me that they were poison.

I remember the way she look at me, so kind and understanding, as if this was a frequent happening.

When she came back the second time, I swallowed the pills, all of them. At the time, I never knew that those fucking pills were going to be what saved me. I was too fucked up in the head.

That--and avoiding the shower room.

Loss of Privacy on the INternet

"Other companies, like Healthline Networks Inc., have in-house limits on which private information they will collect. Healthline does not use information about people’s searches related to H.I.V., impotence or eating disorders to target ads to people, but it will use information about bipolar disorder, overactive bladder and anxiety, which can be as stigmatizing as the topics on its privacy-protected list."

--FAcebook Is Using YOu

"David believes most wake mourners have a penchant for histrionics, center staging it."

--STalled at 12: Don't Mind

I tell myself, maybe I should pretend that he's dead.

Gone forever.

Out of reach, out of touch.

If I could start over this way, never wondering if I'm going to hear from him again, see him again.

And then the day when he does come back, because he always does,

I will say, "I'm talking to a ghost..."

"If I had to classify it, it would be kind of a phantom pain. Like an amputated foot, but if I never actually HAD that foot."

--Rosa, in an email

I'm disappointed in myself that I have no more passion for school since this is my favorite subject material, psychology.

Honestly, I could care less.

Some of the reading is interesting, but I have no particular drive in finishing college at the moment.

My work shows my lack of passion. I haven't hit my minimum word count on any paper due in weeks.

I don't know what to blame. Me? The drugs? The depression?

Since I haven't been writing for myself, and little on the blog, this brevity of speech is affecting me in other areas as well.

I don't know how to combat it.

The Plan, Part II

I don't know why I was suicidal then, and not now. Nothing in my life has changed.

"You wouldn't eat," the LSU Professor's reaction when I was hysterical, thinking someone was out to get me, and I came by his house.

The Plan

I was waiting for my refill of my lithium prescription before I was going to attempt suicide, but I have recently decided against it (I just picked it up today).

I'm not in the mood for such a big self-destructive act.

Maybe I haven't seen him, and maybe those hang up phone calls weren't him, and maybe he's decided to walk the straight and narrow and dump me completely,

and maybe he's gone forever,

and maybe I'll be the last person in the world to know it,

It reminds me of the days when I was psychotic.

Seeing his face everywhere, in every car, on every street corner.

I'm wondering if I'm not just falling into delusions when these strange men honk at me, and wave. I have no proof it's actually Morpheus.

I know I saw him the once in his black Denali truck when I pointed him out to my mother, but besides that these sightings could only be baby rats peeping.

I feel better, afraid to tell that to anyone, thinking perhaps that I have been magically cured.

NO. Just better. d.9.

My hands still involuntarily type things, I just erase them now.

Yesterday, someone flag me down on the highway where I live, honked at me too. I have no idea if it's Morpheus or not. I didn't get a good look at the face. It was a man, looked like in the age range of thirties with dark hair.

Honestly, I don't care. I just want to hear from him.

I had a dream.

I was being suffocated to death.

I just heard a voice saying, "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

Then I woke up.

"I haven't heard from her since that last attempt at manipulation she tried when she got back home. She disappeared. Gone."

--More about Persephone, my evil twin

I'm Not So NIce

"Hi Lacey, I would love to have coffe [sic] sometime. We are actually in the process of moving down to SLO and so have been really busy lately and probably will be until march. We have people moving into our place March and are still trying to find a place in slo. How about I get back to you once we are in our new place and we will set up a time to hang out."

--one FAcebook Message I received from a friend I had in college

What I wanted to send back:

"I'm sorry, but March is booked full for me. Social calender is very busy these days."

What I actually did:

Defriended her.

Who plans coffee a month in advance?

I Promise It Makes Sense All in the End.

I put the books on his nightstand.

He doesn't even look at them.

I Promise It Makes Sense All in the End. Part II

WE fought about books.

He wouldn't read the books that cost me $40 to carry on a plane over and back.

One of them was on psychiatric interviewing, how to pre-select your mate, free of personality disorders.

I was hoping he'd see his real girlfriend was antisocial.

I was not clever nor successful.

"Doctors have been trying to stick a personality disorder on you your whole life," my therapist said yesterday.

Yet, at STanford, I was told clearly by one of the residents there that I was not Borderline.

The psychiatrist is wondering and trying to figure out why the voices are waxing and waning. Here today, gone tomorrow. He says it's more because of a dissociative disorder rather than schizophrenic symptoms.

I maintain I have neither.

DAys of Morpheus and MOrphia

I have this perfect moment, he and I on the couch, just there, together, holding each other, talking, the lights are off in the house,

I have this moment, and I hold it close to me,

and there,

I live.

To this day, I'm still bewildered.

Why buy a big bag of salad for one person who is only staying for a few days when no one else eats fucking salad?

I'm in WAl-Mart looking at it, saying to myself, "I'll probably just throw it up."

Hades is standing there, "But it's only [price]."

It will just sit in the frig and go bad. Rotten.

How much salad do you want to eat? The whole bag?

NO. No one wants to eat that much salad on a holiday. It's too much pressure. That's two meals a day of salad five days in a row. That's boot camp of veggies. Plus, I was betting I'd just vomit it back up.

I woke up every morning on the couch with a picture of her staring me in the face.

It was either the couch or the bed.

I chose downstairs.

There she was, framed and mocking me.

It was at the veggie aisle at WAl-Mart, which is a unknown in California. We don't have such things here.

We argued.

Later, I would write in a personal journal that I was dumped because I wouldn't eat salad.

From the Comment Section of Hades' Blog

BathwaterFeb 1, 2012 07:08 AM

Persephone you didn't seem to think this way when YOU were the girl in question. If you are going to comment here have the guts to use your name.

--from the comment section of Moral Compass



For the record, it wasn't me. I was too busy purging.

["Persephone" is a nickname one of my ex, Hades, gave me to use on his blog]