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And, yeah, I'm tired of living hand to mouth, it's been okay, I've had what

I needed when I needed it, but God, I've stressed and agonized over making ends meet, so when someone who has the luxury of not having those same worries tells ME, that I need to tell my boss about my condition, so that they can make "accomodations", I just get outraged.  The reality is that I'd get "accomodated" right out of my job, maybe not outright, but one way or the other. 

posted by Blanche. on October 16, 2006 at 6:32 PM | link to this | reply

It has it's moments, Frankenkitty. I didn't really put this out here to

depress anybody, because it's history to me now. She's out of my life, I've got a great life with possibilities, I have hope and a good man, the possibility of future writing and a job that I could really like. That doesn't suck.  I really don't want to go down this road again, that's why I had to sit down and put into words what I needed to say to her, if I ever feel like I need to contact her, to warn her not to do it again, or to work out some kind of healing between us.

I am less livid now, before I could not even have talked about it.  I was too emotional and full of pain and rage, that parts healing.  so, yeah, when you're going through it, it does suck, but sometimes unexpected good comes to, I never would have met MG, if not for the path I went down. So, I wouldn't trade that part for anything.  I know what I know,and I think I have a "calling" if you like to be an advocate for other people who've been in similar situations, because damn, somebody really needs to step in and explain how it is. 

posted by Blanche. on October 16, 2006 at 6:29 PM | link to this | reply

Blanche, you are right.

It doesn't seem like people who deserve money get it.  I mean, look at most of Congress.  But, money is somewhat hollow.  That's not reassuring when you're just scraping by, but give it time.  Things always change.  I know I wouldn't say this in an episode, but keep reaching for your dreams.  In an episode, I'd say, "life is like a vaccuum, it sucks." That's what my niece told me Sunday. Her mom is going through chemo right now.  Take care

posted by Flumpystalls3000 on October 16, 2006 at 6:24 PM | link to this | reply

Frankenkitty, I've been afraid for years of running into her. When we went

to her town, for a visit, on the Olympic Peninsula (near where Freemanwalking used to live when he was here, though I never met him), I had to cling to M, when we were there, just to walk down the street, and go into the cool shops, and art gallieries, and stuff. We went because my mom lives very close by and I wanted to go, partly because it's a cool little town, with lots of architecture, history and arts, and partly because I wanted to reclaim some sense of my own self-respect, to be able to hold my head up, and walk down the street in broad daylight, in "her" town, because some part of me is still afraid of what she'd do and what I'd do if we met again.

I've cut off every single mutual friend we've had, the ones who she contacted to find me, because not once but twice did they "coordinate" their searches for me. I woud not have been half as crazy if I hadn't been scared out of my mind of getting picked up, not because I'd broken any laws, but because they were afraid of what I might do. Jesus Fucking Christ, if you want to make someone homicidal, just try cutting off their income, their safe housing and rounding them up like a rabid dog.

I hear you, your Dad, got the short end of the stick people jump to conclusions, they think "accused" means "guilty" and its not so, and even if we are guilty, try a little mercy for God's sake, understanding and compassion for what YOU might do if you were in my situation.  Because I am too "normal", I look normal, act normal, talk normal, and it pisses people off, that I am so "normal" seeming, yet I am not functional, it looks bad on them, I guess, somehow they can deal with a cracked out black street ho, but if me, white, educated, and smart, but broken mentally and emotionally can't pull "myself up by my bootstraps and just get over it" .like my mother thinks, and case workers, then I am just lazy.

Fuck.  and yes, the money thing burned me, S had money she did not earn, she was smug and condescending about it, said she'd got it through her 'good karma" which is one reason why I am very leery of the phrase "karma", cause the way she meant it, was that she was morally purer and more superior than I was, what a corck of bullshit that is.  She got in a divorce settlement because she was married to a Microsoft programmer, talk about "there but for the grace of God," she married well, that was her good karma.  I worked. 

posted by Blanche. on October 16, 2006 at 5:47 PM | link to this | reply

Blanche, who did that bitch think she was?

OMG, I would have totally raged the third world war on her stupid ass. Don't you hate how people with money bully people who can't fight back, and manipulate situations to make themselves look like heroes? Talk about psychopathic.  Actually, I think you could have sued her, and your boss.  Your boss should have said she had no idea who that lady was, but it was probably a competitor.  Poorly handled by everyone, I'd say.  That's how situations get out of control, like my dad's.  Everyone finds a whipping boy(you and my dad) so they can justify the crappy things they do. It's disgusting.  I'm so sorry you had to go through that.  I'm glad you are moving past it.  I believe everybody gets whats coming to  them, but you probably won't see your rich bitch friend get hers.  Just know that she will.  I think you'll be just fine.  Smart, talented, charming, intelligent Blanche.  You will be okay. Take care

posted by Flumpystalls3000 on October 16, 2006 at 5:35 PM | link to this | reply

Avant-Garde, you probably don't remember some of the posts I've written

in the past, and it's just as well.  It used to obsess me, so that I literally could not think of anything else, and it felt like the hurt and shame of this whole experience would mark me for life. 

I suppose it has in some way, but I've made up my mind that it needs to be brought out in the open, not merely because as the 12-step programs say (and I have been to Adult Children of Alcoholics for a while), there is a saying "You're only as sick as your secrets"  I don't subscribe to everything they say, and in some respect I question their cultish mentality but that one did stick with me.

Everyone has foibles, sanity is a spectrum, I believe, not an absolute standard.  That's why I believe in "live and let live", as far as matters of personal choice and style, because everyone's style is different, but the end result may be the same.  You get things done, you're functional, you are a responsible adult who pays his bills, a husband and father, and if you're not walking about wearing bunny slippers on the job, then screw it, who cares if you're fruit loops, as long as you're not trying to tune in Radio Venus with a tin foil helmet.

My delusions,when I had them, all revolved around a nuclear strike against Seattle, which is why, although, I rationally assess the likelihood as being small, I am terrified of the news of nuclear weapons.

In my manic state, which took place over about 4 months of 'decompensation', I concluded that I had telepathic powers to plead with the pilots of bombers who were coming to destroy the city.  I couldn't sleep, fought any efforts to medicate or sedate me, because I, personally, had to keep them away, and if I didn't we would all die, so you can say that I was a little paranoid, delusional and well, overstated my own power a little.

I don't believe it anymore, but mainly because when I hit a wall, and reached exhaustion, I had to turn my "ressponsibilties" of saving the city and humanity over to God, to Christ, where it belongs. I am definitely not God.

Thanks for reading and for the feedback, Avant Garde, I'm going to write a couple more of these letters, to get them off my chest, to people who played a key role in the "interventions" in my life, a term I regard with skepticism and disdain, because like, S, I strongly believe that although it may ahve been necessary for her to do something that she drove me to a level of terror and rage trying to escape the manhunt that she had set in motion, and deprived me of sanctuary at friends' homes, so that it made it ten times worse.  That it was done for her own sense of self-importance and drama. 

I am forgiving her, the letter has helped clarify and give me peace, so in that it is a worthwhile exercise. 

posted by Blanche. on October 16, 2006 at 9:50 AM | link to this | reply

Blanche

Wow. I had no idea you had experienced this. But, it takes great courage to stand in the open and talk freely.

I, myself, have met the darkness of despair and humiliation. Sometimes, I think I might have idiosyncrasies of personality, due to my rigorous standards and inability to extricate myself at times.

Society has labeled anyone who displays the tiniest bit of foibles crazy. I ask, then, "is not the standard upon which this judgment rests deemed insane?"

Those of us who walk off the beaten path will always face what appears to be victimization. Perhaps it is a gift of healing in disguise.

posted by avant-garde on October 16, 2006 at 3:19 AM | link to this | reply

You also brought up an irony, Schatz, mental illness is genetic, so that

the family of people with mental illness are the very ones with the same genes that they profess are the cause of the illness, and yet deny in themselves.

If your friend has the means, I would strongly urge her to try to make herself as independent of her mother as she can. I did for my sanity's sake, and my life. I had to.  It's not terrible, what they do to us is too terrible for words, and if it is necessary to cut blood ties in order to survive, then so be it. I'll choose life.

posted by Blanche. on October 14, 2006 at 8:40 PM | link to this | reply

Schatz, by all means, show this to your friend. That is one reason why I

write what I do and post about my past on the blog.  Partly because it's healing for me, but partly because there is such stigma to mental illness that the shame, guilt and humiliation of psychiatric treatment, I believe, drive many away from seeking treatment and these misguided interventions, for the benefit of those doing the intervening, I believe, and their need "to do something" or because it makes them uncomfortable to witness what I believe is an emergent spiritual crisis.

I want to help change the attitudes towards bipolar and psychosis in general, it is a complex, manageable condition, but rather than live with shame and humiliation, exacerbated by those who are so crass and insensitive that they mock people with names like "nut", nutcase, and post photos of restraining jackets in order to amuse themselves at others' expense, and in order to bully, intimidate and harass those they deem "mental", I'd like to see it for what it is: an emergent spiritual crisis, one that needs treatment and medication to be sure, but we who have lived through the illness, psychosis, and have regained our rationality, live a dual existence, one foot in either world:

"You are in this world but not of it". (Paul), that is why I am a Christian, like Saul on the road to Tarsus, I've had my moments of enlightenment and facing God.  Before I passed out in the Bon Marche, I felt my soul being taken from me, it was terrifying.

posted by Blanche. on October 14, 2006 at 8:29 PM | link to this | reply

I watched my best friend go through something so similar that there aren't

words for it. It was her mom and the posse she had rounded up. She is my neighbor now, and I try so hard to offer loving friendship without smothering her. I just worry that her mom will decide to try it again.  I think I may have convinced her that her mom is the sick one. That she has a treatable, medical condition (bipolar disorder) and her mom has a psychological condition she needs serious help for. I hope you won't mind if I let her read it. I will just have to warn her exactly what it is. I've heard her tell it over, and over again, as she has tried to figure out where her mom fits in her life now. You are the bravest, strongest and most beautiful women I know. It pains me to see (in your words) you cringe at yourself, and to hear her be torn up over it so much. However, I see how healing it is to talk it out. I have a best friend that I lost to drug addiction and prison seven years ago? Five years ago? and I still say I hope I never see her face again. I haven't anything left for her. Yeah, it's cruel but also, I have me and my family to think of. She hurt me so badly for so long that I can't afford to have her back in my life. Maybe I will write a letter though. I am pretty mad.

Anyway, that was amazing and I just want to thank you for sharing it with us. I think most bloggers will see it for what it really is. If they don't I hope they have the respect to keep it to themselves.

posted by Schatz on October 14, 2006 at 6:54 PM | link to this | reply