Tag Archives: Faith

Today is December 18, 2017. I am alive and well.

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My short memoir piece. Hospital Visit Number 19. Installment 3 of 4.

The hospital staff and Guy remind me that I have schizophrenia. It is something that does not go away. Not like the pain of a pulled rotten tooth. I cannot pull this from my mind. I am wired, attached to hallucinations. Why do they feel so real? I am the extension of the antennae on an old fashioned television set. Aluminum foil. Yes, it is rigged. I am rigged. Through medication and support of people, they are trying to make the rigged part go away. They are trying to help me stand even when I sense that I am falling. Not falling into sickness, but falling into a different me, one I can only understand with the help of medication and clean people.

I will fall asleep in the hospital once again. I wake for medication and meals and the occasional conversation with the doctor and staff. I wake for my boyfriend. Sadly, I wake to the voices, too. They are with me like loose sleeves on a jacket that is too tight across my chest. Occasionally, they drop through the wrists of the jacket. It is in these moments that I exalt. I can count ten fingers and ten toes. I can make peace with my God. And most importantly, I can feel the love from those who touch me, warm like a wet washcloth used to remove the dust from my cheek. I am loved and I do love. This slides into my thinking like a person sliding into home plate, scoring the winning run, beating out the baseball sent from the outfield.

My mind slowly gets better. A cake bakes at 400 degrees for twenty minutes. Eventually, the toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Eventually, my mind comes out clean. I am able to communicate in simple sentences not requiring a great deal of thought from the listener. My silence is no longer the result of a sickened mind hiding from the florescent bulbs of the hospital.

It is breakfast time. All of us gather in the main area and receive a tray. I am able to enter the rec room and claim a seat at one of the round tables. French toast and sausage. Cereal and a carton of milk. The voices are soft. Thy no longer berate me. Pick up the fork, they say. Eat, they say. It tastes good, they say. I’m okay with them repeating what it is I’m doing. It is much better than being told to die or told to call the fat man obese and the skinny girl anorexic. My voices can be cruel, can ask me to do cruel things.

After eating, I return the tray to the cart. John, the psych nurse, approaches me, clipboard in hand, like he does every morning.

“Good morning, Kristina.”

“Morning.”

“Are you feeling suicidal today?”

Only in a psych hospital would a person start the conversation with this question.

“No,” I respond.

“And the voices?”

“Still there, but not bad.”

“How was breakfast?”

“Good. I’ll be going home soon, I think.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe so. Maybe so. The doctor should be in soon.”

John leaves me with this parting thought. It is up to the doctor as to whether or not I go home. Dr. Purewal really listens to me. When I am able to hold a conversation with him and let him know I’m ready to go home, he usually agrees. He knows me well. He has been my doctor in the hospital for years.

 

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Today is November 27, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Like usual, I have no idea what I’m going to write on this blog. Of course, I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving. I love the holidays and don’t experience them as stressful. But then I don’t cook and the only gift I buy is for my roommate.

I have thought much about my sister who’s a crystal meth addict and homeless. I actually dreamt of her last night. In the dream she was showing me her teeth, of which she only had a few, and the sores on the inside of her cheek. She told me that the infection from her sores would ultimately spread to her jaw and then follow her bone to her ear, making her deaf in that one ear. I asked my sister what meth did for her. Her response, “I’m rocketed to a new dimension, much like what happens to people of faith visiting with God. It is thrilling. My trip is thrilling.” That was the end of the dream.

I haven’t given up on my sister. I know the truth currently is that my sister has no desire to give up meth. I found a place where she could live for free for a year and they would provide for her all her meals. All she has to do is give up the drugs and get sober. She said no. She is three years younger than I am, 50-years-old, and I would guess that she has been using drugs for over 25 years.

With sobriety, I am safe. I am a sober drunk, 24 years sober,  with a healthy fear of drugs. My drug use amounts to me trying marijuana once. It left me paranoid and rocking in the corner of a room. Thirty years ago, this same sister told me I just smoked it wrong. Ha. How does a person smoke it right or wrong?

I am completely aware of the fact that I could be her. I don’t know why I was led to sobriety and she wasn’t. Out of desperation, I latched on to a program of recovery. I’m certain my sister has felt desperation at some point. I’m certain she suffers. Neither of these two things have brought her to her knees.

I will be warm this holiday season. I will eat good food. I will be physically clean. I will surround myself with people I love and who love me. Life is good.

Today is November 13, 2017. I am alive and well.

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…aren’t we more like pack mules/than gods most days, picking our way/across the desert or up a mountain path with avalanches/and the heaviest of loads are our grudges and fears/while poetry and beauty rest on our shoulders like fairy wings/or one of those pastries in a shop in Paris,/almost too beautiful to eat, but eat them we do/with their frosting of butter and sugar and eggs.   Barbara Hamby

The truth of our pain is all we have, it is the key to who we are.    James Baldwin

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.  Francis Bacon

I love quotes and thought these all related nicely. I write “the truth of my pain.” Maybe it’s true that “it’s the key to who I am.” I also believe my passions are the key to who I am.

My pain is deep and not preventable. Because it’s deep it rarely shows up unless I let it. It can storm and I won’t get wet because of my umbrella. Discard the umbrella, and I get soaked. It takes awhile to dry off. Living with pain with no barrier to disguise it can lead me to tears. It also leads me to people who share my same experience. They have made it through and I can too. I watch as a raccoon puts his paw in a jar to fish out a coin. With his paw clenched in a fist, he cannot pull himself from the jar. He has to let go of the coin in order to free his paw.

I have let go of the coin. I write about having schizophrenia. I write about multiple suicide attempts, I write about being alcoholic. Pain can attach itself to all three of these things. But I don’t stay there. I let go of the coin. I step out of the mud. Sometimes I get help cleaning myself off. Help is always there and it’s okay to accept it.

My God takes care of me. My God always has my back. The right people are placed in my life at the right time. My friends nourish me. I am passionate about loving them. I also hope I nourish them. It’s beautiful to watch my cats bathe each other. They are always clean, but they don’t go outside.

I go outside. I live a good life despite occasional falls. I also write about great things, not just painful things. My car still runs after 256,000 miles. I have the money to get my teeth cleaned. I fill the grocery cart with fabulous foods. I loved the same man for fourteen years without straying. Although we’re apart, I still do love him. I am comfortable in my own skin. I am passionate about flowers bought on Friday, about words falling in line with each other to make a sentence, a paragraph, a page. Life is here. Life is staying.

Today is October 30, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.   Gertrude Stein

I don’t throw caution to the wind. I am careful in my life. And I don’t think I’ve stumbled recently. I’m not certain what stumbling looks like unless it’s to fall or stutter. I do stumble over my words often in conversation. My brain takes a quick nap and I can’t think of what I’m trying to say. I don’t know if this is because of my schizophrenia or my medications. I know I’m not stupid. But I also certainly do know I prefer writing to speaking. I’m a rather quiet person.

Do you think Gertrude means physically taking a tumble? I don’t wear high heels. I believe high heels gives one the opportunity to stumble. It’s hard to fall off of flats or boots.

How else might one stumble in life if not physically or verbally? I looked stumble up. It means to fall into sin or waywardness, to make an error (blunder), or to come to an obstacle to belief.

Do I stumble in my faith? Do I have moments when I don’t believe everything will work out? Are there moments in which I believe that God doesn’t have my back? Yes, but rarely. I spend most of my time feeling blessed. This has been a long time coming.

The reason I am careful in my life is because of my mental illness. I will do anything to not become psychotic. Psychosis is a shadow in my mind. It is a parrot with a sharp beak. It is news announcing terror. By structuring my life, I avoid pitfalls. My roommate says I’m so predictable she could set a watch by me.

At times I regret rarely being able to be spontaneous. I am in bed by eight and still wake tired after eleven hours of sleep. One of the meds I take causes this. I’m not complaining, though. My meds have given me life.

My roommate says there is someone out there who will love me and not be bothered by all my quirks. I know my ex did and does. Maybe that’s how I will stumble. I will stumble upon someone who will lift me up, who I too could lift up. I would love to stumble over a duffel bag full of money. The most grievous thing I’ve done is not to have spent my money well.

Writing this has been like not being able to move over a lane to make a left hand turn because of traffic. Why I picked such a challenging quote to respond to I have no idea. I stumbled onto the quote and I have stumbled over the quote. So much for not stumbling!

Today is August 1, 2015. I am alive and struggling.

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I’m sitting in the break room at work. It is a way station for people on break. Fifteen minute turn around, aside form myself who sits for two hours before my shift begins. Surrounded by refrigerators and microwaves, I settle in. The table is riddled with sixteen ounce plastic water containers. No names, no dates. They will be walked to the garbage can and dropped in like bad lettuce. Do not abandon your water; it will take flight. My four quart bottle wears my name and the date. I will gulp from it over the course of my five hour shift, despite the fact that I will use the restroom even thirty minutes.

If you’ve been with my blog for long, you know I have schizophrenia. I’ve been struggling. Struggling to stay in the common reality, the reality in which this blog is being written. I attempt to use my feet and hands like armor disbanding the electrical currents that run through my mind. Lately, my feet have felt like blocks of wood preventing me from walking away from my mind into the light. My mind is in shadow. My hands feel like tentacles grabbing the wrong things. I have no use for a stapler, yet my hands move me to search. “Please don’t staple my hand to a book I need to shelf,” I tell my mind. I work at the library as a page; putting books away is one of my duties.

So my feet and hands haven’t offered much in the way of protection, but my heart has. I love my job. I like my colleagues. They are frozen fruit bars working their way toward becoming popsicle sticks at the end of their shift. Clean and useful, they build houses.

My mind lives in the house of my body. My body is lean and strong like the stalk of a sunflower. I use it to get to they gym. I use it to do cardio on the treadmill. I use it to lift weights. I have been blessed with physical strength.

I also like to think I have been blessed with spiritual and mental strength. I know my soul trumps my mind. My soul is steady, consistent, kind and loving. My mind can take a rest in the dark, but then be catapulted into the light with the same force. I don’t give up on my mind. It is what I have to dream with, to imagine with. It is what thanks God at night for a well lived day.

I struggle, yes. But I have never been completely broken. There is much faith in me. I will step out. I will smile. I will say hello. I will live. This I know.

Today is January 27, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I haven’t been psychotic for a very long time; at least not hospital psychotic. My days can be filled with the voices only I hear, but I ignore them and don’t follow through with the things they tell me to do. They are random, these things, and never kind.

I have not been paranoid recently. I am able to get in my Fore-Runner, knowing it won’t blow up when I turn the ignition on. I am able to throw trash down the trash chute, trusting that I haven’t thrown my keys or cell phone down there also. Little paranoias. They’re not catching me like bees to honey.

I leave my house. This freedom is like throwing open my closet and choosing a pair of pants. Do I go straight for the blue pair, look right for the black pair, or left for the gray pair? Going backward without choosing is no longer an option. Backward has become the single sock in my drawer; I have no use for it. This freedom is like a slice of American cheese melted on wheat, very specific, very driven. Once I know where I am going or what I am doing, everything falls into place, even if I have yet to discover where I am going and what I am doing….then I eat the American cheese and leave the wheat for later.

Freedom is also not being afraid to drive forty five minutes to the hospital to visit Victor, who had open heart surgery yesterday. I will try and not be afraid to park and leave my car. I will find it when I return to it, like finding the ice has frozen in the tray in the refrigerator. All is where it’s suppose to be, to include my parked car which I will find with easy effort….I hope. Ha.

Sheila, Victor’s wife and my dear friend, tells me he is doing fantastic. He’s already sitting in a chair. I take it for granted that I can sit in a chair. Maybe it is more appropriate to feel blessed that I can easily sit in a chair, all kinds of chairs.

I’m looking forward to today. My mind is clear. My toes all bend.I have two hands and ten fingers. Magic. All is magical.

Today is January 9, 2015. I am alive and well.

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How intimate do I want to be with God? Answer, very. I want to trust that all that is placed in my path is meant to bring me back to the front door. I want to know that after going left for several days, I will go right again.

There are many kinds of bushes. Some are simply more familiar to me in the desert. They require little water. I, on the other hand, require much water. My cup runneth over all the time. The water slaps at the side of my glass. I drink heartily from the tap. It is not just bottled water that I drink.

Religion does have its place. It brings many people to God. It brings many people to faith. Many like the choir singing “Amazing Grace.” I would mention another hymn, but I don’t know of any. I don’t know of religion. I am without a church. This is neither good nor bad.

I feel free of buildings. Walls cannot contain me. The breeze is crisp like a leaf of refrigerated lettuce.

There are many stones to hold in my palm. The weight of them is heavier than a hundred dollar bill. I may want for money, but somehow the bills are always paid with enough left over to buy an ice cream sundae.

I love God. I love the hats that God wears, and that if I put on two different socks, God still smiles at me. There is room in my heart for miracles, mine and the person who stands beside me at the bus stop.

Today, it is a miracle that I’m not stashed away in some psychiatric hospital. It is a miracle that I’m not drunk and begging at the corner, liquor slopped down the face of my shirt.

I rest today knowing there are daisies. The colored kind, not just white with a yellow centers. I am exposed to all kinds of moons. And the sun, although it stays the same, feels fresh each afternoon at noon.

Grams and Annie, my baby girl kittens, sleep against me as I write this. I am at peace today. The world is large and safe. I can dash from one door to the next, but often catch myself is a slow walk, heel toe, heel toe. Dear God, be with me. I will talk with the stranger on the elevator, wishing her a good day. I will go to bed with a clean mind and a heart filled with petals. The night will move on and I will again awaken to a new day. Grams and Annie purr.