Our Irreverent Little Joke…

Charlie stopped by again late last night.  He spent most of the afternoon trimming back the wild grown shrubbery over at his new house (the drug dealer’s house) in between bouts of pouring rain.  He left to go take Horsefly to the movies and to get his Dora doll, and then stopped by on his way back into the Valley.  I was already in the bed at nine – Maggie astutely alerting me that someone had pulled up in front of the house.  I have so much enjoyed not having that nightly medication ritual that went on for years – me being able to go to bed early without having to wait up for dad to come and he would always be so late – never being cognizant of my needs and that I get up so early. 

“I brought you Jesus fingers,” Charlie said laughing handing me a Styrofoam dinner box. “Here they are. Enjoy!”

Jesus fingers is our irreverent joke for the chicken finger plate from a little Christian restaurant establishment down in Opelika.  They sell the best chicken fingers you have ever eaten.  Horsefly just loves them eating them like it was his last meal – Charlie ever worried he is going to get choked.  Inside the establishment is plastered with bible verses and Christian sayings. Inside the box was a container of slaw, six fried to perfection chicken breast fingers, spicy fries, Texas toast, and some dipping sauce.  Maggie went nuts at the smells.  I unabashedly gave her a few fingers feeling generous last night which she relished.

“I’m not very religious,” Charlie said. “But they do have the best food. Their chicken finger plates are addicting.”

Charlie soon left noticing I was already in my pajamas. We hugged each other and said I love you.  I ate my box of food sitting on the bed Indian style and watching Nancy Grace on CNN, and was soon fast asleep getting seven hours of fitful sleep last night.

The Seventh Week of Work…

I believe tomorrow starts my seventh week of work (I am starting to lose track – each week seeming like the last).  I am off today – Sunday traditionally being my day off. We are going to have to add an extra day off soon – Walmart frowning on overtime. I don’t know what to do with myself with Stacey not getting home until late this afternoon and with me not working.  I think I will call my elderly neighbor a few blocks over and tell her I can cut her shrubbery after all today if the weather cooperates.  I still have 8 clients whose yards will need cutting in a week or two – especially after all the tropical rain we are getting.  I have decided to keep them already being committed. I got a call yesterday about mowing a lawn and told them I would call them back when the weather let up and I could do it.  I am such a waffling fool – not knowing what to do next. I know ya’ll get tired of this about me. It must be so frustrating reading my blog these days.  I do know I am feeling much less tired now from working full time – felling more able for “extracurricular” activities.  A few days there, I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but I hung in there. I am now ensconced in a comfortable stasis about fulltime work.

Charlie Brown Syndrome…

“The Homeless Guy” wrote this yesterday on Facebook…

“I spend a great deal of energy just trying to be acceptable, and yet I rarely achieve it.” 

A Facebook “friend” wrote back…

“Just be yourself. If people don't like it, it's their loss!”

Kevin then wrote…

“It's my loss too, if I'm always alone.”

I know being alone.  After George went to jail, sometimes my only visitor for days on end would be dad at night with my medications and he wouldn’t stay long – really not interested in how my life was going as long as I was taking my medications and things were quiet. He was terrible company to have always causing me lots of anxiety.

Kevin has thousands of “friends” on Facebook yet not one visits him on a regular basis.  Even with social anxiety, humans are such social creatures – seeking out the company of others even if it is uncomfortable.  I wanted to write to him to get out and start volunteering in homelessness efforts instead of sitting in McDonald’s all day writing about politics. I knew he would “unfriend” my stealth persona of Martha Leah if I wrote that though.  I found my current love interest and friends by returning to work and “getting out in the world.”  Sometimes, you have to go to where social is and not wait for it to come to you as he keeps expecting. You also have to give of yourself which will be very hard of Kevin to do – having a friend takes being a friend first and foremost.  For years, he took and took and never gave back.  I fear it is a habit that is going to be hard to break for him.  People don’t like being used.  I also can’t escape the fact that he is entirely unlikable and irascible to be blunt and honest.  I have come to the conclusion that he is your classic example of a sociopath. If you went to see him, he would expect you to buy him lunch.  That turns people off.

Mental Wellness…

I didn’t realize how physically sick I was until I came off all those medications. I was extremely, extremely over medicated.  Things mentally have been so nice lately.  Each week gets better and better – my confidence in my mental health growing with every day.  I realized my diagnosis was wrong – that I was not schizophrenic nor bipolar.  I just had a problem with severe substance abuse which would exhibit signs of mental illness.  After all, drinking heavily will make you crazy and paranoid thus my initial diagnosis by a doctor in LaGrange which each subsequent doctor would carry over. They often say in AA that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. My insanity was drinking myself into oblivion to feel better, but I just kept feeling worse.  I do have problems with compulsiveness and an all or nothing nature, but I chalk that up to just being a part of my personality.  It is okay to have a few quirks I have decided.  It makes me interesting as a person as long as it doesn’t make my life unbearable and takes over my wellbeing.  Charlie will often say we are all crazy in our own special way.

Dad’s issue with the medications was that it was a method of social control. It really wasn’t about my mental health or he would embrace the new me and my new found mental health.  I couldn’t work and go about life on all those medications which kept him in control.  It kept me at home quiet and complacent afraid to go out of the house allowing him to live his life unfettered.  I had to play my role of the sick mentally ill docile son to keep my family happy much to my detriment.  I couldn’t make waves without severe consequences. Many threats and much coercion has been thrown about over these past few weeks of independence. My extreme anxiety also caused me to be very extremely adverse to any confrontations for fear I would have one of my major attacks which are the scariest things I have ever encountered. 

With my newfound independence, I also wanted to dabble again with the drinking thinking I could drink like a normal person. I so wanted to emulate George. I also wanted to so emulate Albert’s nightly sunset brews finding that so alcoholically romantic.  I quickly learned after all these years of not drinking which was forced upon me that I just didn’t like how it made me feel anymore. I don’t want to feel badly. Hangovers are the most horrible experience.  I would even be so bold as to say they were more uncomfortable than the extreme anxiety I would experience from time to time. I’ve gotten so used to feeling well mentally and emotionally that I didn’t want to upset the careful balance I’ve obtained this past month.  

A sad fact of when I revealed I was no longer mentally ill was that many of my online friends with mental illness shied away from me.  As if mental illness was this exclusive club for which I was no longer a member.  I have found myself shunned on Twitter lately in these regards.  I guess I should be proud I am no longer a part of their club.  It was far too much drama for me anyway.  

So what’s in store for me mentally and medicinally?  To soon be antipsychotic free and to only have to take one pill a day, my Paxil.  The Risperdal, I have found, makes me feel very tired and fatigued.  A common side effect.  Many of these antipsychotics have the terrible side effect of extreme drowsiness.  My doctor warned me the week before last that I was going to experience some insomnia when I come off Risperdal.  I just hope it doesn’t last long.