Knock, Knock…

Imagine you’re paranoid and filled with nerve wracking anxiety.  Your only weapon against this is two little pills that are increasingly hard to obtain because all your loved ones feel they are addictive and mind altering.   On top of this, you keep hearing what sounds like car doors shutting.  You run to the bedroom window and look out.  Nothing is there.  It happens again.  It begins to happen at what seems like increasing intervals.   Your social anxieties are piqued.  You don’t want visitors – not feeling like this.  You look out your other bedroom window at your neighbor’s house.  Nothing.  You sit back down to smoke and read.  The smoking helps.  It calms you and is comforting.   You hear it again though.  The car doors.  You cringe.  The anxiety begins to mount again.   You call your stern father just increasing the anxiety at the thought of bothering him at work, but you have no other recourse.  “You take two clonazepam at night and that is enough,” he says almost heartlessly and hangs up.   You smoke more and more and begin to pace the floor.  You feel better.  Nervous energy is being released.   Your favorite radio show is now playing on the radio.  There is talk of the cosmos and physics.  You begin to think you understand the fabric of time.  There is a giddy, tantalizing feeling as you pace faster.   Your legs balk, but you continue on.  You walked all day yesterday, but that doesn’t stop you.   Your dog watches on like you are crazy.  You start to feel better mile after mile.   The anxiety melts away as you grow exhausted.   You continue to walk anyway. It seems to be the only way to stay sane.  Thus is my reality this morning and for many mornings for the past few weeks.  

My Thoughts for the Day…

Don’t Try to Befriend Me…

Wait until some day when they have medications that will cure my mental illness.  I am thinking genetics will be the next big breakthrough in psychiatry.  I need to ask my physician brother and sister.

My point is that I am incapable of friendships.  I am just too paranoid and suspicious of people and online activities.  Email pushes this certain button in me and many have written me over the years only for me to never respond back.  I am afraid to even open my email program these days for fear of what I may find.  They say to have a friend is to be a friend, and am unable to do such a thing due to my mental limitations it seems.  

One reason George is my friend is that he doesn’t take no for an answer.   He is the perfect fit for my illness as far as friendships go.  He will knock on the door until I answer and will call until I pick up the phone. He will come over and look in the window to see if I am sitting at this computer as usual.   He has no qualms about bothering me or forcing me out of the house. He is not afraid of my illness or my often odd social behavior. 

I once had another friend like this named Jay when I lived in Calera, Alabama in my late twenties.  We loved Birmingham Bulls hockey and drinking beer at the games.  He would drive me absolutely crazy until I got a shower, got dressed, got in his truck, and he drove us to a hockey game or the strip club, Lynn’s Den.  I was constantly paranoid that he didn’t like me, though, and that he just felt sorry for me.  Isn’t that crazy?  I guess that is why so many mentally ill people end up alone without family or friends.

More Midnight Shenanigans…

Mom called me after midnight again last night.  Mom is like me.  We keep weird hours.  I wasn’t going to answer the phone until I thought, “If I was having a tough time with my mental illness, then I would want mom and dad to answer at any time of the night.”  Mom wanted to bitch about dad and how he treats her, but I successfully avoided the subject.  Mom and I can have a weird relationship.  For years, we never talked.  Our mental illnesses in our later years have seemed to have developed this bond or truce between us.  One moment she can treat me like a dependent son like she did yesterday with my groceries.  The next, she is treating me like a brother or sister – an equal or confidant.   

My Thoughts at the End of the Day…

People Come and Go, and Strange Emails…

A lot of people have come and gone over the course of this blog.  I wonder what makes people stay around for a long time, and what makes people leave after reading for so long?  I guess my blog can get like a broken record, but aren’t all our lives mostly routine and mundane?  One lady named Kathy emailed me a few months ago and said she was quitting reading because of my religious views.   Religion and politics are two things I specifically avoid writing about on the blog due their their sensitive and polarizing nature and my eclectic views on both.   I didn’t even write back thinking it was probably for the best that she went her own way.  I didn’t even know her anyway.   I’d never even seen her comment.

When I had my Facebook badge on the blog, a lot of people befriended me that read, but never commented.  I had people emailing me privately in Facebook that I had no idea of who they were or what they were up to.  I piqued my paranoia badly.  I didn’t email back and probably pissed a lot of these people off – them thinking I was rude.   These people knew intimate details of my life and were talking to me like a long lost friend and I had no idea who they were or what their motives were.  I have one specifically doggedly determined Frenchman in regards to this on Facebook.  I no longer use Facebook.

And then there was the anonymous email I got the other night that sent chills down my paranoid schizophrenic spine.  It was a definite case of “big brother is watching”.  “We’re watching you!” is all it said in the subject line with nothing in the body with the strangest email address.  I will never forget the sinking feeling I felt for an hour after reading that!  You really gamble with your mental wellbeing when you talk so openly about your life and illness in a public forum such as the Internet.  There are all manner of strange things that can occur if you don’t have a thick skin and a good anti-psychotic to take! 

I Need a Favor From My Readers…

I am having tons of paranoia these past few days.  I just got around to checking my email today after a week or two of letting it languish.  Liz, you will be the first to get an email back.  Thank you for all your mail. I *heart* you!  Laura S., you are also in the queue to get an email from me.  It is flattering that you wrote a whole chapter about me in your thesis.  I will endeavor to read your thesis tonight and respond in kind.

What I need is someone to check the recent comments on the blog and email me back if they are safe to read or not.  I don’t need any triggering mechanisms emotionally at the moment.   I am very sensitive and paranoid right now about comments and emails, and just can’t take a lot of criticism.  I am being the proverbial ostrich with his mythical head in the sand.   So, if one of you, my friends, will help me out with this, I will go back and read all your comments and then try to start responding again as well. 

The Shadetree Mechanic…

A strange car pulled up in front of my house a little while ago.  Immediately my paranoia was piqued.  Did I have to answer the door?  Was I going to have to fool with strange visitors?  I turned off my loud stereo and stood in the kitchen, hiding, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door.  Then came the knock.   And another louder, more persistent knock.  “Hey! Andrew!  It’s George! Come to the door!” Phew! I was about to have an anxiety attack for a moment there. 

“I bought a new car,” George said.  “It’s a fixer upper.”

In front of my house was a 1984 Chevrolet Caprice Classic.  It looked in good shape for such an old car.  The paint was in fair condition and there was no body damage that I could see. 

“I am going to fix it up real nice,” George told me chomping on a cigar. “I paid $1500 dollars for it.  The engine doesn’t even use oil and it only has 98,000 miles on it.”

George and I rode down by the elementary school making a loop and coming back to my house.

“You’re going to have a great time fixing this old car up,” I told George getting out of the car. “It runs great.”

“I needed a hobby and I have lots of money now that I stopped drinking,” George replied with a grin.

I was proud for George.  George is no stranger to keeping an older car running after driving that 1981 Dodge Diplomat for decades.  This was just another sign of the good sobriety was doing in his life.  

“What is the first thing you are going to do to it?” I asked George as we stood in my front yard.

“New paint job and upholstery,” he replied.  “Dark Corvette emerald green on the outside and tan on the inside.”

“Sharp!” I said grinning.

George finally headed for home to eat a late breakfast and get in his sleep before working again another night.  I don’t think I’ve been prouder for George in years. 

Thoughts for the Day…

Schizophrenia saved me in a way.  I know it’s ironic, but schizophrenia saved my addictive personality ass from doing hardcore drugs.  I would probably be dead now if I got hooked on crack, meth or prescription pain killers.  I was always too paranoid of the police and was always too lazy and paranoid to go through the hassle of getting all that money for the drugs and dealing with drug dealers.   Alcohol was a depressant.  It subdued my mental illness symptoms.   Most days of my drinking career would be spent in a mellow stupor.  Alcohol was cheap in a relative sense – a 12 pack of ice beer being only $6.99 and a good drunk at that.  It was also just a convenience store away.

Genius is genius…

I discovered Apple’s iTunes Genius feature last night.  I will never go back to regular radio again.  I had hours of almost unlimited varied music due to my extensive mp3 library.  I stayed up way too late last night lying on the bed with Maggie listening to good and interesting music.   It was like I had rediscovered my music library all over again.  I heard songs I never knew I owned. 

Twittering…

I’ve rediscovered Twitter again in earnest after about a year’s absence from that social media.  It really helps to have a lot of interesting people to follow, but you have to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.  I find people who I like and then follow the people they follow.  It then takes a few days to follow their tweets and unfollow the motivational quote quoters and the Internet business marketing guru types.   I also hate the constant link linkers.  I have to unfollow them as well.  I want to hear about your day or what interests you that interests me.   Interestingly, I have found the people that claim to be writers are the worst twitterers.  They spend all their time writing about the art of writing and never actually do any interesting writing – nothing creative or interesting at all.  I have had to unfollow dozens and dozens of so called writers for their completely insipid tweets.   

If You’re Crazy and You Know It…

A few months ago, I was lying in bed when I felt this strange sensation in my mind. “Oh Shit!” my mind frantically screamed.  It was the beginning of one my especially troublesome bouts with schizophrenia – one of many.  I immediately jumped up and dialed mom’s number, but hung up before she could answer.  Dad would be angry with me.  I called 911 and they took me to the emergency room.  I talked some to the paramedics, but as my illness progressed in it’s intensity, I grew quiet and withdrawn.  

In the emergency room, I began to believe the doctors and nurses were laughing at me.  They sent in person after person to talk to me. “But they’re laughing at me!” my mind screamed.   I would stare at the ceiling and just rock back and forth.  I wouldn’t say a word – even when they sent in an extremely kind social worker to talk to me.  Each person would leave the room frustrated.  They all wanted to help me, but I couldn’t communicate with them to tell them what was wrong.  It was maddening in it’s most maddening sense.  I could still hear the nurses laughing at me down at the nurses station down the hall!

I was freezing cold and had balled up on the upright hospital bed trying to stay warm as mom walked in the room.  “Thank you God!” I said at the sight of her.  It was the first words I had spoken in the two hours I had been in the emergency room. 

“Dr. Shriver doesn’t know what to do with you,” mom said with bed hair.  “They say you won’t tell them what’s wrong.”

“They’re laughing at me mom!”

I could hear the nurses cackling.  Just then, the doctor walked in.

“We are going to sedate him and send him home with you,” he told my mother. “Let him sleep until he feels better.”

“He says y’all are laughing at him,” mom told the doctor.

The doctor frowned and instructed a nurse practitioner to get me some medications – something to calm me down and something to help me sleep.

“Mom, this was a mistake,” I said with a pleading air to my voice. “I want to go home with Maggie.”

I remember mom getting me home and in the bed.  I distinctly remember Maggie jumping up on the bed with me and she began to lick my hair which aggravated me and soothed me at the same time.   I went to sleep and slept for 14 to 15 hours and was a different person mentally when I woke up.  The storm had passed.  You know the hardest part of this whole ordeal?  I knew it was happening.  I knew I was acting and thinking crazy.  It was as if I had two minds – a schizophrenic mind and a rational, sane mind.  I will never forget the futility I felt in that emergency room for as long as I live.  I hope it never happens again.  

Symptoms These Days…

Oh, how far I have come.  Through dad’s help, I take my medications religiously.  I haven’t had a drink in three years.  The pieces of the puzzle of wellbeing have just fallen in place the past few years.  You know what makes me hesitate to write about this? Social Security.  I occasionally get hits on my site meter from government types.  I worry they think I am “cured” and can go back to work.  There is no cure for schizophrenia, just management of the symptoms.  I don’t know if I can handle the stress of a job however small.  I guess that speaks little of me.  I should get some derision from my anonymous commenter for writing that. lol

Some current symptoms I am having are extreme paranoia about the drug dealer next door.  I have never seen so many strange and familiar cars in my life.  Being obsessive compulsive, I constantly check my locks in the house and on my car.  Last night, there was a huge party next door and a vicious fight erupted.  I could hear screaming and hollering. “What you gonna do homeboy?” one fellow kept saying.  I’m afraid to call the police for fear of repercussions. 

Dad, the eternal optimist, says he is just getting lots of “pussy”.   He’s got lots of girls visiting and is a Don Juan of sorts. I keep my mouth shut as there is no arguing with dad. 

“What about the police detectives car that keeps showing up at various times?” I asked dad.

“Oh, that is just his police force friend.  He’s just coming by to see him,” dad replied.

I let out a muffled laugh. 

“You’re seeing things from your grandmother’s point of view,” dad added. “She always thought her neighbors were up to no good and were dealing drugs.  It was a sickness.  You’re acting like that.”

I sighed.  “I guess so,” I said giving in. 

“Look on the positive side,” dad told me. “He’s getting some pussy, drinking some beer, and having a helluva time!”

I didn’t bring up the fact that he drives a 2010 Jaguar, an extremely sharp car, with $2000 chrome rims and he doesn’t work.

I guess paranoia can best be summed up as excessive, excessive worry.  It is also hard to tell what is reasonable worry and what is not.  You get so caught up in the process that you lose focus with reality.   

Schizophrenia Be Gone...

It's been a good two weeks mentally.  How fortuitous that this would happen at the holidays.  It's as if some great kind hand swept me up from my mental pain and said, "Enough! You may rest now!"  The only symptom I am having these past few days is paranoia about the drug dealer next door.  I am constantly looking out the window as the multitude of strange cars come and go.  I check my locks in the house and on the car constantly.   I stay up all night and cars came and went until the wee hours of the morning like they do every night.  I wish George would have never brought it to my attention. 

I am enamored with the Twilight Saga of audiobooks.  I never thought I would be so enthralled by a strange vampire romance novel.  Werewolves and strange vampires abound in the books.  I have also never read the Harry Potter series of books and plan on doing that when mom gets home.  She has them in the garage.  All of them.  Unless I c0uld get the audiobooks which would be preferable.  I doubt our tiny library has them.

I've been trying to play video games lately for the first time in a very long time.  I received Dragon Age: Origins for Christmas.  It all feels so mindless and like work, though.  Go here, kill that, do this.  I am trying and we will see if I can finish the game.  Dad gave me a Nintendo Wii last Christmas and Charlie bought me several games he thought I would like.  I never played it more than a few times.  I just couldn't get interested in it and it was so wildly popular.  Why it was so popular escaped me.  What a waste of $300. 

Momma's Baby's Got the Vapors...

Dad made an emergency trip to Birmingham yesterday afternoon after work.  It was a whirlwind trip and it worried me.   Mom tagged along and I know she will be just wasted today.  My sister's baby is sick.  It is a two and half hour drive.  

Well, when I called, Dad said the baby was much better - doing fine.  He just wanted an excuse to see his grand kids and I don't blame him.   I would, too.   I couldn't help but be jealous, though.   He lives five minutes from me and only stops by to bring me my morning medications.   I shouldn't sully this blog post with all that paranoid personal family crap though.

I feel iffy today (took my Lithium last yesterday on a whim).  Kinda on the borderline of panic or fine.  I couldn't go to Mrs. Jones' for breakfast.   It is a strange territory to be in.  I said loudly a moment ago to myself, "If  I am going to have an attack, let's just go ahead and get it over with!"  Maggie looked up at me like I was crazy as she lay at my feet.  "Yes! I am!" I told her of my craziness and she smartly moved into the den where it was much safer.  

Partisan Poop...

What do you do when your favorite blog on homelessness gets hijacked by the author's brash opinions on partisan politics?  I wrote a kind request to the author hoping he would move such material to a separate blog.  The sad thing is that he usually does the opposite of what people ask him to do.

I try not to write about politics and religion.  They are just too polarizing.  I once made some snide remarks about conservative talk radio hosts and how stupid they are.  I ran off several valued readers doing so.  It seems the country is neatly divided into two camps: democrat and republican.   I call myself a moderate that falls in the middle of the spectrum of the two partisan groups. 

******

Dad left mom forty dollars for us to eat on tonight.  Mom and I both agreed that a fried catfish plate from Rodger's Barbecue would be delicious.  We weren't disappointed.  Mom stayed for several hours as we watched old episodes of Forensic Files.   

Dad also left my medications with mom for her to give them to me.  That was a shocking first.  It was nice not having to wait until bedtime to take my medications.

******

Dealing with a lot of schizophrenia related paranoia today.  I am scared to look at my comments for fear of being berated.    I got it into my head earlier today that Social Security was reading my blog and I almost deleted it.  I came so very close. 

Men in Blue

This morning found me once again down at the corner store, drinking free coffee, and talking to my favorite clerk. I know I am starting to sound like a broken record. I am a creature of habit. The police were out in full force this morning, fueling their patrol cars, and it made me nervous. I have terrible luck and I just knew something from my drinking past would pop up to bite me in the ass.

"Oh, they're harmless," my favorite clerk said of the police after one had just left.

"Well, when I was drinking I would do things and then not remember them the next day," I replied. "I am always worried my past is going to come back to haunt me."

"That must be a terrible feeling," he told me.

"Tell me about it!" I exclaimed. "It is a horrible feeling! I have this nagging feeling I have warrants out for my arrest."

"You still going to AA?"

"I haven't been in weeks," I replied. "I am on my sixteenth day of sobriety, though. I just haven't wanted to drink and that is a miracle."

"Maybe your cured."

"They say once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic," I replied. "I don't think I am cured. The day I think I am cured is the day I will drink again."

I left my clerk friend to walk over to that little park by the cotton mill. It was too cold to linger, though, and my coffee had run out with my hands growing bitterly cold. I walked back home taking in the full glory of all the Christmas lights in my neighborhood. A sliver of a crescent moon was on the Eastern horizon and hung low along with Venus. It was a beautiful morning, a beautiful sight, and a fine start to the day despite my nagging paranoia about the police. "What tangled webs we weave," was my thought on my past drinking as I trudged home in the predawn dark.