Category Archives: mental illness

a purple Gaiam yoga mat

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It’s just a purple Gaiam yoga mat, nothing special about it aside from the fact that it’s thicker than the Gaiam “original” model, and it has a lovely lavender side to complement the opposite deep purple side that is the typical yoga mat color. This purple Gaiam, slightly thicker, yoga mat stared at me from the offerings in the Target fitness aisle. Somehow, after my Monday night chemical dependency treatment process class, I found myself standing in front of this yoga mat priced at $29.99 with a strange pull to make the irrational purchase. And irrational it was because I was down to less than $200 in the checking account with the bevy of psychiatry appointments I’d had in the past 3 weeks, enough to add up to a car payment on a new fully loaded SUV. But payday was in close sight, and I had no idea why, but I needed this mat, and I needed it that very night. I don’t even recall how or what led me to this aisle, or even this store. My assessment is that the universe said to me, “Girl, you need this …” and so I heeded the directive, and purchased said yoga mat.

I had been staying at Dan’s place for nearly a month when I made that strange trip to Target to get a yoga mat. It started incongruously the day of my birthday party, the last Saturday in September. I went through all the motions at my party, talking to people, making myself not cry, not turn into a pile of goo. But at the end of the night, I said to Dan, “Can I come over?” And he said, “sure, but you need to give me a ride as well because I walked here.” I drove us to his place, and I barely remember putting myself down on the couch. Somehow, the sofa bed was opened, sheets were put on, and a pillow found it’s way under my head. One night became nearly a month.

Doc didn’t want to put me in the hospital because he feared it would do more damage than good. Yet, no one disagreed that I could not be home alone. So, there I was with my ex-boyfriend, on his couch on the eve of his annual gaming convention that he puts on every year. The timing could barely have been worse. Towards the end, I started to remember why we broke up in the first place. His place started to feel like less of a sanctuary, and more of a self-imposed halfway house of sorts.

At Dan’s place I immediately opened up the yoga mat, between the sofa bed and the tv in the living room,  I was met with a most unwelcome chemical smell coming off the mat. Still though, I was undaunted, annoyed, but still undaunted. I had not been to a yoga class in more years than I could even quantify. I couldn’t recall a single thing from yoga class in that moment on that smelly mat. So I just moved. I moved and stretched, and tried will all my might to set an intention and focus on it all the while just moving, moving, moving .. just to do something. I desperately needed a something to do in my life as my job had gone to shit, and, at that moment, I was on medical leave.

I’ve always challenged myself, and I never fully realized, until this experience, that challenging myself is a a big part of who I am, and when I do not have this I am lost. I look back and realize that the best jobs I’ve had forced me out of my comfort zone, and pushed me to do better, and keep reaching outside of myself. Losing this with my job situation falling apart led me to the moment where I needed yoga. I needed something to do, and I needed to challenge myself again. In a way, yoga became my job when my actual job disintegrated in front of me.

Somehow, even with that yoga mat purchase, I did not expect in find myself in an actual yoga class. But, that’s exactly what happened. And so far it’s happened 11 times in 30 days. I’ll keep coming back with my smelly mat.

a grey hoodie and black yoga pants

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It is entirely possible to wear a grey hoodie and black yoga pants too many days of the week. Initially, one might not think this is possible. But, after three and a half weeks of not working, such attire has become a uniform of sorts. And uniforms inevitably start to have an unfun feeling to them. The grey hoodie and black yoga pants have become the uniform of absenteeism, illness, and feeling down and out. The grey hoodie and black yoga pants have gone from fun after work/weekend lounge clothes to a uniform I no longer want. I now find myself at a loss when I arrive home in the evening as I am already in my “evening lounge clothes.”

My weekly laundry is now down to one easy load full of yoga pants, t-shirts, and other related exercise and lounge wear along with the usual socks and underwear. Yesterday I had an appointment that required “real clothes” and I had to unearth my favorite black and blue Ralph Lauren dress with a long black flowy jacket. I put on the dress and jacket with the pearl necklace my sister gave me for my birthday years ago, black pantyhose and long black boots. It’s amazing what clothes do to the spirit. Just putting on this outfit restored some of my sense of usefulness.

Shiny orange running shorts and a print t-shirt, soft from repeated washings, with a chihuahua dog on the front that states, “No more stinkin’ tacos!” make up the new evening lounge wear. Given that the temperature outside has started to plummet, there is little chance that this getup can become the new uniform of being down and out.

Make the right choice

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Every year since 2008, this, right here, is the week that I dearly wish would pass by without notice. How lovely it would be to glance at the calendar in early September, and think, “Oh, hey, that typically dreaded horrible anniversary week in late August went right on by without notice. Look at that!”

Alas, but no, that is not the case. All the progress I’ve made to date feels like it’s slipping through my fingers, like thin beach sand that easily flows through our fingers as we let it fall. My body feels as dissociative and floaty as ever, as if I’ve not seen Doc for the last two years. The will to continue is dreadfully hard to yank out of me, and yank is exactly what I have to do in order to put one foot in front of the other, in order to not give in to the incessant thoughts of an end. An end that would be just that, an end with pain for others, and that is, sadly, what keeps me going this very moment -others. I am hardly continuing on for myself. No, right now there is too much regret over the life choices that led to that terrible week in late August of 2008. There is too much awareness of the fact that I threw my life into a deep and wide ditch that week from which I may never fully extract myself. Right now, I continue for others, like my two nephews whom I love, and though I know they think I’m goofy, they do look up to me. And what a terrible life lesson I would be dropping in their lap if I were to leave this earth by my own volition.

I know that if I were to make this choice that I would be presenting it to them as a viable choice, and I don’t want to be that person for them.

In order to try to shake the depressed feeling, I try to focus on the good fortune I have in my life.

The fact is this, there is not a whole hell of a lot that separates me from someone that is called a “consumer” in our statewide mental health system. Similar to someone that has a “serious and persistent mental illness,” or rather (SPMI) as it’s called, in my worst moments of DID and PTSD, things like laundry, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning become fantasies and dreams. But, because I have been blessed with resources I am able to send my laundry out to the wash-and-fold service, hire a cleaning service, and eat outside the home. Even with these services in play, I can still struggle with getting out of bed, getting into the shower, and getting dressed because I am floaty and dissociative. But at least in those instances I’ve narrowed down the things I must accomplish, which is the best way for me to have some semblance of success when I am in that state.

Even so, I am acutely aware of the fact that I have a job that pays me enough so that I can pay for the services I’ve mentioned above. This salary, and the fact that I have a friend that lets me stay with him when I am too afraid to be by myself, these are the only things that keep me from becoming part of the system of care.

And just when one would think I would sit here and feel blessed about my resources, I sit here and get scared instead. I get scared because I know it’s the job that provides the resources, which means I need to continue to do the job, and do the job well. Lately, when every morning is a fight with myself, I ask, “How much longer can I fight? How much longer can I juggle this?”

Then I loop back to my brain telling me that it’s a fruitless fight, and that’s when I remember why I threw myself at the mercy of my friend today, and asked if I could stay with him for a while. He said “sure” and asked me what was up, and between tears I said, “I get too scared by myself right now, and bad choices are floating in my brain.” He then took my hand, and said, “But you’re making a good choice now.”