Hairy Podder and the Social Anxiety in Bloomington

Yesterday I arrived in Indiana and saw my friend Andrea for the first time in over a year.
The experience was surreal, both in the fact that I finally saw her after months of yearning and weeks of anticipating but also in the sense that it still feels surreal that I'm in the US at all. I also have an eerie sense that I'm more excited than I can actually feel. One side effect of being so heavily medicated is a general dulling of the senses; excellent when I'm in distress, a real bitch kick to the tits when something genuinely thrilling is occuring.

Andrea has shown me a true welcome to Bloomington, Indiana. We started the day with breakfast at The Runcible Spoon followed by a tour through the Bloomington Public Library and a spot of shopping on the main street where I found a belt to hold my jeans up. We then went to Mother Bear for excellent pizza, the post office to buy stamps (check your letter boxes folks, there's postcards a'comin) and a visit to Goodwill.

Oh American thrift store shopping, how I love thee! I found two fantastic striped tops, because a girl can never have too many striped tops (well, surely one could, but I don't. I only have 17) and fortuitously I also found a Gryffindor t-shirt which came in handy later this evening.

We also visited Bloomingfoods, Bloomington's amazing health/organic grocery store. I can't work out for the life of me why we don't have things like it back home. Over here Wholefoods and Trader Joe's and smaller places like Bloomingfoods seem to do roaring trades. I can't imagine that as a nation Australia doesn't have enough people interested in healthy eating that we couldn't support such a thing. Anyway, it was great. We bought chicken and cheese and crackers and salad ingredients and I even treated myself to a 16oz coffee with organic soy creamer.

This evening we went to a place called Rachael's Cafe where a number of bands were playing including Harry and the Potters (hence the fortuitous t-shirt). There was a fairly average band opening and then a totally kick-ass band called Busman's Holiday. They sounded something like Vampire Weekend mixed with Wilco but influenced by Beirut. I loved them. I had no cash with me to buy from their merch stall but their drummer told me where I can buy their CD and I will. Tomorrow.

Then the headline act came on. Their two main inspirations were clearly metal and Harry Potter, an unlikely mix, but one that was proving very popular. The first thing I noticed was that they pronounced Harry with a drawled 'a' and Potter with a soft 't' which sounded hilarious to me. The room had gotten really packed by this stage and I was already sweating with my woollen top under my Gryffindor tee. I felt like I was being hedged in a bit so excused myself to have a cigarette out in the freezing, freezing cold. Feeling calmed and refreshed I went back inside and rejoined the enthusiastic crowd. Once again I started feeling a bit panicky so I bought another beer hoping the social lubricant would help the impinging people slide right past me. It didn't really work like that.

I've never been crazy about crowds but I'm much worse now than I used to be. I'm glad I went tonight because I did have a good time, some of the music was amazing and it was so great to be hanging out with Andrea again but I'm going to need to think of things I can do, long term, to help me get through such busy social situations.

Anyway, tonight is done. Tomorrow we have exciting plans to visit the Indianapolis Museum of Art and then go to a talk with Crispin Glover followed by a screening of his new movie. Fun times!

P.S. It's cold

Greetings from Orange County

It's the last night of the first leg of this little journey I'm taking.
I'm glad this was the first leg of my trip. My tussle with jet lag and attempt to reset my body clock really needed to happen somewhere relaxed, and I'll tell you, there's nowhere more relaxed than Southern California.

I've been staying with my great-aunt and my second cousins have been visiting too and really we've been up to a whole lot of not much. Out for lunch a few times, a spot of shopping (new jeans! New boots!) and a visit this morning at my request to ihop (that is the international house of pancakes for those of you not in the know) for an item on the menu that they call Rooty Tooty Fresh n'Fruity. This is bacon, eggs, sausages on one plate and pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on another plate. That's one of the things I love about America. I mean that menu item specifically but also the idea that you don't need to decide between savoury and sweet in the morning, just go both. It's like making breakfast a two course meal. Genius!

I thought perhaps the novelty of being in the U.S. would be diminished since I lived here for a whole year but I'm still finding myself in conniptions at the sound of all the accents, the glossiness of all the food and the way they graphically explain the side effects of every drug they advertise on tv. I found out some things about Cymbalta I didn't even know about and I'm taking it! Did you know it can be used to treat chronic pain but can also cause increased sweating? Wow and ew!

I love seeing all my extended family but I feel a little out of synch here in SoCal. I'm a pasty-white, non-driving urbanite who only wears sweat pants to the gym. And I am perpetually lost as all the streets are long, straight, 6 lane highways and all the buildings are low-rise beige or terracotta stucco structures circa 1970. I can't find a landmark to take my bearings from.

So tomorrow I once again say goodbye to my extended family and make my way to Indianapolis via Denver where waiting for me is my dear dear friend. I can't wait!

So close

Passport arrived, visa organised, bags packed, bring on Saturday.

I bought $140 worth of medication to take with me, I have a letter from my psychiatrist and spare Seroquel and Temazepam in case things all get a bit to much (I should clarify, I will be using these drugs for their intended purposes at appropriate dosages. No current self harm thoughts.)

It was interesting when I was filling out my US visa waiver application, they ask if you have any communicable diseases or mental or physical conditions that could render you a threat to yourself or others. I had to very carefully read the definition as I do actually have a mental condition which has in the past caused me to be a threat to myself. There was an option which stated that if you do have a mental condition that has caused you to be a threat but it's unlikely it will reoccur then answer no, so I went with no.

But what is the likelihood of reoccurence? Well, the answer is pretty high. I mean not immediately, despite the rough patches I've experienced over the past week, but in my lifetime, yeah, I'm probably going to have more episodes.

I feel now more than ever before that I am dealing with a lifelong condition which affects me every day. I think my brain was somehow changed by the psychotic episode last year. My brain works differently and has moments most days where it goes a bit loopy and there's chatter and free association taking place all througout my head which I have no part in but just observe. I also wonder if I have some PTSD type symptoms as I have flashbacks from my episode and I startle easily.

That might make my ever so soon trip sound like a foolish idea. Clearly I'm not yet well, clearly I'm still fragile and to make matters worse I may have just lied on my US visa waiver application, but really, if there's no knowing what may come, if the next episode is waiting around the corner then I actually need to make the very most of the time I do have when I'm not incapacitated.

Pro re nata

I've had some shaky days. Literally and figuratively.

The monsters that creep and prowl around my head have been fed and are hungry for more. They gobble every setback, doubt, frustration or hostile encounter and grow stronger. My reserves are depleted and when I look through my arsenal there are few things that actually assist. 

I have smoked more cigarettes, eaten more chocolate and wasted more time on the Internet. These things pass moments but don't help overall. I've spoken to my family a lot these past few days and that has helped somewhat. And then there's the thing that really works but I'm loathe to use, Seroquel.

Seroquel is my PRN (pro re nata - Latin for "as the circumstance arises") to take when I am anxious. It leaves me in a zombie-like state but it also takes the edge of my anxiety like nothing else. It completely calms my shakes and makes every thought innocuous. When I take my PRN Seroquel the only thing I'm good at is sitting in one spot and staring into space.

It also leaves me with a Seroquel hangover by which I mean the following day I'm dopey and tired. At least 12 people told me how tired I looked today and I'm not looking forward to in the future discovering careless mistakes I've made today in my semi-stoned state.

I wish I had more resilience so that I didn't need to take medication. I wish there was something I could take that would ease my anxiety without completely stripping my personality. I wish I could live in a zen bubble devoid of all negativity. But what's the saying? If wishes were fishes the sea would be full.

The liver is evil?

No, the liver is fine.  The kidneys too are fine, as is the thyroid.
The likelihood is I got a little too much lithium in my system, my body went a bit crazy for a few hours, metabolised and filtered as it's supposed to and regained a normal level.

Still, the shaky thing left me shaken and frustrated, which I think you pick up on in my last post from the whiny tone I chose to take. And sometimes when I'm frustrated or feeling uncertain I make some dubious decisions.

I got drunk last night.

I don't know if I meant to get drunk. It started off as just one beer with some colleagues before the opening night of The Other Place. Admittedly it was my first beer of 2013 so perhaps it was the fact that I was reminded of how much I like beer that led to me having a second beer when my friend showed up. Then we watched the play and afterwards there were the opening night drinks. It's always fun to scull a glass or two of free wine and surreptitiously gawk at celebrities. So that's what I did. And then because I remembered that I had so enjoyed my beer, I had another beer. Then I decided I should go home so I went to leave but my boss said, "Hey, let's go up to Curve Bar and have one more drink," so I went up to Curve Bar and had two more drinks. Then the bar closed so I really did have to pour myself into a cab and go home.

As last night was my first drunken night of 2013 I also had the great pleasure of my first hangover for 2013 today. I would like to thank coffee, corn chips and Gatorade for getting me through it.

Now the reason I think this might have been a dubious decision is that I haven't been drinking up until now, save for a glass of wine I had over dinner with my Dad one night. Some people ask me if I'm allowed to drink, and I've even asked the same question of my psychiatrist and his response is that I'm allowed to do whatever I want in my life. But... Alcohol dehydrates you, which the lithium already does so drinking will make me more dehydrated, drinking has a sedative effect which the Zyprexa also has so drinking will make me more sleepy, alcohol is a depressant so it will contradict the antidepressants I take and lastly, any of the stupid things you regret doing or the defeating feelings a hangover brings will be magnified because they're already things my bipolar brain does to itself.

But yes, technically I am allowed to drink.

I can't help but wonder if my frustration at my body for having such an uncontrollable outburst led me to punish that same body with a drinking binge. Or maybe I was testing my body, pushing it to see if any more cracks would show, bringing it all to a head now rather than later. Or perhaps I wanted an escape from being bipolar and just wanted to do what everyone around me was doing and enjoy my night. I don't know.

I do know I had a fun night with people whose company I greatly appreciate and despite the yearning for a way to intravenously introduce caffeine into my blood stream this morning, my hangover wasn't too terrible.

I don't think I'm going to make a regular thing of getting drunk, but it's kind of nice to know that the option hasn't been cut off by bipolar. I can still do regular things and in the words of Wayne Campbell "And I still know how to party!"

Oh this is so inconvenient

Today started as any normal day; I woke up, ate breakfast, went to work, was inundated by emails, decided I hated my job, had free theatre tickets dropped on my desk, remembered I loved my job, swivelled on my chair a bit and thought about lunch. 

Then the not so normal thing happened. My vision went blurry and I started to shake so badly that I couldn't hold my pen.

I took my glasses off and held on to my desk, trying to focus and stop the tremor. I thought perhaps it was a panic attack so I tried to slow my breath, but I was still breathing at an even pace and my heart wasn't racing. I went to the bathroom, really because I didn't know what else to do. My tremor was so severe that I could see myself shaking in the mirror, even through my double vision. I have been warned that with the amount of medication I take there's the potential for the drug levels to become toxic. 

I went to my bosses office and when she asked what I wanted, I held out my hands and told her I couldn't stop shaking and needed to get to a doctor. She walked me outside as I tried through shaking hands to call my doctor. I got through and when I explained what was wrong with me he told me to come straight in. 

All my obs came back within the range of normal, my pulse rate was up a little and my temperature was higher than usual. I didn't have enough of the symptoms to suggest I have serotonin syndrome, but my doctor couldn't rule out an adverse reaction to lithium or a change to my thyroid or kidney function. I was sent away with the reassurance that I probably wouldn't die and to go to hospital if I developed any other symptoms. 

My tremor has now calmed down to an almost undetectable shake and I'm off to get a full panel of blood tests tomorrow morning. I'm worried that this episode is going to mean a change to my medication regime and that is something I'm really not excited about doing a week and a half before I go overseas. There's always the danger with medication changes that my mood will take a dip and I really don't need that when I'm going through the already stressful experience of changing time zones and going through airports. Of course there's nothing I can do but hope symptoms don't progress and that any medication changes are kind to me.

So it's a very shaky sign-off from me tonight.

Honk If Your An Aussie

I spent the long weekend with my parents at their beach house. I even went to the beach one day and waded out into the water in my grandma-style, green, striped, skirted bathing suit that I bought at Savers. And everyone on the beach had the good grace not to gasp, point or sneer at my irridescent skin or luscious underarm hair growth.

Australia Day was the Saturday and we had no real plans to celebrate this auspicious event but drove in to Rye to see what was happening. Celebrations were afoot there. A childrens entertainer was singing interactive songs for the offspring of the nearby campers, a sign promised there would be fireworks later and a group of thick-necked Meditaranean looking men were engaged in a game of soccer.

There were also a large number of young people (oh god - how old am I, really? But you know who I'm talking about when I say young people, you know, young people, yoof!) getting about with Australian flag paraphernalia; t-shirts, hats, singlets, crop tops, temporary tattoos and of course the traditional flag draped around the neck as cape.

On the road in to Rye there was a bunch of flag-clad young people camped on the side of the road with a cardboard sign reading 'Honk If Your (sic) An Aussie'. I found the whole thing distasteful, not least because of the grammar gaff or the fact that as a nation we should be able to find a better day to celebrate than the day our genocide of the indigenous population commenced, but also because I wonder what particular brand of Aussie-ness these young people are so fervently in support of. I fear it's an Aussie-ness that embraces sport watching, larrikinism, sportiness, a 'she'll be right' attitude, sportsman idolisation, male dominance, anti-intellectualism or at least dismissal of those considered 'up themselves' and sport. This is tar I do not care to be brushed with. Mostly because I greatly enjoy being up myself.

But I do love Australia and some of the fine things about being an Australian. But my love is a cautious, tempered love and not unerring.

I love that we have an elected Prime Minister who is a woman, unmarried and atheist. Yet I was appalled by the party politics that initially led to her appointment and I consider it a great shame that so much political dialogue still revolves around party politics rather than the issues at hand. And while it's great that she's a female and unmarried we should not see this as a sign that women's struggles for equality are over or that we're shifting anywhere away from a heteronormative society.

It was one of the things I waxed lyrical about in the U.S., my prized affordable education. But I'm angered by the cuts to universities, particularly as they are hitting hardest the Arts and Humanities.I need art, literature, history and philosophy to have any understanding of life. You can get a scientist to tell me about the atoms I'm made of, but I'm more interested in the stories that as people we can make.

I also often discussed our brilliant universal health care system with my friends in the U.S. But mental health is one of the areas of our public health system that desperately needs an overhaul. I have received excellent mental health care for one reason only, money. I'm lucky that I have family that support me and can help foot the bill for my private health insurance, psychology appointments, psychiatry appointments and medications. Most people are not as fortunate as I am. Mental illness impoverishes people and then further frustrates them by being expensive and difficult to access. Beds on public wards are hard to come by and many mental health professionals attest that admission to a public mental health ward can actually exacerbate mental health issues due to the environment on the ward.

I feel guilty sometimes that there are people out there suffering from far worse conditions than I but without the supports that I have. It is only because of these supports that I have any chance of living something that resembles a normal and productive life. I really do wish we had a true universal health care system in Australia, that cares for the health of every Australian, not just those lucky to be born like me.