Everything is Coming Up Weeds

I can’t get a coherent post together, so this one is just some mental dumping until some fully formed thoughts can coalesce.

I think I’ve walked into a portal to another dimension. Can I click my heels three times and get back to the way things were?

Everything is coming up weeds right now, a bit haywire, a bit wrong.

Most of my time the last few weeks has been spent prone in my bed, not being able to sleep, struggling to walk, breathe, eat. These things are still important, right? 

I should write a 12 bar blues about living on just Gin Gins and Ensure. The Bedridden Blues. Maybe I will.

I’ve been extremely depressed. Not just the ups and downs. I’ve been treated for depression most of my life, and I know that I don’t necessarily talk about mental health much here. But I need to. I will. Depression waxes and wanes, but it never really leaves. I can’t shake it. I haven’t talked about it not as a matter of shame but because if I acknowledge it, it means it isn’t a fleeting moment. It suggests more permanence and that’s a thought I don’t want. 

My psychiatrist, who I have been seeing for about 15 years, long before illness came into my life, has been trying to convince me to add on to my regimen to treat this round of depression. Two weeks ago I finally relented and tried something new. My body immediately expressed its dislike of that drug. I was so nauseous it was hard to brush my teeth without gagging. It made my insomnia much worse. It made my muscle paralysis worse. But I tried to stay strong on it for 7 days. On day 7, I called her and said I quit. I hate to be a quitter but the cost was outweighing the benefit. It wasn’t worth it. 

Rolling the dice with medication is my least favorite carnival game. 

I don’t know if I’d feel this awful if I wasn’t on the drug. It’s always difficult to tell: broken or side effects? It’s impossible to know. Either way, I’ve been pushing my body so hard every day to try to exercise and move, but only making myself worse. So now I’m trying to let my body win and just rest. Let my brain just spin wildly and let that motion just take me. I’ve got my books and my documentaries to keep me company. I might try to paint while lying on the couch today. Just roll with it. 

The problem with being out for weeks is nothing gets done. I have appointments to make. I need to find a lawyer because my disability appeal was denied. I’m too ill to go find legal support to prove to this company that I’m sick enough to get my disability benefits. You can laugh at the irony. I am.

I haven’t left the house in a week and I’ve barely gone outside at all. But that will change. The thing with bad days is they do sweeten the good days when they arrive. They are like Karma points. But entire bad weeks on end? Well, I hope that means there’s a lot of chocolate and money coming my way soon.

But I have learned that at some point I always turn a corner. I may not be able to exercise now, my brain is wobbly, I’m having trouble moving and breathing, but things can swing the other way. They usually do eventually.

I think about the beautiful, talented Frida Kahlo, creating indelible works of art while trapped in a bed. She is the benchmark for how to transform disability and trauma into meaning. How to never surrender your talent or voice no matter the limitations of your body. She's often a source of comfort and inspiration for me. She shows me that I can do it. 

So this post is a place marker until I can successfully turn that corner and get back to getting back. I have posts I’m working on, artwork I’m dreaming of, songs that are brewing in my head to get down on paper, people to see. The corner is coming. I’ll be ready.