You don’t know a damn thing about me, and you won’t ever unless you can get through this
Posted By Cassandra Disque on June 5, 2010
I don’t know how to start this. It’s so rare for me to write, let alone feel compelled to write about feeling good. My hypergraphia has usually always been the result of anguish, fear, or mania, yet here I am with my brain telling me I must write, specifically about this. Not for posterity, and not to tell other people. Not to process it, and not to rationalize it. Simply to let it all out, like a giant burst in a dyke — like that’s ever simple.
I’ve been awake now for a solid twenty-four hours. Years ago, I was no stranger to this, but my life has changed. I’m so much healthier now, in so many ways, that trying to describe them all would probably take hours. These days, a twenty-four hour stint would generally take a huge toll on me, but I think there will be an exception to the rule in this case. I’m only just now starting to wind down, and will sleep as soon as I manage to find all the words I need to write.
Happiness has eluded me for much of my life. I don’t mean that in a cloying, pitying way, but as a simple fact. True, I was happy as a child, but as soon as adolescence hit, my mental, emotional, and physical selves crumbled. Most people recover from puberty; I wasn’t one of those people. I don’t mean in the, “Oh, kids are so mean to each other” way, but in the sense that I either developed or began to show the signs of six separate serious chronic illnesses at that time. By age thirteen I had narcolepsy, bipolar, post-viral syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, fibromyalgia, poly-cystic ovarian disease and Raynaud’s — I just didn’t know it, and wouldn’t know it for almost a decade. (I had adult onset of Sjögren’s, bone spurs on my coccyx, muscle deterioration of unknown cause in my left knee, sciatica, coccydynia, piriformis syndrome, and if I ask my doctors I’m sure they’d remember quite a few I’m blanking on in my sleep deprived state.) As an adolescent, not only was my mental health under the pressure of freshly awakening bipolar, but I had been molested at the age of eleven by a friend of a friend and repressed the emotions around the incident. That lead to me developing a variety of delightful psychological defenses, beginning with panic attacks and social phobia and eventually leading to full on agoraphobia. At the age of fifteen, I was finally kicked out of school. I essentially hid from most of the world, barring a few people I met through the internet, until the age of twenty, when I was finally properly diagnosed with bipolar. At twenty-one I was diagnosed with the cusp of the physical conditions, which lead to the beginning of treatment. Full treatment. I went out into the world as a physical 21-year-old woman, but I had the social skills of a thirteen-year-old. Six months or so after diagnosis, I began dating a guy nineteen years older than I was; within another six months, we were living together. We were together 3 1/2 years. Sometimes during those years, I thought I was happy, but eventually I realized it was only a shade of happiness, a glimpse of potential — and it wasn’t going to get better. So I turned my life upside down: decided not to return to Australia, left him, became homeless, and started from scratch. That was in September 2005. It’s taken me almost five years, but I now no longer live in the shade.
I am happy.
In the past five years, I have had some amazing high points on the happiness scale. I never thought I would say this before I did it, but getting married (all three times) to Matt were three of the happiest days I’ve had since 2005. Today (yesterday), June 4th, 2010, is another one.
I truly believe that nothing can be completely appreciated unless the opposite has been experienced. I have been so full of hopelessness that I’ve made a couple serious suicide attempts. I’ve purposefully walked away from everything in my life, and I’ve unwittingly had it all torn away. I can sing the muthafuckin’ blues; I’ve got rights to them. But I don’t want them anymore, don’t need them anymore. I’m on the opposite side now. I’m a freakin’ one woman Aqua musical revival, and I love it.
I’ve got such bad logorrhoea right now that I can’t even get to the point, haven’t even begun where I wanted to start. I wanted to write about my day, not about my life. Paraphrasing Margaret Atwood, context is everything. I can’t appreciate where I am now without knowing where I’ve been.
Right now, I’m lying on the floor in the basement of our little house on the hill. I watched the sun rise. I just got home from work. I’ve been on fire all day, life source fire, and people around me can tell. I looked like shit — no makeup, skin broken out, hair flattened and frizzy, bruises all over my legs — just completely washed out, tired from a long day like I should have been. But I guess — okay, no, I admit, I know I appeared to look incredibly fucking hot, because I shone. And I’ve never in my life been hit on respectfully so many times in one night. It’s incredible how different life can be when I’m actually happy to be alive… people treat me better, maybe because I’m treating them better. Maybe a lot of things. But it seems to command a certain respect that I could certainly get used to. But that’s a tangent better explored another time, in some other thesis.
Let me just get to the damn point already, because after an hour of this, I’m actually actively tired. (Which is a shame, because I want to write about the symphony of birds I hear every morning, the lusty smell of my dew-covered garden, and so much more.)
After eight years of the medical community affirming that I do indeed have conditions that cause chronic pain and eight years of trying every other fucking treatment under the sun (Paula Kamen of “All In My Head” ain’t tried a damn thing I haven’t), not to mention denial, self-medicating with alcohol, hiding in bed as a permanent solution, and the overuse of opiates, I finally got up the nerve/broke down and got referred to a pain clinic.
Ladies and gentlemen, they’re going to fix me. The biggest part wrong with me, anyway, which is the constant pain in my ass. They’re going to put me under sedation and inject one of those amazing slow release super-drugs into my sciatic nerve. I’ll essentially never have to feel the godforsaken thing ever again. ”Youse free, Missy Scarlett, youse free!”
I don’t expect anyone to truly understand how momentous this is for me. The pain is going to go away? That’s like telling me I’m going to get a third eye, or a penis. I just have no concept whatsoever as to what life without pain is! What do you do with it? What is it like? I’ve seen other people go about their business and it looks intriguing; might I now have a shot at this wonderland? I mean, maybe I could leave the house without bringing topical analgesics that make me “smell like old people,” and cause my co-workers to run away from me for fear I might literally rub off on them. Perhaps I could take my dogs for a walk. Oh, bigger things? Maybe I could ride a bicycle for the first time since childhood! Oooh, wait for it — here’s the big one! It might even enable me to sit through classes long enough to finish my AA, let alone get a degree! And then, well, shit, son, maybe I could have one of those, whaddyacallem? — gainful employment things!
Realize, please, that when I say pain, I’m not just saying ouch. I know Everybody Hurts and achy boo-boos and work soreness and all that. I get it. But please understand that the kind of pain I deal with on a daily basis is so deep within my body and so widespread, that my skin can be sliced to shreds and I barely flinch in comparison. This isn’t an exaggeration. I spent three hours on the table getting tattooed today; it’s the beginning of only my second tattoo (poverty will do that to a girl). I nodded in and out of consciousness for most of it, able to semi-sleep while the artist worked on my arm. Everyone in the shop said I sat really well and that they were impressed by it. I honestly don’t know what was impressive, because I’ve never watched someone else get a tattoo for more than a few minutes at a time. All I know is that while the needle was continually piercing just a tiny few layers of skin on my arm, deep inside my left buttock sat a ball of volcanic fire, occasionally spilling down my legs or reaching up into my back like heartburn. That’s the pain I know. It’s kind of like having a really intolerable cell mate who spends all day, every day, beating you. I used to think I had a life sentence, but now… I’m getting out. I’m getting the fuck out of Ass on Fire Land, and have no idea where I’m headed next. But context is the key — I’ve uprooted myself before. And this time, sheeut, look out! I might finally be a force to contend with.
I meant this to be beautiful, not gibberish, long-winded, fragmented, and boring, but now I’m exhausted. And I don’t write for shit in this state.
Today was one of the happiest days of my adult life, for realz. Thank you, to those who shared it with me.
[7:03am note: links to be added later]
