Month: May 2012

Things I’m Afraid to Tell You

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There’s a blogging trend now that I read about on the Huffington Post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-rossi-totten/things-im-afraid-to-tell-you_b_1553773.html  Folks are spilling their deep, dark secrets on their blogs. Here’s my offering. I didn’t have room to puke out everything, but I’m writing things I’m afraid to say.

I’m too afraid to object to anything my Soul Bro does. For instance, I’m sleeping on a love-seat, when I used to sleep on a Temperpedic mattress with him (by sleep, I mean sleep in the literal sense). This is because I trashed his bedroom with drink bottles when he told me to keep the place neat. It wasn’t that I was trying to make him angry. It was my perpetual laziness, the mindset of ‘I’ll get it next time,” and the fact that I’ve been messy and cluttered from the time I was in the womb. I think it’s my disorder and I know that’s a lame excuse, for I am indeed lazy. Or exhausted from my compulsions, the thought that I must do this or that in my head. I try to regiment my life. No one knows to what extent I order the things I do…But still, I am lazy. At first it was that I couldn’t bring my drinks in the bedroom. Was that good enough?  No.  I’m supposed to get a bed soon, but he won’t even let me sleep on the couch because it’s in the living room. I’m around 5’7″ and 215 pounds. A 10 year-old couldn’t stretch out on my love-seat, and the back cushions are in his room being used as cushions. I hate it. How can someone who loves me treat me this way? I RESENT IT.

I’m scared of being kicked out of the apartment, being sent to some place where I don’t have autonomy. I’d rather be dead than that happen again. I’m even more afraid of being alienated from my Soul Bro. I’m scared if he doesn’t take me with him when he goes back to college, I will be entirely alone. I’m scared. I want to be like everyone else. I want to drive places on my own and get out from time to time.

I’m not sure if I’m a financial burden or a benefit. I pay $475.00 to live here and I was hoping that would be enough to cover my rooming, food, etc. since the apartment  costs $700 and there are 3 of us… But I do also get the fastest internet, a shitload of cable TV, digital phone, and then they take care of power too, so I’m sure they ain’t lying that they pay about $1200.00 a month for everything including the rent. They want me to pay more for my share of the food. When I have money and food stamps I do just that, but  I only get $698.00 a month from my SSI. I also have a $63.00 storage payment and $15.00 a month to the landlady for the junk removal in the old apartment (most wasnt junk, but I was in a hurry to get out. Lots of stuff would I have kept if I had the time and place, because I used to sell a little bit on eBay. They say that when The Partner goes to the store almost everyday and spends $30.00 on non-frivolous things. Even the dishwasher liquid is used faster, which is no doubt true. But then I also smoke a lot of their la la la when invited. They use it medicinally, I just use it because Oh what a feeling when you’re dancing on the ceiling. Oh, and because my life kinda sucks. I see very few people, what with gas prices and all. It would seem unseamly to me to suggest us get out. Besides, when The Partner gets home from work, they mainly go into the room I once shared and watch TV, leaving me to my devices.

https://www.facebook.com/DBAnonymous


Secretly, I burn with jealousy when the allegedly broke-up couple go about their business, because I’m petty, Tom. And lonely. I don’t seek much society, I am the sort content to not go out with friends a lot, but I see so few people anymore, and I rarely go farther than the patio. And cruel fate! The manager of the apartment complex tells me I can’t go to the pool without one of the guys with me unless they add me to the lease. I know they will never put me on that lease. Not being on the lease gives them a power over me, the power to throw me out on a whim. I’m not saying they would, but I’m still afraid.

Here’s another thing I haven’t told Soul Bro: One of the things that drove me to make a half-hearted suicide attempt was my love for him. I’m not sure I ever want him to know, and I hope he doesn’t read this, but I fell in love with him almost from day one. It wasn’t his fault that I never wanted to leave his side, he just “got me” on a level no one ever has. I knew he was gay, but how could I help myself? He is funny, brilliant, and likes the things I like. It doesn’t help that he’s handsome and has a loyalty that is loveable. Though he overreacts at things… he always comes back in the end. I think I’m still in love with him, even though he’s pushing me away, and I’d never pursue my feelings. It wasn’t all that made me do what I did. Here’s my  unsundries hung out in public: I was scared he was mad at me, lying to me, just so much went through my mind. It felt like everyone in the world was angry at me that day. I felt all the loneliness overflow, all the feelings of worthlessness and that my life was over the day my mother died.  So I played a sort of Russian Roulette with Ativan. I’d take a few pills, try to count to 300 (a sort of magical number for me) and if my Soul Bro didn’t come out of his room by then, I’d take a few more. So girly of me this lame suicide attempt. Men as a rule are better at offing themselves, a talent that they would rejoice in no doubt if their brain matter wasn’t strewn across the room from shooting themselves. I probably was never in true danger of death, though I don’t know. I took 12, maybe 16 altogether.

http://www.flyffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86694


But that’s all the confessing I’m doing for now. I’ll explain the whole story sometime. 

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One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Lisa21 Comments
Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in the 1975 film.
Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in the 1975 film. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But anywho, I have another page from the notebook journal I kept while I was at Window Licker Hall. This I wrote sometime in mid March.
Nurses
The nurses here are of every sort. On weekdays we have a surly head nurse with a facial expression resembling Louise Fletcher’s. Nurse Ratchet is always polite to me, but to others not so much. One morning after playing bingo for 75 cents (the price of a soda in the drink machines here), an elderly man fell backwards in his chair, hitting the sharp edges of another chair. I ran and got Nurse Ratched and her solution was to yell at him to get up. This made my blood boil.
There are the kind, caring nurses who help folks like me not feel so alone. My favorite nurse gave me a dollar for a drink, and another time let me use her cell phone to call Soul Bro to beg him to take me back…no dice. I am a leper now, or maybe I bear an invisible scarlet letter: ‘S’ for suicidal.
There’s a couple of nurses who look and act like “trash.” They obviously became nurses  for the cash, and if they could get away with it, they’d ignore us altogether.
And then there’s Princess. Princess is generally a nice person until someone crosses her. That’s what one resident did over a pill she didn’t want to take because it was broke in two. Yelling ensued. “Either take it or don’t, or I’ll throw it away!”
“You can’t throw my pill away! If you do, I’ll make sure you pay for it.” Then yell, yell, yell.
“How unprofessional,” I said to my roomie’s semi-boyfriend as we watched.
Then my best-friend at Window Licker Hall, Nowheresville, USA, wanted a tylenol with her other pain meds, and when she couldn’t have it, she and Princess also got into it. Like sands through the hour-glass, so are the Days of Our Lives.
Once my best-friend got done having it out with Princess, she yelled to me, “She’s a bitch!”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“She’s a black bitch!”
“We don’t have to bring race into it.”
Meanwhile, Princess is still royally pissed and screams, “You all belong in Grape, every one of you!” Until then, I wasn’t angry, but when she said that, I felt my rage building. If you live in this state, you likely know that Grape is a long term psychiatric hospital. Since I pride myself in considering me an overall sane soul, to be lumped into one category  with the nuts and ‘special’ people is just enough digging  into my insecurities.
My best-friend, the Tylenol bereft one, says Princess only meant the white people should go to Grape, because she doesn’t like us. Well, break me a cracker. My friend has been here 7 years (7 years! I’d prefer self-emulsion), ao she’s been an observer of Princess’ ways. I feel, however, a touch of racial bias on the part of my friend in her belief. Like I said before, Princess is always nice to me, but I do anything to keep anyone from being mad at me. I just can’t take anger now. Anyway, how I get the feeling it wasn’t Princess’ dislike of the pigment challenged of us, is because the first woman Princess got into a fight with was a hateful African-American woman with legs so swollen she looks like a balloon in Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. I must humbly surmise, then, that Princess meant the lot of us should get on the short bus to ride from our rest home in Nowheresville to the loony bin in Crazyboro, USA regardless of race or ethnicity. It’s the American way.
My roommate, however, wasn’t miffed, because she’s already been there, done that with Grape.
***************************
In retrospect, Nurse Ratchet wasn’t a bad person at all. By the time I left Window Licker Hall I loved her because she offered to take my cats when they were thrown in the pound, even though she had a Rottweiller and it wouldn’t have been the best idea (it was appreciated all the same).
I heard bad things about my favorite nurse, though I believe she is an overall good person.
Lastly, I still think Princess wasn’t a racist. She hated us equally that night.
******************************
Bonus
Recently I transferred all the unique posts from ocdbloggergirl.com. Each post, I’ll point you to a post I wrote months ago on my other blog in case you missed it and want to see.
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Guest Post by Dee: Famous People and OCD

Lisa17 Comments
Charlie Sheen in March 2009
OCD …Um, among other things. Image via Wikipedia

(I was supposed  to publish this months ago, but then my mom died and I forgot about it. Someone wanted to guest post so she could add a link. Anyway, very sorry)

Famous People and OCD 

OCD—Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a mental anxiety disorder that causes the sufferer to have an intrusive thought process. They experience feelings of anxiety, worry, fear and discomfort if certain things are not done in a certain way. There are many angles to this illness and despite attitudes, OCD has become a genuine medical problem. People who experience excessive OCD may feel embarrassed about their problem and feel alone and isolated. OCD can also keep people from moving forward in their lives.

However, it may surprise many people to know that OCD doesn’t just affect the ordinary, average Joe or Josephine in the street. There are a whole string of famous people who have been known to suffer from OCD. People who you think have their lives perfectly mapped out, are rich, famous, have everything they could possibly want and need and yet still suffer from this serious condition. 

Who we Know has OCD 

Charles Darwin had an OCD compulsion, although in those days it was not nearly as understood as it is today. Even now, celebrities and movie stars are admitting to having some form of OCD and it is no longer a matter of shame. David Beckham recently admitted that he has a compulsion to put everything in its place. When he puts cans in the fridge he has to line them up neatly and if there is an extra can left over, he puts it away in a cupboard. He also said everything has to be in a straight line or in pairs. This is not an uncommon occurrence actually. Many people prefer things to be paired up, especially shoes. Many people like straight lines, but, the difference is, when it begins to interfere with your life and take over anything other obligation. That’s when it becomes obsessive and a problem. 

Those who watch Deal Or No Deal with Howie Mandel—U.S.A version—will be aware that he has admitted having OCD. Howie Mandel doesn’t like to shake people’s hands and his compulsion is to wash excessively. Donald Trump, that most famous of entrepreneurs also has OCD, as does, Jessica Alba, Charlie Sheen, Leonardo DiCaprio and Dr Samuel Johnson, the man who created the dictionary. 

History 

Historically, OCD is very young in terms of name and diagnosis. Along with illnesses like ADHD and ADD, these mental issues have only recently been given stage space in the medical arena. Prior to the 1980’s medical science was still in its infancy, despite the leaps forward in treatment of many other recognized illnesses. However, diseases of the mind still remain a huge mystery and it is with that comes more shame than admitting that someone has a physical illness. People used to feel that illnesses of the mind were so misunderstood, that patients with unexplained conditions would inevitably end up in an asylum. With the dispensing of those institutions, we can now allow people with minor compulsions to feel they are still part of the big society and not feel so isolated. 

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Poetry Potluck: Mother’s Day

Lisa13 Comments

 

Dianthus caryophyllus - Garoafa
Dianthus caryophyllus – Garoafa (Photo credit: Nite Dan – Enjoypixel) Really. The smell reminded her of funeral arrangements.

Happy Mother’s Day! they say,

Hallmark, K-Mart, even Safeway.

My mom’s dead, I say,

Mom didn’t like carnations anyway.

 

Written for

 http://promisingpoetsparkinglot.blogspot.com/2012/05/thursday-poets-rally-week-67-may-3-9.html

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