Yeah, Me Too

I wasn’t going to do this.

Sometimes, there are things you just don’t share.  There’s only so much people should know about you.  If I downplay or ignore the memories, maybe I can pretend the events never happened.

When Christine Blasey Ford accused Judge Kavanaugh, people saw her as a victim.  Someone to pity.  Even if it was years ago, she was still frozen, still hampered by it in the present tense.  I don’t want that.  I’m strong, immovable.  I’m past all of it.  I don’t want to walk down that road.  I don’t want to relive it.  I don’t want to be restricted or immobilized by fear anymore.  I don’t want people to look at me with pity.  It won’t thwart my future. 

So when I was scanning my work email account and I thought I saw his face flash at me on one of the educational messages, I made a decision.  I was going to let go.  But trying to ignore that it ever happened hadn’t been effective.  The fact that he and I have similar professions means that someday I may run into him.  And the fact that something else happened with another person I’m forced to interact with regularly compels me into exhaustion just to nullify the truth.  If I have to connect with the world—and them—on a routine basis without overlooking chunks of reality, how long will I last? 

I chastised the #metoo movement.  Why were all of these people sharing events that were private?  Especially when nothing legally could be accomplished?  Why did I want to know so many malicious events took place around the earth, even practically in my backyard? 

Listening to the accused, I began to question my own reality.  I mean, did all of those #metoo’s really happen?  Is it truly just how you interpret or view the events? 

There were times when my memory is hazy; could I be wrong?  My mental illness created distorted thinking in my mind and progressed to some atypical behavior on my part.  Though I had some unacceptable or in appropriate conduct at times, were my truths any less than others? 

If I share my story, will I be seen as a victim?  Will it release me from my fear?  Will I become a statistic?  Will I be criticized or my experience renounced as something I brought on myself?  Will it bring up painful memories that rip open old wounds, or heal the undercurrent of unseen pain hemorrhaging within me?   

As for the #metoo movement, could it be that others sharing their stories wasn’t about pointing fingers or justification for their fear?  Maybe it wasn’t for sympathy or a “poor me” mentality.  Could they have shared for closure, for feeling less isolated?  Did letting go of the victim mentality allow room for forgiveness—not for benefit of the offender, but to lessen the emotional “rocks” in the backpacks of their own minds?  Perhaps the focus wasn’t on pointing fingers or attracting attention, but gathering sorrow in a form that can be diluted or alleviated somehow. 

Julie S. Paschold

May 30, 2019

Displaced

On March 13, 2019, a bomb cyclone hit the Midwestern United States.  As a Nebraskan, my home was included in those affected by this "perfect storm".  My house was in an area of Norfolk, NE that was evacuated in fear of the levee failing.  

This was written as I was waiting for the evacuation notice to be lifted.  I was in a small apartment temporarily housing 9 adults, 3 children under the age of 5, and 4 dogs.  We returned to our house the next day.  Three weeks later, most of the items from our basement are upstairs.  My library/office/studio/retreat is filled with totes and inaccessible.  I still feel displaced, waiting for work to be done to our house both outside and in the basement.  4-4-2019

Displaced

I am at work on a Wednesday morning,

having braved the dense fog

and to bring the computer home

because tomorrow is predicted to be icy

and I will most likely not make it

into work.

It is raining

and, for the first time in weeks,

above freezing.

Something makes me look at the radar and

seeing more deep green & yellow approaching

I pack up and drive towards home.

Westbound on 275,

water is already flowing across the highway.

I come home to help vacuum water

from our basement,

the walls, wood, and floor soggy.

Ill and exhausted, mentally drained,

I sleep without my pill.

The next morning I am awakened

with a shout and the light.

It does not register in my mind

until my sister calls—

“How are you and where are you going?”

Only a few blocks from each other,

our houses are close to the levee

holding its own for now

but we are being evacuated

just in case.

The mountains of snow are melting

and with the frozen soil

and rain

liquid has nowhere to go

but race

along the surface,

following itself.

This will be known

as the flood of ’19.

My friend calls—

the police haven’t been to our house

but they will.

We need to leave.

My husband insists we go to his brother’s.

So I pack—

the essentials,

the computer,

and the books

signed by my dead mentor

of course. [“Is that silly?”

I ask my sister]

I follow my husband

in circles

until we find the apartment.

I feel meek

shy

not unwelcome

but alien

a transient

an outsider

--displaced

So I sit

wanting to curl into a corner

and read

Not realizing how overwhelmed

the small children will fill my brain

my husband pushing

to leave

before evacuation has lifted.

I am close to not being okay

I am close to collapsing or exploding

stoic on the outside

I want to scream and cry and walk

my legs falling asleep where I sit

trying to be social

but telling myself

hold on

just for now, like the levee,

hold on

just one more day. 

3-13-2019

JSEP

Depressive Episode in Winter

            It is days like these that, while I sometimes can feel them coming, still surprise me with their weight, their power, their insistence on my immobilization.  Days like these when I can’t question there being something different, something “wrong” with me.  My to-do list overflows, my plans await.  Even if I could feel something the day or two before, I’ve shaken it off because preparing for it doesn’t make sense—there is no preparing.  No predicting.  It’s like planning for a car accident you know is coming but you don’t know when it will come.  Sometimes I’ll get up in the morning early to go to the bathroom—at 3 AM, say, or 4 AM, and not have an inkling it’ll be here in a couple of hours, knocking at the door. 

When it’s not here and I have energy I can’t imagine it any other way.  I can’t imagine being immobile, tired, drained, heavy.  And when it’s here I can’t imagine it any other way.  It feels as if it’s here to stay forever, always has been, always will be.  Moving is something so difficult.  No, difficult isn’t the word.  So beyond the possible that I can’t imagine doing anything.  That I just am I wonder why takes so much energy that I don’t even want to be.  Reading or sleeping seems to take me away from it, the thoughts, the impossibility of moving, the regret and guilt and shame.  The self-stigma and mental beating. 

The nights before I will perhaps have binged on starch and sugar and fat—sensing the lack of energy.  My mind still can’t define and translate the difference between physical exhaustion and this mental or emotional breakdown.  No calories will prevent this.  Will not bridge me over the abyss, will not energize the depression.  That’s why when I’m depressed or semi-normal and “just” rapid cycling, on the verge of almost fine, I’m overweight or fat.  I can’t keep from overeating or emotional eating or evening eating.  I know conceptually that the food won’t solve anything and sometimes the taste isn’t even pleasing.  But my body tricks me—my mind keeps thinking the food will treat the bad brain days, keep me from walking in pudding. 

When I’m manic and have energy it too seems like it will never end.  I get rid of my fat clothes—I’ll never be fat again!  I pull out the skinny clothes I’ve stashed in totes in basement rooms, catalogued by weight—160 pounds, 140 pounds, 120 pounds—gleefully letting time spin by at the same time it seems to creep.  Everything seems too fast and too slow at the same time.  I don’t sleep or eat.  I live on coffee and energy drinks and cigarettes.  I sit on my front porch at 1 AM, 2 AM, and though I am awake more hours I am unable to get more done.  Where has the time gone?  I have started more projects than I can finish, have more ideas than I can write on my lists.  I may have a day every once in a while in my mania where my body crashes and I sleep 12 or 16 hours and I call it catatonia—but it’s my body exhaling in exhaustion for a bit until I take it all up again the next day—the world spinning faster than electricity. 

But today is the opposite of those days.  Mania is a set of skinny photos taped and framed wishfully from years ago as reminders, pleas, admonitions.  Today I can’t imagine showering or going anywhere or calling anyone.  My body is heavy, my brain slow.  No one can help—why talk about it?  It is here to stay.  I’m letting people down—in the way back of my head, guilt and shame shake their paws at me, pointing to responsibilities unfulfilled and things undone.  If my thoughts spin, it is so far away from my consciousness and ability to care or do anything about it.  I am wasting time, this exhaustion is unwanted, uncontrollable, inevitable.  It is taking over and clouding out everything around me. 

I know I need to eat but I stand staring at the cupboards, the refrigerator, confused at the concept of mixing, serving, planning, cooking, or pouring even the simplest of foods.  I can’t even think of showering because then I’d have to think of dressing—of choosing clothes.  I literally cocoon in layers—heavy socks and pj pants: my bed has two quilts, a blanket, my robe, and a sleeping bag over my sheet and I am tucked inside.  It is too cold and too hot at the same time.  The door is closed and blinds are shut—light is too much.  My skin screams at wrinkles in sheets and scratches of clothes.  I pull at my hair and lay lax for hours.  I read and sleep because that is all I can do. 

My hair when I’m manic and energized is in itself energized—it is curly.  I have a photo of my hair cut short (I am growing it out from a “cancer patient look”, as my daughter called it) on a day we are grilling out in September for my son’s birthday, and my hair is so curly and dyed burnt orange, that I call it the “curly fries” look.  Now, my hair is just as short (and those of you with curly hair will tell you that when hair is shorter, it curls more), but it is oily and straight—only slightly wavy enough to look funny as it dries. 

Curly Fry hair, thin--hypomania

Straight hair, overweight--Depression

Finally, later, I entreat myself to shower—promising simple clothes.  I try little things.  I move out to the living room.  I fight the pudding slowly, at last. 

Julie SE Paschold

January 19, 2019

The Meaning of Consumer

Consumer, to consume:

According to dictionary.com, consumer means the following:

• ·        to destroy
• ·        to use up
• ·        to devour
• ·        to spend
• ·        squanderer
• ·        to absorb
• ·        to waste away
• ·        a person that consumes
• ·        a person that uses a service
• ·        an organism that feeds on other organisms

 In NAMI, they call us consumers.

Is that what we do?

Do we use up and squander others around us?

Do we feed on other organisms?

Do we spend and destroy?

If I were able, perhaps I could consume my mental illness.

Perhaps I would cause it to waste away,

            to dissolve, to destroy it.

But would that, in turn, change me?

Would I be consuming, in fact,

            an essential part of me?

A part of me that makes me who I am?

What, indeed, are we to consume,

            we consumers?

Can we consume light, hope, energy—

and remit it as well?

Can our consumer waste be helpful,

            be something beautiful?

Julie SE Paschold

12-10-18