Don’t reject me today, dear reader. Please. At least wait ’til tomorrow.
You see, I put myself out on a limb last night, and today I’m feeling just a little bit vulnerable. I don’t know why I did it, I’m not 23 anymore. I haven’t been for quite a long time. And of course I felt it.
So tomorrow I’ll go back to being your storyteller. But today, I plan to lie low and lick my wounds.
I’ve had a rough afternoon. I’m not going to shout about it here, in fact, I am learning more and more that, especially in regards to issues like these, where I must stand alone in my opinions, but find a way to stand up for them all the same. It is best not to say anything at all. I know it just invites invalidation. But, once again, my definition of what is right, doesn’t match everyone else’s. But I still think it’s right.
I’ve had a rough afternoon, and the love I feel for my daughter has almost never been stronger than it has been recently and my wanting the best for her has almost never been stronger, and my fighting spirit, like that Momma bear protecting her cub, has almost never been stronger. It’s just hard when a mum defines ‘the best’ differently to how everybody else does, when they simply can’t see what I’m talking about.
But then I’ve felt a bit lately like someone who has been trying to cope having lost one of their senses that they usually rely on. I’ve felt a bit lately like I’m not ‘clicking’ with other people quite right. I’ve felt like I’ve lost my social awareness. I’ve felt a bit like an alien again.
I’ve had a rough afternoon, and all I can think of is this song. And reading it, I am crying again. And I haven’t actually done that in awhile now. Until today.
Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin
The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one
And she said…
Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen
But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one
Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..
And she said…
Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen
But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one
The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It’s for your own good..
And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen
Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one
But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said
Flowers are red, and green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.
it’s a strange thing.
it’s a strange thing to wake up one morning after twelve years in a practical drug induced coma and find that nothing hurts anymore. Just that quickly.
No, not a coma, because there was still life there, just an altered one. More of a zombie, than a coma. It’s a complex explanation, what I mean by that, but it doesn’t feel that urgent to elucidate right now. Suddenly, I don’t feel that I have to.
My friends haven’t even relised. People are still acting towards me as if I worry, as if I’m anxious or sad. They say “oh don’t worry… blah blah blah” and pass on pieces of advice to help me through the crisis. . . when I’m no longer actually in one. They mean well. But’s it’s clear that my old state of anxiety made others anxious, and I am sorry to have been a burden. I don’t know who I am yet, myself, so I don’t say anything and I smile and nod. . . and wait until either I’m better at explaining or anybody wants to know enough to ask me something about it.
I have very little memory other than things that I have written either on my blogs or in my journals, and I don’t necessarily currently want to review.
Recently, after I woke up, I got curious as to what had happened, so I went to my doctor and asked to be made a print out of every perscription drug that I had been perscribed since 1997 and the date ranges that I was on each. This is a small charge, but my right to ask for under the Data Protection Act.
The print out came to 50 pages.
450 individual perscriptions, some repeated for years, some one offs.
I counted 38 oral medications, 22 topical skin allergy treatments, 20 individual perscriptions for 7 different antibiotics and 6 different anti depressants perscribed over 12 years (one of which, I had been on for several years and at several different times, but is now removed from the market, because patients started dying of liver failure while being on it).
Some of the drugs were as benign as moisturising lotion and ibuprofen, others as strong as pethidine, immunosupressants, an anti-narcoleptic and 3 different antipsychotics (percribed to me not for mental health reasons, but because they were known to have helped in various MS symptom treatment, like pain and virtigo. And no, they didn’t help me.) just to name a few.
Plus the list did not include any medication that I had been given during my 4 or 5 lengthy stays in hospital or scripts written directly by my consultants.
I have researched the side effects of each one and looked at the number of various ‘drug cocktails’ I was on and also tried to align what I was taking when different things happened in my life, and the pattern is shocking. I feel like I can be less hard on myself for having achieved so little over that time. I am aware that several of the things that I was on, and combinations thereof, nearly killed me. Litteraly, not figuratively. It feels a bit traumatising to realise that, and I’m not fully able to think about that yet.
This morning I sneezed and took an anti-histamine and my daily multivitamin. That was all I took. I’m ‘clean’.
I’ve weaned off of everything else, even the self injections.
It’s all out of my system and my brain and body has now got used to making and using it’s own chemicals again. (brains stop doing it for themselves after having it done for them after awhile.)
I feel good.
I haven’t had a panic attack since 18th of July, and I’m not even anxious about possibly having one anymore. I barely remember what it feels like. That doesn’t sound like a long time. But the difference is amazing!
I can pray again for the first time in a very long time. I won’t get into the spiritual side of all of this right now, but there is one. I don’t recognise myself, but I’m happy to wait… because for the first time in 12 years, I’m calm enough to do that. I’m hoping that I actually have another 12 to wait in.
It will be good to meet you all. . . again.
Attended a portfolio day to discuss my work with ‘a professional’ on Saturday. Why is it that I left disappointed that she only had good things to say about what I had produced? (I know I’m not ‘there‘ yet, so I guess I was hoping she could tell me all of those things I had left to do, enough critisism to give me something to work on.) Why were her suggestions to go ahead and do the future things that I really want to do and try for the thing I want to try for and that she thought that I was good enough to do them so disheartening? (I want what she suggested so badly, but know it’s not possible.) Why was it that when I used to be such a believer in grasping the impossible, that when I used to be so willing to try anything that I could imagine because what have I got to lose anyway, go anywhere, have faith that something will work out, never give up, why was it that when she only half jokingly suggested that I write to Annie Liebowitz and ask if I could go on several weeks work experience with her, just for the hell of it, that this once upon a time dreamer, crazy risk taker wanted to cough and say “Shyeah, RIGHT!” Are you mental?”
It has been a long 15 years. And I’ve gone a lot of places I didn’t want to go because of both circumstance and of cruel fate and sometimes because of the very risks that I took, and I never in all that time stopped trying.
But I’m tired.
the first 3-5 years of our lives are the most important for a child’s development. this is the time when our brains and bodies go through the most dramatic changes (the teenage years being the other developmental hotbed of activity). these early years are when patterns are formed in our brains that hardwire (a word i find i use quite a bit recently) us to act in certain ways and expect the world to respond in certain manners.
i believe this is one reason why we are so territorial. i believe this is why we have comfort zones.
many years ago now, i left my comfort zone. there were many reasons, and there were many reasons why i never returned, at least never for good. and now i have a new comfort zone. but that hard wiring in my head, that was forged before i was three, living in another land, still expects things to happen and people to respond in a certain way. particularly the people. they just respond to me differently. and in turn i’m never sure how to interpret.
but when i left, i gave that up. things don’t happen here in my chosenland in that way. the chocolate tastes different here, and it’s good chocolate, but it’s not how i expect it to be.
it’s not the only chocolate. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way for it to taste, as so many people would have me believe.
and i’m starting to relearn that, and have the occasional bar of ‘the other kind’. and that’s ok.
(incidentally, that’s a metaphor.)
i have a friend who used to call me “radar ears”.
that was because i learned at a young age how to pick up on what other people were saying. in case they were saying it about me. because most often, they were.
i would sit in assemblies with my vision turned forward toward the stage and whoever was speaking to us, and my ears focussed backwards towards whoever was sitting in the chairs behind me whispering about me. making fun of my clothes or hair or about how they were glad they didn’t have to sit next to me or talking about who they would invite to their new secret club. . . making sure to say ‘but NOT sienna, OUR club is only for cool people.” whenever there was a birthday party, more often than not, i would not be invited, though the invitations were always handed out right under my nose. there was a girl called A who would rally the troups at the playground. they would sit on top of the climbing frame and look down on the world around them (both literally and figuatively) and she would say “now, who should we make fun of today? oh look! there’s sienna!”
the school counsellor was even called in by a teacher. she pulled me out of class one day and tried to ask me what all the problems were about. i really didn’t have anything to tell her, because i really didn’t know. then she called all the other girls out of class for another meeting without me. to talk…about me. then she had a third meeting with all of us involved, obviously creating a big unhelpful ‘us and them’ situation. (or more accurtately ‘me and them’)
one of the girls even said “maybe it’s because she doesn’t go to church. maybe if she came along with one of our families we’d be able to get along better” well, isn’t that rich?! bullied becasue i didn’t go to church!
so i developed my ears. in a way it was a defense mechanism, but in another way it was a pretty useless one, as there wasn’t really anything i could actually do about it. i supose i always would rather know what accusations were being brought against me than to live in blissful ignorance.
so we all grew up, like all children do, and we all moved on, like all human beings have to, and along with maturity some of those girls are now stil very good friends. (believe it or not, i’ve even had the odd appology as an adult!)
but i’m still pretty paranoid about being left out of a party. and i promise you. . . i still have very good ears!