brightlotusmoon: (Asha)

I have been snacking on whole fresh mozzarella cheese, salami slices, and roasted almonds, along with apple slice smeared with cashew butter. Good stuff. When Adam comes home from work, we'll eat the eggplant parmigiano that has been soaking for two days.

In the medical science community, there is a slow push to make chronic fatigue syndrome an actual disease as well as fibromyalgia. This may at least help them take us more seriously.
All I know is that Cymbalta is doing lovely things, surprisingly. After adding Rhodiola Rosea and Garcinia Cambogia, which gently boost dopamine and serotonin, I feel better. Still in a depression episode, still having anxiety blackouts and transient global amnesiac episodes. Buuut it's better. It doesn't seem any bettet since it all began in 2011. But I can feel things happening. It's all qualia anyway. All subjective.  I can never tell anyone to be me anyway.

Humans!

Feb. 8th, 2015 09:33 pm
brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
And yet and yet, people still say things like
"How can you be in a depression episode again? Isn't your medication and therapy supposed to be working?"
"So, what caused it? Did you get upset at a news story?"
"Are you sure it's depression? Maybe you're just sad."
"What did you do this time to cause it?"
"I thought that new medicine was supposed to make it all go away."
"You know, lots of people get depressed. I hear exercise and sunlight work best."
"Hey, you're laughing! I guess you feel fine now. You should laugh more to cure yourself."
And yet and yet, I still want to smack those people when they continue to just not get it.
brightlotusmoon: (Asha)

Good things.
The personal therapy protocol is juuust starting to work. Slowly and softly. The doctors said slipping off is natural. But my slips are fewer. I think the new drug is working much faster than expected. No terrible side effects after all between dry mouth and that tingly sensation that the world is shiny shiny shiny. But I can already feel those most compulsive thoughts starting to be quiet.

Now, if I could just not be badgered by acquaintances who want me to be better now now now. Yes, this has had me in its psychiatric grip for over four years. It takes tiiime to get the ideal treatment. Yaaaaugh, leave me alone. You don't know. You are not inside my neurology.
Repeat. Rinse.
Those of you who get it, you get it.

So much meditation. It is in my dreams. I am ready to work myself through and beyond. Shut up about it taking all these years. Damaged braining is hard.

I make it hard for people to love me well enough to help. Which is why I need to do this on my own.

/venting ranty ramble

brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
So, my thoughts have been spinning merrily amidst what could be a spiraling episode of... Oh, fuck, probably everything at once. After I had a chat with three doctors about the consequences of stress-related memory loss, I quietly decided to start a private mindfulness therapy, which I have only been sharing with the psychologist, for advice, while I move forward in my own brain to stop my own brain from destroying my mindstate.

Tomorrow, I see my general physician and have her write a referral for the local hyperbaric oxygen therapy center. Although it's a bit premature, as they have yet to call me back about an initial consultation. While I was filling out their online New Patient form, I started wondering if they would even take someone like me, with two dozen illness. Even though cerebral palsy is the cornerstone. I just feel so excited about it. That's a good thing. I can still most of my emotion things.

What I find beautiful and fascinating about my private therapy protocol is that almost nobody believes me. I have been stuck in something insane since 2010. Why would they believe I would "get better" now, so many years later after therapy and medications and meditative exercises? Then again, none of them have been in long term therapy or medication. It really does take many years to spur a change this massive. Hence the secret protocol, which includes a possible medication update and potential oxygen therapy.

I don't expect anyone to believe me. I don't expect anyone to believe in my desire to change with this therapy protocol. How could they? Why would they? I am the same as I was when symptoms started. But I don't want their belief. I don't really want support if there is no actual active knowledge. How can you say "Hey, I've been there, I get it, fist bump in solidarity" unless you really have gone through a similar structure of treatment repeatedly for a grab bag of illnesses that mindfuck you for no reason?
Actual legitimate question, BTW.
If you're also a parent of someone with interconnected psychiatric and neurological disorders, I would love input, because when I try to explain these things to my mom who only has hereditary ADHD controlled via lifestyle, my emotion-brain starts shutting down so my technical-brain can word at her, and I know she wants less science and more human. I'm trying. I just cannot get past that very protective mental guardian who shields emotion-Joanna from Outside. And oh, as much as I love Serena, she feels it is easier and gentler to let me sleep while she and Koan the calico kitten organize and compartmentalize all the Me. Ananta works hard enough balancing out all the neuroweird that Alicia in my private epileptic Wonderland can't reach. I haven't had much success in psychically merging with Asha. We are working out my dissociative and depersonalization episodes first.

I will do this. It will happen. Steps have been severely taken. Hard to talk. But if you think you get it, I would love a discussion via Private Message. I am willing to reveal bits and pieces of my Rebuild Joanna Brain Project to acquire tips and advice from those who get it.

Now, see, I view many people as family beyond my blood family - who shall remain the besy family I would want. Various people in my social circle - friends plus family - have always stood with me. I will always need and want that. But for those who are truly normal and looking at me with confusion, puzzlement, exasperation, fear, anger... and the type of condesencing that means pats on the head, chuckling, and "I love you sweetie. Of course you'll change." "You do nothing. You never help. You are too self absorbed, you don't think, you claim memory loss. It is all right, dear. We are used to hit. Just finish writing." Followed by another hair tousle. I'm used to it. It's routine because I am me.
I am not out to prove them wrong, not entirely. I am out to prove to myself that my neuroplasticity really might eradicate the worst of the annoying symptoms.
Maybe this whole autistic ramble came from my hope and excitement over this slow gentle therapeutic process. If loved ones want me to speed it up, I can turn away for a while to meditate.

All I know is that my own husband has been putting up with me forever, and that says something huge.

Love you, LJ family.
brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
"...Williams died by the claw of the ghastly inner monster that severe depression lodges in the human spirit, losing a long fight with the unholy ghost." -Brain Pickings (included is a link to a book referencing clinical depression to a holy ghost)

In my last session with my therapist, I kept calling depression The Hollow and a Dark Ghost and The Nothing and, naturally, true pure abyss. In such violent howling emptiness, there could be sound and fury, signifying nothing. And sometimes there is just nothing. Fury would be an emotion, after all.
(And I know why depressed people don't tell the tale, lest they be called an idiot. They'll be mocked today. And tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And they are heard no more, and as they are poor players, life is but a walking shadow. Out, brief candle. -And people wonder why we get angry when mental illness gets blamed for so many blameless things and things where mental illness is completely not ever the blame. This is why we can't have nice things.)

People always ask me why I cry when I say I am hollow, empty, ghostly, feeling nothing. Isn't crying an emotion? they say Doesn't it mean you feel something? they say. I think Allie Brosh, who wrote the greatest description of depression I have ever read in her blog Hyperbole and a Half, said it best: It is just something that is happening.
Because I don't feel like crying. I'm crying because my body is having a reaction. A symptom, if you will. Something needs to release. Some sort of physiological reaction must occur, lest I literally fade into ghosts.

I understand some of the reasons Robin did what he did. I don't know why he did what he did. No one knows why. No one can know why, because no one is Robin.
People have the same thoughts and feelings and illnesses as Robin had, and they see everything he saw. But none of them and nobody will ever fully purely viscerally know, truly know why he, Robin Williams, the funniest man of a thousand laughs, physically participated in his own death. Only Robin Williams knows.

Cool story, bro:
Someone who survied her own suicide attempt once told me that for her, there was only pain, agony, chaos, and the kind of despair that consumes utterly. Beneath it was a nearly robotic thought process. Any emotional thoughts came from a distance. As she began the process, she became enveloped in a still emotionless sedating transcendent serenity, and time slowed down, and she literally had no more thoughts. Since she was stopped by other people, she couldn't tell me much more. But she told me that during recovery, she experienced every single one of those sensations at once, from the pain and chaos to the calm transcendence. It took a lot of sedatives and intense biofeedback to help her out of that state and she was put on suicide watch again for a few days. They allowed her family to bring in her kitten, which helped so much that she now advocates for cat therapy when treating mental illness. I think of her when I talk to attempt survivors. I only remember her first name and some day I will forget some of her story. But she lives a different life. Not better nor worse, just different. She has learned lessons. She doesn't regret things. She still battles symptoms and switched to a new drug regimen and still does biofeedback. She hasn't had any suicidal ideations in over a year. She also treats her cat like the most important sentient being in the universe, since he helped save her life. Cats are awesome.
brightlotusmoon: (Default)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/aug/12/robin-williams-suicide-and-depression-are-not-selfish

And that's the last I want to say on this. Not because several people called me crazy for expressing deep thoughts, but because I'm out of words.
Actually, one more thing: I had assumed I'd feel upset at being called delusion level crazy for sharing my thoughts on the depressive suicide of a beloved actor and comedian to whom I looked up. I was wrong. I wasn't upset. I was puzzled and then exasperated. If someone doesn't understand even after explanations, I need to allow myself to end it and concentrate on my well being.
That's all many of us can do.


Posted via m.livejournal.com.

brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
Well, then. That was the second time someone contacted me and said, "I read your blog and I'm worried because you sound so crazy. It's no big deal if some stranger died. It doesn't affect you. Why are you so sad?"
And I truly don't think that my answer of "It's my blog; I'm venting my thoughts. It's nothing you haven't seen before." was placating.
Like... um. Hi. Have you met me? I'm verbose. I'm also mentally ill. Between verbosity and illness, I love to ramble on about life, mind, the universe. To read something I write and automatically conclude that I am "high levels of crazy" is insulting. Thanks, readers. I love you too.
It's basically the same attitude as "Well, maybe Autism Speaks wants to eradicate autistic brains and never bothers to actually help with services for autistic people, but have they hurt you, personally? Why do you fight against them? They're probably doing good things."
It makes my brain hurt. So much. Mainly because ignorance up the ass.

No, I'm not making my journal friends-only. I'm happy to show, publicly, that I know what people think. And that I know how irritating they can be. And how very little they know about who I am. Sucks to be them.
But yeah, I talk about mental illness and how deeply that sort of thing affects me. I use words that might not appear "rational" or "worldly" or "down to earth."
I'm skeptical to a degree, but I'm about thisclose to moving away from the skeptic movement entirely. It's full of assholes.
brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
I'm crying over the death of Robin Williams this hard because people have already started in on the bullshit rhetoric that severe clinical depression isn't supposed to affect the rich and famous. That "If their life is so perfect, why are they so depressed and suicidal" bullshit.
No. Nope nope nope. No. That’s not how it works. Do not insult people like me who deal with clinical depression. No.
Most of his film roles featured depression and mental illness heavily. I'm seeing comments like "He did all those roles with a purpose because he knew what it was like, so how could he do this himself etc" and I cannot help but feel rage...

O Captain, My Captain.
He really was a man I looked up to, in several ways, and one of the greatest actors I've seen.

Look, I've lived with clinical major unipolar depression all my life. To my brain, it's a chemical imbalance - it affects an organ so vital to my existence that not treating it means irreparable damage. There have been plenty of arguments all over about what depression is and isn't: Disease? Disorder? Illness? Emotional Syndrome? People have questioned and fought against the very idea that it is a neurochemical imbalance. People have insisted that depression does not even exist outside of emotional states.
There are depressed patients who are able to live with this illness without medication or therapy, basically using mind over body and lifestyle techniques. That's fine. That's great for them. Sure. Unfortunately, most of those patients will try to push that lack of real medical treatment on other patients, which can be dangerous. And the state of mental health services in the country I live in is awful. All I know is that I when my symptoms rise up, I care for myself as best I can - and try to educate others as best I can.
Right now, I'm in a really really bad place. I'm not in a depressive state. But I'm irrationally upset, anxious beyond reason, physically hurting from emotional agony. That is not a joke, dear detractors of Robin Williams and his battles with clinical depression.

I promised myself I would get away from the internet until I could breathe without screaming and sobbing. But I've already been getting emails and messages from friends wanting advice, as though I might be their Boggle Owl in a way. I want to help. I need to help. I live to help.
I will stay away from forums and communities. Tomorrow, my husband takes me to physical therapy, and later I can unwind fully. But to everyone I love: You know where to find me. I'll still be your Bright Lotus (someone gave me that nickname and it stuck).

I took my own drug treatments. I'll be all right.

http://greensh.livejournal.com/444686.html
http://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-depression-if-not-a-mental-illness/000896?all=1
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
brightlotusmoon: (Magic Goddesses)
But anyway.
Cerebral Palsy Person Problems!
Everything hurts, blah blah. The left side has loss of sensation, loss of proprioception, extreme forearm pronation with shoulder internal rotation contracture and elbow flexion with wrist and finger flexion and thumb in palm and severe muscle stiffness with inability to completely flex fingers, plus supination of foot, curling and clenching of toes, hip stiffness. The right side has extreme sensation, including stiffness of shoulder and leg as well as severe pain sensations of burning, clawing, electric, throbbing. Mild seems to have climbed a ladder to Moderate, which can happen when a cerebral palsy patient ages past thirty years.

And so, the usual drill. Shake it off, deal with it, slap a bandaid on it, walk it off, quit whining, stop that negative thinking, here's a giant positivity pill, good news it's a suppository, snort this rainbow powder, do these six magic yoga poses every morning to heal all your things, eat this magic plant, swallow this magic pill, do this exercise routine, eat these rainbow colored foods, drink this happy potion smoothie, chant this happiness mantra until your neurons and glia cells become rainbow-colored. And the stuff that people without cerebral palsy recommend because they have had so many happy potion smoothies they are certain all negativity is evil.

But anyway.
Healthful balance of holistics and pharmaceuticals and personal choices!
Also, research into successful treatments combining holistic science and pharmaceutical science. Because SCIENCE.

But anyway.
http://www.orthobullets.com/pediatrics/4129/cerebral-palsy--upper-extremity-disorders


Also.



Delirium. Because So Many Things And Fish.

Also.



Death. Because Too Many Things. And Pain.

And.





Rachel Grey. Because phoenix rising. Because renewal always. Because Jean Grey is still dead, yet not finished.
brightlotusmoon: (Magic Goddesses)
So, I had what I considered a palsy victory and agony simultaneously.

Depressive episode gripping me hard enough to draw blood, I walked out - no cane, because medicine and meditative stretchy exercise like whoa - and took the Metro to Twinbrook, walked the ten minutes to Congressional Plaza, shopped, stopped to eat sushi, and carried two bags back to the Metro, right side burning and feeling ripped open while palsy left side felt ghost-like and nearly numb. Got to Shady Grove again, took the bus and stopped at the Redmill Center right near my house community, went to the CVS and bought drug refills, limped and shook and spasmed and gasped as the bus dropped me off across from my townhouse community, walked with three bags that felt like dead weights, stopped to get the mail, went home, went upstairs, collapsed, and very weakly, feebly flailed and flapped and cried out "Yay, I did it, go me!"

I got myself belated birthday gifts, especially because the Rockville Ulta now carries
It Cosmetics, which is my top favorite makeup brand in the world, which I just learned today so it was like a cliche of angels singing. I'd been waiting for my Ulta to acquire It Cosmetics since last year, when the Silver Spring Ulta announced they had the brand and that Rockville would get it this spring. YES. I was also flush with coupons and points so I splurged: I got the new liquid peptide foundation and the new thin-brush peptide mascara; and also Ecotools brand konjac facial cleansing sponge made of konjac fibers, because konjac is one of the most awesome internal and external cleansing fibers in the world.

I was in horrid pain, honestly awful bad bad pain, pain that was like trauma pain... and I was happy. Because PAIN pushed me on. And VICTORY. It was nearly joy. And joy is something above emotion, after all.

I knew that my cane might have made my hands more full. But the fact that I was capable of doing all this without a cane... it was just... well, you know. Hemiplegic spastic ataxic cerebral palsy, spastic hypertonia, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, sciatica, lordosis, migraine pain, major depressive episode, autistic symptoms making everything loud and bright and I could barely look in people's eyes despite cheerful conversations. I did STUFF. I did stuff that made me feel good. I will be in pain for days. But I did it! I think the agony will be worth it, the codeine and the tramadol and the baclofen and the clonazepam and the capsule supplemets of devil's claw and MSM and cayenne and mangosteen and noni vinpocetine and oh my gods I can hardly walk and I am shaking all over and my muscles feel torn up and I want to break down in tears.
But I am proud of myself?
*wipes away tears*

Damn, I really hurt...

...and I forgot to buy milk.
It's okay. I have enough coconut cream, coconut milk, and sweetened condensed milk to work with my coffee until I can get to Giant. Plus a hand mixer blender device to whip it good. At Giant I can grab a lightweight jug of kitty litter and a half-gallon of whole milk, and canned cat food. I can bring a backpack plus a tote to see what will fit how, so I can take the cane.
I'm twitching so much. I wonder if this entire day was one big seizure trigger. Fuck.

Now, today, the day after, I am slowly preparing for my first meet and greet appointment with the new psychologist. My last one got too expensive after I switched to Medicare, and this new woman will work on a sliding scale, with my mother willing to help.
brightlotusmoon: (Asha)
'Reborn' by Laura Sava (anotherwanderer.deviantart.com/)
'Mirabella' by Rachel Anderson (www.silverstars.us/‎)

Two forms of my own story character, Asha Clara Night, my strongest, most individual, most personal fiction character.

These paintings. Completely different images that look almost exactly like incarnations of the same character of my own subconscious creation Women who look almost exactly like the dreamself I am becoming in my dreams and visions.

Laura-sava-Reborn

Rachel Anderson Mirabella


She was in my dreams last night and many nights before. I haven't decided exactly who she is yet, but in my dreams her name is Asha, meaning "desire, hope, hopeful; life; alive; she who lives." Which says so much, so so much.

She is another dreamself, not a spirit guardian, but much closer to my Self than my other characters (Alicia, Serena, Ananta: my spirit guardian coping mechanisms for epilepsy, memory loss, insomnia, sleep problems, [Alicia], chronic pain and fatigue, depression, anxiety, physical disabilities [Serena], neurology, neurodivergence, autism, total mind-body connection [Ananta].

Asha seems to represent many internal things about my emotions, my heart and mind, my rhyme and reason, my logic, my science, my creativeness and creativity, my power, my energy, my beauty. If she were to reveal herself as a guardian, she would be for emotional states, creative thoughts, desires, loves, patterns, ideas.
Asha is definitely powerful in a way I always wanted to be since childhood: Fae and and Elemental Mage and Neurodivergent and Autistic Witch and Quantum Magic Scientist and Story Crafter and Shape Shifter and Magic Librarian and Magic Keeper.

Asha seems to represent my deep, obsessive, compulsive wish and desire to be one of the psionic-mage superhumans in my stories, to take over for be when I feel failure and self-loathing and terror and panic. I think Asha may in fact be an actual entity, one who communicates outside instead of simply speaking into my visions, dreams, pain flare withdrawings, anxiety attacks.

All I know is that Asha was in every dream last night and throughout the past several sleeps, long detailed intense dreams, and she quoted Kosh. She spoke in a soprano version of my voice that could sing. She was always here She is always here. She has always been here.
I think she was with me since I was a baby. In different forms, in different species, with different names, in different imaginary beings, in different fictional characters. She was made of fire. She used to be a phoenix, a unicorn, a dragon, a star, a nebula. I know Asha. I know Asha in the way I hope to know myself.

The thing is, Asha has a fully active voice when I am completely conscious, aware, awake, functional, and stable. She didn't completely create herself, but she grew and evolved over my lifetime in her own way as a character in my subconscious. She took ideas I worked with and wove them into her personality, behavior, and mentality. My disabilities are hers. She stayed and changed and grew with me like a permanent piece of my spirit. Asha also represents my fluid sexuality - I often visit her in the place she calls home and we make love, representing my desires for love and orientation.

She lives with Alicia in the Wonderland cottage, but she freely moves about my brain more often. She shapeshifts into elemental energies, she moves around my hippocampus and amygdala and temporal lobes and cingulate gyrus and thalamus and auditory cortex and somatosensory cortex and parital lobe and the back of my brain.
She has altered the Wonderland cottage to be something else entirely, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two office rooms, a large entertainment living room, a large kitchen, a basement. The outside build would contain concrete, cement, hemp and limestone, bamboo, steel. The glass windows are shatterproof. The doors are hemp-lime and timber. That must say something about my mind's inner workings. Especially since the main reason for hemp being illegal is due to its threat to corporate patentable synthetic fibers and wood and paper product industries, while the medicinal drug potential became subject to false claims and fear mongering alarm campaigns until the original industrial potential became buried under the alarmist anti drug campaigns. Part of me probably knows how powerful this is. Medicine from nature itself and the human brain itself is usually denied and seen as worthless.

Asha represents that part of me that firmly supports the controversial balance of traditional pharmaceutical medicine and nontraditional botanical medicine.
Asha is my activism and advocacy. Asha is the fire that moves my belief in the combination of synthetic drugs and organic drugs. Asha is the phoenix in me that rises after every defeat, every failure, every attack, every oppression, every attack and assault on my truths and faiths.

Throughout many names, faces, back stories, lives, personalities, and individual growths... she has always been Asha Clara Night. And this is how she asked me to look so I could see that there is beauty deep and shining.

I must find and thank the artists for these images, since I found myself taking these pieces of artwork and subconsciously turning them into incarnations of my own fictional character.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151978626835684&l=17dde55bf4

Asha may well be the character in that second novel after all. It won't be this Asha, my Asha; just a version, a more humanized incarnation I can bring out to show the public. This excites me. She could help me write it, just by living in my mind.
brightlotusmoon: (Default)
History hurts. Repeating a painful history still hurts.

I will sound very defeatist, pessimistic, exhausted, fed up, lost, and afraid to fight: I don't know if I can prevent my friends from using slurs and pejorative phrases that clearly insult disabled people. I know I can respond to "Oh get over it, it's no big deal, stop getting your panties in a twist, etc" with "Fuck off, you know I've asked you to stop." However, I can't fight. I cannot snarl every single time I am with a group and someone says that something (not a person) "is so ret***ed." Because I myself will feel like I am losing battle after battle and I am so tired. The people in my life, especially the assholes with hearts of gold who know they are assholes with hearts of gold, are willing to die and kill for me. I will defend them forever. I realize not everyone will respect my choice of family among these friends. But you know what, these friends know me, understand me, respect me, love me... even as their humor and sarcasm on my Facebook translates to what seems like ugliness. I watch "Archer" every week, after all. And as long as I have that battle axe gifted to me by my favorite asshole with a heart of gold, I can make fun of myself.
I don't know why I wrote all this. I dont know what my brain wants lately.


Posted via m.livejournal.com.

brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
My modified Disablility Compensated Qi Gong exercises always help, mentally and spiritually and psychologically and physiologically. Like yoga, except Fake Yoga Cripple Style that is not actually yoga. (FYCS. FIX. Ha ha ha...) (Or hey, Fake Yoga Cripple Style Modified Exercise. FYCSME = FIX ME. Ha ha. Wow. Dude.)

But it isn't helping today. I'm too Hollow, which is my term for deep major depression. I'm too Postictal, after that unexpectedly awful seizure yesterday and its aftershock which were tiny seizures for hours. Emotional responses are foreign and results of emotion are mere symptoms, like crying and laughing. I will meditate again, do more qigong work, and breathe and much as possible.
FYI. I am having an episode of pure major Depression plus major Anxiety. This is accompanied by mild memory loss of the past two days. Everything is foggy. I know I should be upset about something, but I cannot feel upset. What is upset, anyway? I think I hurt myself emotionally yesterday. I wish I remembered what it was. I believe it started out with false happiness. Remember that weird assumption of some sort of hypomania? I think I was outside of my rational mind.

Back to special exercises.
People keep suggesting and recommending breathing exercises. I know all of that. I know people just want to share their personal remedies. I love it. Please don't think I am rejecting you. I love hearing your stories. Even the stories about yoga. I wish I could explain why just seeing or hearing the word yoga evokes a sad, upset reaction. It isn't that I am unable to do yoga. It is just that yoga extremists do not listen nor care about my need for compensation. My body was born crooked. I cannot form a proper straight line even if I held on to something. No amount of cajoling, insisting, or pushing different forms will change that. Please don't do that. Please just accept that I have to perform qi gong differently, and that qi gong included poses that are similar to yoga, and that yoga is not the greatest panacea of healing holistic practices. This is part of why I don't want to visit California, which makes absolutely no sense and makes me look prejudiced.

So. Please, please do talk about how much yoga is healing you, because that is beautiful and I am genuinely, honestly joyfully happy. But if you wish to suggest a yoga pose that can be modified for someone with a shaky, spastic, crippled body, please suggest an alternate form. That is all I ask. There is no such thing as a real panacea, even in the botanical world, even in the plant and herb world, and certainly not in the exercise world. It is entirely possible that I will find a set of yoga exercises that will really, truly help me, and I will join the ranks of yoga enthusiasts. Anything is possible. Nothing is off limits. Except evangelism. If I wanted something pushed down my throat, I will drink water mixed with special fruit and plant powders, like sea buckthorn and moringa.
This is coming from my years as a holistic enthusiast and pusher. I was bad. I was essentially an asshole. And then I learned that it was just wrong. I never want to do that again. Just because something works perfectly for me does not mean it will work at all for someone else.

Any form of good physical-spiritual combination exercise, be it yoga, qigong, taichi, strength training, cardio, dead lift weight, isometrics, plyometrics, dance, hardcore dance, etc, is wonderful and beautiful and strengthening, and will help everyone in some personal powerful way. That is the point of exercise.
I love you all. If you really want to help me, don't push me. Just guide me.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
Well, hello, 2014. It's not your fault that I have been feeling like fresh hell since, oh, December 31st. It's just how it is.
We have snow, ice, and cold. I got legitimately and honestly mocked by someone from Minnesota who called me a *ahem* "pussy whiner* for mentioning that any temperature below 20 F damaged me severely physically. I wrote a scathing note back which shut her the hell up, and I invited her to come down during the height of summer, upon which she exclaimed "but I'll burn up!" and to which I replied, "Oh, sweetie... it's not even that hot!" aand the conversation was over. I posted my feelings on Facebook, to which I got several agreements.

*Dear people used to cold climates who are seriously, non-jokingly, honestly, deliberately laughing at, judging, and mocking people used to warm climates:

Okay, look. I know, we're whining and complaining because our freezing is your Tuesday. Okay, maybe we should just suck it up and wear more layers. But you know what? After living in this sort of climate for a very long time, something happens to our bodies and our blood. Just like you. That is why a hideous drop in temperature makes us rise up and scream, or, what you call whining, while for you it's just another snowy happy day across the killer ice. Because your biology has grown so accustomed to your climate and your weather, you may be literally unable to now understand how difficult and painful it can get when one minute it is just under forty degrees Fahrenheit and a few hours later it is just under ten. It is an actual, physiological, biological shock to our systems. And for those of us living with chronic illness, disabilities, and disorders that get worse when the cold comes, it can be viciously, horrifyingly painful in ways you may be unable to realize. I don't blame you for calling us whiners and pussies. In fact, I'm gonna pat you on the heads and smile and say, "Okay, sweetie..." in a soft voice. Because that is all I can do right now to keep my frozen fingers from smacking you. I'm sure you would do the same for me if you came over during a light heat wave, which we call Thursday, and start complaining that you were burning up possibly to death, and I laughed at you and said "Oh sweetie, it's not even that hot!". And then I would just smile and hand you a cup of ice water.
So. When I say my joints are exploding with fiery pain drawn from the most intense magma, that my muscles are locked in howling agony as a sensation of pure horrific icy cold runs through them, that my nerves and blood vessels actually begin to scream if I step foot outside in less than twenty degrees F no matter what I am wearing, then I really fucking mean it with no hyperbole. And so I will ask you in a quiet, raspy voice to not ever tease me again about how cold I think it is here in central Maryland. Because pain is pain is pain. And I can still stab you with an ice pick and that will still be pain.
Smiley face!*

I am still in that pain, sooo... mmhmm. I've put on plenty of sweaters, too. I mean, joking is fine. But seriously making fun of my pain issues in cold weather is never a good idea.

Also, I wonder how I can still have allergy issues when it is this cold. Wait. No, I don't. *bites lip, facepalms* Carry on.

Life is well enough. Adam made dough, and then made cinnamon rolls, and then made icing out of powdered sugar and labneh, which is a form of liquid kefir strained yogurt from the Middle East. Probiotics and whatnot. Adds a fantastic tart tang. H-Mart is a wonderful multi-country grocery store.

I have been sleeping too intensely, or rather dreaming too intensely. It's caused me to sleep too hard. But those dreams, oh, they are creative and inventive as hell. My brain really needs to stop playing fanfic with the TV series 'Lost Girl'. I've been reading detailed recaps of season four, via Canadian blogs, since that season only begins here this month, whereas Canada is around eight episodes in. I guess I do prefer spoilers, sweetie.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
I had so much amazing sushi it was amazing. I watched with amusement as one friend requested lobster miso and got, literally, a bowl of miso with a lobster claw in it... in the shell, and no tools save for chopsticks. I wanted more sushi, and they let me have more sushi because I fucking could, oh my gods, even the waitress was impressed.
I walked around a shopping area at night with friends and I didn't have a cane and it was all fine, and I socialized easily with four good good people, and when I woke up in the late morning, I hurt so badly that the only way I could get out of bed and walk anywhere, say, to the bathroom, was to put myself back into a half-asleep state.

And then... then, I got asked to weigh in on a discussion about how "our organic bodies must learn to heal themselves without medicine blah blah blah" and I was too tired to give a smackdown, so I just warned that HOLY NAKED CATS CHRONIC ILLNESS AND DISABILITY DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT YOU ETERNALLY FLOATING-HEAD HIPPIE WANNABE. Never tell someone who needs certain medications to function to just quit those medications, or you will have to deal with some very, very irritated cripples.
Like, HI, this drug here, synthetically derived from that plant over there, is saving my life, and fuck you. Yes, yes, the medical community likes to "push" drugs and all, but sometimes those drugs keep people alive, so seriously shut your rainbow-dribbling mouth.
I have spent over a decade writing essays and blog posts about this, starting from that floating head holistic hippie phase of Only Supplements and Essential Oils and Meditation, to Okay This Requires a Chemical Drug So I Don't Die But Can I Still Take The Supplements to Goddammit I'm Just Going To Balance Holistics, Botanicals, and Pharmaceuticals forever.
And the next person to use the words "poison" and "Harmacy" in conversation with me will be threatened with getting hidden completely if not blocked from my forum feeds. Because I really am a serious holistic and scientific advocate for various healing plants and botanicals. I am a shaman in training. But chemicals come from various places. And sometimes, the chemicals extracted by scientists have a better effect than the pure volatile chemicals.
You think side effects from FDA drugs are bad? Eat a whole plant and spend a few hours writhing in hallucinatory agony. And GUESS WHAT: some people never even get bad side effects. Trileptal. Zoloft. Baclofen. Soma. Tramadol. Codeine. Klonopin. Guess what? I'M NOT A FUCKING ZOMBIE. Guess what else? I AM BETTER THAN I HAVE BEEN. So you know what? Float on. The cloud are gorgeous up there.
But my body cannot organically heal itself, sorry. If you're on of those people who like to say, "I'm not against pharmaceutical drugs at all, but have you ever considered just letting your body work on itself naturally?" You will be met with raucous laughter that would make the Joker question my sanity.
I have been dealing with this since my early twenties. I'm gone through the ENTIRE gamut of medicines after being raised literally on vitamins and homeopathy and various therapies and acupuncture. I will not claim to be an expert. But I've had life experience.
So hey, if you're going to cheerfully toss out a casual, callous thought about how someone shouldn't take a pill anymore and see what happens, you really don't know. You don't know. And this is why I try to go out there and help educate, advocate and activist. Because if I don't, people will remain head-floating.
I was once head-floating, and it was a good high while it lasted. This is why many of my friends are scientists, medical doctors, medical students, researchers, etc. I ask a lot of questions. Because I never want to be that head-floaty again.

Anyway. I applied a cream with special oils to my chakra points on my feet, palms, and ears, and my forehead. I took my "harmaceutical" drugs. I stretched. I did acupressure. I meditated. I did my personal compensated form of qigong (of which yoga is only a small part, so don't bother), I recited various phrases to relax myself and let my darker emotions drain away.

In conclusion: If I specifically as for opinions about something incredibly specific, I ask that people stick to that topic. Unlike my friend's post, which was derailed by a hippie wannabe who happily invalidated everyone by insisting that all we need is our own organic body to be healed. Sorry, friend. I hope that drug is going to work well for you! I've never tried it, as I haven't needed it. But I'm happy to help with research.

Anyway. Sushi makes things better. Lots and lots of sushi. Lots. Sushi.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
Because I'm always the fucked up, mentally bizarre, clumsy, twitchy screwy fool who never gets it right, and even when I try to make it better I do such a poor job it needs to be fixed again and again. Some people call it cute and endearing, some people call it stupid self absorbed insanity. I keep trying. I don't even know. I'm tired of people telling me what I should do just because they want me to. Advice and suggestions are awesome. Pushy preachy sanctimony is awful. And even if I don't do it the way people want me to, at least I'm doing it the best ways I know how.

My best beloved cat is ashes in a box because I waited too long; my floors are never clean enough; I watch the same television shows and movies and read the same books over and over for pure comfort and joy; my memory is disintegrating and the only reason I remember anything specific is because I cheat; I want my friends to be okay with each other; I want to talk about things that confuse and fascinate me which include my disabilities; I collect current My Little Pony toys; I just want people to realize that my autism has a name and they can use it without assuming I'm begging for attention, same thing with my aging cerebral palsy and fibromyalgia; I want people to stop insisting I do yoga and to stop insisting I quit eating wheat or dairy when I don't need to, I can't go vegan, I hate tofu and my body can't handle it, I can exercise all on my own;my drugs, supplements, and therapy sessions are working exactly as well as they should be and I twitch when any of them are attacked by people who don't understand; sometimes I actually do physically feel like an old woman and it is absolutely not ever because I am somehow conjuring it or desiring with magical thinking like in that book about law of attraction with pure belief, and if someone really thinks that kind of awful thing about me, then they seriously need to realize that I do not think like them and never will, and they cannot change that.
I am just me, and as I grow and change it will be me, myself, with bits and pieces of suggestions that I will keep and discard as I grow.

I have no fucking clue what made me write this out. Frustration, upset, irritation.
Feel free to pick it apart or ignore it. Just don't trash my medications or doctors, because in that aspect I am doing just fine. Just... this isn't even "vague posting" or "cryptic posting"... I just needed to release something. Social media like this may not be the best place, but by gods, I have so many people on my feed and friend list who understand and are in a similar place. This is for them.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
Last night... I dreamed that we went to the shelter and adopted a young cat - a kitten, really, a domestic shorthair tabby - and the gender didn't matter, but the name meant "Life" or "World" or anything magical...
Emma. Zoe. Zoya. Gaia. Vita. Asha. Mira. Zena. Yuki. Saturn. Nova. Chronos. Rhea. Deus. Dragon. Elfin.

Why did it have to be so soon? My heart/mind already is desperate to fill that abyss. Rose was that kind of cat, after all. Everyone says their cat is incredibly unique. Rose was incredibly unique. I don't even know.

I know well enough that I need a cat whose personality and behavior involves pure love: holding, hugging, cuddling, nuzzling, trilling, adoration.

My heart needs time to heal. I know. But soon enough, that cat will be waiting for me.

I don't know what I will do. Emotionally dead one moment, sobbing wildly the next minute. I know this is normal.

Luna snuggles me and purrs louder than ever.

Yes. I want a third cat.

I don't know how I will feel or think tomorrow.

I am not used to thinking in the moment.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
Since I am still in shock, I feel like I'm moving through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief completely out of order. I've accepted that Rose is dead and I am deeply depressed. While I held her waiting for Adam, I knew she was dying and I was already angry and bargaining. When the vet said she was critical, I accepted and realized she was probably going to die. When she coded and they couldn't revive her, I accepted and understood, then went right on to bargaining again, blaming myself and how I just kept waiting. It became anger, wondering how the fuck a five-year old cat with a clean bill of health could suddenly present with congestive heart failure and die so quickly. I became angry that we hadn't figured it might be genetic. I became depressed that I couldn't have known. I still blamed myself for not finding a way to take her to the clinic sooner.
When we held her body, I went through acceptance and depression again, followed by deep gratefulness that at least she waited until Adam came home, that Adam got to hold her, that she knew how much we loved her. Depression again. Acceptance.
No denial. Slight isolation.
I updated Facebook right there in the clinic's comfort room, since in this age of instant communication it was much faster than a sobbing phone chain. We finished holding Rose and signed the private cremation form. We walked to the car. My best friend Beca called and all I could hear was her screams, and I cried. She and her husband James came over with food: Whole rotisserie chickens that I ripped into because I hadn't eaten all day. Alcohol because it helped dull the pain. Being a doctor, she commanded that I keep taking Klonopin, as well as baclofen, two to three times a day just to keep my mind and body from shattering.
I realized how desperately I needed them there, and she knew it, and late that night she brought me to bed, fed me my drugs, and climbed into bed with me. Adam was downstairs on the couch with James.
I clung to my plushie ginger tabby Haiku all night. Beca and James left early this morning, and Adam came up to sleep with me. I woke up and instinctively reached behind my head to the soft pillow where Rose would be sprawled out, and I made a soft whimper of intense pain, because she wasn't there.
And Jupiter has been meowing, softly. Meowing and meowing. I don't know how much he understands yet. Luna has been so quiet, but always there, always ready for a hug. It's only been a day. I've only shed a few tears. The real grieving hasn't begun.
People are gently discussing taking me across the street to the new shelter on Solstice or after Christmas, to let me adopt a cat. Others have suggested waiting a few months. I cannot wait. Because I don't believe in waiting for too long. My heart cannot take it. I cannot spent months mourning and empty when a pet dies, otherwise I may lose my mind. See... After Tuesday died in November 2006, I spent four agonizing months with a growing, burning, echoing hole inside me, until I begged Adam to take me to the old shelter on Rothgeb just to look, just to see... and that was where Luna stole my heart and filled my soul. And one year later, my other best friend Charlotte begged us to come see her former coworker's new litter of five female gingers, and Adam picked up one, looked into those wide bright sunny eyes, and announced she was coming home. And Rose took our hearts and ran.
I never expected the baby of the family to be the first to die.
I think we will always be a three-cat house now.
I want and do not want isolation. I don't want platitudes. I am completely fine with "I'm so sorry for your loss" - as "sorry" is shorthand for "sorrowful" and it helps me to know that others feel the loss and mourn with me. But I am depressed. And I don't know what to say.
We have been getting so many phone calls and messages.
She was only five years old. I guess it was genetic. She was so young.

Now, her soul resides in the gold-cream clay sculpture Adam had made in her likeness months ago. Adam absorbed her energy, stored it, released it, and made sure she would stay with us.









The house of Rose's soul.
Oh sweet Bast, please love Rose and care for her. Give her sweet cuddles and nuzzles and kisses. And give her as many treats as she wants.
With Adam Paul, the sculptor.
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch Light)
I'm too much in shock and too tired, so I am copying from Facebook.

Yesterday Part 1.
I don't think I'm having a nightmare. But if I am, I just want to do something to make Rose stop panting rapidly and lethargically with wide pupils and mild legarthy. It is four in the morning. I have no car. I could call a taxi service to take us to the Nebel Street emergency clinic but I can't think straight. Maybe she is having a cat anxiety attack. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's nothing. I will stay awake for her. I will offer her treats. I will remain calm because Klonopin is in me and I cannot panic. She is letting me cuddle her. Maybe it's nothing. I need it to be nothing. It's four in the morning and I can't drive and I can't find a carrier and vets don't make house calls. I need this to be nothing. Bast, please let Rose be fine. I will stay awake.

Yesterday Part 2.
Okay. Rose is okay. I mean... well, she did turn down Greenies, which never happens, which means she may not be hungry or is just very tired. When I pressed my ear to her side, I didn't hear anything unusual, just breathing and purring. But she also turned down water and food, which makes me concerned. Her nose is dark... is that a thing? I mean, it's not that 'normal' bright pink flush. She is also acting physically weak - when I picked her up she went limp, and when I put her on the dresser with the food and water bowls she looked almost depressed. She then jumped off and lay on the floor and mewed. I think it's allergies or maybe the start of a cold. She is absolutely lethargic. There isn't much I can do right now - I don't want to rush her to a vet right now just out of worry. She's breathing fine. Adam won't be home until tomorrow, though.

Today Part 1.
As soon as Adam gets home we are rushing Rose to the VCA emergency clinic on Perry Parkway. FYI. Her breathing troubles are much worse.

Today Part 2.
Rose Sunshine Paul.
Time of death: 2:20 PM December 14 2013. VCA Veterinary Referral Associates.
My cat died of heart failure caused by liquid around the heart and lungs.

Today Part 3.
Rose Sunshine Paul.
April 2008 to December 2013. Confirmed cause of death: fluid around the heart and lungs. Heart attack and shock.

At the Gaithersburg VCA Veterinary Referral Associates, the closest pet emergency hospital, the one we have been going to for years since its Darnestown location... they called in every single doctor and nurse into the ICU since Rose was already severely critical. They did everything possible to stabilize her even through the Code Blue. A dozen veterinary specialists for one little cat. They spent 15 minutes on resuscitation. Dr. Marc led us to the comfort room and said there was nothing else to ben done. Let me stress that every single doctor was in that room working to save our cat.
We opted for a private cremation. Just like Tuesday and Ralph and Puff, with polished wood boxes and name plates and clay discs with paw prints. These people were wonderful.
Rose died knowing she was dearly loved. She knew how intensely we cherished her. She loved us with every part of her soul. We were tribe.

Adam and I held her in the towels and hugged her body, and Adam absorbed her soul. At home, he transferred Rose to the sculpture he had made, with gold and cream paint. Rose as a soul will always be with us.





Read more... )
brightlotusmoon: (Snow White Ruby Blood Dragon Witch)
Good news! Watching "The Day Of The Doctor" - twice, once my myself for the initial airing and again with Adam for the second airing - did give emotional promise. I was cheered up and excited. I never care what critics say. It is a fun, gorgeous, hilarious, heartbreaking, powerful, insane, wild, amazing program, and the Doctor himself is wonderful. This episode had all those elements. I was very, very pleased, especially with the varied one-liners between Smith, Tennant, and Hurt. The monsters could have been better. The "final fate" of Gallifrey pleased me. The concept thought up by the three Doctors at the climax was fantastic. I applauded.
*
Less Good News: Obviously, my clinical depression has not broken, save for a few bursts of laughter and crying. Last night, my Soulmate Best Friend held me close and told me that it was okay to not be okay. That everything was okay. I need to keep believing that. I need to stop convincing myself that "Nothing matters, nothing matters, it's just a thing, it's just a thing, not even an emotion, why should I care, is this even worth it." I am not alone. This is so common that I have made this post public so others can join in on the discussion. I don't know why it happened, but I marked it on my calender because that us important. I write. I write and I write. I ask questions. I cry in my dreams. I might go to my parents like this. They seem to understand well enough. I just need to tell them I must eat more, even if it is salad for days knowing them.
I still didn't moisturize my face. It itches. I need to have a shower anyway. But I did wake up well, take my medicine, get dressed spritely, nibble foods throughout the day. I am too skinny for this. B, my darling, I will keep my promise. We can go together. My OCD is like fireants, and I keep rubbing my arms, my torso, my legs. I am doing everything I can. I can.
I can do all of this. Even if this is trying to destroy my amygdala. I am a fighter.
I love you all. I wish I knew what else to say...
Orange juice.

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