Basilisks 'n' Beads

Me and My Shadow 2

2007-07-29T12:51:01Z

Why do I say inappropriate? Because I know first hand how physicians can mismanage patients on SSRIs.

My GP prescribed Prozac for me. Worst drug liek, evar, when it came to my system. It took months to start working. Three or four, if I remember correctly. And then, it worked terribly when it worked at all. The brain fog, the fatigue, the listlessness, the non-existant sex drive. Oh yes, I got a slew of really bad side effects, which only increased when they decided to up my dose from 10 mg to 20.

Seriously, the conversations I'd have with my physician went like this;

"So, how are you doing with the Prozac?"

"Okay."

"Great!"

No, sorry. You do fucking NOT do that with a depressed, shy girl of 19 who is on medication for the first time. Ask her questions, for gods sake. Therapy was an absolute joke, too. Not just the borderline diagnosis, but a whole bunch of other things. The whole experience (including coming off my meds with no one following up with me, because I'd had enough with the side effects) soured me on getting any form of professional help for five years, during which time the anxiety, depression and PTSD were allowed free reign, making my college career about 80000 times more difficult than it needed to be, and my grades worse than they could have been.

The only thing, as cheezy as it sounds, that convinced me to go back was my girlfriend. She loved me enough and had enough good sense to tell me that not all therapists were morons, and that the way my meds had been handled was ridiculous. It's thanks to her that I'm not only healthier, but typing this entry today.

So, what did I learn from all of this? I learned that depressed people need to be their own advocates, and if they aren't in a place where doing that works, then they need to find someone who will fill that role. This is a tall order for many depressives, as we tend to be not only poor, but often isolated from friends and family because of the nature of our illness. This is why it's not only important for any culture that proports to be pro-life to recognize depression as a disability, to enforce laws protecting depressives from being arbitrarily fired and harrassed, and, above all, to act as friends and allies of depressed people, particularly when we aren't in our right minds.

As for personal coping skills? Well, I'm still learning those. But i've discovered that talking about depression is the first step. My father died largely because he wasnt' able to fully reach out and accept help from those who loved him most (I only learned, for example, that he was sick after his suicide. He never told me anything. And I would have helped, too.) Lifting the shame and silence around depression and suicide is the first step to learning how to cope with it.

Well, that's it for us, folks. It's 7 a.m. here, or close to it, and time for us to sleep. Good night, good luck, and God love you.

If you still want to sponsor us, you can do so until ... Monday, I think? ... at this url: http://www.blogathon.org/login.php?action=pledging&blogid=272.

Thanks! It's been fun! And now my hands ache lol.

Me and My Shadow - Part 1

2007-07-29T12:29:20Z

Obviously, if you've been following this blog, depression is a disease with which I am more than passingly familiar. Ineffectively treated clinical depression and ADHD killed my father in 1997. After his suicide, I was forced to admit the most painful, personal truth in my life: my suicidal thoughts, bouts of rage and sorrow and my lack of any visible self-esteem weren't just "regular emo teenage stuff" that I would outgrow. Oh, I didn't come to this realization because of any particularly impressive or precocious self-awareness (do most people at age 17?). Instead, life, the universe and Everything in my senior year of high school forced my hand. In the same year that my father committed suicide, I also lost most of friends after graduation, mostly because they all went out of state for school (I was far too unstable and sick at that point to apply for an Ivy League as many people probably throught I should - I went to a state university and did just fine). On top of normal high school bull like that, I also had my first ever boyfriend who later dumped me because, well, I was grieving my father's death and clinging to him like a drowning woman, and I was ultimately terrified of sex thanks to having been molested several times between the ages of 7 and 8. In retrospect, it isn't difficult at all to see why he left, and I don't blame him in the slightest now. We're still friends, especially now that we have our own long-term relationships.

But I digress a bit: After all of this, I finally broke and admitted I needed help. I went to two equally dreadful therapists, one of whom misdiagnosed me as a borderline personality (uuuuum... I'd just lost my father on top of going through the usual college crap and no one in school wanted to be my fucking friend. Maybe THAT was the reason I was slashing my legs up with a Bic razor? Ya think?) and put me on Prozac. Now, if every anyone wondered why, exactly, I'm such a stickler for treating anti-depressants like heart medication, you won't wonder after this post. First, a physician prescribed the drug for me. RED. FLAG. Although many disagree with me, I'm still of the opinion that physicians have NO business holding the power of the pen over any form of anti-depressant. That's why we have psychiatrists, kids. They go to school to learn how to properly manage and monitor patients on these meds, which, annoying side effects aside, come with a whole bunch of social and physical baggage that things like insulin, blood pressure medication and antibiotics just don't. And to allow not just any physician but a frigging' GP to write scripts for Prozac? Unreal and completely inappropriate.

Just one hour left!

2007-07-29T12:07:50Z

and, of course, Kim and Oscar are cuddled up in bed. Hypocrites :3. Hehe.

Seriously, I can't believe that it's almost over, and that I managed to successfully do Blogathon for two years now. I have every reason to believe that I'll be back in 2008 (hopefully with Kim if she'll do it again!). This is not only a fun event, it's also an endurance test - non-geeks who may read this, blogging for 24 hours is much harder than it looks -- especially if you've been crafting necklaces and poetry all day.

Unfortunately, poems for August through December are going to have to wait for the chap book (though I will post them here too, of course). I'm dreadfully sorry; sometimes you just don't get everything written and beaded that you wanted to get written and beaded in 24 hours. It sorta sucks, but there it is. It also doesn't help that I think I've found a structure to the chap book's flow and content that I didn't see before - a structure that will take a little time and research to create and execute successfully. I mean, you just can't go wrong with a book about golems and magic, can you?

Ehehe. Trust me. It makes sense to me, and I suspect it will after sleep too.

But hey. Thirteen necklaces and six poems in twenty-four hours isn't bad, yeah? Yeah.

I thought I'd close out the day by talking a bit about my own depression, and things that have been helpful coping mechanisms. We only have two posts left, so I promise to make them count. :3

- Jo upstart_crow

Jo's back in the house!

2007-07-29T11:41:06Z

Er... if by house we mean "blog", then yes! Yes, I am. Hard at work on another poem now. I'll have it posted in just a few minutes. If by a few we mean "30".

I seem to remember that the hardest part of Blogathon 2005 was by far the last 3 hours or so. Do forgive any mistakes in spelling, syntax, grammar and general logic you see at this point. I barely got 5 hours of sleep the night before as it was. Thank goodness for wonderful girlfriends who team blog with you.

So. More Oscar post. Yes, kitty is perfectly fine now. It turns out that he had been grazed apparently by a car. Although he's blind in his left eye (which I doubt anyone can tell from the photos - you have to look up close and personal to see that one eye is slightly darker than the other), he didn't suffer any permanent damage. I am, however, still reluctant to let him out of the house unacompanied.

The beauty of this story is in lost and found creatures. I was struggling with a very severe depression at the time - a depression that my recent college graduation and difficulty finding a job despite having two BAs had exacerbated. Oscar was struggling to stay alive. When we found each other, I had a purpose to keep living - I had to care for Oscar, to provide him with affection he'd been denied. I really can't explain in a single LJ post how wonderful we have been for each other.

basilisk_beads @ 2007-07-29T04:57:00

2007-07-29T10:58:25Z

Joey should be taking over again starting at the next post, and I might be taking a nap during that time. So if I do, I want to take this opportunity to thank our AWESOME moderator, as well as everyone who pledged, commented, bid, and so on. :) It's been great doing this and making a difference for an important and worthy cause.

- Kim
weyrdchic

basilisk_beads @ 2007-07-29T04:26:00

2007-07-29T10:31:52Z

Two and a half hours to go! Amazon.com has been joined by webcomics. You know, I really love it out here and I really hope I get to see Joey for ungodly amounts of time constantly from now on. Well, for the next two years I mean. After that I'm through college and grad school and if we're still going this strong, well, I do believe I'm getting sappy here so let's just say I love my girlfriend a whole freaking lot and leave it at that, yeah? <3

- Kim
weyrdchic

basilisk_beads @ 2007-07-29T03:56:00

2007-07-29T10:04:55Z

Time flies when you're adding things to your Amazon wishlist. o_O

I'm sorry I'm a bit too tired to say anything uber-clever. The brunt of what's important about being part of a suicidal person's support system, I guess, I dealt with in my last post. There's so much more to any story, of course, but I have to think about what would and wouldn't disrupt the privacy of my friends.

I do want to emphasize - after someone replied much earlier and made a great point about it - that depression isn't something people can just shake off or get over. Often, if it's a true chemical imbalance and not just situational depression, it can last a tremendous amount of time and drain a person's energy. It's said you're tired a lot when you're depressed - that's why. It's hard just to get out of bed. You feel like your life's falling apart. Joey's poetry and personal stories can probably address it much better, because I'm lucky enough to have never been there. And having never been there, you can't imagine that kind of feeling, even when friendship or relationships with depressives can help you guess a great deal.

Something that drug companies and whatever drives the education about mental illness still need to get across is that depression is a disease. It's a brain that literally works differently from most other brains. And while we're still learning more about it, what we do know is that you can't shake it off any easier than you can shake off pneumonia - or cancer. You can only help it with the right medicines, and learn the right way to live with it. There is tremendous, tremendous hope in that. It can lead to a truly fulfilling life. But it won't always be an easy one. Having empathy for that is more important than anything.

- Kim
weyrdchic

basilisk_beads @ 2007-07-29T03:28:00

2007-07-29T09:37:20Z

Wow, we're coming down to the wire now! Three and a half hours left! Joey's taking a bit of a break, so I'm back for a few entries - but don't worry, you'll have more of her poetry and the story about Oscar soon enough (don't worry, kitty's just fine!).

I have, like I began to say, a lot of experience with a number of friends and loved ones who've been suicidal. I do think it's important to talk about that, because the various reactions a person can have involve a lot of confusion and personal grief, but holding out may really help that person's survival.

Or, sometimes it can't. I know we're talking about suicide prevention here, and I'm thrilled to say every loved one I've had who threatened or made an attempt is alive and for the most part well. But one of the most important lessons I learned was in middle school, when I spent months worrying about an Internet friend who made various threats - if she'd try and carry it out, if the comfort I offered would be lasting this time, if it would be my fault if something happened.

Finally, my mother - a licensed social worker, one of my inspirations for making it my own future career - told me that the entirety of my friend's survival couldn't just rest on me. It was up to her family, her therapist, the effects of her medication, and yes, part of it was also about her. I'm not saying to give up on your friends or regard your efforts as useless - far from it. Having that person there to reach out to is invaluable and can very often help to save a life.

But you are also important. And there's a reason, when a plane is going down, that you assist with your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. Please, if you're helping someone in need, also help them to find other systems of support. Putting the burden entirely on yourself is an easy way to get burned out and exhausted, and cause you just as much emotional pain. Encourage them, especially, to get professional help if they're not already. And the first rule of social service - make sure your own personal feelings, triggers, and otherwise are in check and not affecting the sense of any help you give. Granted, your friends are a bit different from a therapist's clients, and there's no way to stay distant in that same fashion. But you can't help anyone if the situation is causing your own depression -situational, clinical, or otherwise. Be a loyal, supportive, patient friend, but also know your own limits.

- Kim
weyrdchic

Poem - July!

2007-07-29T09:06:16Z

Heh. Knew I'd get back on track eventually.

July

She does not cry at parties, even when

The punch bowl is her only conversation

And the moon hangs higher than a Chinese lantern

Forlorn as last year’s animal.

She does not cry at parties, even if her tear ducts

Split her like a trowel-tossed night crawler.

and night tatters like a worn-out scarf.

She does not cry.

They want to see that more

than they want the earth to touch their feet.

More than they want heaven.

Their tongues click interest against their teeth

Staccato, slightly out of tune.

Ants and woodlice surely taught them speech.

The cancer moon hesitates upon their eyes.

Not finding depth, her blue hand trembles on the curtains,

A ghost breath scared to stir.

She does not cry at parties.

This is why she pursues the moon into the corner

Where drafts blow low and guest will never sit.

Hand and hand, woman and orb spy from shadows,

Gossips and assassins.

She does not cry, she tells the moon.

They want to see her vomit on the floor.

And paper in her throat bearing God’s glyph

Is hard enough to keep down on good days.

More Oscar Story

2007-07-29T08:36:18Z

At first, I thought the worst had happened - Oscar had died in our driveway. But when I called his name, he looked up slowly. His face was swollen and his left eye was bloody. As soon as he saw me, he began bawling and insisted on being taken into the house. Here, he hid behind my mother's WurliTzer piano and refused to come out. I didn't want to leave him alone, but I had little choice. I locked the house up and set about trying to find his people. While almost everyone in the neighborhood knew what cat I meant when I described the big orange tabby cowering and crying in my basement, none of them had any idea where he lived. After several fun close calls including a little boy who told me, "That cat sometimes comes in and tries to eat the dog's food," to a young couple who came to the house to look at him, to a door-to-door canvas, I eventually gave up. I called my mother and told her we needed to take him to the vet, and could she come home from work to help me (I forgot to mention I was unemployed at the time, thank God. No one would have been home to find Oscar otherwise). My grandmother showed up to help shortly after and wrapped the kitty in a towel. He didn't even bawl on the car trip over.

Poem - June!

2007-07-29T08:19:38Z

June

This is a sun day,

Sweat, vines and strawberries.

Shadows scarcely

Climb beyond their bases.

Beyond each weathered fence shorn grass pouts

Toddler-tired, aching to reach

Sunflower height.

Yellow dress and straw hat she digs

Sharp fingers mulchward:

Clod burst, pebble bump, wood louse-slick

Salt upon her lips like wine;

She drinks in grunts,

Bangs on,

dirt elbow-high.

Lemonade is now,

Ice-cubes, tea spoons. Dark berries insist on root-tapping heat

To ripeness, premature yet succulent.

Work is now;

too hot for furrowed brows, for words

web-tangled between silences and questions.

Too hot for brain-banging, for that thought

Looped through her like the knothole on the January birch:

If all must be blood, salt, silences

And dirt,

No matter what strange flowers bloom,

What purpose life,

What purpose, then, the paper pushed inside soft earth

Wound up so tight it spins restless decades.

Her fingers birth a new worm. Both ends writhe

Death in beginning.

She thinks she sees a way.

---

I fear I'm getting too sleepy for witty and/or intersting comments. ;_; <- emotear.

Placeholder post

2007-07-29T08:04:52Z

Poem coming in a minute.

Oscar Post!

2007-07-29T07:37:23Z

Not yet! Try me for the June poem at 2 am! For now, a continuation of Oscar's story.

Have you all ever read the James Heriot ("All Creatures Great and Small") short story, "Oscar, the Cat about Town?" I haven't, but the title describes Oscar pretty well. Before I adopted him on August 4, 2005, he was the cat who rode the grub line through the neighborhood - snipping a bit of dogfood here, a bit of cat food there, begging and mewing and always, always gentle and charming as a little button. He was well-fed, polite, and his injuries from cat fight always seemed to heal up without infection. Because of this, I assumed that he had a family. Sure, he was dirty, like oil-spill dirty, but hey, some people don't like to bathe, so why should cats be any different? The important thing is, I met him in 2002 or so, and it was love at first sight. We immediatley took to each other. He'd always let me pet him, and I'd bring him into the house whenever I could for feeding, affection or warmth.

On the morning of August 4, I went outside to get the mail and found Oscar crumpled in the driveway.

Cats gone wild!

2007-07-29T07:11:14Z

Scary!

May Poem!

2007-07-29T07:08:44Z

May

Knives

Always find their way into wild flowers,

those bending under dew and those offered

loving kind and innocently cruel.

Lilac, daisy, iris, cala lily --

Thorny, inexplicable as weeds

Or snow so late.

When they pass these blooms and other weapons,

Her family and witch-smile friends alike,

It is the ritual of cheering-up,

It has the sacredness of prayers scrolled

And scribbled as beeswax dwindles into night.

Their concern seems made to hurt, to jar

The paper rolled beneath her tongue

So she will vomit Life.

She wonders why they make it difficult.

Care is fanged,

Concern hangs curtain-heavy,

But these petals

scalloped, smoothed, Fibonacci-perfect

These mean love,

So they show cruelty

Equal to Spring’s, who pushed them through wet earth

Equal to God’s who molded, breathed

And watched.

Knives

Always find their way into wild flowers

Just as paper

Finds its way to clay.

By night, she returns their brightness to the earth,

Into the mud to which she longs to fall.

Posting a bit early

2007-07-29T06:26:39Z

'cuz I need a shower, like, ten hours ago :x.

Poem soon!

This post is lame, mods. I'm so sorry.

Breaking News!

2007-07-29T06:15:14Z

All pledges of $15 or more will recieve a pair of custom-made earrings* if made before 2 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (two hours behind eastern standard, one hour ahead of pacific standard).

* Please keep requests reasonable - no way can I afford emeralds, diamonds, 24 karat gold, etc. And I'm pretty much a beginning beader.

Poem - April!

2007-07-29T06:08:46Z

Here it is. Kat, I'm sorry. I know I'm a few minutes late :(

April

Pain is an egg gulped

too fast and stuck inside a throat

clay-parched, despite these late grey rains.

She does not want to feel

that pull and choke, and so she tries

to drink it down with weak chamomile, hard liquor, soda pop

communion wine

Muscat-sour despite Divinity.

Beneath cathedral vaults, saints’ convex cheek bones, she

Feels the wafter catch upon her tongue,

The wine burn on her palate like a temple scourged.

Resurrection,

Swears the priest,

An iris blossom in his violet cassock.

She swallows hard:

Her chest heavy with a darkness,

A tomb, perhaps, still full.

Pain is an egg pressed

In her trachea, paper-edged,

Sharp as the word Emet.

As she rolls the chicken eggs through dye,

Sulphurous yellow, pale pink, an obscene green

She steps inside it, eyes pilgrim-wide

And finds it empty

As a balmy day.

Woah ...

2007-07-29T05:43:19Z

D00ds. We made the front page!

No, not yet!

2007-07-29T05:37:19Z

I really ought to write something non-lame and non one-sentence here, so I will.

When I post pictures of Oscar, a lot of people marvel at his beauty and his sweetness. After all, you can't deny that he has a certain sweet-pea smile, especially in that photo where he's dozing on the step. They're also really surprised to learn how he came to live with me.

I didn't buy Oscar from a pet store (quite frankly, the thought of buying living animals upsets me a bit, which means I probably shouldn't work on a farm in this or any other life) I didn't adopt him from the ASPCA or the Humane society. I also didn't pick him out of a basket of free kittens.

Oscar was a stray in my neighborhood, and I adopted him after an auto accident that nearly killed him.

Since it's time to post, I'm just gonna hit send. But I'll tell more of this story later, and how it relates to depression management.

Poem - March!

2007-07-29T05:03:50Z

March

Waking has a complex architecture

In this daffodil and early clover month:

It builds like a nest, wood, earth

And air.

It is magnolia green bud stir,

Icicle shake,

Bog moss mud-stir, slip slush grass-glint.

Rush in the white ash branches

Promise sparrows.

Waking has a complex architecture

In this body, where system nests in system

Like grape arbor knots: blood, phlegm, bile

And sweat.

It is Blood-rush, lung shudder

Pant-pant-pant

Nose-twitch, tongue-flower, intestine tick.

That lift in countenance

God’s tackle maybe, hooked

in sternum opalescence.

Spring is this house,

It’s walls and floor and hearth

Rush mattress and rook-turned eaves.

It is lock-and-click as Lincoln logs,

And still

She nestles on the floor

Snapped-twig and dirt

Green pieces kicking in her hands like tadpoles

Struggling for water.

She can’t build.

---

*pokepoke* Anybody out there?

basilisk_beads @ 2007-07-28T22:25:00

2007-07-29T04:30:14Z

Joey's been doing the half hour updates for a bit, because she's using the computer to write her gorgeous poetry. (Isn't she talented?) But I t'ain't dead, as they say, and for the next few times that I update, I'm going to be giving really careful forethought and writing a bit on what it's like to have a loved one who is depressed and sometimes suicidal, from my personal experience on several occasions.

- Kim
weyrdchic

February Poem!

2007-07-29T04:02:55Z

Not too happy with it. A few things will certainly change before the chap book, but oh well. It's the hour, and it's time to move on.

February

Blood quickens

They say

In a lover’s palm

In tastes and touch

In peeks of sunlight through

sleet-battered bracken,

eglantines corpse-crumpled

exhumed in this sour light for frost to whip,

for morning’s mock.

In this dead time where roses bloom

Unnatural behind the storefront’s glass,

Even the snow seems tired.

This must be why, she thinks,

Her heart lies still as earth

Untouched

by potter’s thumb,

unstirred

by rabbi’s lampblack glyph.

Blood quickens

only

In the locks of hands

In harborous embraces

In words peeking through

Teeth locked winter-tight and lips

Sewn in a kind of sorrow glyphs cannot breach.

The bleached sun simply will not have it,

Not for all these trees bleeding

with love’s cheep ink.

Blood quickens

She knows

But not now

Not now.

Outside the window,

Flowers lie in heaps,

Plague victims for the trucks.

ETA: Welcome, B-schedulers!!!

No, not yet!

2007-07-29T03:33:50Z

In half an hour if all goes well, we'll have February. Promise.

Um ... another kitty?

Ssshh, Mommy! Listening for invisibal miceses!

January Poem!

2007-07-29T03:05:04Z

It's here!

This is the first poem in a forthcoming chap book, Pathetic Fallacy from WMJ Press. It is also based on my January necklace. All proceeds from the chap book will, of course, go to support the American Association of Suicidology.

Happy reading! :3

January

Ice moans underneath

Cloud-tangling trees stripped of all but usnea, nerve-tendriled

Chaos-fragmented, pale as tired ghosts

And frost’s darkness, dried in sap tears down each stem, still,

She thinks,

As this too-gentle cold,

These unstirring leaves beneath snow’s gabardine

-- this lack of storm.

For though the world lies frosted as a cake, she hears

Division in those eyeless depths where minnows

Hum the rainbow sleep of mirrors

and fat frogs belch cricket and moon ripple.

In winter’s clarity, she hears

Darkness, fragment, mirror shard and shale

without music,

without snap-spring’s echo.

Ice moans underneath

Flesh fire-warmed and brown eyes

Window-wide in pond clarity.

Minnows, trees, dream-belching frogs can’t hear

Its splinter-pain, its bone-scream terror

Its soul-shatter into those usnea fingers that wave whispers through cold light

In parodies of clouds.

Ice moans underneath her ribs and through

Each eddy of a heart unstilled

As shudders through the poplar skeletons.

Not even that tread of a new year

That knot hole buried in the stately birch

Can hear the hurt.

Ice moans underneath

Her still-lake smile.

Usnea: The scientific name for Old Man’s Beard, a type of lichen.