#7: I know this sounds dramatic
carrying on with it anyway, sweetness, rapid cycling, more fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a disagreement
Hello.
As I try to see the screen through an influx of tears, the world goes all fuzzy and I blink blink blink to brush it all away, eyelashes interlocking and frustration building.
I knew that this would sound a bit dramatic, but after too much time trying to pull words out of nothing, I decide to say this very dramatic thing anyway, while squeezing my eyes shut and hoping that what I thought was going to happen for the fourth time today, wouldn’t. But the tears did come, and with them a want to disappear into whatever was tugging at my wrists and pulling at my feet.
So here I am, describing a very sad moment, and there you are, probably wondering why, or maybe not at all. Either way, I’m going to keep going because I made a promise that I want to keep.
I’m not entirely sure what else to say other than: I just get like this sometimes. I become distant in my thinking, and my motivation is swallowed up by fear and anger and the kind of numbness that pushes you to the edge, and the edge shows you beautiful wonderful things, shoving them in your face as if to say Look! See! You can’t feel anything, not even when you look at this family photo or this delicious meal or this heart-warming movie or this thoughtful text from a friend. Your eyes are too fuzzy. You are too sad. You are not stable. And if I grab you and take you with me to where the fear and the anger and the sadness live, then you will worry that you will never come back from it, even though I know you will, and I think you know that you will, too. You see, I’m playing a trick on you by telling you that it’s not ok, and I’m sorry that I have to do this, but I just do.
Tomorrow, my partner will be driving me to an appointment. I was going to drive myself but then I spoke aloud some fears and I tried to zoom out so I could see myself and see if I could be on the road for hours and hours with my thoughts and the hum of the wheels against the pavement. That’s how we decided he would come with me.
On the couch, my eyes are all sticky from crying. There are two clips sitting next to me that were holding back my bangs, but now they just sit there as the only two things on the couch, next to the one other thing—the person with a laptop resting on her legs and holding onto whatever sweetness she can find so the words can drip down like honey and she’ll be lost in her writing, not fully realizing what’s happening until after she’s done. Until after it’s all out and she can exhale and be relieved because she just did it. She’s just wrote the exact thing that she set out to do, and look at that! It wasn’t even that hard!
It’s morning now. There’s very little light pressing through the window, and only the tops of the pillows have that silvery glow that I love so much. Sometimes, the whole room is baked in Winter light and I have to take off my sweater to cool down.
Today, the row of books on the windowsill, with their spines facing me as I sit at my desk with my legs crossed and my computer glowing, are backlit. It’s quiet now, and maybe I’m feeling better than yesterday? This is what happens: my mood changes in the middle of writing something. Or maybe it shifted while I slept? It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t ever do me any good to try and figure it out, especially since I already know the patterns. I know that I’m rapid cycling. I know that my medication needs to be adjusted. I know that I’m trying my hardest to stay afloat. I know that it will be ok. And lastly, I know that it’s ok to want things to be different sometimes.
There is something else that I would like to say. Something that you may or may not have already noticed: I changed the name of this newsletter. I had been thinking about it for awhile, but you know, sometimes you can get in your head about those sorts of things. I changed it to Fresh-Squeezed Orange Juice because of a story about my grandma and grandpa, when a small glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice appeared at exactly the right moment. And that is all. Just a slice of a feeling. Maybe for you it’s apple pie or a new journal or the first sip of coffee in the morning, handed to you by someone else—regardless of the details, my hope is that this newsletter feels like your own version of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Also! I will be starting a bi-monthly audio series in February. It will be similar to the weekly newsletter, and I don’t expect it to be very long to begin with, partly because I’m wildly nervous about it, and partly because I don’t think it needs to be. Maybe 15 minutes or so. Anyways, I’ll keep you posted on what you can expect.
Unrelated, but also on my mind: at an appointment the other day, I had my doctor tell me that if I just bring my body back into balance, that I wouldn’t have to take anymore medication for my Bipolar. That my body could heal itself. In the moment, I didn’t have much of a response, but once I was home and back to doing other things, I realized how bothered by it I was. It, in short, made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough to be well, when all I ever do is try hard to be well. Wellness doesn’t work like that, at least not from my perspective.
Now that I’m pausing, my own insecurities of not being enough could be blanketed over what my doctor told me. I could have been interpreting it differently to what was intended. I’ll keep this in mind.
I do know that medication has allowed me to be more myself than ever before, and I am grateful to be able to use it in tandem with naturopathic supplements, remedies, and so on. If it’s true, if your body really does have everything that it needs to heal itself, to the point of allowing you to be without symptoms of a mental illness, then why isn’t this more widely known? And does that have anything to do with who has access to this information and who doesn’t?
Other questions include (but are not limited to): Is any of it covered by insurance? Does it ask that you purchase devices to use at home? Can you only eat certain foods—foods that are at a higher cost? What if you work a full time job away from home? What if you have other health issues? How much time do you need to set aside for prep and care and cooking? What if you have other limitations that prevent you from doing any of the above? And so on.
It’s true that, when given the proper tools, our bodies have incredible healing capabilities, but when you say that the goal is to go off medication, it could imply that that medication is bad, and therefore continuing the many stigma’s around it, and I am not willing to feel shame for taking something that allows me to be inspired by life again.
If you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear. Aside from that, I am now an hour out from my appointment, typing this on my phone and looking out at the green fields, so different to our desert-scapes. My legs are tucked up beneath me while I play with my rings that sit on my lap. A habit I have developed over the past few months.
It’s sunny, and when I roll down the window it smells like rain. I am grateful for it.
Talk next week,
Chloe
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