Legally Crazy; Medications and a Carrie Fisher Quote

Hello My Dear One,

Well, we've made it through the Chanukah and Christmas holidays, and it's almost a new year on the Western calendar. I never had a real meltdown, so that was nice, and I didn't curl up in the fetal position too many times, also nice. But I did suffer from the increased dosage of the medication I added in several months ago. Three months and three milligrams into it and I've successively gotten sleepier and more fatigued with each passing day. I've had a few "good" days here and there filled with energy and positive feelings, but mostly I've been flat. I haven't been depressed per se, or even remotely suicidal, just weighted down by the heaviness of medication.

Now, I don't want you to think that I've gone and changed things without consulting with my provider first, because I did consult with the appropriate people. I have chosen to switch when I take a medication from morning to night in an attempt to use the sleepiness to my advantage. You see, after about 10 to 12 hours of having taken the med I begin to feel happy, relaxed, and ready to get on with my day. Unfortunately, this is usually around 8:00 pm (20:00 hours) and that's not particularly conducive to my life. If I worked a late shift I suppose this would be okay, but since I don't it really doesn't help. And as an insulin dependent diabetic, sleeping all day and night doesn't really help my overall health either.

So, onto the experiment, and a hope for a little more energy during the day. I've skipped my AM dose today in order to try this, yes, it's the first day and I don't know what will happen, but I'll let you know in a week. But I wanted to share this more because I want to be proactive about what's going on in my life. I want to let you know that meds help, but they have side effects that can leave you wondering if the previous instability was better than the current stability. Which is exactly why people with Bipolar Disorder go off their meds. Either we feel better because of them and question why we need them in the first place or we feel rotten on them, read normal, and stop taking the chemical help we've been receiving. It's a perpetual loop of positive and negative feedback where it's almost impossible to know the truth. Sometimes it's best to look to family, friends, and other loved ones for perspective, and to trust them that they can see who we are even when we're not ourselves. So that they can see who I am even when I am not myself.

There is a marvelous quote from the late and amazing Carrie Fisher:
     ”One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. ... At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of.” 

I miss her. I miss her because she was a voice for those of us with this fatal disease. Yes, Bipolar Disorder is fatal, but we can manage it for as long as possible with support from those around us and from those who are willing to speak out about it. 

We can live with it, medicate it, use therapy on it, use acupuncture, other healing options, and talk to it with our own voices even when it feels ridiculous to do so. We can live even as we are dying, and that takes a lot of courage and stamina. 

Thank you for bringing perspective on this journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari

Legally Crazy; Transgender Thankfulness

Hello My Dear One,

I remember reading that George Burns once said something about when a show got too serious you needed to tap dance for the audience to lighten things up. I think this might be one of those times in my own story. So, I'll tap dance for you a bit, brighten the mood, and show my gratitude for the life I have.

I've always been known as the funny guy - hard to believe if you just go by my writing - but I guess that's how I've dealt with all of the bad stuff over the years. I crack jokes, I make bad puns, I laugh at inappropriate things and at inappropriate times. I like to push the envelope of what's funny and what's potentially offensive. I've always enjoyed a good roast, the insult kind and the beef, as well as a side of mashed metaphors with comedic gravy. I learned the dirtiest jokes in seminary and from pastors. I think the pressure of being responsible for people's spiritual guidance can get the better of any of us. And for all of that I'm thankful.

My family is a never ending source of material. I'm thankful for that on a daily basis. Although I suspect they are not as thankful for this as I am. A story comes to mind of driving to the movies with my wife and then young sons who were aged four and two, and the comedy that followed. I'm not talking about the movie. You see, there are cows everywhere around these parts, and as we went by a pasture each occupant of the car made a noise. I said, "Moo." My wife said, "Moo." The four year old said, "Moo." And then we waited for the two year old, who pausing for a beat, said, "Beep!" It was a moment that solidified his place as the comedian in the family and a disdain by his brother for what appeared to be a distinct lack of intelligence. I suspect it had more to do with his distractibility than IQ, but when the adults laughed, he knew he'd struck gold. He's been the other funny guy ever since. Again, I am eternally grateful for my family.

Life itself is funny. Sometimes it doesn't always seem that way. But our "First World" problems of spilled lattes, lack of paper towels, rotten peaches, data overages, crappy wifi, and furniture that's too big for the spare bedroom are laughable as much as they are depressing. We have millions of things to be thankful for everyday, billions really when we consider that there are more than 6 billion individual journeys going on around us.

But what about being transgender, of having Gender Dysphoria, of being inherently different every day of my life? How am I thankful for that? How I am thankful for being a target of hate and intolerance? What makes it okay to get up in the morning, knowing that I can be attacked simply for being who I am?

It is remarkably easy to be grateful for being transgender. Every day that I get up I am able to live as my authentic self. I am able to live. Were it not for having a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, I never would've received the treatment I needed to become the man I am today. There would be no Ari, no spouse, no children, no blog, there would be nothing. But because of who I am, I have all of that and so much more. Including a sense of humor about what it means to walk through this world differently and different.

So, let's end here with an octopus joke:

Most people think an octopus has 8 legs.

Actually, they have 6 legs and 2 arms. 

How can you tell which are the arms?

Hit it on the head. 

The two that go up to the head when he says “Owwww” are his arms.

Anyway...thanks for being on this journey, no matter what.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari  

Legally Crazy; My First Transgender Suicide Attempt

Hello My Dear One,

Important Preface: I am in no way currently suicidal. I have no suicidal ideation, no plans, no causes, no reasons for wanting to kill myself. And therefore, I don't want to kill myself. I am under the care and supervision of medical professionals and am 100% safe. Trust me, you can hold me to this one.

All that said, I want to share what my first suicide attempt was like and what I've learned about myself from it.

It was 1985 and I was on the floor of my parents' bathroom in the house I grew up in. I was 10 years old.

I know that seems shocking, that I was so young, but that was the first time I realized that anyone could end their life if they had the right resources. I happened to have the right resources.
I had a bathtub full of water, a towel, a door with a lock, and a giant block of dry ice. I had been allowed to experiment with the dry ice, we had received a shipment of frozen steaks in the mail, and was warned that the the CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the melting compound could be deadly. Dry ice is made of CO2 and as it evaporates the gas sinks to the floor and will cause suffocation if breathed in exclusively. So, I filled the tub, locked the door, rolled up the towel to block the crack under the door, and laid down. I was waiting for the suffocation.

But how did I get to this point?

There are numerous reasons that someone decides that suicide is a valid option for them. At 10 I know I didn't understand the true finality of the act, but I did understand that it was an end to suffering. It was an end to feeling different. It was an end to the constant pain of my Beast of Mental Illness telling me that I was never going to be okay, and I knowing that much was enough at that point.

I was different. I was a boy stuck being a girl. I was transgender, and I didn't even have a word for it. In 1985 there were people who had sex changes, I had only heard of 1 man who became a woman, and I knew plenty of people who were gay. Since I didn't know of trans people I figured I had to be gay, despite knowing I was male, something I'd determined when I was three years old. But without vocabulary I was left in a no-man's-land both figuratively and literally. Gender dysphoria wasn't a thing yet, but I was, and that was exactly how I thought of myself. I was a thing, an it, caught between a mind and a body that wouldn't match. Death seemed like a good answer at the time.

Thankfully, after awhile I sat up, because the process was taking too long for my liking. I moved the towel. I opened the door. I left the bathroom. I pretended as though nothing had happened. And it would be a few more years before I would cognitively realize my Beast yelling out again for an end to the pain.

I would still attempt self-harm during those years, fantasize about fatal or at least violent and scarring accidents, and wonder what death would feel like. It was a time when I see that I was more than distracted by the darkness, I was living in the hell of mental illness, of Bipolar Disorder 1, as well as trying to be male in a female body.

I have to admit that writing these things down has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. I wrongly assumed that recalling the factual details of an event in my early life would be a straightforward task. But it turned out that it has been emotionally draining in unexpected ways. The greatest one is that of being a parent now with children in their tween/early teen years and how much my heart breaks when I think of them feeling something half as badly as what I've lived through. I truly can't make myself feel that pain. It stops me in my tracks every time.

So, what did I learn about myself way back then? How did I change after that moment? And what have I learned since?

For one, 1985 was the year I changed my name in my mind. Even though the rest of the world knew me by my given name, Arin became the name I called myself. Yes, when I write to you it is as Ari [are-ee] and not Arin, but I have other deeper reasons for that.

A spoonful of poison...

Secondly, I learned that no matter how hard I tried to be something/someone else I couldn't do it. Even a dead body was the wrong body.

And among other things, I now see that who I am is a product of those horrible conflicts within myself. I am exactly the man I am today because of the female role I had to play back then. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, a friend, and so much more for having chosen to walk away from suicide that time, and many more as the years went on.

Thank you for living alongside me on this journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Legally Crazy; Transgender in the Psych Ward, Disclosure

Hello My Dearest,

Five years ago I was in an inpatient psychiatric facility. Those are still not easy words to write. It means that my mental illness, my Beast of mental illness, was so far out of control that I was no longer safe with myself or others and had to be placed in a facility where I could be monitored. In fact, it meant that my room door was open and nurses walked by and checked in regularly. Unlike a regular hospital room though, there was no curtain to give an illusion of privacy, and the bed wasn't adjustable. Plus, the furniture was bolted to the walls, and there were bars on the windows.

But what was it like to be trans in the psych ward? It was definitely a mixed bag, especially because I was having a complete Bipolar 1 breakdown. I was suicidal. I was manic. I was delusional. In one way I was not myself, but in another I was completely myself.

I have dual diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder 1 and Gender Dysphoria, along with 4 or more other psychiatric disorders, and insulin dependent diabetes. The DSM 5 psychiatric diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria, despite all of the work I've done, and had done, indicates that my body and my mind don't entirely match up. I suppose being bipolar probably doesn't really help that in the end.

Being transgender and having Bipolar 1 Disorder possesses an intrinsic sameness for me.

It means simultaneous existences in 2 disparate worlds.

It means that even when I'm here, I'm there too.

That first night I probably wasn't thinking too much about the trans part of my life. I suspect I was more focussed on the sheer insanity of detox. Then again, I wanted to appear as fully male as possible. I didn't want anyone to know I was transgender. Even though every staff member knew my gender identity. Sanity wasn't on my side to start with, so thinking clearly wasn't there either.

Being transgender in a psych ward was terrifying for me in a way that was completely separate from the Bipolar 1. I was afraid for my own safety at the hands of the other patients. I was afraid that if the men there knew, they would physically or sexually assault me. Consequently, I never told them.

Looking back now, I think this put a huge damper on my recovery. I believed that I could be well even if my whole self wasn't present. I thought that I could heal the wounds without exposing the deeper cuts. I held myself back. In so doing, I delayed my progress and stayed stuck. I kept myself from moving forward in meaningful ways.

The anxiety of disclosure is still with me of course, even though I share my story easily and readily. I bring my whole self whenever possible, but there are times when I check 30 years of life treatment as a female at the door. I leave behind the person I was and pretend that I've always been the male who's standing there.

Perhaps this is an act of self-preservation. Maybe it is the physical fear of attack, but I believe it is an emotional, psychological, and spiritual fear of degradation and loss of dignity. Exposing oneself to other people's ignorance, bias, fear, distrust, and hate is risky. And yes, I am fully aware that I have a choice, my white skin color is a privilege, and I don't have to disclose my gender identity if I don't want to.

But sometimes I want to disclose for the sake of others. For my trans brothers and sisters who did disclose themselves and lost it all. For trans youth who are terrified of coming out to the safe people in their lives. For nontrans folk who have family members who are trans. And for the bigots who believe I am not who I say I am, who devalue my existence through denial and hate. For all of them to help normalize and accept that we are real live people who choose to be ourselves.

And back in the psych ward, I wish I'd done just that those first few days. I wish I'd had the courage to be that man. But maybe just being a man at that moment was enough. Maybe standing there in my Bipolar meltdown as the man I am was exactly what I needed to do, because a few days later I would have the opportunity to open up when the time was right.

Thank you for being on my journey of disclosure.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Legally Crazy, Transgender in a Psych Ward part 2

Hello My Dear One,

After the first night at the inpatient psychiatric facility, I woke up to the startling reality that I was still there, and that I couldn't leave. Owing to the fact that I was rapid cycling in a full blown Bipolar 1 episode, and I had gone off of FDA approved amphetamines (Ritalin and Vyvanse) with no plan and no medical assistance, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I started writing.

Being a writer was beneficial at that moment, particularly because all technology was removed from patients, and I needed something to do. The electronic detox was at times as horrible as the medical one was. It was hard to not have my laptop, especially since I'm dyslexic, and writing by hand can be physically painful. Still, I kept going because I was driven by the therapeutic need to as well as the mania.

In order to justify, or make some sort of sense of my stay [to myself] in the psych ward, I had to create a different reason for being there. I decided that morning I was a writer, not a stretch, who was doing an undercover piece on what it was like in an inpatient mental health facility in rural Maine. On one level this was true, insofar as I was writing about said subject. The reality though was I was there because I needed to address my own mental snap, not an undercover journalist. I was not Nellie Bly reporting on the wretched conditions of an asylum 1887. I was the wretched conditions of myself and my family being treated for asylum worthy behaviors.

Anyway, by 4:00 pm I grabbed the composition book I'd brought, although I have no recollection of packing it, or for that matter packing at all, and sat at the dormitory style desk in my room. I have to think that my wife packed it and brought it for me, but I've never asked, perhaps because I haven't wanted to imagine what that must have been like for her. There are a lot of things I don't want to know about those early admission days, but I know I will ask when I can.

I got out the pen and started working. The writing is relatively clear, although it resembles a verbal cascade like a dictionary spilling itself down Niagara Falls. The words were pressured the same way that my speech was, a spigot of sensical and nonsensical language turned onto full blast. Given that I am an extrovert by nature, I can scarcely imagine how this must have appeared to others. I know my ability for talking, and I'm thankful for the amnesia that surrounds that section of time. I must have been far more obnoxious than usual.

As for the writing, I'll let the first sentence speak for itself:

"Today has been my first day inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, I have met w/nurses, recreational therapists, behavioral techs, student nurses, an NP, visitors, a therapy dog, my wife, and a cavalcade of characters who are on this journey with me - the other patients."

So, that was something. And it goes on like that for another 4 pages. Yep, four more long, accelerated, and at times unreadable pages. The script itself is obviously a barrier to understanding, but, like the person writing it at the time, it is addled and self-aggrandizing. It reminds me of the mania itself, and that has ramifications now all these years later.

Old school technology.

What now? I guess it's a matter of one sentence at a time. I'll keep you posted on the progress. And yes, the transgender identity does matter here, it will be addressed soon. Just a little more time is needed.

Thank you for unpacking this part of the journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Legally Crazy, Five Years Ago in the Psych Ward, Colors

Hello My Dear One,

Autumn, here in the North Woods of Maine, has arrived and the leaves are finally changing color. I remember how vivid the hues were, and how vibrant the scenes were five years ago. I was in the throws of a hypomanic rapid cycling event of Bipolar 1 Disorder. Everything was more delicious and over the top. The individual blades of grass were whispering their sadness over the upcoming deaths they would soon face. The cool breezes spoke of light and loss. And the darkness was the blackest that I had known.

Of course, the reality was that I was about to slip into a full break with reality itself.

After multiple violent and terrifying blackouts where I couldn't remember how the chaos around me had occurred, I made what could've been the final drive of my life. I don't remember much of that either, only the telephone pole that I swerved away from and the looks of compassion on the faces of the people at the crisis center. And I remember how my then therapist took my hands and said, "I am so sorry that you are feeling like this." It was a strange and comforting moment that I would look back on throughout the hours and days that were to come.

I know that I spent hours at the crisis center, hours in the emergency department, and took a ride in a fancy new ambulance down to the inpatient psychiatric facility at a hospital about an hour away. I remember screaming, crying, throwing things, and hurling insults at the woman I love. I remember wanting to die.

I have plenty of memories from within the pysch ward, too many really. Even five years later I remember the plastic mirrors, the lack of shoes, the open door with the night checks. I remember the therapy dog, the arts and crafts room, the terrible food, and the other patients. Even the one who needed the electro shock therapy to deaden her depression, and how she would need to return when the effects would wear off in 4 to 6 months. I remember the lockdown when an out of control patient had to be confined to one wing, thereby reducing by a third the length of hallways that could be paced. He refused to control his diabetes and so the rest of us lost the lounge with the second television.

The colors there were all beige and grey, food included. We were allowed to wear our own clothes, but even those looked pale and dead. Many people wore black, grungy shirts and ripped blue jeans. Some donned light blue hospital clothes because they had been transported without their own things, and there was no one on the outside to bring them items. The staff had scrubs, or shirts and ties, but any colors didn't pop out at me just as if we were all blending into the grey surroundings ourselves.

And the color of darkness was present too. I can't describe that very well, because it's different for everyone. At the time I would have called it an endless blackness where no light could be seen. But now I see the darkness through the glare of the florescent lights. A flickering grey that could only be altered by fresh sunshine during the days, yet still a place to stumble into a mire of beige and grey. I hope to illuminate that space in time.

There's more of course, but for now those are all the descriptors I have left. After five years, it's time to free the demons of the psych ward from my memories and back to the hell where they belong. It's an arduous task, but a necessary evil if you will.

More muted than before, but just as beautiful.

So, in the meantime, I plan on looking at the world outside of myself and seeing what the comparison is to the alternate universes that swirl around on the inside. So far it seems that out there it's not quite so busy, so frenetic, or so anguished. It's not quite as scary either. The world between my ears can be a dismal place to reside, and seeing the colors of fall, even if they are more muted than five years ago, gives me hope.

Thank you for being on this colorful journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari

Legally Crazy, Lies and Adopting the Truth

Hello My Dear One,

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote to you, and I have struggled greatly with an essay on lying that I've been working on. It is never easy to look at one's own flaws, particularly under a very brightly lit microscope. It's not fun.

As it turns out, I excel at lies of omission. For example, as a youth, I was in the Scouts, which is true. Anyone who meets me would assume that I meant the Boy Scouts. And to keep my life simple, I wouldn't clarify that thought, because in actuality I was in the Girl Scouts well into high school.   

Despite sharing so much about myself to large groups of people, I still withhold some of the inner demons that plague my head and heart. It's convenient not to display my constant battle with the Beast of Mental Illness, the anomalies of my anatomy, my complete and total reliance on insulin, or the thirty years I spent presenting myself as the incorrect [for me] gender.

I don't like telling all of the truths. I don't want to share the parts of myself that could condemn me. I don't want to be judged for being different, especially in so many ways. I want to believe that the outside image I present to the world is real. I don't want the truths to cause me harm. And that one word, me, is the problem.

Sometimes, when we least expect it, truths cause pain in highly unexpected ways. For example, the other day I took one of my children to a medical appointment as his father, which is true. But, just like the scouts, clarification or quantification of that statement can be made. You see, on paper, I am my children's stepfather.

The receptionist at the hospital where the provider's office was housed (hospital dietician) was completing the intake registration which included correcting addresses, phone numbers, and employment for me and my wife. As we finished the process, I was expecting to sign the consent form, but that train came to a screeching halt. The woman spoke those dreadful words "I mean this with no disrespect..." and went on about how she needed to contact my wife since I was technically my child's "stepfather." She then called my wife, got permission, and handed over the paperwork.

Did I mention that said child was standing behind me? And did I mention that we don't really discuss this fact in our family?

But I am his stepfather, and that moniker, that name, is a direct result of my multiple lies, some by omission, others not so much. Because I omitted my male identity during my wife's and my courtship and early marriage, I remained female to the world.  When our first child was born, the birth certificate allowed for a mother and a father. Since I was not the biological parent and not male, I was not included. And, when my sex was reassigned/affirmed my wife of almost 8 years and I legally married, consequently making me my children's stepfather. After that, when people ask if I'm their father, the obvious answer is "Yes," and the omissions begin again.

Now, 11 years later, I never consider myself to be their stepfather. I am their dad, no more, no less. But according to the law I am not. And therein lives the greatest lie of all. It's the lie I've told everyone, including myself, that it doesn't matter that I'm not on their birth certificates.

But it does matter. It matters a lot more than I realized. And it mattered most last week when I had a momentary panic attack as I wondered what my teenager was thinking as he heard his father referred to as his stepfather. It was strangely earth shattering for me, though I'm not sure what it meant to him. We've both chosen to omit what we thought about it to each other. It's a bad family trait.

So, what now? Just a few months ago, the answer would've been nothing at all. But, by admitting that I was sick, that the Beast was clawing at me from the inside again, that I needed a new med, I took the initiative to tell the truth. I didn't wait for someone to ask me how I was doing this time. Instead, I came out of my own shadow, out of my Beast's shadow and shared my need for help.

And that is the plan for the next step of our life as a family. I will ask for legal help, put my pride on hold, and adopt my children. It feels funny when the kids are a tween and a teenager, but maybe this timing is important after all. I want them to know that I have chosen to be their father through and through. And that it wasn't just a formality of updating a document, but a conscious and loving choice.

What I really look like.

And maybe we all need that right now, as they change and grow into young adults, and their mother and I change and grow into being the parents of teenagers. None of us seems to be enjoying it that much, but letting them know that they are so supremely wanted can't hurt any of us.

Thank you for continuing to choose to listen to my truths on this part of the journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

 

Legally Crazy, Summer Vacation

Hello My Dear One,

I've spent most of this summer remodeling an old house, my old house, and learning skills along the way. I can paint rooms and ceilings like a pro. I can remove the stench of human urine with baking soda and vinegar. I even have a general sense of what tools are used for what jobs. It's not been an easy process, but I've gained an amazing friend, become a "funcle" to a 14 year old young lady, and had to face down some ancient demons.

I did some other things this summer, like taking 2 education courses toward Secondary English Language and Literature certification, leaving me with 2 exams and student teaching to have that. I also worked at a local fireworks store, pulling a 70 hour week prior to and during Independence Day. I loved every minute of it, and I wish the season for such things wasn't so short here in the north woods of Maine. I applied for a few teaching positions, and a couple of other jobs with non-profit organizations. I didn't receive any offers, but it was nice to get a few interviews nonetheless.

And, I quit my regular job, working as an Ed Tech III in Special Education Services with elementary students. At 42, I felt too old to be making the same amount of money getting kicked and spit on by 2nd and 3rd graders, as I was stocking shelves with colorful explosives. It was not an easy decision to make, and I miss the creativity and joyousness of the children. But I do not miss the politics, the "role" itself of being an Ed Tech, or feeling less than as a person because I wasn't a real teacher. As in all of life, there are levels that determine your social value, in and out of your job. In American public education it's like a caste system, only with fewer financial benefits. As an Ed Tech I wasn't an "untouchable," but some days I sure felt that way. And when much of your community believes that you have an easy job that you are overpaid for, well, it became too much for me to handle.

And, here's what happened at the end of my summer vacation. As I said to the nurse and the psychiatric nurse practitioner, "I haven't gone off the rails, but I am definitely on the wrong train, and I'm not really sure how I got on board."

The medications that control my Bipolar 1 Disorder , 5 years after my first inpatient hospitalization, have started to lose their efficacy. The meds work, but not enough, and I need more to be stable. Luckily, I recognized this before I ended up in the hospital, but it's been a struggle. I don't like being sick, or ill, or mental, or crazy, or nuts, or deranged, or whatever. I hate the feeling of being out of control and knowing it. And this time I did something about it before it was too late.

So, I've added a new medication to the regimen, I'm checking in with the appropriate people on a regular basis, and I'm napping to make sure I get enough rest. Since I know the medication's primary use is for schizophrenia, which I don't have, I worry about the inherent loss of creativity that comes with these drugs. It's really more about the motivation, the physical ability to get out of my own way that's the issue. But being able to see outside the medicated parameters will take work as well. And of course, it's vital that I can see the possibilities, without getting on another railway car to somewhere I don't want to go.

Summer sunshine.

At the end of the day, I am a different version of myself, but one that I hope can work within a world that requires a certain level of sanity to function. If not, just put me on an eastbound train, and I'll make my way back home. Who knows what next summer vacation will bring.

Thank you for being on this section of the track on my journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari  

Legally Crazy, in Transgender Sickness and Health

Hello My Dear One,
     Nearly 19 years ago, at our wedding, my wife and I recited vows we had written that reflected our youthful beliefs about our future. We were after all, "baby dykes," lesbians in our very early 20's, with idealistic gay pride dreams and plans for an "Out Loud and Proud," kind of life. Well, as out loud and proud as one can get in a rural college town in the northern woods of Maine.
     So, the timeless "in sickness and in health," phrase wasn't necessarily a direct quote in our marital pledges to each other. It was certainly implied, but not explicitly stated, and sometimes I wonder if that was an intentional oversight on my part, or just wishful thinking on her part. Maybe, at 23 we knew that we were invincible, and no disease was going to strike down two young, healthy, and attractive kids just starting their lives together.
     Of course, our reality has been nearly nineteen years of a partner (me) who has battled bacterial infections, dislocated joints, broken bones, viral attacks, Legionnaire's Disease, cancer, insulin dependent diabetes, Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Bipolar 1 Disorder, and Gender Identity Disorder. And really, that's only a partial list. I've had at least a dozen surgeries, every test under the sun, treatments, therapies, medications, hospitalizations, and that infamous week in the psych ward. Currently, I am recovering from the flu. Sickness. A damn lot of sickness has been handed to my wife on the less than a silver platter of her spouse. Somehow, she manages, or exceeds at making it all work out, and I have absolutely no idea how she does it.
      But back to our wedding, to that rainbow pride flag filled day, with guests, and cake, and the promise of a fresh, new, and amazing start. Back to that moment when I saw the most beautiful woman in the entire world, floating down the aisle in pristine white and smiling at me with tears in her eyes. Eighty people disappeared from my sight as we met in the middle of our beginning. Time was standing still, and I remember little else from that afternoon, save the glitter that came exploding out of the air vents in my car as we drove away. Those responsible for this know who they are.
     What I am certain of, was my new wife hardly expected 14 years later she would be dealing with a female to male transgender husband who had been admitted to a psychiatric facility.
      Inpatient hospitalization happened that day for rapid cycling of extreme mania and immobilizing depression, withdrawal from FDA approved methamphetamine [medically prescribed stimulants for ADD], the refusal to take medications for Bipolar Disorder 1, and suicidal ideation and suicidality. There had been an attempt that morning as I drove myself to the crisis center, choosing at the last possible second not to plow into the telephone pole on my right. Only G-d could have been with me then, because I certainly wasn't.
     After the crisis center came the Emergency Department, then an ambulance ride, an elevator, and my delivery to the inpatient mental illness floor of the Catholic hospital an hour away. I was in a self-imposed and unsupervised detox, having mood swings of messianic proportions, and painfully suicidal. There was a team to keep me from falling apart. There were safety nets everywhere. And of course, there were bars on the windows.
      But what about my wife? Where was she in this chaos? Where were our children? And what could that woman possibly have been thinking? What was this sickness doing in her life?
     I don't have the answers about her emotional state, though I can guess, but what I do have are the memories of her presence each and every step of the way. I remember how she placed herself between my Beast and our boys. And how before I even arrived at the crisis center, she had reached out to family and friends to ensure that our children were safe, cared for, and loved. She was present for them as she reminded them their father still loved them, but he was sick. She was present when she told them that even though he'd stopped acting like the loving daddy they once knew, he was still there, somewhere. She protected them from the sickness, and from the Beast that was tearing his way through that man.
     And then, she was there at the crisis center, and then the ER. And when my Beast could no longer be contained she returned to our children, having faith that I would get the help that I needed. She was there at the psych ward, once even bringing those precious boys to visit the crazy man who had barely begun to accept the sickness and the Beast that were attempting to drag him into oblivion. A Beast and a sickness that were clawing at him from a hell that even he hadn't imagined, despite decades of mental illness.
      She was always present. Her love, support, and devotion were there every second that I was there, even though I couldn't recognize it at the time. The Beast tried to tell me otherwise, but pathological lying is a hallmark of that guy. And I know the Beast was wrong, because, almost five years later my wife is still present, still caring for, still worrying about, and still loving our sons, and me.
     And I believe that her ability to be present is a demonstration of love in action, the love that she has always known from and through her relationship with G-d. It is her faith that has been enough for both of us, has been enough for our family. It is her remarkably healthy faith that continues to combat and overcome the sickness in me and in our world, familial and otherwise. You should see her teach Sunday School sometime. So, the sickness and the health will always be present in our marriage, as will the faith that started with a hopelessly romantic fantasy, saw the births of two remarkable children, continued through years of immeasurable changes, and still persists in spite of all the reasons for it not to. And our family is blessed by a G-d who chooses to continue showing love through all of G-d's Beloved Children. 
      Thank you for living into the love in action along this journey.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Blessed by Love in Action

Legally Crazy, Transgender in a Psych Ward

Hello My Dear One,

Nearly four and a half years ago I had to choose between driving into a telephone pole or allowing myself to be taken to the psychiatric section of a hospital. Although this was far and away one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make, there have been many more that required far deeper introspection, risk, and personal loss. All of these times have involved life and death, gender identity, and the Beast of mental illness that coexists in my being. 

In an inpatient psychiatric hospital ward there is a total loss of autonomy. It is the relinquishing of one's freedoms, including the right to sleep without observation, or have shoes or shoelaces. Then watching those shoes get relegated to a locked closet until a supervised group walk. Sitting at a table, working on a large coloring page [many years before the "adult coloring books" became popular for stress relief] and going to the nurses' station to have your colored pencil sharpened. Why? Because electric pencil sharpeners might be hazardous to your health. And the loss of control of what you, what I, could eat, could wear, when and where conversations were allowed, and even when and what television programs could be watched. 

It was and still is soul crushing. And it was and still is sad. And when it was over, when I returned to my normal life, there were years that passed where I still wondered what happened. There are voids in my memory. There are gaps in my timeline. And I continue to consider how many different ways the story could've gone. In the end, my reality will always be altered by the madness of Bipolar Disorder One, Anxiety, Depression, Mania, and neurochemical wiring and firing that continues to blast holes through the memories within my mind.

Of course, there's that whole Gender Identity Disorder, transgender/transsexual piece of my life. The added complication of mind and matter, of a mental gender and a physical sex that do not align. A divide between who I am and how the world sees me, then and now. 

I am a man, but I am also a transman. I am a person who has lived in both genders. I have thirty years of life experience being treated as less than because of my biological sex and my gender presentation. I have another twelve of being seen for who I am, being treated as better than I am, yet always remembering what I was. It is never as simple as boy or girl, even when it is.

But why now, so many years after my committal into that place, is it in the forefront of my mind? Why I am ruminating on this time in my life? Is it a distance or a near proximity to the places and events of 2012? Or is it related to the current political reality show that has become the United States government? Certainly, the attitudes and legal battles that have been given new venomous lives, are causing anxiety within me, within all of us who know what it means to fear for our own safety because who we are.

But, I believe that it has to do with something far more subtle than a global ethos or a cultural zeitgeist. It is a more nuanced thing, more fluid, like gender itself, that has brought me to this place of contemplation.

It was gossip about a person who had battled some form of mental illness or addiction as having "been in the psych ward," rather than taking appropriate care of their children. A hand was raised to the side of the mouth when the words were uttered, signifying a tidbit of information too private to speak at full volume, but too juicy not to share. It was as if the damning nature of such a fate was like an accident scene that one doesn't stop for, but cannot help but gawk at as it's passed. 

Shh, don't tell, don't say the words that might make me sound crazy. Keep them hidden in the recesses of shame, stigma, and silence. Keep quiet, keep still, pretend that it doesn't happen to people "like us." Ignore the gut-wrenching pain of the unmerciful torturers, the beast of mental illness, and the judgement of a world that makes you the beast. 

The irony I suppose is that in all of this, the transgender part of me had little or nothing to do with the medical and psychiatric care I needed. It wasn't my gender that was the problem, it was untreated Bipolar Disorder One, a disease that doesn't distinguish or care who you are, or how you are viewed. Indeed, it really doesn't care about sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliations, age, or anything else. If you are mentally ill, it is a sickness in your brain, not in any of the packaging. 

And for the week I was inpatient, my gender identity was disclosed by me to only one other person, who also happened to be transgender. Surprisingly enough, that person was there for neurochemical reasons too, and the transgender identity was as irrelevant to their treatment needs as mine. 

Of course, being transgender, when labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder for treatment purposes, i.e. hormone therapy, surgical procedures, etc. is by definition a mental illness. And with that, many people are in psychiatric facilities for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts because of that designation. Yes, being transgender can cause you to wind up in a psychiatric setting, but it doesn't mean that it will, or that it should.

And there's the crux of the issue. If and when I disclose my mental illness and my gender identity, they become inextricably linked for people who understand little or nothing about either one. I end up inhabiting the fear that my credibility, or that even my value as a human being is diminished by these coexisting forces in my life. 

Simply put, do people think I'm crazy because I'm trans, or I'm trans because I'm crazy?

I don't know, and I probably don't want to know.

What I do know though, is that right now, the juicy gossip, the truth, the lies, and the inaccuracies about all of us who are mentally ill, or are transgender, or are in any way different is affecting us daily. Anger/Fear at the "other," and at each other is nothing new, but the ability to spread it so fast and so far is. Words can be emissaries of love and hope, or violent harbingers of physical harm to come. With technology and media that travel at the speed of light, it is often difficult to know if the threats are real, or are merely the rantings of a scared and lonely person, suffering in their own state of depression. 

Either way, our anxiety rises, our rational selves erode, and our love for our neighbors is relegated to theory rather than practice. We cannot even see those we disagree with as our neighbors. It is safer to keep them as enemies, risking degradation of us all, rather than a little bit of humanity for just one person. That is crazy. 

The author in blue.

It's funny really, that when I was in a psych ward, transgender and all, the people around me, the other "crazy" ones treated me as a true neighbor. They applauded during a group therapy session when I said that I'd finally agreed to start taking medication. What a crazy way to experience unconditional love. 

Thank you for always being there on this legally crazy transgender, and sometimes psych ward filled journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari