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, 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

Of Doing the Best They Could, of Moving Forward from the PTSD Flashbacks

Hello My Dear One,

It has been a tough couple of weeks at work again, with multiple changes to my schedule and my responsibilities.  It has also been a time of deep reflection on the events of my past and the flashbacks that I have been dealing with.  It has been a time of outer and inner confinement, and within that I have found different perspectives on how I perceive myself. It began in the darkness of the inside self and has slowly moved into the light of the outside world.

For the past 25 years I have seen my life as one grand failure after another.  For 25 years I spent my time believing that who I was could be summed up in the disasters I had created and the wreckage I left behind.  I was unable to feel that the positives that had occurred had actual meaning, that they were more than just accidents of fate.  I could not believe that I was in any way the originator of the good itself.  I believed that I was merely a guilty bystander who by fluke had a good thing happen to him and others around me simply by proximity.  I was a big, fat nothing in my mind and each bad thing that happened in my life was a reinforcing reminder of my inherent unworthiness.

In part, this sense of self, this sense of failure came from the six years that my parents were tangled in that ugly affair, all the while refusing to make good choices, and telling me that they were staying together for me.  Yes, they reminded me daily that their immense dysfunction was for my own wellbeing.  And for the past 20 years or so, I believed that I was therefore to blame for the six years of torture and the failure of the relationship itself when I went off to college.  I carried the weight and the burden of a failed existence that wasn't even mine.  I was responsible for their choices, or so I thought, and each bad thing that followed was directly related to my actions.

And I stayed a prisoner to the past for a very long time.  I allowed the darkness to overwhelm the light, and to overwhelm me.  Consequently, I couldn't become the man I knew I was. I was stuck living as someone who had been imprisoned by her/his own body.  I was also stuck with profound and profoundly untreated mental illness.  Add in the unbearable dysfunction of my family of origin, and I had a recipe for substance abuse, self mutilation, violence, impulsivity, mental breakdowns, and sheer hopelessness.  Sadly, I fell down all of these rabbit holes at one time or another, and I am always aware of the fact that it could happen again if I don't take care of myself.

It is not surprising when people tell me it was a miracle I survived all of my mental and physical illness.  And it is true, I did survive.  I did not lose the battles with my parents' Beasts or with my own Beast.  I lived to become the man I am today, including being a loving husband, father, and teacher.  And those accomplishments are far more than mere survival.  I surpassed the hells of my existence, I grew out from them, using the unsteady foundations to build new platforms for my success.

More importantly, is that the things I did and did not do over the past twenty five years are more than just the result of divine intervention and dumb luck.  Rather, who I am is the product of all the successes I created out of the abyss that I crawled up from, with the help of G-d.  It is what I have done with the wretched times in my life that has given me a way to use my G-d given gifts, shaping and honing them to be of the best uses possible.  I didn't merely survive, I thrived.

I have had many successes in music and art.  I have earned 2 undergraduate degrees, as well as a Master of Arts in Theology and Ethics, all while living with learning disabilities, mental illness, mega-doses of medications, and gender identity issues that led to a full transition from living as a female to living as a male.  I successfully transitioned from female to male, keeping my marriage and family intact.

I understand what it is like to live with emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse.  I have the experience of fighting with Bipolar 1 Disorder and how it can wreck a person's entire life when left untreated.  I have the ability to share my stories with individuals and large groups in order to broaden others' understanding of gender identity, transgender, and intersex conditions.  I choose to share those stories as an example of success in the transgender community and a way to teach others that it is the journey of being human that is universal even when our paths seem so remarkably different.

But what about the pain and the scars that I still deal with when I think about the past, about the horrific ways my parents acted, the crimes against human dignity that went on for so long, the bizarre reality that was my life?

Well, I used to view those battle wounds as the result of people who refused to do their jobs of being good parents.  I balked at the notion that, as many people would tell me, "they did the best they could."  I hated those words and the lack of personal responsibility they implied.  It was as if those 6 words excused everything, because my parents had put forth the best effort they could.  In my mind and aloud, I would scream that this was untrue, that they had NOT done the best they could.  They had chosen their own narcissistic needs over my basic human needs.  They had failed me miserably and I was unwilling to believe otherwise.

But as I continued to reprocess the initial flashback, a door was opened up for me to let a new narrative be heard.  I sat in my therapist's office, still hashing out my feelings and that nagging phrase "they did the best they could."  And as I sat there saying that I couldn't accept that my parents had done the best they could, I suddenly sensed that my worldview was about to change.  My therapist asked me questions I had never had the courage to ask myself.  With a compassionate but blunt truth she asked, "What if they did?" "What if it was the best that they could do?"  "What if in their own dysfunction, disease, and emptiness, their choice to stay together for you was the best they could do?"

And sitting there in the early morning, I realized that the answer to all of those questions was one that I didn't want admit, much less say aloud.  So I breathed out a heavy sigh and said "Yes, maybe that was the best that they could do, even if it wasn't what I needed."  And that was the answer.  My parents had somehow believed that they were doing the best they could for their child, albeit a deluded, misguided, traumatizing, and dangerous best.  Yes, my parents did the best they could for me.  And in the end, that is all they could have done. 

So, here I am, knowing that I have survived and grown from the "best" my parents could do.  And that is a miracle, it is a mitzvah, and it is a living faith.  It is a miracle that even the worst that someone can endure can still be transformed into a blessing.  I am living proof that G-d's love is greater than any brokenness that a human can have.  I am living a life of my own design, choosing to be a better man, choosing to show that I am a blessing and that I am blessed.  And I continue choosing to accept the "best" that each of us can do for one another, hoping and helping with the broken parts of each of us.  

Thank you for being a part of the blessing that is my life.

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

- Ari

Of Birthdays, Worries, and Lessons

Hello My Dear One,

So here I am, one day away from my birthday, anxious, and largely dreading the day as I always seem to do.  Only 2 cards have arrived in the mail, there have been some early well wishes on Facebook, and I got to wear a paper crown that said "Happy Birthday Mr. Hilton" at work on Friday.
Kindergarten definitely has its perks.

My Birthday Crown!

I am not ungrateful for all that my family does to make my birthday special.  Rather, I am disappointed in myself for not being able to appreciate it in an "appropriate" manner, one in which I don't mope or seem sad.  And, I am disappointed that I am unable to express what I want to do in advance so that I could avoid plans that are not what I really want to do.  The worst part of it is, is that the plans that are made are always lovely, thoughtful, and often fun.  But somehow I get lost in the sadness of the day and the fact that I have not accomplished what I set out to in the past year.  I am embarrassed that I am another year older and still not who I thought I would be by now.  I am disappointed that I am not successful in the ways that I always imagined I would be, particularly as I approach 40 with lighting speed.

And yes, I know what a tumultuous year this has been for me and for my family.  I recognize the hell I have been through and the hell I have put everyone else through, and this only serves to remind me of the failures instead of the successes of the year.  Even though getting off of FDA approved meth, voluntarily committing myself to inpatient care in a psychiatric hospital, and getting hired to a position that is challenging, life changing, and most days fun, I find myself dwelling in the remorse of missed opportunities and fear of change.  I get stuck thinking about what could have been instead of what was.

And I look back now and I can see how so much has happened in my life during the past 12 months.
 
I nearly killed myself multiple times.  I spent a week in a psych ward learning that my Bipolar Disorder was painfully real.  I went through a myriad of medications.  I physically hurt myself and objects around me.  I emotionally hurt my loved ones, my wife, my children.  I spent countless hours in therapy.  I got a job.  I said goodbye to a mother that never was, while the physical remains of her latest endeavor still sit in an empty house while she rebuilds herself again halfway across the country.  I have watched my entire world crumble and seen the dawning of a new life that frightens me no matter what I try to tell myself.

I can also look back and see how much I have grown and changed during the past 12 months.

I have strengthened and grown my faith and come to terms with the dualities that I have chosen to live into.  I have committed to writing this blog and have followed through in a way that I never imagined possible.  I have become a better husband, a better father, and a better man.  I have reached out time and again for help when I needed it.  I have seen the true brokenness of my life and I have told the truth.  I have begun to tell the nightmarish stories of my childhood and young adulthood with honesty and frankness.  I have stopped lying to myself and others that what happened to me was OK, and that the people involved were doing the right thing.  I have let myself be vulnerable in an attempt to be healed and hopefully help others on their own paths to recovery. And I have spoken to hundreds of people here and in person about my life experiences and what love, kindness, and faith can do to make us all the individuals we are called to be.

And yet, there is a nagging worry within my psyche as I look toward the future, and what I have to offer, and what I will receive in the coming year.

I worry that I will not advance in my career.  I worry that I will not achieve the secret desires of my heart.  I worry that I will not be fully living into my call as an advocate and professional speaker.  I worry that I will spend the next year worrying.  But then again, as a good Jewish (though practicing secular humanist) friend has reminded me, "If you don't got something to worry about, you got something to worry about!"  It's true, as he also says, "Worrying is how my people pass the time."  And I suppose after 6000+ years of real and perceived persecution, we're a slightly more jittery lot than gentiles.  This internalized cultural sense of self as potential victim has definitely taken a toll on Jews and Judaism.  It leads to a lifelong paranoia that unfortunately has real roots that can be seen even today.  This year 2 synagogues in my state have been vandalized with spray painted on swastikas.  And no matter how much my wife may love Disney, I still cringe when many of the villains have stereotypical Jewish looking features.  I want to believe that being Jewish is something that is as valued as being Christian in this society, but one never sees Passover decorations in the storfront windows of rural Maine.  So, I worry.

Today, as I worry about tomorrow, which of course I rationally know is pointless, I think about every birthday that has come before and what I will experience tomorrow.  I worry that it will be like all the rest, a letdown, a hassle, a disappointment, a disaster, a day filled with activities I don't care for, and enforced "happiness" and celebration.  And in a way I will experience this due to self-fulfilling prophecy.  And yet, I will experience other things as well.  I will be present to my family and I will listen for the positive messages that have been surrounding me and I will remember the good I have been able to do.

The other night, I gave an hour and fifteen minute talk/lecture to an introductory psychology class at a local community college, on gender, transgender, intersex, sexual orientation, and related issues.  It started at 7:45 at night and lasted until 9:10 because of the questions the students had for me.  We laughed together, we learned about each other, and I remembered how much I truly love getting to be a part of someone else's growth and development, if only for a brief moment in time.  Teaching has always been my call.  Walking the path with someone as they learn new information about the world around them and consequently about themselves is by far the most rewarding experience I get to have.  And I am blessed to get to do this several times a year.  And of course I get to do this with 5 and 6 year olds 5 days a week during the school year.  It is my gift to them and their gift to me.

And maybe this is the real gift I have been wanting and the gift that I need to allow myself to receive on my birthday.  I need to accept the kind words of students, no matter their age, who compliment my abilities, no matter what those abilities are.  In kindergarten my drawing, cutting, and gluing skills are stunning.  In undergraduate classes my abilities to discuss my life experiences in a fun, innovative, educational, and relaxed manner that puts students at ease, and creates a safe space for all of us to learn, are stunning in an entirely different but equal way.  When a 5 year old tells me how well I drew and  colored a picture, and that same night a 20 something tells me that I really have a way with people, I know right down to my core that I am living into my call 100%.

Unfortunately, sometimes I lose complete sight of this, particularly on a day like today when I look inward and see the past, the darkness, the resting but ever restless beast, and the nearly 4 decades of birthdays that most often sucked.  And that's when I am called to ignore the beast of mental illness and its dangerous messages of regret, pain, and worry.  I must listen for the still small voice of G-d as I hear the words that were sent to me today, "G-d chose the day you were to enter this world...You, of all of us, should celebrate!"  Amen.

Thank you to all my family and friends for seeing the good and the G-d in me as much as I can see it them, especially when I cannot see it in myself.

Thank you for the celebration of being on this journey with me.

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


-Ari

Of Medications and Minefields

Hello My Dear One,

So I was going to preface this whole thing with some background and history about the past few weeks and the changes in routine and what was going on in my day to day life that could have precipitated the recent events in my mental health life.  But when you're dealing with mental health, sometimes no amount of history will explain the crazy that can happen to you, no matter how much you want it to.

Unfortunately, it turned out that history played a huge part in the crisis I found myself stumbling through, but I didn't know that at the time.  And that's the hardest part of dealing with my beast of mental illness.  It never wants to remember the mistakes or the harm it caused it wants attention and it wants it now.

So, I had been more than a little irritable for about 10 days and at 5:30am one morning I had the full meltdown.  The "scary" voice returned, the one I remember my mother screaming at me in my childhood, and how even when it comes out of my own mouth now, I flinch in fear.  I was sobbing with depression intermixed with a rage that was uncontrollable, and I began to wish that suicide was a valid option.   My beast was grabbing at the wheel of my life and screaming out of control at a hundred miles per hour.

I tried to rationalize all the stress, all the triggers, all the schedule and routine changes that have occurred in my life recently.
I tried to feel the calm of the woman I love beside me telling me that it was OK.
I tried to believe that I could handle this.
I tried to believe in anything.

And in that moment, I knew that there was more to this than all the stresses and triggers in the world.  I thought about how the insomnia had been creeping in.  I thought about the extensive cleaning I had been doing.  I thought about how angry I had been at my family for no apparent reason.  And as I thought that, I knew that my tried and true response to problems in my life, was itself the real problem in my life.  I had been feeling depressed and I wanted to fix it with medication.  I wanted a pill to take away the pain.

I had begun taking a low dose of an anti-depressant once a day and then after one week, followed the direction to take a second dose later in the day.  This was the chemical part of the crisis prior to the emotional explosion.  And although this is a widely used anti-depressant, known for its efficacy and low occurrence of side effects, I'm "special" when it comes to medications.  I have what can be liberally called an unusual biochemistry, that causes me to experience rare side effects, even to the point of anaphylaxis.  I am known as an "outlier" on the statistical charts for reactions to medications.  And this safe, low dose drug wasn't working the way it was supposed to, at all.

I began to feel exactly as I had when I was taking stimulant medications.  I half-jokingly refer to myself during that period of time as an "FDA approved meth addict."  And to be honest, I was.  Trust me, on stimulants, I make the 'crazy-homeless-guy-walking-naked-through-the-park-in-a-snowstorm-carrying an-umbrella-and talking to his-own-beard,' look completely and totally sane and rational.  As I once heard someone say, "Meth is a hell of a drug" and I know how real that is.  I spent over a year on prescribed meth, yes the medications are more refined than the street versions, but the chemical compounds are essentially the same.  And that first high, you'll never get it again, no matter how hard you try.  You'll need more and more, and get less and less.  And yes, I'm still talking about prescribed medications here.  So, the antidepressant I was on can be used as a substituted stimulant/amphetamine for people with ADD who can't tolerate stimulants.  It has many similar characteristics to methylphenidate, and therefore I became a "meth addict" again for a week or so.  And I am not a pretty addict.  No one is.

In the short period of time since my Deconstruction or hospitalization/institutional stay less than 6 months ago, I had managed to forget how horrible it feels to be out of your mind, ramping into a manic episode.  I had forgotten the hellishly insane man that I am on these drugs.  I had forgotten the destruction I create for my family, my wife, my sons, when I am in that place.  I had chosen to forget.

I was falling apart and had no vision of how to put myself back together.

And all of this led me to understand some vital truths about myself.

I want quick fixes to my problems.
I want to numb the horror and run away from the pain that I have lived.
I want the nightmare of my past to vanish without the pain of dealing with it.
I want my beast to be vanquished.
I want to be "normal."

But I learned something else in that moment too.

I have changed.

I have changed, because the pain I was feeling led me to a completely different place than it ever had before.  I looked at the anguish and knew that I needed to do something about it.  And this time, it wasn't choosing to fling myself deeper into the rabbit hole, watch myself burn and take everyone around me down that twisted path to Hell.

Instead of choosing to suffer, and let my beast take over, I chose wellness and wholeness because I could see exactly what was happening.  I called my provider and told the truth.  And I was given the gift of compassion, respect, dignity, and the ability to schedule an appointment to get back to where I needed to be.  And I was given the gift of being able to stop taking the medication and come back from the cliff my beast was ready to plunge off of.

For the first time, I was able to turn to my beast and stop it in its tracks.  I was able to start walking away from it.  I was able to listen to my wife when she said that this was not me, and that the meds weren't working.  I was able to see that I was in trouble and no amount of rationalization, denial, or avoidance was going to make it go away.  And I knew that this was a turning point in my life.

For the first time ever I was able to honestly admit that I am an addict.  I had been enjoying the high of the mania and all that I was accomplishing.  I was loving my new found energy and my heightened awareness.  I was being seduced by the grandness of the manic swells, and I was slipping into my addiction without even realizing it.  And when I saw it for what it was, well, I knew.  I knew the pain.  And for the first time, I didn't want it.

So, today, I admit that I am an addict.  Not only to the drugs that can sometimes numb the pain, but to the pain itself.  I am addicted to the beast and the attention it craves as much as my mother is addicted to her beast.  And I am choosing sobriety instead of addiction to the meds, the pain, and the beast itself.  And yes, this too is a first.

Though words are often never enough, I will say them anyway, to at least begin the journey back to who I am called to be:

I ask forgiveness for the harm I have committed against my loved ones.

I ask forgiveness for the the pain I have caused, and at times reveled in, in myself.

I ask forgiveness for the separation, the love of the pain rather than the love of abundance, that I have put between myself and G-d.

It is time to heal.  And it is time to start putting the pieces back together, but this time in a new way.
My crazy mixed up million piece puzzle with no box, is once again laid out before me on the table of my life. And by the grace of G-d, there is more than one way to put it together. I'm ready to make a different picture this time, and with G-d's help I know that I can.

Thank you for looking at the puzzle pieces with me.

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

-Ari