notes at 8:30 AM

[kuangning]

• I have been awake far too long.
  
• I don't see myself rectifying this for another hour or three.
  
• Has anyone any clue where I can get my grubby little hands on an HP DesignJet 2800? Cheap is implied in there -- used, refurbished, maybe a lease? I'd wish for a designJet 5000, but I know better... and I'd really rather retain possession of my soul.
  
• Eva deserves to be shot with rocksalt repeatedly.
  
• I still don't think this qualifies as content. and I am a geek. But hey, songfire@tears-of-gold.org works again!
  
• The shower fairy really pulled through for me tonight, and at some point I'll elaborate on that.
  
• meh... on second thought...
  

A bit more than a year ago, I stepped off a train in Stony Brook to keep my first appoointment with my psychiatrist. It was a gorgeous day, and I was bubbly because it was the first time I'd planned the route myself, travelled alone, did everything right. A half-dozen different wrong stops, only one right one, yadda yadda. I was even early, so I hung out outside for awhile. Spent some time looking up at the window of the hospital room I'd been in the week before. Then got myself to my appointment, where the very pretty doctor notices that I'm happy and wonders out loud about mania.

... there's no room in that lexicon for joy, you know that?

You get handed a diagnosis, and here's what they're really telling you. They're saying that you're caught in a nasty feedback loop and your emotional spirit-level is off plumb. You can't trust your brain and your body to tell you what's normal anymore, so they want you to trust them to do that for you. Simple enough -- they give you these pills or whatever, and send you off in search of that frame of mind I call level. Not too happy, not too sad, not too much to one side or the other. Normal. Which wouldn't be a problem, except they define normal for you without ever having seen you when you weren't in crisis. They never see you when you're not sick or medicated. So how do they know?

That said, most of the time, they're on target. They put you about where you'd want to be, if you had to choose one state of mind to be in 24/7 for the rest of your life, and you had to interact with people, and those people had to not think you were absolutely nuts. But then, you no longer trust yourself to tell you what's normal, because hey, you already know the sensors are broken. So "level" is all you have to go by. And every little divergence from it has you taking action to get back to safe, get back to level. Everybody has good days and bad days, but you're no longer allowed those. A good day is mania, a bad one is depression. Everything is pathological, nothing but level is normal from you anymore.

Maybe it's just the lack of sleep talking, but tonight, level doesn't seem good enough. I want joy.

Comments

[rbos.livejournal.com]

I read somethingpositive just before coming to livejournal, and eva *does* need to be shot with rocksalt repeatedly. What a rotten, lousy thing to do. Davan's too good for her. Which says something. :)

psychatrists are that way; they use their stick and apply it to everything they see, instead of using simple common sense. It generally works for them, because if someone comes to see them, their stick is probably going to have a decent effect most of the time, but too often it's overkill or simply the wrong thing to do. I like counsellors, who (at least around here) are trained more with accession and adaptation to life issues, and reaching forward and building yourself up, rather than fighting a problem and trying to make it go away. They're not allowed to prescribe medication. I see one occasionally, and she encourages joy and happiness, without trying to see manic. She understands that life is variable for me, for anyone, even cyclical, and doesn't stick labels on them unless they go to extremes that effect your quality of life.

Maybe you found a newbie psychiatrist, and maybe I have a good, experienced counsellor, but I've seen both and I prefer the counsellor.

Too bad that girl with him is only fifteen...

[fearghaill.livejournal.com]

'cause she seems like just the right sort of twisted to be his type. Who else but a soulmate would offer an alibi to someonethey barely know. I can almost se her becoming a kid-sister/protege type figure in his life.

Re: Too bad that girl with him is only fifteen...

[kuangning]

Isn't that the truth. And you know, fifteen-year-olds don't stay fifteen forever. Maybe one of these days.. ;)

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

Actually, knowing Eva - and the comic in general - it's quite possible there's a horribly contrived long detailed and perfectly innocent and honest explanation that exonerates her.

Or she might be cheating on him.

But, I mean, come on. This is SomPos. It's quite possible there's something else going on. If it wasn't for the fact that he has an alibi of his own, I'd half think Choo-Choo Bear had eaten their clothes and they were trying to catch him :P

[bridgeweaver.livejournal.com]

You have described exactly why I have kept myself far far away from the psychodoctors, even if some think I might benefit from them. I have known too many beautiful people who lost much of their beauty in the name of "functioning more normally." What the hell does "normal" mean, and I don't need dictionary citations. The concept is anathema to me implying as it does that any stranger is more qualified to judge what should be right for me than I am. Hell, I award that power only to people I know and respect, and I don't pay for that with cash.