Tao Te Ching - 78

I encountered this tonight (via Shelley's fiance, Brad) and enjoyed it.

Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people
is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves
to be king of the universe.
The truth often seems paradoxical.

Beware the Ides of April

No blog post in March (hey, it was my birthday) and almost no blog post in April. But I've decided to check in with my one reader (love you Libby).

I just started a job hostessing at a local restaurant, I get to speak Italian all day which is pretty amazing. I'm still on the nursing track but will not be able to start filling pre-reqs until fall. I'm still working on my play and will hopefully be doing a reading of the 2nd act next month sometime (if all goes according to plan...).

And the whole reason I was inspired to blog at all is because of a great post from one of my favorite blogs (which updates on a much more regular basis than I do, and I highly recommend subscribing to his emails). His post also reminded me that I still want a tattoo of a phoenix. Someday, someday... Anyway, here's the post that inspired this one. Enjoy!

Faith

February has been a very busy month. And if one more person tells me change is good....

Nah, I'm just kidding. Change is good. But sometimes it's really effing hard. It's hard to go from your comfortable but slightly shitty status to something new, different, scary, intimidating, probably ultimately better, but who knows how long that's gonna take...you get the gist.

Most of you get to this blog via Facebook, so you know that I'm planning on going into nursing. I'm looking at another three years of school. At least. Probably more like four, while working as much as I can to keep the bills paid. And as much as people keep telling me I'll make a great nurse (and thank you, each and every one of you, it really means a ton to hear it) and as much as I believe it myself, it's still a big unknown. I need faith. And I got a little bit of faith today.

I've been working with my dad for the past year and a half. The big plan was for me to take over the family screen-printing business, DM Graphics. My dad has built up this company over the past almost 20 years, he's done a great job, how wonderful would it be if his youngest daughter could carry the torch? But.

But I am not a business person. I just don't have the head to run a small business. I'm not passionate about t-shirts. I'm not passionate about sales. These are facts about me. It's hard to admit things like this about myself, because I want to be good at everything. But I'm just not.

Unfortunately, this has manifested itself into my perception of myself on a grand scale. I'm not good at DM Graphics, and that's where I spend most of my time, so in my head, that's turned into "I'm not good at anything." Which is blatantly untrue. And I realized this today when I got into it with my dad and it dawned on me that he has some serious misconceptions about me and my capacity as a human being. I said this to him, and he didn't believe me at first. Prove it. So I said the following:

"You think I'm scattered, unfocused and unmotivated. And maybe I am, in this one arena of my life. And I get that that's all you're seeing. But there are plenty of other areas of my life in which I excel. I have my Buddhist practice, my improv, my theater company, playwriting workshop - and in all of these I'm a strong, capable person who gets things done and leads people."

Who knows if he got it. But you know what? I needed to hear it for myself. I need some faith in myself right now, and asserting myself out loud gave me a little boost that I'll carry with me for a bit. Not to be all touchy-feely and weird about it, but I think I might get in the habit of saying nice things about myself out loud every now and again. Maybe I'll say them to Bear. You should do it too. (Feel free to talk to Bear, he's a very good listener.)



(By the way, now I totally have George Michael's "Faith" stuck in my head. You're welcome.)

Two Little Words

I am a very grateful person. Not in a "grateful for my lot in life" sort of way (though I try to be that, too), but in an "I say thank you a LOT" way. I thank people often for small things, I thank people profusely for big things, I find myself signing emails "thanks" even when I'm the one helping the person I'm emailing. My boyfriend has actually told me to stop thanking him for dinner when he takes me out, but that goes against my nature. Just something to do with my personality, I guess.

I recently kind of went out of my way to help someone. Not necessary to get into details, but at some point through the process, I realized that she hadn't said "thank you" at any point. I got fixated on it. I started bitching about it. And I realized that I have a serious issue with needing to be acknowledged/appreciated for things that I do. Which is my shit, not hers.

In my Buddhist practice, we're encouraged, no, expected to help people without expecting gratitude in return. This experience was an important lesson for me, and I'm grateful for it. I don't deserve a medal, and yes, while it's polite to thank someone for helping you, it's not, or at least it certainly shouldn't be, the reason to help someone in the first place.

Lesson learned. And by the way, she did wind up thanking me. Profusely.

A Resolution-less New Year

In past years, I've made long lists of resolutions. I probably still have them in notebooks somewhere. I would make the list on January 1st or close to it, and then never look at it again. So what's the point?

I went to a Buddhism meeting on Sunday and one of the speakers said that she understands that this is a time for making resolutions because we see the limitless potential, the clean slate that a new year brings. But she went on to say that every day should look like that. Every day is an opportunity to start fresh. Now I'm not saying I necessarily wake up and see the limitless potential of my day - I'm usually just groggy and cranky and wanting an extra hour of sleep. But I get it. So no resolutions this year, no endless lists that I will forget about immediately. Just a quiet determination to look at each day as an opportunity to make my life a little better, a little happier, a little friendlier, a little more productive, and to make other people's lives a little brighter.

San Fernando Valley of the Dolls

Some time ago, a fellow playwright asked for names and descriptions of pills I've taken in the past for bipolar disorder (as part of research for his play). And I realized I've taken a lot. Treatment of bipolar disorder requires somewhat constant vigilance as far as looking for new medications, and tracking what's working and what's not. I tend to wonder how these pills affect other people differently than they affect me, so if anyone else out there has experience with such things, I'd love to hear what worked and didn't for you.

Why am I sharing this? It's a little personal and probably a little scary, but my determination is to do what I can to lift the stigma on mental illness. It's a disease, just like any other, which requires medication and attention. I've always been very open and honest about it, and I think all the people in my life know if they have questions about it they can always ask. And also the title of the blog was just too good to resist.

Here is my Zagat's guide to brain pills.

Halperidol: This was what I was on in the hospital in Italy. Its nickname is Haldol. There is something called the "Haldol shuffle" - the description for the walk that you develop when on too much of this drug (which I was) - because you kind of zone out and can't really be bothered to lift your feet when you walk. Scary shit.

Risperdal: This was one of the first antipsychotics they tried me on. It made me extremely antagonistic and angry. I think at one point I threw the bottle of Risperdal at my mom. I was on this for an extremely short amount of time.

Zyprexa: I was on this one for a long time. It causes intense carb cravings, and I gained about forty pounds on this drug. (Which I've since lost, thank you Weight Watchers.) Other than the weight gain, this was a very good drug.

Abilify: I think I was on this one for about a year. I don't remember any negative side effects - I think at some point either it stopped working or we wanted to try something new.

Geodon: I was on this for years - ridiculously expensive, so much so that my doc was prescribing double doses but since they were caplets filled with powder, I had to break them in half and divide the powder and wrap each half in foil. It made my kitchen table look like that of a low stakes drug dealer. The nice thing was the 40 mg pill is my favorite color (turquoise). The bad thing was it occasionally caused my mouth to lock so that I was unable to speak. And then more and more occasionally until I had to switch to...

Lithium: Which I probably should have been on from the beginning and I'm frankly still not sure why it wasn't. It's older than time, it's an element so it's pretty natural, it works really well for me and I feel more like my old self now than I ever have on meds. As of this edit (2015), I've been on it for a couple of years and it's still great. Minor side effects for me include thirst which leads to licking my lips a lot which makes me look like a creepy old man sometimes.

Lexapro: An anti-depressant, which is often mixed with anti-psychotics to manage the lows of bipolar disorder. Sometimes I'm on this, sometimes I'm not. You have to be careful with anti-depressants because they can cause mania. In fact, when I was first going to doctors in Italy, they suggested that I take Prozac, and my spidey sense told me not to. Turns out I was right - my breakdown would have come faster and been much worse if I had taken the Prozac. I have to monitor my feelings really closely to know whether or not I should take the Lexapro. Currently not taking it.

Ativan: Absolutely my favorite of all my drugs. It is possible to develop an addiction to this anxiety pill, but I've managed to be all right with it. It is the most "Valley of the Dolls" of all the pills - it takes the edge off. And it also makes time move faster. Good for plane trips and anxious situations.

I think that's it. It's common for bipolar people to go off their medication, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. It happens to the best of us. For a while I was putting stickers in a dayplanner to mark that I took a pill each night. But it's become habit, and I don't think I've missed a day in over a year. Yay me.

Politics and Negativity

Lots going on. Here's some political stuff.

Letter to a Whiny Young Democrat - I wholeheartedly agree.

What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far? - Thank you.

The Case for Obama (Rolling Stone) - Yes.

George W. Bush is an AssHat - No, that's not the title of the article, but this really pissed me off.

And speaking of pissing me off - here's an update on my positivity campaign:

I think I've abandoned it.

I lasted about a week, I only flubbed a few times, and I dutifully wrote all the negative things I said down in my little bitch book. And it was an interesting experiment. I really do think I was happier during that week, and I was definitely more aware of my negativity. And that's something that I'd like to hold onto. But it's unrealistic and probably unhealthy to expect myself to be Little Mary Sunshine all the time - it's just not natural. Bitching is healthy (and fun!), and I've found if I bitch about something it sticks it in my head long enough for me to figure out if it's something I can change or something I have to accept. Bitch, think, process, move on. Suppression and smiles are all fine and good for some people, but those people are the ones that freak me out a little. And sometimes they're the ones that wind up going on a shooting spree in a Carls Jr. I'm just saying.