Category Archives: recovery

you never can tell

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watching sober house on VH1 is pretty painful. not for the reasons you might, think — me, being such a reality show junkie (pun intended). it’s not the has-been celebrities or even the “who’s that? *are they* a celebrity?” roundabout sort of things that are going on there. it’s literally that the drama that is being shown on there is really that — drama. it’s hard to explain. the drama of the jersey shore ridics or the hills or rock of love is all pale in comparison to sober house.

the jersey shore people are so stupid and ridiculous it’s just painful to watch them. it’s truly a reality show people watch to feel completely superior to the people they’re watching on tv. it’s ironic then, that these people have blown up to become temporary household catch phrases and pop culture watchwords; if only to be cautionary tales of what happens when you drop in a tanning booth too many times a week or find yourself gazing too longingly at an ed hardy catalog by accident with your wallet too nearby. the drama here is bombastic and childish and purely laughable — whatever ill befalls these people will be made up for in endorsements and appearance fees.

as i understand it, the hills was some sort of strange hybrid of real people acting out some sort of hollywood life-script that took on a life of its own — creating strange characters that ended up walking out of the show like godzillas off a movie soundstage — wreaking havoc wherever they went and becoming plasticized versions of real human beings. dear lord. i can honestly say i never did end up watching an episode of that show. the drama here walks the line between script and soul-sucking.

and rock of love. a competition show where some sort of nostalgic figure comes back a lot worse for the wear to incite the children of his fans to compete in various slutty challenges for his affection and the chance to be his right-hand woman. the drama that ensues is tantalizing; each woman plays out some sort of character, having been cast as such when she was hand-picked by the producers for the show. there are fights between villains and all out brawls; alliances are created and plans and schemes hatches. people are backstabbed and tales are tattled. there is hardly anything more satisfying than a good romance-competition-drama on the old Video Hits One. so, so, delicious.

sober house presents a different kind of drama — one that might appear to have some of the same elements as some of the other reality shows. there is nitpicking and verbal sparring. there are people who seem to have it out for each other and can never really seem to get along. at every turn, there seems to be some sort of drama always spilling out; some sort of tension under the surface just waiting to go into overdrive. i could see where people would think this was scripted or that people were being dramatic just to play to the cameras.

but the reason it’s painful for me to watch is that i recognize these people. not as celebrities, but as recovering alcoholics and addicts. i get it. i know these people. i’ve seen them all before, and on some level, i’ve been (and can be) them before. i can see the people who are taking their recovery seriously, and i can see the people who are struggling. moreover, i can see the people who are totally pushing buttons and just doing their best not only to sabotage their own recovery, but completely fuck with the serenity and progress of the people around them.

it’s such a reminder of how powerful addiction is, and what it looks like on other people. i don’t care if you’ve had millions of dollars or who you used to fuck or what sorts of people you used to hang with — when alcoholism and addiction come a-callin’, it just all looks the same. it looks the same kicking ass and it looks the same leaving town. i am so happy for the people who seem to be understanding what it takes to recover, and i’m horrified and scared for the people on there who seem to be swinging in the breeze.

meanwhile, i really need to get to bed, because unlike all the trouble i have getting up for everything — somehow i’ve agreed to get up at 7:45ish to be picked up at 8:30 tomorrow to do 12-step stuff. there certainly are paradoxes around here. i don’t know how i’m always able to do stuff for that, but can’t manage to take care of stuff for myself. you just never can tell.

the lingering rebellion

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went to see my friend in the psych ward today. forgot just how rigid the rules there are. as i was leaving the house, i remembered to bring him some stuff — two books (including the book i inadvertently “stole” from the psych ward nearly nine years ago), a pen/journal, a daily AA meditation book, and some AA grapevine magazines. i made sure to tell his girlfriend (also a friend of mine) to tell other people that they wouldn’t be “overwhelming” him to come and visit. there’s nothing better than visitors in the psych ward.

for those of you who are LOST fans, the best way that i could describe it would be to say that your friends and family become your “constant.” they are the things that anchor you to your reality, the outside world, the things that are “normal.” the way things were and are before you became manic-depressive or before things got “broken.” besides, they only give you an hour and a half, so how much can it really be?

but when we went in, i had to give the nurse all the things i brought so she could look over them before she brought them in to give to andy. and i know there’s got to be a million reasons why they do it, but i just was so irritated. like “fuck off. he’s my friend. i love him. i know what i can give him. i’m not going to give him anything bad.” and it turns out she couldn’t even give him the journal because “of the spiral.” really? is this jail?

again, i get it. he could get psychotic, someone else could get psychotic and then they’re slashing and cutting with this spiral from a notebook. but it still felt shitty. that’s the stuff people don’t realize. i’ve never been to jail, but being “in an institution” is close enough. your personal rights are taken away and it’s not like you’ve committed any crime. that’s the worst part. when you go to jail, it’s because you’ve ostensibly committed and been convicted of doing something illegal; something harmful toward society. in a psych ward, all the crime you’ve committed is getting sick.

it was one of the things that hurt the most about having my friends drift away from me at this time. i couldn’t see outside of myself; couldn’t see the behaviors i was doing that were affecting them or causing them any pain, and so i just couldn’t understand why i was being “punished” for something that was already punishment enough in my mind. when i was telling my friend’s girlfriend about my experience with visitors, though, i did realize this — my one visitor when i was inpatient was my ex-boyfriend. he and i would go on to have a very sad, rocky, volatile and hurtful ending. but, at that moment, he truly was a friend to me. he came, visited me, brought me things (clothes, books). he stayed and visited, even though i know for a fact that he hated hospitals and lots of general situations brought him great anxiety. i had a great sense of gratitude for him today, and i wish i could just reach out and tell him that.

i also got to see the flip side of caring for someone who doesn’t have the best judgment. one of my obsessions when i am in a bad spot is that my friends hate me and that they are all talking about me behind my back. that paranoia can still creep in today when i am in a mixed episode or really depressed. now, when i was in the psych ward, the paranoia that people were talking about me really was a fear founded in fact — people *were* talking about me. but now going through this with my friend, i can see that people were just trying to figure out what the best things to do were. what the best ways to handle things were. i can only imagine they were doing things hoping to find my best interest, despite any personal problems they may have had with me at the time.

lastly, i can definitely see the big picture on this one. all the years of trial and error on meds and doctors and losing jobs and struggling to make heads or tails of my manic-depression have finally come to bear some fruit. i am finally getting to see how i can be of use to people — i had a couple of other people get in contact with me about similar issues this week as well. i can say with certainty that it was all worth the various stages of struggle if it means i have been able to help out people who are going through these things for the first time.

one of the things we talked about in our visit was starting a meeting for people who had mood disorders and were also recovering from alcoholism. i have thought about starting a meeting like that for years. looks like it’s finally time. i rebel against the rules of a psych ward. i rebel against the idea that i might still be manic-depressive. i rebel against the work i have to do to make changes in my life. but at the end of the day, i see pretty clearly what the “work i have to do” is. i just need to show up and do it.

flashbacks, flash-forwards, flash-sideways

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i spent at least five hours in a locked, white room with an observation camera and padded walls last night. luckily for me, i wasn’t there for my own dark reasons, and i was in the company of friends. unfortunately, i was there to support a friend who is struggling, trying to find out why his brain is seemingly broken and his body is betraying him.

i was there with his girlfriend and my other friend, who is one of his best friends. i have known that he’s been having a rough go for quite some time and we’ve been in close contact — i’ve received some late-night calls, talking to him when he’s walking around walgreens, wired and manic. i understand these things, and i believe with everything in me that part of my lonesome, terrifying, depressing journey the year i was diagnosed with manic-depression was all to serve as fodder for my upcoming service to people i would meet.

ditto on all the subsequent years of trial and error with meds and continued mixed episodes and going through doctors and just navigating and negotiating the world of mental illness and the systems and side doors of trying to get better. i have to believe this, otherwise i would start to think that i have a punishing god; or at least somewhere on the spectrum i would think i have a god who is apathetic or just doesn’t want to see me succeed. i don’t really know which is worse. probably the god who doesn’t give a fuck, because if i had a god who wanted to see me suffer, at least he’d be showing an interest in me, right?

existential digression aside, it was such a strange thing to watch him in his moment of trial and surrender. i just prayed that the doctors who would take care of him would get something right. that they’d get him stabilized fairly quickly. that they’d get the whole picture and really listen to what his girlfriend and i had said about what *we* had seen happening to him. i prayed that he’d be able to let go of some of the obsessions that he had — about school and work and having to still get things done — and be able to know that it was time to get well. that he’d come to peace with the idea that he was, in fact, ill.

honestly, that’s still something i struggle with. that i have an illness. that i have a chronic fucking illness — in my mind, somewhat akin to diabetes. it’s just not going anywhere. i have to constantly keep it at bay with a regimen of meds or hardcore life alterations or both. and even then, i seemingly can have flare-ups from time to time. it’s disappointing and heartbreaking sometimes. it makes me frustrated and irritated and sad, depending. on a bad day, i can get to “why me?” but when i really pull back, it makes me grateful that i can be there for my friend when he needed me.

i will say that i have always been distrustful of authority — medical authorities, in particular. people who want you to wait here, or sit here, or not let you in here. people who try to keep you out or cut you off or want you to do things a certain way. i’m sure it stems from all the years of my dad being in hospitals, being sick, being so little and not being able to do anything about any of it. although, even as an adult, i see how helpless people are. how they feel so meek and mild and unable to advocate for themselves — the patients’ own families get shut out, confused, feel like they can’t or shouldn’t ask questions or stand up for themselves.

so, i always get a little jacked up in hospitals. but i also always try to keep that singing, ringing energy i have somewhere on the back burner. see, i also know that you can’t outright belligerent, either. it’s like i’m in a movie and i’m trying to spy — sneak — get things/intel/information. you have to know when to make your move or when to put on the charm and when to get crazy up in there. mostly, you keep the crazy down and the charm high. i always feel like i’m putting one over on people, because i kind of feel sort of crazy in hospitals; like you can never get what you need, so you always have to be scheming.

and the fact of the matter is, no matter how paranoid that sounds, a lot of times, it’s true. there’s some ridiculous protocol that makes no sense. there’s some stupid rule that just is crying out to be broken. there’s something they’re asking you to do that just is worthless. that they *know* is worthless, but they’re doing like a robot, as if they’ve forgotten how to think for themselves. i’m always on the lookout for these things.

one of these things sort of was getting put in this room last night. if my friend had been by himself, i could see putting him in this locked room — you’re busy, you can’t watch people. but, there were three of us with him. but, we all got to get locked in there with him. and the minute we walked in there, i felt like we were in some sort of LOSTian room. somewhere, people from the Others or the Dharma Initiative were watching us.

at one point, my friend’s girlfriend (also a friend of mine), sort of put her head back and bumped her head on the wall — she noticed that her head wasn’t encountering a hard, concrete wall. she sort of tested her theory again by bumping her head against the wall again. nope, it kind of had some give. subtly bouncy. mildly … padded? aaahh! weird. we had no clue that it was, and we all assumed if you were in a padded room, it was so much more obvious than this. there were all sorts of strange silver faceplates in the wall that seemed awful ominous to me. what were they hiding/covering?

my friends were convinced that there was no audio to their video, but honestly, i wasn’t. however, we were pretty fucking hilarious at times. that was the absolute joy of it all. as per usual, me and my recovering alcoholic friends covered the gamut — serious talks about mental illness, joking about our mutual friend’s romantic dilemma, talking about our run ins with sugar-free candy, describing a typical day in a psychiatric ward (me), discussing scientific “happiness literature” (my friend), going over potential hilarious scenarios that we could act out between us and the hospital staff (me and my friend who was there to visit), my friend who was there to visit running out to various convenience/drugstores to get us rations while we waited, and doing a whole lot of laughing. lots and lots of laughing.

at one point, i read from the big book. at one point, we talked about movies. at one point, we talked about procreation (literally — having kids to carry on genes). at one point, we talked about casinos. at one point, we sat quietly. at one point, i was laughing so hard about having diarrhea, the kind of laughter where you can’t even breathe/make a sound, that i banged my hand on the wall and they thought we needed to be let out.

it was so much different than the day i checked myself into the hospital, beaten, broken down, tired and confused. it was 10 in the morning vs 10 at night . i took a bus there; they drove. it was late spring; this was mid-winter. i was all by myself; he was surrounded by friends. i hadn’t yet gotten sober; he’s been sober 7 years. i had an ex-boyfriend and no support network; he has a live-in girlfriend and a support network that’s deep and wide. they knew i was manic-depressive; technically, they’re not quite sure what’s wrong with him yet. my obsession was that i was convinced people were talking about me and hated me; he just wants to make sure he gets all of his work and schoolwork done.

our similarities are that we were at the end of our collective ropes; we couldn’t manage to fix ourselves anymore, and we couldn’t go on living the way we had been. we couldn’t see fit to walk through life in the state of mind we were currently in. i don’t think either one of us were standing right next to the door of suicide, but i think we just were wanting to turn off the world for a good long while. while sobriety is the very best thing that ever happened to me, spending a week in that psych ward was the first step toward that journey.

however, i’ll tell you this: now that i’m sober and stabilized, i have no desire to go back. there’s something about not being able to get out of somewhere upon immediate desire that is beyond disconcerting. sometimes, it’s the best solution to a dire situation, but i find that i will take whatever means necessary to avoid that situation in the future. if you’ve never been in a situation like it, you won’t know what i’m talking about until you do. my experience was by no means terrible, but it’s something i will absolutely never forget.