Love to all...

Thank you to those who have tried to help me through all this.  It will be over soon, I've decided.  I think that I cause too many problems for people, and I hate that.  Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for reading.

Please let Christmas be over...

     I've done my fair share of going out in the crowd all in the name of Christmas.  I'm not a holiday person.  Especially after learning in a non-so-loving way that my conversations with my daughter are about to come to an end.  What a great thing to learn.  This whole situation sucks.  The conversations are making her revert to old behavior, so it's best for her for us not to talk right now.  I wish that understanding completely over-laid the awful emotions that come with it.  I've never hurt like this before in my life. Hopefully everybody else will have a good holiday.  This one's not gonna be that great over here, but at least I know it.  It's better to know than to go into it clueless.  Take care everybody...

Hard Times...

     It's Christmas again.  I used to hate this time of year until I had my daughter.  Then, watching her delight at Christmas totally changed it for me.  I couldn't wait to watch her get excited about Christmas and Santa and giving Jesus a gift for Christmas, a tradition my family has taken on since I was a child.  I used to love Christmas.
     Now I don't like Christmas so much.  It's not that I don't like it, but I hate the way my Christmas has changed this year.  Not having my daughter has changed absolutely every inch of my being.  And it's changed Christmas.  I don't have her to watch the Charlie Brown's Christmas, so I leave my tv off instead of trying to myself get through yet another Christmas special where everybody makes it out ok and is really happy.  I should be happy...it's a happy time of year.  I try not to beat myself up for having a rough time, but it's hard sometimes.  I think that I should be fine since I take the lifetime supply of psychotrophic medication...ya know?  Oh well....another day, another time, right?
     I'm going to bed.  I hope you all have a good night.  Sleeping is my friend at this point. Thanks for reading

I just called to say I love you....

     Just kidding...I didn't really call to say "I love you"....I've been obsessed with the movie 'High Fidelity' as of late, and there's a joke about that record in it.  I've been making Christmas presents today.  I hate it that the spirit of the holiday is supposed to be love and joy and all that kind of stuff, when really you end up busting your ass trying to make everything perfect.   My dad put my Christmas tree up for me, and for the first time I like having a tree up.  It makes me think of my daughter.  Sometimes it's a sad memory and sometimes it makes me smile.  I had to go through the Christmas ornaments and give my daughter's to her new mom since she has her very own big girl Christmas tree.  That is one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I really didn't think it was going to be a big deal, but it was.  It amazes me sometimes the things that really upset me about this whole situation....things that I normally wouldn't get upset about and feelings that I didn't expect to come to the surface so easily. She loves Christmas, or at least she used to. On one hand, I'm grateful that she misses me and feels a bit out of balance.  On the other hand, it breaks my heart to see her heart broken.  She's so  much better about keeping a happy face on than I am.  I cry entirely too easily these days, and sometimes think that I feel things a little too deeply.  I'm glad that I have the capability to feel a myriad of emotions...I just wish that I could pick and choose what I feel and when I'm going to feel it.  But don't we all? 
     I know someone who is in severe pain but hasn't a clue that he feels that way.  He tries to hide it with humor, and sometimes it's almost painful to watch.  I just want to say, "it's ok...you don't have to pretend that everything's ok", but I don't.  He's a grown man and it's not my place to go there.  So, I back off and let him do his thing.  Maybe I'm keenly aware of his pain because of my own.  We have different stories, but very similar pain. I think we're all hurting in some way.  Most of us try to do something to cover it up.  I know I do...I'm technologically retarded, but I've gotten so into tech stuff, trying to occupy my mind and time with something other than thinking about everything that's really going on with me.  What do you use? Is it work? Or food or relationships? We all have something...I'm sure of it. 
     I have to tell you about a book that I downloaded (yes, I'm a dork) on my Nook thingy.  It's about the "bad" women of the Bible.  I love it.  Even God uses people like me - the bad Christian who cusses at any given chance and occasionally participates in illegal activity lol.  In learning about the Bible growing up, I always heard about the women who seemed perfect and normal and beautiful and all that.  I never identified with them worth crap and thought that I had to be like that in order to be loved.  So, I gave up trying at a pretty early age.  After all, I am your classic preacher's daughter - and the worst kind at that.  My family still jokes about how I turned into hell on wheels when I turned 16....I was awful! Why I'm going into all of this, I'm not quite sure.  I think I just want to communicate that you don't have to be perfect and all together in order to be of help to others or to be loved.  We were all made to be who we are for a reason.  I have mental illness and everything else for a reason.  What that reason is I haven't the first clue, but at least now I know that there is a reason.  And knowing is half the battle, to quote GI Joe lol. 
     So, this holiday season I want to allow myself to feel what I feel...even when it's inconvenient and hurts like hell.  I don't want to feel frantic about making sure that everybody is going to like what I've made them.  If they don't like it, tough shit....I've put a lot of thought, time and love into every single thing I've done.  I hope that this season, where the malls are packed with rats and frenzied shoppers, that you're able to sit back and get in touch with what's going on with you, whatever that looks like for you.  For me, it's sitting in the dark listening to Buddy and Julie Miller or David Gray, letting whatever feelings I have come up and hit me out of nowhere.  I hope you can find something that works, too.  Thanks for reading.

Another Day...

     I went to the doctor today.  My psychiatrist, that is.  She's wonderful.  She's been practicing over 50 years and really knows her stuff.  It's great to be with a doctor who tells me what to do instead of asking me what I think needs to be changed.  Isn't that what you pay the doc for? To tell you what to do? Yes. So I look forward to seeing her.  She always knows what to do and isn't weirded out by the fact that I have something like 550 different diagnoses lol.  I like the comparison my dad has been making lately.  He says that what I have is like cancer...good days and bad days...can't really control any of the symptoms, but you fight it like hell.  It kind of takes the pressure off, if that makes any sense.  I realized over the holiday that I was worn out because I felt like I had to be "on" all the time, even though my back was hurting and I was so tired.  I don't do well in crowds.  I've realized this.  So, I took my Nook e-reader thingy and played sudoku in between reading the old yoga text and Anne Lamott.  She is my favorite author, by the way.  I highly recommend anything that she's written.  Just when I think I'm the worst person ever who was somewhat Jesusy and crunchy, I read her work and feel right at home.  She's a bad Christian, too.  She always helps me not loathe myself so much lol. 
     My doc and I talked about me not having my daughter and how I'm doing in the transition.  I realized that I'm in an angry stage right now.  I don't know that I can actually say "stage" since my attitude can change within 5 minutes, and I'll do a 180.  Like today...I was going about my business doing just fine.  Then left the doctor's office pissed as hell at the child therapist for ripping my daughter away from me.  This, however, is not reality, and I realized that as soon as I started using the words fucking and shit while talking to my mother.  This is always a bad sign....though she was kind enough not to reprimand me while I was so angry.  Truth is, though, that when I get that mad about something, anything, it's usually because I'm hurting really badly about it or something related.  Don't you think you do that, too? If my reaction is a 15 on a 10 point scale, nine times out of ten, I am really hurting about something and find it way easier to be mad instead.  I don't feel so vulnerable or hopeless when I'm mad.  At least I don't throw things anymore...that ended several months ago lol...actually that is the truth.  I got so mad at a friend who owed me a ton of money, and I just about emaciated my phone after throwing it repeatedly because I was so "pissed".  What it actually was was that I was so hurt that he would borrow that money from me and then not pay it back, when I was a single mom on welfare, blah blah, blah.  It was all quite self-indulgent if you ask me - to lend him the money was my mistake, but I did it...that was my part in it...if that makes any sense.  Anyway, I'm tired of feeling angry now.  I think I'm going to try to chill for a bit before I have to go to bed.  If you pray, send love and light my way as I'm continuing through this journey.  Thanks for reading.

Dear God Letter...

      I have schizophrenia.  I also have a few other things, but schizophrenia is definitely there.  That's why I had to give up my daughter.  I am grateful that she's with family, but it's still hard.  Last night, my entire immediate family was here, and all of the grandchildren.  I love it when we're all together.  My brothers make fun of all of the bad and crazy hairdos that I've had...the bald heads and mohawks, though one brother had a mullet at one point.  I'm not the only one with bad taste lol.  Anyway, my mother played this damned song that absolutely wrecked my heart...it's actually really good, but I can't listen to it without bawling.  It's called "A Baby Changes Everything".  I don't know who wrote it, but Faith Hill sings it on her Christmas record I guess...it's my mom's.  I started crying, thinking about how different my Holiday is going to be this year.  How different my life is right now, and how much pain I'm in today.  Her new mother told me that my daughter is writing letters to God right now...telling him that she cries sometimes because she misses Lucy.  I was already crying about missing her....this just tore my heart out.   Though somewhere in my heart a little light shined in some tiny space because I am not forgotten.  She is not clueless about how different things are and how hard they are.  She is going to have an amazing and painful story to tell when she gets a little older.  I hate that it has to be a painful and difficult one, but I'm realizing that we connect to each other best when in pain.  Don't you think you do that? I know I do...there are some people I never thought I'd be involved with who can connect with me and help hold me up because they've been there.  Somehow or in some way, they've been there. 
     Anyway, I told my father as he was driving me home.  He suggested that I might want to write some letters to God too.  I'm still not sure if God is a He or a She, but I decided that "they" wouldn't care that much.  I hope not at least.  So, I decided that if I'm going to really be up front and honest about where I am, I would let you read  my letter to God.  I didn't get too deep, but figured I'd share, hoping that I'm connecting with somebody:

   Dear God,
     I know that I'm throwing up shotgun prayers right now...my heart is broken.  I'm starting to see a little light through the cracks, but it's all so painful still.  I wish that it could've stopped when I signed my rights over as her mother.  Couldn't the giving have ended there?  So much is frequently asked of me, and I give for the well-being of my child.  I give for hopping that if I do the next right, albeit hard thing that more light shines.  It may just be a tiny space filled with light, but it's more than I had.  Bless the people who endure mindless babble from a crazy girl.  Bless that baby that 'changed everyting' for me.  Let her know how much I love her...thanks.  Oh, and please honor these tears I cry for her.  Let me send her light and love and then drop it so I don't end up in that ocean, punching at the waves, trying to get somewhere more peaceful.
                              Amen

Happy Late Thanksgiving

      So, how was your Thanksgiving? That's probably not a proper way to begin a blog, but I always want to know how other people spend the Holidays.  I spent mine with my father's side of the family in a cottage on the beach in Florida.  This was the first time in 15 years that we were able to make it...the "we" being my mom, dad, and me.  I still don't have clearance to drive, mostly because I suck at it, so I rode with them.  Unfortunately I spent a lot of time in bed because of my broken back.  It gave me plenty of time to think, though, sans computer and other web capabilities.  We stayed from Tuesday until today.  I was ready to get home, back to the dog and all things familiar.  As I was laying in bed, though, I tried to maintain a positive attitude by thinking about the things and the people for whom I'm most grateful.  I read quite a bit...a little Anne Lamott and a little from an ancient yoga text.  The latter was extremely confusing and not nearly as entertaining as the first.  My brain seems to serve me well lately, as I haven't had an episode in several weeks now.  I welcome the reprieve with somewhat open and tentative arms.  I can't help but wonder when things will go downhill again, and I hate that about myself.  I wish I could enjoy the break without putting one foot into tomorrow's possible breakdown.  I don't think I'm alone in this.  And I don't think that this behavior is limited to those who have mental illness.  I think in some way we all do this, with whatever ails us. 
      As I lay in bed this week, trying like hell to be grateful when I really just wanted to crawl under a rock because I felt like I had the body of an eighty-year-old, I found that I had one foot in that today and getting home.  I was glad for the vacation, to see familiar faces that had gone unseen for so long, and to hear my elders tell stories of Thanksgivings past.  I became painfully aware, though, that the older generation's presence and guidance will not be there much longer.  They are getting older, and so am I.  Things are changing.  People are changing.  I am changing. 
     That is what I got most out of this week...that everything is changing.  My daughter is changing.  My relationship with her is changing.  She no longer calls me mom or mommy.  Instead, she calls me Lucy.  I don't mind it much, as that name is a term of endearment in my my family.  However, I am painfully aware that I am not her primary mother figure anymore.  It hurts like crazy, but I have to walk through it.  I'm 33 years old now, and I'm not getting any younger.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring.  Will I feel good? Will my back remain like the rusty cogs of a wheel or will I be able to move more freely?  Will my brain behave itself, or will it go off into some new psychosis?  These are all questions I've been asking myself while keeping one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow.  It's like my dad always says that if you've got a foot in today and one in tomorrow, that you're pissing all over today.  I love that...not the pissing on today part, but you know what I mean.  I think we all need to remember that.  I think that life comes in abundance when you stay right where you are instead of lurching towards tomorrow in expectancy.  Hopefully I'll remember that as the day closes.  Thanks for reading.