Thinking in terms of trains. Not quite the obsession just hear the lesson in each neighborhood since childhood. Sets on the floor. Days to set up and more minutes to explore. The thought to add a few more cars to the track. Research the connection to each tunnel through which each wheel passes for a brief moment beyond the realization of the observer.
Power source seems so innocent. Quick decision to spend more money on more parts to start a new ride. Inside the tunnel each connecting car runs without the need for an engine. The energy of itself carries it with the proverbial caboose. The train keeps running. It just keeps running. The cars no longer strictly connected. They run alone without power, with a power all of their own. The whole set is unplugged and full of tunnels. Still they run. No longer fun. The job of the track to keep all intact has failed miserably. Now they run scattered across basement floors to search and discover for more stops. Crowds make connections but I assume they will all be late. I am sure that I will be as well. I can’t tell where the enigmatic engine is. The tracks are just a puzzle to muzzle the vibration. The energy within is stimming like a steam engine as I approach red. Just lay on the tracks, on the back, on the basement floor. There’s the door but first must muster the many cars to realign into a track design. Must connect the train of thought to the real reason it was bought for such a price. Too tired to engineer anything meaningful. The train runs away again. Hopefully it hits the breaks before it breaks apart of me. Too tired to chase. The steam has morphed into dew. Whew! Now there is time but no steam to do anything but stare at the wet basement floor that I thought about cleaning up all day.
Social/ Emotional Reciprocity Error
Undiagnosed for years due to linguistic semantics that professionals still debate about. We wait around in waiting rooms for eyes to watch for ours. Play this game. Seems insane. Seriously? The symptoms I wrestle with are not found in simple table games and eye contact. I have contacted the pain of strain trying to maintain a straight face. Like fried ice cream, masks cover the mental melt down. The frown is not me, as much as the smile is contrived to fit the scene. Just ask me, just ask how I feel when I leave. Why depression leads the way home from social scenes. Really it’s another semantic due the pedantic gathering of experts with expectations that we are all different. Yet, judged by everyone who is not the same. Drained! Drained from the rain of sounds and lights. Drained from driving down a new street with out stop signs. They Beep! The horn honks a new meaning that green lights means Hurry Up and wait again. Red means rest from the rare radiance of roaring traffic. Yellow! Hmmm. So yellow. They told me, “you speak so well”. I thought of this at the yellow. I waited for the yellow again. It’s not a sin. Unless you ask the men behind me who are in a perpetual hurry to get to the next light. I was also in a hurry, a flurry to get home to sit in the freezer and reframe my face. Turn on the melting pot for stew. Everything is different there. Everyone stops to stare at my MPAs. Too much to hide. Energy seems to be a distant diet that I can no longer afford to consume. A diet that is beyond the capacity of the expert chefs. Much like the criteria for social emotional reciprocal relational fictional responses that I gave. It worked. I am OK. The only question now is why is the ice cream melted in the pot of stew?
Mask or Not to Mask
Energy to mask is missing. Must maintain some sense of normalcy. Wish to be abnormally normal. Read my mind, not being unkind, just drained. Straining to keep a straight face. Wish this waiting room was as empty as those cracks in the floor. Wish I could look up to see the time. To see the clock staring at my insecurities. The hands rotate to imitate my unconscious stims. So difficult to determine what’s going to happen next. Why is he still talking to me? Such small talk, such big bulky words for no reason. This season is unmasking for no reason at all. Plan an escape. Make way to the hallway for a bathroom break. Yeah, if he keeps being normal, I will flee to safer shores in stalls and writing on nasty walls. Where smells swell from deep dwelling places. Perhaps I will stay here. That sounds worse than a curse from an old lady with green teeth. Why so hard to be normal today. Why is this mask so heavy. This smile so fake that it breaks my heart to lie like this. This deceptive grin is against my religion. 15 minutes of waiting is carrying the weight of 15,000 thoughts made of shame.
My mask has a leak. I am sure of it as the clock continues to peak and peer right into my abnormal. Those hands just don’t move fast enough.
Am I next? Count the feet. Yes, only four left. I must be. Voices of calm are fading into the walls. I am going to make it this time. I am next! Whew!
One appointment and done. Small drive and still alive. So why am I Drained like the first breath after the last step of a marathon? Why is this mask so full of holes, getting so heavy? Just wear the T-shirt as a flirt with social norms. Alone is not all bad. This clock in my own house stares at me. It has seen me before. It knows what time it is. The alarm of taking off the mask is beyond snooze control. Today, I am too tired to be anything but maskless me. Maskless for recovery. I have another appointment next week. I hope I recover in time to make another mask. I hope I discover in time to fake another task. Until then, I am going to stare back at this clock until I know what I really look like.
Adult Autism? How? Please Help!
Had my psychology appointment last week. Just when I thought it was safe to get back into the writing…a wrench was tossed. A new study was launched. New doors were opened. New answers to old problems and just maybe a few more initials to add to the seemingly ever growing list of issues. Most recent Autism Spectrum Disorder.
I was always on a pursuit to see if all the underlying issues were somehow magically connected. No sooner did I give that up and blog about acceptance of the Bipolar did this arise. Was she just waiting in disguise for my surprise acceptance to issue the next challenge? Perhaps! So I was tasked to research, as she knows I will anyway, to make the connect. Here are some recent but astonishing findings.
I have historically been diagnosed with Marfans Syndrome, which is a connective tissue disease. I also deal constantly with IBS and acid reflux. I also have severe anxiety issues that present all across the anxiety spectrum from somatic issues to panic attacks and everything in between. Still not enough, add Bipolar 1 and PTSD from a host of abnormal life twists and events. So what is the connection? Maybe Autism.
I know, right? But…how could this have been missed? Isn’t autistic behavior seen at a young age? In fact, I am quite certain that you have to be diagnosed before age 2 or 3 for most, not 50!
Come to find out, with still so much research to do, that “syndromic” Autism can be found much later in life. With 50% of the cases being what I will call “classic” Autism, that is to say, Autism as I read it in the DSM 5, there is another 10% with genetic factors. These genetic factors or the syndromic Autism is my new field of study. Obviously not much out there, and seemingly even less consensus. Much like the C-PTSD, which is not in the DSM but still readily spoken about by professionals on blogs and posts.
Now what? If it is true, I have a long awaited answer that connects ALL of the small mysterious dots. If not, I continue to explore and just be abnormal with one less label.
Interesting fact, at least to me, is that so much of my research kept ending up on Autism Spectrum sites. I study Anxiety and end up there. I study IBS and end up there. The kicker was searching for more info on Marfans syndrome and yet again end up there. Thanks to an article, that I need to find again, which showed the results of a study for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and it’s connection with autistic symptomatology. Ehlers-Danlos is a connective tissue disorder similar but different than to Marfans syndrome. Similar in the connective tissue disease but different in presentation. All of that said, I have a few questions.
1) Is the genetic presentation of autistic symptoms still considered to be on the Autism spectrum or as a symptom pattern of the underlying genetic disease?
2) Is high functioning Autism a reality or just spoken of like C-PTSD?
3) What is the treatment plan for such a mixture of madness?
4) Is social awkwardness and language deficiency a must or merely part of a whole that may or may not be present?
5) Is it better to ask five questions when four was sufficient?
Bipolar Dive
Four seasons of medications that tease the sand like the rain on a sunny day. Oceanic under tow flows perpetually often stealing an unsuspecting visitor to the shoreline. Ignore the education. A brief moment to explore the beautiful depths with scuba gear and a breath. Then the wind of the waves rip the side of the vessel. Gravity exists in such a way. Now the enemy of the surface. The surfers can no longer see my face. Still wondering just how deep this decent into depressions may be. There is definitely not enough air from here to there. Calculate the fear or just enjoy the final view of the underwater tomb stones. I knew it would end this way. So dark and cold. Life swims above. Far above. For the first time I see light vanish. A race for eyes to adjust to the new blindness of old darkness. Others are near but who cares when they are not seen. So it’s a million miles to the next breath. It’s a millisecond before I heard my own muffled sound. Counting down to when there is one left. Shhh! Thoughts seem to make an echo. Echo
seems to make another thought. The pressure is almost unbearable. The end is just above the waves. The bottom has never been seen. The life in the jacket has become straight. The boat rocks. It’s almost my turn to fall in.
Ideas Don’t Stop, I Do
Another great idea. Seems so strange. Such excellent excitement and no excuse will suffice for not finishing. Years of yesterday’s play on the unfinished beginnings. Go and Upgrade. That podcast was a blast for awhile. Maybe brought a smile to someone somewhere. Where? Where they don’t stare at blank walls. Where they they fair well when the seasons fall.
This book is practically writing itself. Just need the hand speed and endurance. Voice recognition software has really come along ways haven’t you? Oh, the website! I almost remembered what I constantly forget. The blog! Oh the fog of the mind. Why whine? Why? Answer another question on questions or answers. And another. And another. They won’t stop coming. Technology has come along way these days. They know. It’s knows. Don’t you? This tablet can read my mind. No, I don’t mind. I just wish it would finish this novel idea. Only 848 pages to go! So…Did you see the price of gold? I am sold that the price will continue to incline as the markets decline due to lack of focus. They are thinking of drinking their fears away. I must stay. I must go for a ride on the blockchain train. It’s the newest solution. I am all in. A great topic for a book. I will start it tonight. This wall looks quite blank. Perhaps words of the unheard should fill it. If these walls were paper they would still be blank. If these walls could write then they would fill my mind with their ideas as well. What do walls think about? I will write on them. They need my ideas to hold these corners in place. I will share so they don’t just stare at me. How impolite! Perhaps I might teach them a lesson. I will reach them with a sledge hammer. Oh! Sister Hammer could really sing. Wait! Anyways those were the days. Days before the flight of ideas. Days before the fight of trying to carry out just one of them, and seeing the
Left of Center Manic Ride
I have four legs. They are round and made of the finest rubber. I am very grounded and I sound like a parking lot full of horses and chariots. My charioteer very clearly needs all of my latest tech to circumspect the terrain. Once, on a night full of painful rain drops from the sky, most of which were forged with ice and wind, my charioteer would pretend to be loosely associated with reality. I have this habit of being on the right side of the road. This night in question, my lights were dimmed against my better judgement, and we went left of center, up a hill, on a dark country lane, in the painful rain drops of ice. Very nice of him to swerve back into comfort zones as I kept a firm grip on the loose ice which was attempting to convert the black top into its own form. I was born to ride in obedience. However, my engine is clever, and I sent multiple warnings to the Mania in charge of this trip. They must have immediately slipped by as we approached another incline in the road. This time my dims were substituted for the same shade as the night combined with the black ice which was secretly planning our demise. No surprise that we accelerated to keep pace with the manic thoughts that were raining out of control like the inclement weather. Left of center, up the hill, in the darkest night. If anyone else is out here, this will be our last drive. The fear that rings in my speakers is a word called “totaled”.
This totally describes the mind state of the manic rain and the pain associated. Yet, the end of the road is near. Just a few minor bruises as we cruise for safer shores. Fortunately the winter night high ways were as empty as the bottles on the dashboard.
I follow the rules of the road. I am well grounded with four legs that are round and made of the finest rubber. I ride right on the roadways day and night. My charioteer on occasion will manically make me ride against my smart computer like brain. It’s just a matter of time before the sum total is more than the total sum. I only wish there was a way to lock the door way when in such a state. No breathalyzers for manic minds. No tests for manic drives.
Let me reverse, as not to veer off topic. Things seem ok inside for a spell. The horses are running tonight. The weather is changing again. These winds are ultra rapid cycling. I am roaring. I am running. It’s getting cold again. The weather looks like rain. The doors are locked as not to let anyone else in. This is a private run. The voice commands are coming faster than normal. I recognize the voice. It’s my job to keep things right.
Illness and Stillness
Stillness spoke so sweetly that even serenity had to blush as she graced by. Yet, Illness was extremely intolerable to the softly sung lullaby that was brooding on the silver air waves. Illness decided that this noise was such a nuisance that he would toss the very alarmed clock out of the window. The neighbors heard the crashing of the glass as it broke into hundreds of small weapons of war. They turned over and went back to sleep. Illness maintained the resolve to solve the riddle of the universe which only those with such thoughts even know exist. The new breeze was breaking into the open window, without a sound, and was touching down upon the face of Illness. This is a trick to make me sick said Illness and he took a thought to find some paper and tape. Better hurry before the flashing of lights, the flashing that lights the night arrive for a ride. Unwittingly this time, the crime would go unnoticed as the neighborhood grew increasingly immune to the immensity of his sickness.
Then, the glass that once stood as guard of the wind broke the skin against the wrist. This pain, this bliss, this blood. This time, this need, this help must speedily be on its way. Just sit and wait. The lights must be flashing soon. They heard the weapons of glass consume my imagination. They that live nearby, sometimes say Hi, must be drawing nigh.
The silence.
Stillness now such a great delight but the fight to keep awake. The flight, of the lights, of the night, have not come. Stillness still sings this lullaby. Same song but new tune. Same cut but new wound.
This time it’s not a cry for help. This time I cry for help. Illness began to sing a song. Overweight with sorrow, this is already tomorrow, no ones heart to borrow. The breeze becomes slightly more violent. The wind speaks in a mocking movement as the papers are being rearranged on the desk. The intruder vanished so suddenly and so gracefully that even serenity would blush as she returned home. Would serenity use her phone? Illness remains in the zone. Stillness came much closer to home. Too late to practice this tune. Too late to speak to the moon.
Illness had the answer to the universe. Stillness now sings it to the multiverse. It’s getting still, it’s getting dark. The neighborhood goes to still the wind. Serenity sleeps with stillness again.
Lights are flashing…
Bipolar Specifiers! Finally I Fit
Worse than being bipolar is not knowing what is wrong. For so long I was misdiagnosed and every time a new dose of skepticism arose. I take some of the blame as I read the books but still couldn’t explain what was wrong. It’s not this diagnosis because I cycle too fast. It’s not that diagnosis because the delusions don’t last. Perhaps it’s anxiety but why did it suddenly flash away. Maybe it’s rapid cycling ocd with paranoid delusional disorder that doesn’t fit any criteria whatsoever. Imagine sitting in a car pressing the gas but the car is in neutral. Energized but immobile. Mind racing but body lethargic. All of this sometimes all at once. Nothing in those professional books were correct. Worse than the issue (for me) was not knowing the issues.
Then, finally, she read to me about the specifiers of bipolar 1. At last, there is a class that I can sit in. Finally what I go through on a regular basis is in print. Finally it can be explained so I don’t feel like I have to compromise reality to be seen. Almost 30 years of almost fitting, and constant sitting in interviews. Even to the point of being accused of faking on an occasion, because if it is serious it should fit the criteria. However, this reflected my sentiments exactly. I didn’t fit. However, the pain was not worth faking. The shaking from anger, the making of manic driving on wrong sides of the road at night. The financial risks that seemed not too risky at all. The forgetting to show up at an appreciation dinner, thrown for me. The mood cycle. The unknown.
Finally, it fell in place. Grant that there are four specifiers that fit, and not just one, but it’s still a start. Here it is for the first time, I have Bipolar 1 with anxious distress, rapid cycling, mixed episodes, and often but not always psychotic features. This is the first time ever that I said that with confidence. This is the first time that I fit. My psychologist will be proud as accepting the diagnosis was part of the treatment plan. Now I can accept it. Now I can truly begin to win since I finally know the obstacles. Sure, I have reluctantly tried to accept this before. I even blogged and made music about it. Yet, I never felt satisfied. It was just close enough. Now it fits. Now I am in class. Now I can begin again with confidence. This is the first time. This is my confession. Almost 50 years old, with many ex friends in the wake of mood cycles. With new understanding of mixed moods. With full assurance that rapid cycling is real and I am not alone. With anxiety and paranoia knocking on the front door. With all of the aforementioned, I still feel good to know that I finally fit in.
Manic Dream Panic Scene
There is a place where the dream seems so real, it’s surreal to think that this dream means mania. Not now, but before. Before there was a door to a lake. On the surface, the water faced my direction. In the water, the waves wrote an invisible invitation to walk over and jump in. They promised support. I am sport enough, though, it is tough to think back to the fact that water can not carry the stones that were tossed. But the bobber of the fisherman remains afloat, as does my boat. With a stroke of the pen I signed my name in the air without ink. I guess that means that I didn’t think about the sinking when walking on water was the dream linking the mania, while drinking depression away on the waves. The run on sentence simply foreshadows the reality. Water that holds me in a boat can’t hold me. The drinking was not strong drink, but the loss of thoughts that were already falling to the very place I would be instantly, as the step of security left me looking up to support. The boat floats. The water lied. Weighted down I guess by the manic jacket, the panic attacked me at the bottom of the lake. This quick decent was unique as the boat seemed to lift away from me. The water seemed to speak again stealing my attention from that which was my previous support. This time asking me to breathe like the fish that I see in the sea. For the life of me, I signed my name again, this time with wet ink and no pen. Common knowledge kicks in. The very water needed for life and support let me down in an instant, and offered a watery grave, of which I could write my own name in the sand. How grand to pen my own end.
I can’t control the boat as it floats away. I can’t control what the water will say. I can’t control how I feel today. I can control the pen. I can write my name again. This is manic making me pray for relief. This is panic after support gives way for me.
In the boat again. Not sure how. Willing to float again. Not sure why. The door has closed on the lake. I wonder by who. Mania for the fisherman. Mania is a dream come true.
Please wake me up.
I sign my name.
Out of Sound Mind 