God willing and the Hospital will hear

    So, if my family is as innocent as they say, then that only leaves the hospital. My concern is that it's happened twice now. Once at CCBH and once at Memorial. They keep diagnosing me psychotic when I'm not psychotic. I'm told there's not much SC DHEC can do about that. My concern is that at some point in the future I'll need to go back to the hospital for some reason or another. Last time at memorial I was more careful about my communication. I made sure to be very clear about what the problem was, what I needed, etc. I have discussed with my team writing a letter to the hospital administration about my concerns. If they are not part of the problem, they can be part of the solution. I need to stop the cycle of changing my diagnoses and my symptoms to match the prejudices of the staff. It's not actually helping anyone. 

    I don't have the energy that I had when I was younger, and I'm losing patience for this, especially when it devolves into long hospital stays, threats, or not getting what I need. I had this desire for Memorial to be on my side, seeing as my family has been so long associated with that hospital. I think that they would prefer to be on the same side, but can't see past their own preconceptions and the legacy of Prichards. Thing is, I don't think even Prichards would be proud of the hospital's behavior. He was all about listening and acting based on facts. He had his own faults and preconceptions, but he would not defend the lack of listening that has been going on. I believe he would find it against his principles. 

    Thankfully, for now, unless I'm in some unexpected accident or unforeseen circumstances, I doubt I will be back at the hospital any time soon. I really like the way the medication is working right now. I have a detailed understanding of how each medication contributes to the full picture. I know what to expect if I happen to run out or we have to adjust a dose. The routine has become much more predictable. 

    I'm focusing on keeping my days consistent. Every day, Repeating the same habits, keeping it simple. I'm turning my attention back to All the Colors of the Rainbow for a bit.

    I am engrossed in my research for my Civil War Greenville book. The more research I do the more I know I need. I'm working on clarifying the city's status leading up to the war... what businesses were here, the notable people, things of that nature.

    Story writing is coming slowly. My short attention span gets the better of me. Yet I feel on borrowed time, trying to go in multiple directions and ending up going no where. God willing, I'll have some more story parts soon.

    Dat Bat. Nebber a dull moment. Der he goes again, stealing Spidey's best carapace. Why, it was just di udder gnight...

    Spidey was so berry happy. It had been a gweat day for the nest! Sebben flies, and Spidey had finished the Mona Fleasa, my primier werk of art for di community.

    Spidey was so berry pwoud. She was BEAUTIFUL, and quite tasty looking. Well, no sooner had di lights gone out when there was a flapping sound at di window. Spidey rushes to look. Der must have been twenty bats out der! All carrying a most pwecious cargo!

    "HEY YOU! BATS! DROP DI CARAPACES! HEY! NOT IN DI... ribber..."

    They had stolen Spidey's prize carapaces, worth countless flies. Den dey dropped dem in di ribber. 

    Gone. In di ribber. Di cwazy bat duddent know how to stop. 

A lack of Conspiracy after all...

    Well, it turns out that my family didn't actually talk the hospital into re-bipolarizing me.. Seems the staff just got creative in an effort to flip my script. Sneaky little devils. All's well that ends well though. It got me writing more, and I love to write. I do. I hope I can write something people really enjoy. 

    I get frustrated with the process. Then I get grouchy about it. Today it was the website giving me trouble. Found a few broken links that I fixed, but I wanted to splash up the colors and the editor was not that responsive. I continue to research. I'm working on adding more writing and some more images and other content. 

 

Dichotomy of the illusion of Reality

Split between the person I am and the person you would have me be

Unable to blend the two into one without periodic flashes of truth

that reveal the dichotomy of my reality and betray the illusion outright

Making the consistency hard to maintain.

The persona, its perfection marred only by acceptable flaws of social construction

The other, a living being contorted to maintain the illusion

They draw me out with the bait

Looking for some facts to twist back into some semblance of the illusion.

Occasionally we come to crisis created by the inability to tolerate our truths

Seeking to restore the myth, we wind our facts into narratives

Hoping to disguise the inconsistency of reality with a pretty lie dressed up in theories

Running away from the truth, we only trip up over the inconsistencies

The inconvenient truths of our imperfections and failures

Cannot overcome the engineering of our most contorted perfection

In which reality is the disease, and lies are the cure

Inevitably comes the crash, through the conflict of what is and what we pretend to be

In the end, the illusion is the reality and the truth is the psychosis we hope to deny.

Tips from a Therapist

 

Spidey a liddle under di wedder...

 

 

 

The Dangers of Persistence (Part 1)

    Persistence can be a troublesome thing. Sometimes people don't see the dangers of persistence. 

    What is it does it look like when you persist beyond all evidence to the contrary? What is it called when you persist TOO far?

______ (adj): 

    having or showing dogged determination not to change one's attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.

"a ______ refusal to learn from experience"

    One thing that I was taught growing up, that has been repeatedly reinforced, to a fault, is persistence. Yet, persistence carried too far starts to look remarkably like ... being stubborn. Being stubborn is a problem for sure. Sometimes, flexibility is required. Take iron, for example. Pure iron is not very flexible. It's hard, but it will break. Sometimes a soul has to be forged in a fire to become strong, just like iron has to be forged in fire to become stronger. The Samurai had a method of forging swords to make them very strong. It involved repeatedly bending the metal back on itself and hammering it together over and over again. This made the blade hard but with some give and not as brittle. It gave the blade strength, sharpness, but also some flexibility. 

    So too a soul must be. Sometimes a person must bend with the wind in order to survive the wind. To be willing to bend is to adapt and to learn. Change will always come. Challenges will always come. You can't always be prepared for everything. The willingness to make changes or adjust on the fly is not indecisiveness if properly thought out. The willingness to adapt is not weakness or lack of courage if it is necessary. 

    There have been many moments in battles which a leader had to make a choice whether to adapt or stay the course and chose to stay the course to disastrous results. Sometimes persistence is not courage or strength... sometimes it is stubbornness, foolishness, and weakness. 

    

Dancing in the Moonlight

Careful

    I'm trying to be careful. Focusing on the basics allows less room for error. I'm keeping my timeliness and accuracy as high as I can, maintaining records, and keeping my head clear. I've got to keep moving forward. I can't move backwards. I try to make time to fill in bits of my writing as well, but sometimes maintaining my work and my health take all of my time. 

    It's very strange how social relationships work. I cannot figure them out for the life of me. People are unpredictable. Sometimes they are are nice as pie, sometimes there is such strong hostility, and sometimes they are simply so fake that conversation becomes an exercise in absurdity. Some of the strangest experiences are conversations that actually leave you with far more questions then answers. 

    Then there are the smaller contradictions. You get paid to verify orders, but some suppliers make it virtually impossible to verify the order. They don't label or they seal the order. Then I'm supposed to guess whether they did their job right and confirm. If I guess right then it's ok but if I guess wrong then it's on me. Never mind that they make the job impossible in the first place. 

    Anyways, when I'm not absorbed by the nitty gritty, I'm trying to let people see my positive sides. That's not always easy and sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes impatience or frustration get the better of me. Other times, there's not a lot of room to maneuver. I try to avoid highly rigid situations for just that reason. I'm tired of getting boxed into situations. Yet I do have positive sides. People have to choose to see them. There is an us vs them mentality out there. It's unfortunate. Life is better when people work together. Yet people make choices. Sometimes they choose the path of most resistance. 

    I'm finding it helps to divide my time between work and reflection. It helps me to clarify the changes that I need. Life cannot simply be repetition. Life requires growth. Life requires beginnings and endings. A life with too much certainty is not sustainable. I'm trying to streamline so that I can prioritize necessary change in my life. 

    I feel like I have taken my eye off the ball. Relied on the wrong assumptions. I cannot allow myself to stray again. I need to be more careful. I'm getting older and there is only so much time. It's not just that I don't want to buy into false narratives, there's not enough time and energy for it. Repeating the same fights, regurgitating the same grievances, worrying about the same people and events again and again, makes no sense. 

    Sometimes I miss Robo-Rob. I get caught up in the details of how I got from there to here. Then I get tired of thinking about it. I try to go out and do stuff. It doesn't go great. That's what brings me back to the how's of getting here and being here. 

    The thing about being numbed out is that in a way it feels good but it doesn't lead anywhere. Clozaril is a permanent dead end. A one way trip to nowhere. Yet People want to believe in it so badly, that they'll destroy almost anything, do almost anything to maintain the lie. Zero recognition of the harm done in the process. Arguing with someone who is convinced that they are right is worse then arguing with a wall, because a wall doesn't attack you for simply disagreeing. The wall just maintains its position. 

    I heard something that really resonated. It was "you can't change someone's behavior, you can only change how you react to it." This is very true. 

Psychology Article

Undercurrents

    I'm definitely still having trouble with subtext. That's where walls and space sometimes help. I particularly struggle with when I think a situation is going well and suddenly someone becomes hostile, seemingly without warning. 

    I want to rely on what I am good at. If I am consistently doing what I do well to the best of my ability, then I am adding value to the world. I don't want to focus on things that I cannot control. I really did used to think that I was a good communicator. I was definitely wrong. I'm far too out of touch. A narrow focus helps my clarity and calm. Focusing on the most pressing tasks. 

    I'm continuing to focus on working with the two contractors and waiting for a response on volunteering. Today I hope to spend some time finding something interesting to write. 

    Interpersonal communication is so strange to me. It's so very hit or miss. Two different people can take the same words and go in completely different directions with what they hear. It's not just that people are complicated, they're rather unpredictable. 

    I let down my guard and then something happens. Usually nothing big, just large enough to be noticeable. Something that serves as a reminder to be careful. Something that reminds me that bad things can and do happen. 

    I feel like I walk a very careful path, but people don't notice that. Sometimes I struggle to understand what people do see when they look at me. I'm not one who spends too much time reading signs or looking for symbols. It's enough to keep up with more explicit communication. These seem like very troubled times, though. Solutions seem more complex and less easily grasped. So often there seems to be unspoken tension in the air. 

    I'm trying to find something funny to write in my stories. I'm hoping to diffuse some of the tension that I sense. I feel like I need to reflect to find that humor. People need to laugh. 

     I've begun delivering with another contractor. It's an adjustment, but it's going well. Doing the deliveries leaves less time for writing and brainstorming. Yet it keeps the bills paid. 

Change

    My work continues to go decently. I'm trying to focus on what I can do positively in my own life. I don't feel like I have the endurance or the energy that I used to have. I enjoy writing when I can focus. So I'm trying to save my energy for that. Preserve my mental presence for work and my writing. Though I'm hoping to start volunteering at an animal shelter soon. 

    There's always far more to do then I have the energy, focus, and presence for. I keep trying to do more but I get spacey quickly sometimes, or without warning. Sometimes conversations seem circular. I alternate between untethered optimism that ignores inconvenient truths and a biting pessimism. Sometimes I feel so lost in my head that the world seems distant and I get that floating feeling. Sometimes it feels like a play or movie, only the guy who's supposed to prompt me for my lines is either out sick or drunk.

    I keep running into the same problems. Like this thing with the utilities where they are not billing me right. I even went and verified everything online and there's still some problem. And God forbid I should try to call them on the phone. Last time I tried to talk to a company on the phone, Spectrum's employee fraudulently charged me for services I wasn't receiving instead of terminating the services. I called them back and complained, yet still had to pay for the services. Some things are criminal. They didn't seem to recognize that they did anything wrong. I'm not doing business with them again, I should have learned my lesson with that company. They've always had shit customer service. Of course they still have my phone service, but they jacked it up, so there's another issue to deal with. They even jacked it up more then they said they would. Which only proves how dishonest they truly are. 

    I'm trying to live out the saying "Less is more". I'm trying to be more deliberate in my actions. To go more slowly. Events have just gone so quickly in the past several years. A lot of change. I think I'm still catching up. 

The Hauntless

 

   Vlad had the most marvelous experience the other day. He flew into a corpse named Bob, from just down the street. He was on his way to Home Freako again - yes, he goes most every week - and the girls were playing Marco Polo. As usual Jess was winning. Sarah was only playing to humor her. 

    Bob was a businessghoul, first and foremost. He was in the middle of haggling a price for his patent pending formula for Necrolyte chewing slime and his Ryse of the Dead energy drink. When Vlad first hit him, he was quite flappy, almost besides himself. Then Bob gave him some free samples. He could see the potential immediately and wanted to buy in on the spot, so Bob invited him over for some Ryse and finger food. 

    Bob was set up in an abandoned bungalow four houses down. A charming place, really, he had such a knack for decor. Turns out he shopped at Home Freako as well. 

    When it came time to get down to guts and jolts, Bob engaged Vlad with a somber voice as he served up a pinky and a forefinger. 

    "You see, good sir, haunting is such a noble vocation, but some poor ghouls, well, they simply have no one to haunt! It's sad, really. They work their whole afterlives, honing and refining their haunting skills, practicing until the whee hours of the day."

    "I've heard of these creatures. A shame. Everyone should have someone to haunt! There must be hope for these poor souls??"

    "Well, yes, I've started a placement agency, to place these ghouls - we call them the Hauntless - with hauntable souls... for a nominal fee, you see."

    Vlad brightened at the prospect. "How many have you placed?"

    "Well, none as of yet, but that's where you come in. A sharp fellow like yourself can help with the logistics. There's many souls to place with the living, and they need somewhere to gather and meet like minded hauntless. What do you say?"

    Vlad could not say no.

The Escape to The Blood Connection

    It was just anudder Saturday morning, and Spidey was hard at werk, rigging the old wadder heeder dat di owners ob Spidey's Attick had left behind in their hurry to bacate into a jacuzzi for critters. 

Suddenly the stereo began blasting, and Spidey could hear Vlad's voice singing along to Another Saturday Night.

Another Saturday night and I ain't got no bodies

I've got some Spiders cuz I lost my RAID

Now, how I wish I had some blood to drink, too

I've fled the light of day.

I got in town a century ago

I've seen a lot of donors since then

If I could bleed 'em I could feast 'em

But as yet I haven't bled 'em

That's how I'm in the state I'm in

Another fella told me

He had a ghoul who looked just fine

Instead of bein' my dinner

She tasted like David Schwimmer

The platelets were not appealing.

It's hard on a bloodsucker

When he's not below the ground

If I don't find me a vein

That I can most promptly drain

I'm gonna have to blow this town

    From somewhere near the window Jess sighed. We all knew what this meant. Vlad had fallen opp di waggin' agenn. We dropped ebbyting and rushed to his coffin, but all we found was an open window.

     One thing I regret is that I haven't had as much opportunity to appreciate people recently. My mind has been so absorbed. There was this one nice lady downtown today and granted, I was busy, but it would have been nice to have an excuse to stop and chat. I'm working on a story idea today.