Impact

More notes on psychosis

2011-07-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

I started the Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) in the first place because I was growing more desperate to end my life. I went in-patient because we thought it would get the treatments started faster. I remember being incredibly hungry because I wasn't allowed to eat or drink before my treatment, and one day they didn't get to me until 11am. I said I would give ECT 2 weeks and if it didn't help I would kill myself.

Since ECT induces a seizure I had to stop taking my regular gabapentin and Klonopin because they inhibit seizures. Instead they put me on Requip to control my restless legs. Requip is a dopamine agonist, meaning it stimulates the dopamine receptor, which probably contributed to my psychosis. The also put me on Doxepin, which is a tricyclic antidepressant that has a sedating side effect, but it may have been activating in my case. It makes you sleepy, and can make one delirious.

I got dehydrated from vomiting, which could have concentrated the levels of the medications in my blood and contributed to the problem.

I thought i was dreaming, but the dream was taking way too long. I kept waiting to wake up, kept trying to wake myself up. Thinking you are in a dream is a psychotic symptom.
When the doctor determined I was psychotic and needed to be in the hospital I couldn't control my hands well enough to connect my pen to the paper to admit myself voluntarily, but they admitted me anway.
I opened my eyes and could only see a sliver of the scene, having my focus caught between my hands in front of me and the scene beyond - I couldn't adjust the focus of my eyes for depth perception. My family reports I had my eyes half-closed for several days. I thought it was night when it was day.
I was caught in a non-responsive catatonia. "Catatonic disorders are a group of symptoms characterized by disturbances in motor (muscular movement) behavior that may have either a psychological or a physiological basis. The best-known of these symptoms is immobility, which is a rigid positioning of the body held for a considerable length of time. Patients diagnosed with a catatonic disorder may maintain their body position for hours, days, weeks or even months at a time. Alternately, catatonic symptoms may look like agitated, purposeless movements that are seemingly unrelated to the person's environment. The condition itself is called catatonia .
A less extreme symptom of catatonic disorder is slowed-down motor activity. Often, the body position or posture of a catatonic person is unusual or inappropriate; in addition, he or she may hold a position if placed in it by someone else."
They gave me some medication in applesauce, from a spoon, and I became more animated. My brother the psychiatrist says my thoughts were racing too fast to be expressed, and the medication slowed them down. Once I started getting treatment with Klonopin (Clonazepam) I started to be able to feed myself. When it wore off I went catatonic again. They had to titrate the Klonopin at a higher level - 0.5mg three times a day - it was a lot.
I moved my hands quickly in circles, then clasped them to show I felt stuck.
Whenever Otto came I would get more alert and happy. He played music for me on the iPod, and got me dancing and singing, even though I couldn't speak.
I couldn't use the restroom alone. My mom had pull down my pants and sit me down on the toilet. They turned on the water to get me to pee.
I emitted high-pitched giggles that were apparently quite disturbing.
I held my hands stiff in front of me. I exhibited 'waxy flexibility,' remaining in positions other people put me in.
I drew a maze and wrote 'what am i doing here?'
I couldn't pass a basic mental status exam - I couldn't keep track of where I was, the date, the season, or the time.
Nurses kept asking me how I was, and I couldn't answer. I couldn't make any words come out. I would nod yes or no but somehow it came out in reverse, like: Jessica, do you want to go outside? Me: thinking yes, but shaking my head no.
I kept sliding down in the chair, almost falling out, then would push myself back in, so my father put his knee in front of my knee to give me a guide. My glasses also kept sliding down my nose. I couldn't coordinate enough to feed myself for a few days. I couldn't walk in a straight line either. I remember rubbing my thighs and not having full sense of feeling in my fingers or my feet. Standing up was a trick, as was sitting down. I kept getting hair in my mouth.
I sought ways to tether myself to reality, to prove I was alive by associating with things I could recall as familiar from the real world. Things like ordering sandwiches from the restaurant Bread and Cie, or eating sushi, or thai food - the familiarity of the food helped me orient.
I used my email and web pages to prove to myself that I was alive - I was catatonic, but was able to remember my gmail name and password! Email ritual habit cuts through psychosis. Then I remembered my website (http://jessicafhirst.com/)! I had external proof I existed! I did research on myself - watched all my videos, looked and my postings, and 'got to know myself' again from the outside. I wanted to wake up and get back to life because it looked like I had some interesting things to do - I got notice I was invited to a residency, and I wanted to make sure it was real.
Once I started to suspect I was NOT dreaming, I had to find ways to prove I was alive, in the world, that things were happening, or that I could control what was happening, in which case it would be lucid dreaming. I thought I was in a boring version of the movie Inception - instead of explosives and folding over skylines I was trying to manipulate what kind of dessert I would get served.
The only ways I felt alive were to be in motion, to walk in cirlces, to kiss Otto, or to pee. They had me pee in cups and funnels a lot. They kept wanting reports on my bowel movements.
I vomited at REI, perhaps from food poisoning, perhaps from a virus.
There were things I thought were dreams that apparently were real. For instance, a man with a plastic bladder and catheter coming out of his zipper, just sitting in public as it filled up. There was a very round large young woman with short hair who was constantly yelling - I pictured her like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland. Apparently she was real too. Yelling about her parents being mean to her.
"We're going to get you good medicine. You're safe" my brother tried to reassure me. He got me transferred 'against medical advice' from one hospital to another, because the doctor wasn't adequately treating my psychosis and catatonia.

Empty

2011-07-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

I am having a crisis of emptiness
of lack of creativity
the faucet that used to be always flowing with ideas and images has been
turned off
and I can't get it to open up again
I feel stuck inside myself
Dry
Dried out
But not like a raisin, which has become something else with flavor and character
more like an empty seed pod that can
recollect a time when it used to hold a seed
a seed that could grow in a million different ways
but now is just
empty
Earlier today Otto tried to help me get started again
He put me to work with some empty plastic bottles,
started recording my audio and taking pictures
I felt impotent
I couldn't bring myself to do anything besides
crush the bottles
Then he told me to get in the bathtub
He sprayed me with shaving cream and dumped
'clean' garbage on my head
I yelled in disgust and anger
He didn't make me want to make anything creative
He just made me mad
So now I've spent the rest of the day
depressed and stinking of shaving cream

Electro-Convulsive Psychotic Catatonia

2011-07-05T14:20:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read right.
I recently resorted to ECT, or
Electro-Convulsive Therapy,
out of desperation to rid myself of the continuous desire
   to be dead.
In ECT they anesthetize you, paralyze you and then
   shock your brain.
The best I can understand is that it's similar to hitting
   CTRL-ALT-DELETE
when your computer freezes up.
It restarts your brain, sort of.
The good news - it made me feel better about being alive.
The bad news - it mixed up and erased a lot of my memories from the surrounding days,
AND
due to some combination of stopping one medication and
starting another,
being dehydrated from vomiting due to food poisoning, and
who knows what else, I became
psychotic and
catatonic
after the third treatment.
Those words get thrown around casually,
as in
"I felt catatonic the morning after that big shin-dig" but
I was psychotic and catatonic in the
   clinical sense of the terms -

detached from reality, stuck inside my head
a little help from Wikipedia:
People experiencing psychosis may report hallucinations or delusional beliefs, and may exhibit personality changes and thought disorder... this may be accompanied by unusual or bizarre behavior, as well as difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out the daily life activities.

I suffered from the delusion that I was dreaming, and I kept
trying to wake up.
I fell into a "distorted or nonexistent sense of objective reality." (Medical Dictionary)
Meaning that I forgot who I was, couldn't feed myself, and couldn't see clearly -
I had something like tunnel vision, and often felt I was seeing things
   in the dark even during the day.
They tell me I had my eyes closed or only half-open for a few days.
I had a roommate in the hospital named Alexa, but I couldn't comprehend that fact and thought I was both Alexa and Jessica,
   or that nurses were getting my name wrong.
I just saw her as a shadow in the corner of my room, and I was afraid of her.

I wasn't sure I existed in the real world,
yet when my boyfriend sat me in front of a computer I
robotically typed my username and password
and checked my e-mail -
so strange, that I was mostly out of this world and yet
I could check my e-mail,
an action sufficiently habitual that it
broke through my psychosis.
I had a break-through some time later when I remembered the address of my web page,
and looked at it as though learning about a stranger -

My brother took a video of my mother feeding me with a spoon and I have my eyes closed and am slurping like a little bird.
I was also holding my hands like claws in mid-air above my lap,
which is a part of catatonia called 'waxy flexibility'
My brother could put my arms in a position and I would stay stuck there.
I would stop halfway down to a chair
or the toilet
and need to be pushed the rest of the way down.

A little more help from the online medical dictionary:
"In catatonic stupor, motor activity may be reduced to zero. Individuals avoid bathing and grooming, make little or no eye contact with others, may be mute and rigid, and initiate no social behaviors. In catatonic excitement the individual is extremely hyperactive although the activity seems to have no purpose."

I must have had aspects of stupor and of excitement, because I kept
running my hands over my thighs, and moving as though I were
putting on and
taking off pants
from a seated position.
I didn't bathe for several days and my mother finally put me in the shower to rinse me off because I stank. At least that's what she told me -
I can't remember.
I don't remember most of what happened in the days surrounding the ECT, or my psychosis.
I thought the dream was lasting much too long and I
couldn't wake up.

I thought I had imagined the existence of the doctor who performed the ECT -
I couldn't recall having met him, I thought he was part of my dream.
I couldn't speak - couldn't form words and say them out loud.
This doctor didn't get it, he really didn't
get it.
"Jessica, you have to talk or I can't help you,"
he said, as though my silence was voluntary
and deliberate.

2011-04-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to write lately I've
not really been able to think
the pills have plugged the holes in my head that
let in the gremlins of self-destruction
but those same holes seem to have been the ones that let in
air

so my creativity is suffocated
wilted
I'm used to having more ideas and flights of inspiration than I can usefully develop
and now there's a roaring silence and overwhelming
emptiness
a flatness

I don't feel like myself and I certainly don't feel like an
artist
I am trying to appreciate the absence of the urges to
hurt myself,
the fading of the wish to be dead
but I'm caught up in anxiety about not having the wish
to do
or create
anything

this tide

2011-03-12T02:26:00.000-08:00

every afternoon lately it

rises within me this

tide
(can I compare it to that? is it an adequate metaphor?)

of despair.

it sounds melodramatic but

it's true

i'm having daily ebbing of my will to live

i can't tell if it's
a pain soaking me
or
all that is good and alive getting

squeezed out

i just know I'm left

desolate, rough, cratered

while passing through these extremes

I want to die,

or truthfully, I just want to be dead

the dying sounds too painful

I am trying so hard to remember how good it felt to

eat breakfast this morning or how
simply delightful it will be to

slide under the covers tonight

I am trying so hard to remember that
the tide changes direction,

goes from unbearable to

merely painful to

sometimes lovely

more thoughts on being the sea

2011-03-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

I feel buffeted by forces more within me than without
I know I am immensely fortunate not to have my life or bodily integrity threatened on a daily basis
nevertheless I indulge myself in feeling cursed by all the things that bite, beat and infect me from the inside

the sun is an external force acting on the sea
moving in its independent cycle
indifferent to whether it passes over crashing waves, swells, flatness or storm
unmoved by how its reflection is affected

there is a small tidal pool in front of me
it appears so contained, so full of itself yet
i know it will empty come low tide, and overflow
the current borders come high
what I see now is only a moment in its existence
in reality it is always in flux

Yet it would be another mistake to view it as I do myself,
cycling between low and high, empty and full

Somewhere else on the planet is a corresponding tidal pool that
fills as this one empties, and empties as this one fills
could the same be true of me? that I could find my counterbalance?
that even when I feel depleted, lost, there
could be another place inside me still full?

on being water - more of Palmer Fishman's nature metaphors

2011-03-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

I've never had an easy time meditating.
or sitting still
the two together have been disastrous

once I was with a good friend
watching water falling off some rocks and into a river.
When I concentrated, I became The Waterfall, Itself -
that particular space through which the water was falling.

The Waterfall, Itself isn't any particular molecule of water, or bubble, or twig
No, it's the water-filled path between the edge
and the pool below
So the water molecules or bubbles that I could follow with my eyes are like my thoughts -
just falling through -
and similar in their ability to distract me from
my integrity, my wholeness, from the Waterfall, itself.

More recently I have been trying meditation anew
my therapist sometimes talks about 'surfing' various emotions.
I was walking my dog along a beach favored by surfers, and I saw them sometimes catch a wave, take a ride, and sometimes just get pounded.
Either way they always ended the ride sinking back into the water.

I thought I'd rather think of myself as the ocean itself than as the surfer -
whatever storm would, like the twigs in the waterfall, just be passing through, and even
during the fiercest storms some other part of me would be calm.

That is what I need right now, the presence of mind to keep some part of me whole and calm,
even when other parts
of me are getting rocked by a hurricane.
Whatever wave is an energy passing through me,
but it is not me,
as I'm trying to learn
even when I have thoughts of ending my life, these are only thoughts,
they are not me, and certainly
not all of me.
They are a fierce turbulence that will pass.

SNAPback - depression's backlash

2011-02-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

I am doing intensive therapy right now, and it is kicking my ass.
I felt like I was doing better for a couple of weeks, and then it was as though I'd been stretching a rubber band that had reached its out limit.
And SNAP I was back in pathetic depressed misery.

The therapy is interesting, not like anything I've done before. It's a mixture of talking about patterns from my past and childhood (yaddy yadda), but also cranio-sacral therapy, which I don't understand but seems to help, meditation and concentration exercises, and work on changing my thought patterns.
It's definitely both cognitive and behavioral, but with a different language from the CBT that just always pissed me off with its facile promises.

I wrote this in a cafe in La Jolla, on a January Saturday. I think it's only part I, since it stops without really ending. I hope to add a more hopeful part II!

In the land where everyone looks happy,

Fit, and fashionable,

My downcast demeanor is

Distinctly unattractive

The sleek hair, the beatific smiles

Directed at me with a tinge of

Disgust

“Don’t infect me”

ROAR!

The gremlin inside me is hungry

I am increasingly sure he lives off my pain

Conditioning my nervous system to always turn

Toward the anguish

When given the option

In this land of eternal summer where men can wear

t-shirts in January and girls can wear sandals

I am trying mightily to retrain my brain, to

Coax it

Prod it

Drag it

Toward the chocolate scones and puppy dogs

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

My mental count of imagined steps

On the sand

In a circle

The idea is to concentrate more on my counting than on

My anxieties

6, 7, 8, 9,

Laughter carries across the café

A two-year old gets tickled by his father

ROAR!

The gremlin inside me calls more insistently

He scrapes out my insides

With a spatula

I am all hollow despair

1, 2, 3, 4,

"What nourishes you? What gives you pleasure?"

Even the words sound corny, or cheesy, or somehow dirty and inappropriate

I think of nourishing breakfast cereal, or

The pleasure they talk about in pornos not
hugs, or the easy comfort of being with friends because

I've withdrawn from warmth

as if it would burn me

A post got published....!

2011-01-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

on the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance website. I can't tell how anyone would find it without having the link beforehand.
Here's the link:
http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/News2?news_iv_ctrl=-1&id=8947

My first impulse was to be happy - yay! I got published! Someone who could resonate with my words might see them, and feel something!
Then I thought
No, no one will read it
who looks at this website anyway
and how would they find my poem
even if they wanted to?

And THEN I thought -
these are the negative spirals of thought that get me into the deep dark hole of black death badness.

So
I CHOOSE to be pleased,
at least mildly,
with my modest triumph.

And I still hope my words find their way to someone who will
breathe a sigh of relief or
laugh out loud in recognition or
furrow their brow and think
'hmm I wonder if this is what my
(girlfriend/husband/friend/son/grandmother/colleague)
is going through.
maybe I get it a little better now.'

self-interrupted, a video by Palmer Fishman

2011-01-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

A short experiment in how the editing process can add layers of content...

The brain, disorganized by a major depressive episode
Actively distracted by
withdrawal from some tired psychotropic medications and
the lag time to achieve a
'steady state' (at least in the blood) of
some shiny new pills

The video
shot as a log of one day's effort to get
dressed and out the door
Edited by s t r e t ch ing it out and
excising
alternating
seconds
then adding back in slivers of
greenery, the search for relief
itself another interruption

If you want to view it in full size click here: Self-Interrupted on youtube.com.

Verbally Constipated

2010-12-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

I loved the book Catch-22 for the way it spins out the ridiculous contradictions of war. People today say the phrase 'Catch-22' in reference to a no-win situation, but this use leaves out its absurd dimension.

I feel like shit. Again. Stuck in the hole where my life has no meaning because I can't work, because the only thing I seem to be able to do, art, is incredibly competitive and involves regularly putting my Self up for review and often rejection.

Sometimes I can write, sometimes I can't. Right now I feel verbally constipated. Stuck inside myself. Too many feelings, thoughts, fears, frustrations, overfilling the balloon that is my head, and I can't find a channel OUT.
Not being able to express myself at all well traps me in solitary confinement.

That other post I just made? I wrote it weeks ago.

I have been having a really hard time lately with my father. Again. Been having a hard time again.
We go around these circles, sometimes coasting but more often scraping against one another like pieces of dull metal that don't fit together, shrieking, grinding, wearing one another down. Some people say we clash because we're so much alike. I don't know, I just know it's painful.
I hope someday to be able to write about our relationship and see some humorous absurdity in it. Maybe like a Catch-22. Someday.

Compulsive Vehicular Slumber

2010-12-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

the car/train/bus starts moving
it finds its rhythm and velocity
my head loses its own
some neuro-psycho-bio trigger connection
motor movement = danger
danger I can't control
tragedy I can't stop
so I
shut
down
is this my reptile brain reaction?
can't control it, can't stop it, so play
dead?
in this dimension I fall asleep
repeatedly
I fall

photo by Manuela Bernasconi

each time I jerk awake it's a
new accident
new impact
new lost
new trauma

photo by Manuela Bernasconi

I am not my friend Christiana Figueres

2010-12-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

I met Christiana Figueres when I was about 22 years old. She was just starting to work on climate change, as was I. She was struggling to found a non-profit, the Center for Sustainable Development in the Americas, and I was working on the US pilot program for carbon offsets at the US Department of Energy. I remember she and her partner in the venture were maxing out their credit cards to cover costs.

Her brother, Jose Maria Figueres, was then the President of Costa Rica, and he announced wanted to start a constructive collaboration with the US government on climate change. My friend Aimee Christensen and I, both young and wonderfully naive, sat down and decided to write a bilateral agreement. Since we weren't lawyers and had never written an agreement before, we looked at previous agreements for language hints.
"Look, each paragraph starts with whereas. Let's start each paragraph with whereas."
From this inauspicious beginning we drafted a statement of intent that was eventually signed by President Figueres and then-Vice President Al Gore, at the White House.

A couple of years later Christiana and I were both in Chile for a conference we had organized for the pilot carbon offsets program.
It was also my birthday, and Christiana took me to her favorite Chilean fortune-teller. My Spanish still wasn't good enough for me to really understand her, but I SO appreciated Christiana's intention to share something special with me. She also gave me a small stone box with a dove carved on the front that I still use to hold earrings.

I liked Christiana because she was real. You could feel that she was real. She had passion and also compassion.

I thought we would be working together, one way or another, for years. I thought we would both do Big Things.

If you've read any of this blog, you know this was not to be.

Christiana is now the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which means she is in charge of the ENTIRE international negotiations process. WOW.

I have been working to accept that I am not like Christiana, that I am not doing, nor will I be doing, Big Things on the same scale. Or in the same way. I cry sometimes, I want so badly to still be part of that world. I wish we were colleagues still. I miss it.

Today I cried because SHE cried, while talking to a group of young women activists at the negotiations in Cancun. I can't believe what a hard job she has, and I'm so thankful she is doing it. Regardless of the outcome, over which she has little control, I am thankful she is there. Someone who can still cry for what our leaders are unwilling to do.

The blog wonkroom reported on the meeting. Here is what Christiana said:

"It’s you. It’s the next generation. Look: We’re doing this but this has nothing to do with us. It’s all about you. It’s all about you. We’re the ones that have caused the problem but you’re the ones that are going to have to pay for it, right? The fact is, I’m the mother of two women about your age, and I realized many years ago that I had inherited a planet that was a diminished planet. And that if I didn’t do something about it, my daughters would grow up in a planet that had been severely diminished by what we’re doing. And I just can’t look at my daughters in the eyes and not do whatever I can.
So, it’s you. It’s about the kind of planet that you’re going to have. It’s honestly not my planet. It’s yours, okay? We borrowed it from you for a few minutes. But you will take it over very soon, because it’s yours. And you’re going to have to give it over to your children.
Honestly, there’s no perfect job here, okay? Nothing that we are going to do in Cancun is going to be perfect. Don’t expect perfection. Nothing is going to be highly ambitious. Nothing. Everything here is going to be one step, and everything is going to be insufficient. But it is the best that this group of people in these circumstances, with these political constraints, in this economic environment, can do for the time being. And as soon as this finishes we have to start pushing for the next step. And so it goes. But each one of us that is here has the moral responsibility to do the absolute best that we can at that moment under those circumstances. So what inspires me? It’s you."

Gratitude is healthy

2010-12-07T01:25:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends, Yael Flusberg, recently posted some potent wisdom about gratitude on her blog. She writes about her daily practice of making a list of things for which she is grateful. And, as she notes, not in a cheesy way. Even the messy stuff:

“I did not curse out so-and-so when she suggested I do XYZ, although internally I wanted to go ballistic on her.”

Yael is also an amazing poet, as you will discover when you read her post.

She inspired me to make my own list this morning:

12/7/10 9:29 AM

· I am grateful for:

· Coffee, even when it’s not the best coffee
· A warm butane heater on a cold Barcelona morning
· Desiree and Axel, who have become my friends during the two weeks they’ve opened their home to us. For the funny videos we've made, and all the laughter we've shared.
· Having sufficient traction and stability to totter and then right myself when stressful situations arise. As opposed to falling over and getting sucked under for days.
· Finding a studio to rent yesterday. It has a big window, a wood floor, and open space with lots of other artists in the building, but not on top of me. It’s in a fun neighborhood, not too hard to get to from our (hopefully) new house. And it’s cheap, by Barcelona standards. I have a place to work!!!
· Yael, who makes a daily gratitude list and who intervened helpfully in a stupid, repetitive Hirst family pattern (in which I am also a guilty party)
And if I'm going to be honest, I'm also grateful that, with the ongoing email help of my psychiatrist, I've been able to achieve a modicum of psycho-chemical balance in my brain. I know all the subtle and dramatic signs that I'm doing better -

that I am even capable of being somewhat social,
that I'm sufficiently relaxed to let the lighter parts of me show.
That I am sleeping OK most of the time.
That I'm thinking about living, not dying.
That I feel confident enough to start making plans, and
that I'm stable enough to follow through on most of them.
That I can be more gentle with myself when I still can't do or be everything I wish for.
I don't give all the credit to the pills, but without them I lack the traction to do the work. I may hate this fact, pero es lo que hay - that's how it is.

Thank you Yael, for this exercise. It sounds so obvious, but it made me realize how much time I spend focussing on the negative. And how much energy I get from at least acknowledging the positive.

what my dog Benedicto is grateful for... illustration by Raquel

Te Gusta o No Te Gusta / Take It or Leave It (like it or not) Y/AND Es Lo Que Hay / That's All There Is To It

2010-12-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Time for some bastard linguistic anthropology with Palmer Fishman.

It all started when I wanted to be sure the plug-in heaters were sufficient to warm a potential apartment.
"Sure,"
   the agent said,
   "I can go turn them on first thing in the morning, then you come by before my lunch
   (which lasts a standard 3 hours by the way)
and take a feel."

The next morning was sunny and unseasonably warm, so we had no idea of the heaters' effectiveness. When I mentioned this to our agent, she, sensing where I was going with this, cut me off.

"Te gusta, o no te gusta el piso?"
Literally this translates to
   "The apartment - do you like it, or do you not like it?"

What she means to say is something akin to our expression,
   take it or leave it.
As in,
if you like the apartment,
   rent it, and if not,
   don't, but do
   not bother me with all your complications regarding heat or light or whether the fridge smells bad or what time of day the sun comes in.

Otto and I realized we now had the key to understanding so much of Spanish (or at least Catalan) culture that had so far confused us. I should emphasize that this is not a question of language per se, but of different uses of the same Spanish language in different cultures. These expressions don't exist in Central America, at least not in the same form.

When a restaurant manager seemed very put out that I asked him to stop drilling holes next to our table until we were done eating, his expression said
te gusta, o no te gusta, i.e.
if you don't like it, get out of my restaurant.

When the people who sold me a faulty cell phone the day prior don't understand why I'm upset that they won't exchange it?
Te gusta, o no te gusta.
You don't like your phone? Buy a new one. (they really said this to me)

When the organizers of a performance festival did
nothing
while an artist with a lit cigarette deliberately
blew smoke as he chased my friend with respiratory problems around an enclosed space, and I complained, what was their response?
Te gusta, o no te gusta.
The name of his piece was Toxico, what else do you expect? It's part of his concept to harass and provoke his audience, in some cases to the point of vomiting.

Understanding te gusta o no te gusta also helps explain why Spanish housing prices cannot be explained by classic 'Western' economics. It also helps explain why classic Western economics doesn't really work, period.

from the Wall Street Journal, November 26, a comment on the article "A Home Price Puzzle in Spain":

"You have to understand Spanish thinking and logic.
My house is worth 500,000 euros and it matters
not that the identical house next door just sold for
350,000 euros.
If anyone wants to buy my house they pay
500,000 euros and
that is the price and
therefore the valuation. "

Te guste o no te guste.

the commenter adds:
"My bar is doing no business so I put up the price of beer. I kid you not."

Today we discovered a corollary, or perhaps an underlying axiom would be more accurate:

Es lo que hay.

It's what there is.

That's all there is to it. (translation according to Yahoo! Answers)

This expression is generally uttered at the end of a lengthy complaint about one's job, spouse, car, house, phone service, dinner, or sex life.
It means, things really suck, but
   what can you do?
   That's what there is.
   There is nothing else.
   Nothing better.

Es lo que hay.  So we deal with it.

Otto commented that this is a fatalistic perspective in which the person does not have agency to change the situation. He further noted that it is a secular version of Latin America's lo que Dios quiere, it's what God wants.

So, to conclude, if

Es lo que hay / this is what there is

then your options are

te gusta o / you like it or
no te gusta / you don't like it

but either way, don't complain to me.

House-Less

2010-11-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't written because we've been house-less. Not homeless, to be sure, but still uncomfortable. We're staying with some dear friends and enjoying one another's company, but we feel very unsettled. Unsettled mentally and physically.
Otto and I have been fighting more because we're stressed. We almost broke up over something I can't recall right now. Neither of us has space to work, and as if in cahoots with the demons my computer is also breaking down.

House hunting in Catalunya continues to be an adventure. People are very bathroom-centric compared to the Americas, always wanting to show off their bidets or fancy sinks.

As I noted in my piece Toilets of Catalunya, online real estate listings always feature the bathroom prominently, often to the exclusion of any other room of the house.

Heating
In the US we generally think of Spain as at an equivalent level of 'development' in terms of everyday lifestyle. Equivalent leaves a lot of room for variation. Many many houses and apartments here lack central heating, and despite what you may have heard about the Mediterranean climate, it is in the 40s.

Heater with butane tank

It is COLD. So you have to check and double-check that a house has heat. I think Franco liked it cold.

Interior Bedroom

Interior Rooms
I'm not sure if US building codes require all inhabited rooms to have windows. But in Spain, they don't. So a 3-bedroom apartment may have 2 bedrooms with no windows whatsoever, and the third with a small window to an interior air-shaft. We stayed one night in an interior bedroom in a hostel and I felt like I was going to suffocate.

Beautiful view of mountain with freeway in foreground

Message? Nothing's perfect, we are used to being extremely comfortable in the US, and not having a stable home can ruin a relationship fast.

dance fever

2010-11-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

I used to dance a lot. I used to teach b-girl basics. I lost interest in pretty dance and became intrigued with uncomfortable movements. I moved to Nicaragua. Now I'm in Spain, where I've been watching amazing videos by yak films and their Oakland-based dance form, Turfin. The dance is beautiful, strong and graceful, and the film-making is refreshingly artistic and non-commercial.

They made me want to dance again.

I wanted to show the funny conglomeration of the different movement languages that combine in my moving body: b-girl, hip hop, modern, and my own special brand of deliberate awkwardness. Having technical problems related to the music I laid over the movement, so here's a low-fi version just to give you a giggle:

Outside the US you can still see a better-quality version from YouTube (I hope):

Reflections on a Sacred Killing / Eid al Adha

2010-11-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

An introduction
Eid – celebration, or festival (in Arabic)
Eid al-Adha / Solemn fesitval of Abraham/Ibrahim

In this case, the celebration of God allowing Abraham to keep his son for another day.

I remember this story from Hebrew Sunday School and
in my childish way
the Sunday School version made me angry

“ya know what? You seem to like your son a fair bit.

I don’t really need him. I just wanted to

Test your faith, see how

Far you would go for me.

Kinda like gang initiation rituals, except I’m

God so

It’s kosher.

To prove I’m not such a bad guy to follow for all eternity, I’ll

Let you keep Isaac (Ismael) around

And to show your devotion,

Give me a sheep

Instead.

I’m hungry.

--------------------------------

Interlude
for the first time I am posting words and images from the same event. I took a lot of photos of the entire process, including the severed heads and the butchering process. It's real life, a lot more real than buying meat in the supermarket. It was done respectfully in this case. I left the graphic images out of the blog in deference to those who may squirm, but I myself have spend a lot of time with them.

The main part

This sheep is lying here in the grass,
in the sunshine
at the foot of the mountain

Breathing

I can see his sides rise and fall

He seems calm

With three of his legs tied together so he

Can’t run away

Resigned, I can still see his

Nostrils flare

since the accident I have been

preoccupied

with the quickness of death, the

fineness of the line between

waiting at the bus stop to go to work and being

gone

here today I am given the opportunity to be

with death

in the moment it happens, but this time as

an observer

but this time

a planned death, a sacred death, a ritual killing

some of the others are unnerved, uncomfortable and

can't watch

I think of the Thich Nhat Hanh meditation on one's own death and I

breathe

slowly

with the sheep

prayers

I can feel how different this is

the men are saying prayers

the slaughter is quick and humane

the animal is calm, there is no panic, no struggle

I am calm with the animal

Although he was immediately unconscious

when they slit his throat

the breath is still leaving the body

the blood is draining out, creating

steam and then the muscles

contract and the

now untied legs

move as though still alive

when they remove the intestines I can see they are also

still contracting

it takes 24 hours for life to leave the meat,

the men say.

this is not television, where I've seen countless

human animals 'killed'

this is how death happens in real life, after a

sacred slaughter

this is not my car accident

this was planned, this has been repeated for

thousands of years, since

Abraham

this is a celebration, not a tragedy

I can sit with this body and be calm

this is so different

Sleep! Revisited!

2010-11-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I relived the sheer joy of falling into bed,
exhausted, and
falling asleep almost
immediately, with just a few
glorious minutes of nestling into the covers
under my brand-spanking-new handmade
Palmer Fishman bedspread
(yes, it's WAY COOL and you MUST HAVE ONE of your
very own)

I slept all night!
Well, no, not really.
But when I woke up at 4:30am my
   legs weren't twitching, which in itself is
   wonderful.
The Neurontin (gapapentina in Spain) made me
  run into the wall and
  stagger down the stairs to the bathroom but
   walking like a drunk is an improvement over my
   previous situation

[on a side note, I like the Spanish drug warning labels much better. There's only
one, and it's a picture of a car with a warning triangle around it. Gets right to the point]

[This post is in direct response to a concerned reader's comment that my blog is mostly sad and negative. I wanted to make sure I include my triumphs as well, no matter how small]

diplomatic? and other unintended consequences of US foreign policy

2010-11-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

Diplomatic - and other consequences of US foreign policy

You're special,

the staff at the US Consulate told me

Every other American

Ever involved in a similar accident or case

(ie, that involved someone else dying)

   has been sent to 'preventative prison' until the case is resolved,
   which can take days, weeks or months
   (by preventative they mean preventing you from fleeing Nicaraguan justice)

I was the first (in their experience) to be given
unsupervised house arrest after only

2 days in the local jail.

They didn't officially know how it happened, but

they thought my whole case was

marked by the

humility and genuine sadness I and my family expressed.

I laughed.

But surely everyone is humble and sad
in this situation
(of having accidentally ended the life of one of the people they
supposedly came to serve)?'
All the expats I know here work in NGOs, aid agencies, or as missionaries

No, actually not.

Other Americans have been perceived as arrogant and demanding

of special treatment. The Nicaraguan police, courts, and

press don’t like that.

Right after the accident happened the media assumed
you would be the same, and there were media reports of a
frivolous, reckless gringa who cared nothing for Nicaraguans.

The reports changed tone after my first day in court, when I was so distraught and horrified that I kept a
sheet over my head, sobbing and banging my head against the table.

How else could I feel, trapped in a nightmare-turned-reality in which my car had somehow ended the lives of two women, gruesomely, who were just waiting to catch the bus to work?

I can’t imagine anyone else feeling any less torn apart.
But apparently such is the reputation and stereotype of Americans here
that people assumed I was and would be
unrepentant, uncaring, and refusing to take any responsibility for the situation.

I wanted to throw up when the Consul General said the Embasssy wanted to learn from my case to help them deal with the next one.
Next one, he said,
accepting these accidents as just another
inconvenience of living in Nicaragua.

speed bumps in Spain

Weight-Lifting and the Flu - next in a series of Palmer Fishman's Mixed Mental Health Metaphors

2010-11-13T20:47:00.000-08:00

Weight-Lifting, Flu and Chemo
more Mixed Mental Health Metaphors from Palmer Fishman
(now with illustrations!)

You have to try harder
Get out there and do it
Just make yourself get out of bed
Nobody else wants to get up early for work,
but they do
You're lazy
You're making excuses
You're weak
You think you're special

Even people who love me
people who supposedly understand the nature of major depression
Say these things to me,
sometimes wrapped in prettier packages

This is what I tell them:
Go bench-press 500 pounds. Now.
Too much? How about 100?
OK, you could do that on a good day,
after being healthy and in training for awhile
with a spotter?
But this week you have the flu
and the weight falls on your chest.
Nobody blames you or
calls you a weakling
you have a fever and you're vomiting and
can barely walk
It's understandable.

But if I have no desire to be alive
which is a damn sight more serious than a fever and I
can't force myself to get out of bed
even to eat or go to the bathroom
Why do you think I should
'JUST'
be able to bench-press 100 pounds?
Or go to work?
Or make it to a meeting?
Or answer the phone, for that matter?

What if someone you know is fighting cancer
They're in chemo and
can't keep food down and
generally feel miserable and everyone's
worried they might not make it through
You don't call them lazy because they can't
maintain their usual hectic schedule

But say you have major recurrent depression and you're
always worried you won't make it, you're not even sure what 'making it'
means anymore.
You think you might feel better if you don't 'make it'.
You can't enjoy or desire
anything.
Even your favorite things.

Yet your coworkers call you a slacker or
your friends give you advice from another world, like
'when I feel a down I go to yoga and it really helps' or
'you just have to chill the fuck out'
Completely missing that this is not just
a little down
This is on the same scale of 'bad' as cancer treatment.

So please don't think I'm lazy
I'm trying as hard as I can
I need the equivalent of chemo, and if
I'm on serious drugs or had ECT, believe me that
the side effects also suck the life-force out of me and I am indeed
fighting for survival
so
I 'just' can't bench-press anything

today. or maybe this whole month

Dread Attack (Dosage)

2010-11-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

I had a dread attack yesterday.
It's different from a panic attack.
With a panic attack you have great uncertainty and great anxiety.
With dread you have great anxiety because you are certain that things are going to suck.

Thanks to the average half-lives and known times-to-stable-blood-level for Prozac, I can be pretty sure that it will take at least a week from when I change my dose to when the shit hits the fan, for better or for worse.

The last few weeks,
ever since I stopped having visions of offing myself,
I've had mini-explosions going off in my legs whenever I sit still or lie down.
   ( I can't explain why I don't get them when I'm working online...
   it's very suspicious.)
Having the sensation of bugs running around inside your thighs is
   not fun, whatever Timothy Leary says.

Especially if it means you never get a good night's sleep.
The word of the middle-of-the-night is.... side effects!
So I lowered my Prozac dose, first from
   20mg to 15mg, then down to
   10 a little over a week ago.

Yesterday I got creeping dread, this feeling of hurtling toward another major fucking depression
   (depression being a hole in the ground) and
   not being able to slow

   down.
Not yet completely depressed,
   but feeling it coming, and knowing that even if I
   increase the dose again it won't help for at least
a week.

Trigger (back to trauma)

2010-11-07T22:21:00.000-08:00

I have read about soldiers with PTSD being triggered by loud
  noises and sudden
   movements that put them
back
   in the war zone

My trigger isn't as obviously scary as
explosions or gunfire

It's the sun
The sun in my eyes
the sun in my eyes while I'm riding in a car or
worse, driving

The sun was in my eyes that morning,
from around 7:30 to 8am,
coming up the Southern Highway from Managua center

Otto says the sun in one's eyes makes
  everyone
  sleepy, not just me but since

I can't remember the accident, and I
   remember feeling sleepy with the
sun in my eyes,
I am terrified that my body somehow
  gave in and
  lost control and
  let the Pathfinder plow into two sisters waiting for the bus
   to go to work

Yesterday we were on a winding road,
  coming back from the monestary at Montserrat,
   (near Barcelona,
   a sacred place and home of the Black Madonna
   but that's another story)

I was in the back seat
There's nothing wrong with falling asleep in the back seat, right?
and yet
   when my lids grew heavy from the
sun in my eyes, it was
Anguish

That awful half-awake-yet- dreaming-state took over
I fell
   backward off the edge of control
  into my nightmarish imagined trajectory of an accident in which I
somehow, horrifically,
fall

asleep,
unwillingly relax my body and
BOOM!
get dragged back to wakefulness by
airbags and carnage.
Trauma flashback from an
   unreliable source

I no one knows if this is how the accident
really happened

the police concluded I had "excessive velocity" which
makes sense only if my foot had become lead with sleep
   or by unholy possession
I always drove slowly up that hill
I was the one who still slowed down even after the
   government removed the
   life-saving speed bumps in the name of
   improving fuel economy

I had been the one writing letters to the police about
   basic traffic safety issues
and Nissan had issued a warning to mechanics
   that the airbags were detonating spontaneously
   a warning that apparently did not reach Nicaragua, or went
   unheeded in a country where airbags are the exception
   not the norm

Given all the above, nevertheless,
Because the last thing I remember was feeling sleepy and the
first thing I remember is being
body-slammed
by the airbags,
feeling sleepy
   in a moving vehicle
   facing the sun is my
Trigger

Andrew Solomon's Comment on Impact

2010-11-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

Once again it is before 5AM and I'm unwillingly awake, lids heavy but legs and hands fluttering madly.

As I was unable to change the settings so that Andrew Solomon's comment on my post about him ("Productive Lives? Awards!) appears unfolded automatically, I am re-posting it on its own, with my response below.

Andrew Solomon is an award-winning journalist, novelist, and sufferer of depression, author of The Noonday Demon, An Atlas of Depression, which I remember reading over several days when I could not force myself to leave my bedroom.

Andrew Solomon said...
I am the winner of that award, so I just thought I'd reach out to you and say that I'm sorry if it's made you angry for us to receive these kudos.
I agree with much of what you say--that most people with mental illnesses can't have productive lives, and that it's dangerous to suggest that everyone can.
But I also know that I couldn't have had one if I'd lived 30 years ago, and that I couldn't have one now without the work of those NARSAD scientists, and I saw this as an opportunity to say to a roomful of scientists that their research is making a huge difference in actual lives, that it's not just some abstract intellectual exercise, and that those of us who have been able to get good lives out of their work are grateful.
But I did also take it as an occasion to say how much more work is needed, and how relatively few people are helped by medication to a sufficient degree to be really productive.
I just wanted to tell you that I hear you.
And also to say that I did have a whole lot of unproductive years before I pulled through, and that when I get sick again, as happens every couple of years, I am right back in that place of darkness and unable to function.
I hope you'll find some hope, but even if you don't, you're not invisible.
Best, Andrew: NOVEMBER 4, 2010 10:16 PM
Jessica Hirst / Palmer Fishman said...: Hi Andrew,Wow! What a pleasant surprise to hear from you.
Truly, both pleasant and a surprise. I appreciate your hearing me and understanding my points.I am not angry for you and the others to receive kudos – it’s fantastic.
As I mentioned to some of my friends, I think it’s more that I’m envious.
I thought I was going to have a life of accomplishment, and it hasn’t turned out at all the way I expected during my first 25 years.Like you, I did very well academically, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford. I had straight A’s all the way from first grade until I started Prozac in my third year of university.
My first job was in the Clinton White House, where I worked on international climate change policy and drafted a bilateral agreement signed by then-Vice President Al Gore and the President of Costa Rica, Jose Maria Figueres.
I thought it was only the beginning of a great career. I started medication and therapy at age 15, and I thought it was working.
Then around age 25 I came unwound in a series of breakdowns, half-recoveries, and new breakdowns.I reinvented myself as a hi- hop dance teacher and choreographer. That worked out for a few years, but my inconsistency and inability to function or even communicate on some mornings eventually terminated my employment.I too am grateful for medication. I am quite sure that without it I would have committed suicide already, and I am glad to be alive, despite how I feel some days.I am extremely grateful for your comments to the NARSAD scientists.
My current psychiatrist is the best I’ve ever had, and I think so because she
freely admits the limits of current medical knowledge.
She acknowledges that we (she, I, and the drug companies) are still experimenting on my brain, and that it’s not easy.I appreciate intensely being heard by you. I enjoyed Noonday Demon, and your amazing ability to express yourself.
I think society, at least US society, would benefit from understanding that
even you still have days when you do not function well, and how much the
world would miss out if you were
dismissed from consideration
because of that.
Knowing that I am not employable has been liberating in some ways.
I have learned that I can only work with people who are willing to negotiate openly my disability, who are willing to make some accommodations in order for our joint venture to be successful. It is not easy, but it is what I have to do.
I will keep working with what I have: my performance art, my text and images, the family foundation I serve, and my voice.
I am more hopeful today than yesterday that it will be heard.Thank you,Jessica Hirst; NOVEMBER 5, 2010 1:08 PM

Sleep!! Sleep??

2010-11-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

During my years of depression I've had a love/hate affair with sleep.
The luxuriant joy of
sinking
into pillows and comforters after
fighting all day to stay present
The stale stench of having not just
overslept, but

having remained cowering in bed,
crumpled under the sheets for
days without
talking to another human being let alone
eating
Getting up to use the bathroom was a major feat of
courage, on the Lord of the Rings scale

And yet now
with abilify and prozac pumping
me up
sleep has become not only
undesirable but
unnattainable

I haven't slept through a night since I started to feel human again
this worries me, and my
psychiatrist
not sleeping is a symptom of mania
not sleeping can cause mania

but my legs are jiggling
hands are rubbing together
compulsively
I jump around and sing and shout just to
let off steam, as it were

Is it like the fairy-tale of the little mermaid?
not the Disney version, but the one I remember from childhood, where she
gets to be with her prince, but only by
suffering stabbing pain with every
step on her human feet?

Is this the price for wanting to be alive each day?
or is it just that the meds aren't well-adjusted
yet?

Waking up at 4 AM
incredibly sleepy in the head and chest
but
a vibrating live wire from the stomach
down seems like some kind of torture at Abu Graib
You know your brain craves sleep, but your
body won't calm down.
body wants to play ball.
literally

I can't believe some people take these drugs for funsies

"Productive Lives" Awards

2010-11-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

NARSAD Announces Discovery to Recovery National Awards Dinner and Honors Three Extraordinary Individuals with Second Annual ‘Productive Lives’ Awards

"(GREAT NECK, N.Y. – October 12, 2010) NARSAD is proud to announce Kay Redfield Jamison, Elyn Saks and Andrew Solomon as recipients of the NARSAD 2010 Productive Lives Awards.

They are being recognized for their lifelong struggle and tremendous success in overcoming the staggering odds those living with mental illness face to become highly accomplished and fully contributing individuals – both in their respective professional fields and in their private circles."

I don't know if I can explain how frustrated this news leaves me. I have read their books, heard their interviews, and seen them on television. They make me incredibly distressed.

Their successes damn my failures.

"All three demonstrate that recovery is possible."

I know their 'recovery is possible' mantra is supposed to make me feel hopeful, maybe even inspired.

But it makes me ANGRY.

Because these sorts of awards, setting up these very unusual people as the standard-bearers for mental illness, mean that

all of my bosses, teachers, legal professionals, basically everyone I deal with who has some power over my well-being,

EXPECT THAT I SHOULD BE AS TOGETHER AND 'RECOVERED' as Kay Redfield Jamison, or Elyn Saks, or Andrew Solomon.

"They are best-selling authors, disclosing their personal stories about living with mental illness. They have also played important roles in furthering research and encouraging public discourse on these often invisible illnesses."

There is NO WAY they could be suffering the sorts of symptoms I deal with on a regular basis and write books, let alone publish them, let alone keep commitments to students, to television stations, to show up and certain times and places.

Unless you are already famous, independently wealthy, hopeless, or have a uniquely valuable skill, it is not safe to disclose one's personal story publicly.

There is nothing invisible about my illness. Just ask all my last employers, who either fired me or declined to renew my contract after I

a. failed to show up for work

b. went into the hospital, or

c. failed to show up for a performance and failed to notify anyone

You could say I was invisible by my absences, but my illness was definitely noticeable.

"NARSAD honored J. Randolph Lewis, senior vice president of Walgreen Co., with the inaugural 2009 Productive Lives Award for his commitment to providing an inclusive workplace that integrates people of all abilities, including those with mental illness."

I hope this guy is for real.

The world, and those of us with mental illnesses, need more employers who can work to our strengths.

I have met so many people with diagnosed mental disorders who have a lot to offer the world, who want to have 'Productive Lives,'

but who are denied the right to participate in almost any workplace.

“We are extremely proud to present our second annual Productive Lives Awards and to recognize these highly accomplished and courageous individuals who serve as role models for the countless individuals struggling to live with mental illness,” said Benita Shobe, NARSAD president and CEO.

“They serve as inspiration not only to us at NARSAD and our donor community, but for the millions of others who suffer silently from these debilitating illnesses. Although there is much more work to be done in our quest to discover causes, develop improved treatments, and eventually prevent and cure mental illness, their stories highlight that there is hope.”

I'm sorry Benita, but these individuals drive me more to despair. I think they are comforting to mainstream America, letting employers and others continue in their expectation that everyone with a mental illness should be able to 'be productive' and act normal if they

a. get on medication, and

b. try hard enough.

I have been on medication for almost 25 years and I can't keep any type of job that requires me to be in certain places at certain times.

I try hard every day.

I have a very good psychiatrist and have had years of therapy.

Sometimes it just doesn't work out so neatly.

'“This celebration is unique in the annals of psychiatric science as it demonstrates both the potential of breakthrough scientific research in brain and behavior, and of science in
giving lives back to creative, productive people,”
said Dr. Herbert Pardes, president of the NARSAD Scientific Council, president and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.'

I would love for scientific research and science to give me back all the years of lost opportunity, productivity and basic happiness I have lost.

But for right now we're not there yet.

And I think those of us who AREN'T
the lucky blessed
Productive Ones
would be better

served by honoring

more individuals who

speak out about the

reality of living with mental illness,
or who work actively to

create flexible, inclusive workplaces.

Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., is the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center. A distinguished scholar in her field, she was co-author with NARSAD Scientific Council member Frederick K. Goodwin of the standard medical text on bipolar disorder, or manic depressive illness, which was chosen as the most outstanding book in biomedical sciences by the American Association of Publishers in 1990.

The broader public knows Dr. Jamison through her writings and public appearances as an impassioned advocate for those, like herself, who struggle to live with mental illness. Her best-known book, An Unquiet Mind, chronicles her own devastating, near-fatal experiences with manic depression. Published in 1995, it was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than five months.

Previous NARSAD honors include the 2000 Falcone Award and the Silver Ribbon Award, presented at a NARSAD Los Angeles event in 2007.

Elyn Saks is a distinguished legal scholar, Ph.D. in psychoanalytic science, best-selling author and recipient of a 2009 MacArthur Foundation “genius” award. In her book, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, she relates her 30-year struggle with schizophrenia. Wrenching in its honesty and beauty, it was one of Time Magazine’s top 10 nonfiction books of the year and was on The New York Timesextended best seller list following its release in 2007.

Dr. Saks is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Law School, and adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. She is also on the faculty of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, where she earned her Ph.D. She has written extensively on mental illness and the law in both scholarly and popular articles, and in three books.

Andrew Solomon is an award-winning novelist, journalist, critic and essayist, who has written on subjects ranging from art and travel, to psychology and Proust. Most recently and famously, he wrote The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, an exhaustively researched survey of the history and science of depression and an intensely personal recounting of his own and others’ painful encounters with depression. An instant best seller, American Library Association Notable Book of 2001 and New York Times Notable Book, The Noonday Demon won the 2001 National Book Award, the Humanitarian Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and many other prizes, and has been translated into 24 languages.

Mr. Solomon was educated at Yale University, graduating magna cum laude in 1985, and at Jesus College Cambridge, where he received the top first-class degree in English, the only foreign student ever to be so honored, as well as the University writing prize. Splitting his time between New York and London, Mr. Solomon is working toward a Ph.D. at Cambridge on the relation between biological and psychosocial models of early attachment between mothers and infants. He is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College, and has endowed the Solomon Summer Research Fellowships at Yale University in Gay and Lesbian Studies.

Another blogger's take on the awards:

http://reflectionondepression.typepad.com/my-blog/2010/10/2010-narsad-productive-lives-award-winners.html

What do YOU think?

Nervous Energy

2010-11-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

As I child I used to rub my hands together
constantly
I shook my hands so fast that the fingers
slapped together
I made strange percussion
between my palms
for years and

then I didn't
for
years and
years
a childhood quirk, i thought

but now, and 39 years of age,
i'm rubbing my hands together again!
all the time!

i recently started ingesting a new combination of
   psychotropic chemicals;
   Abilify plus prozac plus lithium and it's
allowed me to beat back the depression,
to stop seeing shiny projections of my imminent self-inflicted death
around every corner

I feel I'm in my 10-year-old body
   again,
bursting with excess energy,
with nowhere to go but out,
out through shaking hands, rubbing hands,
palms slapping together
I can't decide to call is simply a
   side effect
   or a
bizarre time-travel restoration to my pre-depression chemical balance of being
------------------------------

By the way, I've been having a lot of fun at my art residency in Spain. For some of you the horrifying posts may be more compelling, but I hope we can all appreciate and celebrate the moments of respite.
The times when playing is possible!
Check it out at:
palmerfishmanindustries.blogspot.com

necklace assembled from finds at Les Encants flea market.
shirt gifted from Carla, Portuguese writer.

channeling Frida with wearable lung-wings

En Contra. Against Sexual Tourism and Pedophilia

2010-10-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

There's an important art exhibit against sexual tourism and pedophilia in Nicaragua. Click on the previous sentence to see some of the powerful images and words created by friends and colleagues. It's potent stuff.

Palmer Fishman Industries presents... Jessica Hirst: the Palmer Fishman Fashion Revolution has begun!

2010-10-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was a lot of fun, and I didn't get too anxious to let it happen! I started to feel the urge to sabotage myself before I could fail, but I didn't do it! I talked to people, took pictures, went with the flow, even stayed up late at the party when I really really wanted to go hide in my room. It was a good time.
Click on the purple link to check it out:
Palmer Fishman Industries presents... Jessica Hirst: the Palmer Fishman Fashion Revolution has begun!

Side Effects, more Mixed Metaforas and other crimes against language

2010-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

perverse? ironic? shocking?

that I have gone from

weights

attached to my eyelids,

dragging, sinking always backward into sleep

gravity too heavy to fight until later in the day

instant alertness at the first sound

waking with the baby,

the cat

the first electric feel of daytime energy and I can’t go back to sleep

my legs! my legs!

quadriceps to be specific

first, a biological explanation/ theory:

serotonin is a neurotransmitter,

(and brain lubricant?)

a medium of electrical

impulse transmissions and I dont

have enough in my brain

or rather my brain is too greedy,

the little hungry neuron buggers pounding the stuff

instead of sipping slowly

I think norepinephrine is also a nuerotransmitter?

anyway, it's similarly lurking

hanging out in the synapse

in the gap between me and eternity

enter the SSRIs! the SNRIs! the Seussian snuffalumps!

into the breach!

foreign intervention on hostile soil, or a visiting liberating army?

man the neurotic battlestations!

selectively!

inhibit

inhibit!

defense! offense!

keeping my starving, greedy natives from eating too fast

increasing the stimulus across the gap

multiplying the power of my weaker battalions

is this a tired image? or eerily appropriate?

that i think of my brain chemistry with
military and macro-economic metaforas?

(toy soldiers from my grandma's attic - 50+ years old)

so if all goes according to plan, the Prozac, Pristiq, lexapro, celexa and the rest

SeLECTIVELY slow the process,

increasing stimulus to my mental economy

enough to help me beat gravity

at the appropriate time of the morning

and yet here I am,

beating the enemy en la madrugada!

overly alert!

over-excited for the excuse to get the baby out of bed!
to play with me

guess what? you don’t get to be so selective

those surgical strikes? yeah, right

that intelligence on the WMDs in my brain?

apparently the CIA thinks I also
have them in my legs,

because the battles are raging sporadically

always worse when I’m supposed to be sitting still

transatlantic flight? great time for an unnecessary defense!

vibrations in my thighs

and i don’t mean the sexy kind

i mean the kind that make my seatmates want to
smother me

i’m rubbing my hands together like an evil genius

shaking kicking jiggling

almost voluntary

except if I don’t move I feel I could explode

an SSRI implosive incident over international waters

(portrait of me age 13 with new egg on my face - not a self-portrait!)

I have the right...to feel my own feelings

2010-10-27T01:51:00.000-07:00

A new art/mind blogger just found me, yay! I love how this, because now I get to enjoy her work. I wish the link directly showed the image she created in this space, but I don't know how to do that yet.

Check it out:
My Obnoxious Subconscious: Rehab for a certain scapegoat

Creativity is an excellent revenge.

Nicaragua, before

2010-10-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

OK, I did it. I googled myself. And this article, in the arts magazine Bourgeon, was one of the first listings. (hint: all the words in light purple are links)

It reminds me of the exhilaration I felt during my time living in Nicaragua.

our house - I got to paint it!

It reminds me of all the petty inconveniences that I sort of
   relished even as I complained because
   it felt more solid than 'America'

It reminds me of my horror and outrage at
   seeing anew (of course I'd
   seen it before)
   violence against women, at the almost
   casual acceptance (by men in power) of
   sexual abuse of children
   often by people related to them
   but in Nicaragua I had
   constructive opportunities to express that outrage

It reminds me of discovering myself as a talented performance artist, not

just a mediocre choreographer

It reminds me of the creative excitement opportunity I found in

garbage, and how

happy I was working in a dump.

It reminds me too that a sense of
   humor and   curiosity
   about (at least some) cultural
   differences will get me further than will
   feeling annoyed and
   superior

This is a link to an article I wrote, partly about how amazingly creative I felt in Nicaragua before the accident.

Stupid Rape

2010-10-24T06:09:00.000-07:00

Whenever I imagine being raped,
I am screaming, clawing, biting, and fighting to
   the death to prevent being
   violated.

I can't imagine being in my skin afterwards.

And yet, when I actually was
   raped in real life,
I hardly moved.

I didn't scream, or shove.
It was a Stupid Rape.
I went to the beach the next day, and
   lay on the sand,
   feeling stupid.

I was in Miami Beach
   alone, on the way
   back from a business trip in South America
I was twenty-two or twenty-three years old
   and I felt very grown-up.

afternoon shopping along the beach,
felt like a movie makeover
   where the girls' friends get her a whole
   new Look, in 5 minutes of fast outfit-changes
Bar
club
drinks
drinks
drunk
sideways glances
dancing
an older man making passes at me
paranoia takes hold,
   i'm convinced he's a
   predator, and i'm a small rodent
   trapped in a hole

at the phone booth
   by the ladies' room I try
desperately to reach anyone who could
   rescue me with his voice.
of course no one can hear me because
   i'm in a club
stupid
i'm drunk.
i need a way out of this place.

Lurching back to the dance floor
i grab a younger man and
hide my face in his chest
'get me out of here'
what an idiot!
somehow i have no cash
left for a taxi
he says I can sleep at his place

i wake up with him on top of me
heavy
stinking of booze
what?
'don't worry, I have on
a condom'
'no'!
I barely hear myself say it

some kind of warped survival
instinct takes over in which it
makes more sense to
let him fuck me
with a condom
and be thankful for the condom
than to fight.

what the fuck
slide back to unconsciousness

next morning he's
perfectly pleasant
i'm furious
with myself,
with him

over breakfast he laughs
tells me I was
asking for it because I
threw myself at him
and had on a tight dress
didn't anyone teach you that
no means no?
you can't be serious

in a bizarro twist we
work in the same small field of
nascent carbon credit markets
I know his boss
I want to throw up

I hear myself
scolding him
don't ever do anything like that
again
it's not allowed
it's not nice

after a long shower
i'm lying on the beach
hoping the sun will bake
the dirtiness
out of me

there's a man in white practicing
tai chi
tells me he teaches self-defense classes
'lots of pretty young women
get into trouble
here'

does he know?
is it that obvious?
i feel so stupid,
a Miami cliche.

even years later
in therapy I feel more
stupid
than violated
it's less disempowering
somehow

but knowing what I know now about trauma, and still
   not remembering
anything
   from the accident but the air
   bags in my face,

i wonder if there was more to the
Stupid Rape
than just being stupid

Flooded

2010-10-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

At Can Serrat, on the flanks of Montserrat, 50km from Barcelona. They just had a massive flood that washed out trails, roads, and left tons of flotsam and jetsam. It looks like the inside of my head!

Here's the YouTube link to flooded.

I was impatient and frustrated with using a tripod, but later excited to see the appearing-disappearing effect it created. Happy accidents (I have to remember that not all accidents are bad).

The music, if it loads properly, is by a band I only know of because the bassist's mother invited us over for paella after we met at a party in Idyllwild, CA, for the oldest living member of Duke Ellington's band. I like that the bassist is her daughter (ie a girl!).

my skin is thinner now...

2010-10-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

My skin is thinner now
thinner than before the accident
it always feels even
thinner when my brain chemistry is fucked

Although I know my epidermis is literally intact
the sensation of vulnerability is keenly physical

Semi-permanent sunburn
the kind that's
so bad you
wince
and want to scream when someone brushes
by you in the supermarket

I painted this line on my arm after yet another
minor decompensation
in which I failed to tolerate an everyday frustration

The UN had declared a Mental Health Awareness Week
And it was national Coming Out Day so
it made sense to wear my condition on my sleeve, so to speak

Kind of a disclaimer, like the warnings that come attached to the bottles of pills warning you
of drowsiness
against consuming alcohol
advising caution when
operating heavy machinery.

Do they consider automobiles part of heavy machinery?

back to trauma, again

2010-10-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

There was a terrible accident. I don’t remember it.

In the courtroom the prosecutor read

loudly,

shrilly,

clearly,

all of the accusations against me, and

all the accounts of

witnesses,

medical examiners,

police

and forensics.

I hadn’t known one of the sisters was

pregnant

until I heard it in court,

Sitting opposite her parents, brother, and ex-husband

cameras flashing.

I hadn’t known which of their bones broke,

or that their skulls cracked and

spilled brains onto the pavement,

or that my car ricocheted backward off of the church wall and

rolled over one of their bodies.

Hearing all of this from a woman in a fancy suit, perfect makeup and a manicure with embedded jewels,

who seemed to be relishing every word, was, well,

I have no words for how horrifying it was.

I couldn’t bear to be in my skin

The skin of the person who has no recollection

Who never saw

But is being told, in front of all these people.

That she caused the event

I couldn’t stand to be in my skin, so I left it

They told me my lawyer had to put his arm between my head and the table because I wouldn’t stop banging it.

I found myself again barricaded inside the clerk’s office with my finger on the lock button so the truth couldn’t
get
in.

Meditation on death

During this ordeal I reread some instructions for meditations written for monks. One of the most advanced is the meditation on your own death. In order not to fear death you must meditate on your own dead body, on how the skin will decay, on how maggots will eat your insides, eat everything until only the bones are left.

Facing the truth

I think that I will have to practice this meditation on death, but transposed from my death to their deaths. I will need to confront the words of that prosecutor, the accounts of what happened in the accident that I didn’t see, the reality of how they died.

I almost have a vision of it happening in slow motion, wondering at what point does the soul leave the body, what if our places were switched and it was my brain on the street and why didn’t it happen that way. I don’t know yet. I don’t know that I ever will.

meaty mental health metaphors. by palmer fishman

2010-10-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

"running"

when everything looks the same -

all the olive trees in rows upon rows

the dry brush snapping under your feet

the evergreens, the rock, the shale

you think you’re finding your way home and

then, like Pooh bear, see the same

   puddle
and
   realize
   you’re
   going
   in
circles

so u turn to go the other way

to see if it looks familiar, and its

completely different
and you’re

lost again

have to keep going
round

the circle

till
u recognize

   it
   AS
   a
   circle

then have to get

up the nerve to

cut out thru the
brush, scratching your legs,

and into
the
washed-
-out riverbank

falling

down

scrambling

till you arrive
in a new
place you
don’t recognize

and start

over

signs I am feeling better

2010-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

If I have signs that I am very sick,

I also have markers that remind me I am starting to feel better

I know the depression is lifting when

once again walking Benedicto unleashes streams of ideas and images

and is more than forcing one foot in front of the other so he can take a shit

when walking becomes a useful way to pace my thoughts

and not a torrent of overwhelming despair

when shopping for food is not terrifying, only unpleasant

when I dream in detail about building things,

when I can make a phone call just because I need to, without days of procrastination

when making the call feels wonderfully, normally easy

when I can answer the phone and say hello

when I answer the phone for a number I don’t recognize and it’s a good friend I haven’t spoken with for at least two years, and we talk easily for an entire hour

and i enjoy it,

i’m not trying to find an emergency exit from the conversation

when I’m not afraid for people to look at me - when it doesn’t feel like an invasion

when I am capable of spontaneous conversation with store clerks,

baristas, airport security and other people walking their dogs. I don’t have to avoid their eyes.

I know I am doing much better when...

I sometimes even enjoy shopping

when I have the patience to try on enough pairs of pants that I eventually leave the store with some that approximately fit my body

for the first time in 6 years

When I start moving from imagination to action

when I the wall between ‘think’ and ‘do’ gets porous enough that I start taking photos, shooting videos, building forts out of papier mache

making plans that involve other places and people

leggings made from cut-off sweater sleeves

I am so unaccustomed to functional energy and optimism that I

always worry I am drifting hypomanic

Is it that I have such a backlog of ideas and obligations, than I must seize whatever undetermined period of abilty to do as much as possible?

or is that hypomanic, and hence worrisome and pathological?

I can have a meaningful conversation with my airplane seatmate for an hour and enjoy it. my skin isn’t crawling.

I want to dance!

I see people moving and remember how much I used to love to move

I know I am feeling stronger

when I can think (somewhat) rationally about my finances without tripping the circuit breaker

when I can stand to make a list of things I need to do, and then go on to

accomplish some of them in the same day - make a doctor appointment and then go to it,

instead of procrastinating for months and then strategically forgetting the appointment or getting too sick to go.

These are mostly normal activities of daily living, some that sound superficial or even luxurious,

these that an adult in the United States consumer society must be able to accomplish in order to maintain basic functioning.

They are all things I can’t do for months at a time/ on end.

back to trauma

2010-10-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Because it keeps coming back, keeps getting triggered. That's what
makes it a disorder,
so they tell me.
I dropped Otto off at the airport today at
around 8am. The accident happened at
around 8am after I had dropped Otto off at the airport.
Different countries, different destinations, but
it's a trigger now, something similar to superstition.

The only scenario in which I can imagine that
I somehow caused the accident,
connects me being anxious about Otto leaving to
feeling overwhelmed about being left alone to somehow,
   maybe,
   shutting down while driving into the sun and involuntarily
   giving in to unconsciousness.

I have done this airport drop-off enough times now since then that we have a safety routine. If I feel really bad, I call someone in my family to pick me up or take a taxi
If I'm a little shaky, I sit in an airport coffee shop until I'm solid
  Today, I drove just a few blocks to the art supply store, and spent two hours
   drooling over colors and patterns and art books.

I still got a scare on the way home when Pearl Jam came on the radio.
   (Pearl Jam? I don't even like Pearl Jam.)
  But something about Eddie Vedder's voice caught in my chest and hit me with a powerful urge to....I don't know exactly. Cry. Sing. Dance. Scream. none of which I wanted to be doing at 65 mph on the freeway. I punched the radio off and concentrated on my breathing.

My skin is thinner now....

Not only is my skin thinner, but apparently my eardrums are as well.

This is a letter I wrote to notify close family and friends about the accident. It must have been the 2nd week of February, 2009.

greetings, i am writing to let you know that I was involved in a tragic car accident in Managua in which 2 women, 2 sisters, pedestrians died. It is incredibly hard for me to comprehend how such a thing could have happened. I felt outside my body for the first 2 days, watching this happening to someone else. I came to Nicaragua to help, not harm. I always insisted people wear their seatbelts in my car, even in the backseat. Last year I had several conversations with the transit police about the dangers of allowing babies and small children on motorcycles, without helmets. I also talked to them about my concerns when they removed the speedbumps on Carr Sur, where I live, and I still slowed down where they used to be. But none of that prevented this tragedy.

I don't remember the accident clearly, I don't remember how it happened. My memory starts with the airbags hitting my face, shattering my glasses, and then an impact against what looked like a metal pole. I have no memory of seeing the sisters at all, before or after. Doctors tell me this loss of memory is the product of trauma.

photo of accident scene el nuevo diario - would not allow me to post photo itself

What I do know is I am more sorry than I have ever been for anything, that I feel deeply for the family, that I can't stop crying, that this is a nightmare and I can't wake up. The more I learn about the good work of the Espinoza sisters the more I understand the depth of their loss. One of them worked with her church as a counselor to addicts, prostitutes, people who had been abused, etc. There was a story in the paper here last Sunday about how she and I were united in our service to other people.

I have been in court twice, had my face all over the newspapers and television.
As I had been in shock right after the accident,
the prosecutor's statement was first time I heard the horrifying details of what happened to the Espinoza sisters' bodies, crushed against the outside wall of their own church.
The elder was pregnant.

Fight or flight animal instinct overcame me. As neither option was available I started banging my head against the court bench. My attorney tried to put his hand between my forehead and the wood, but I just smashed his hand. I couldn't stop myself.

Jessica Fairfax fue remitida a juicio oral por homicidio imprudente doble, pero sigue libre. Al fondo la observa su padre. MANUEL ZAPATA / END Translation: Jessica Fairfax was referred to trial for double reckless homicide, but she remains free. At right is her attorney, her father in background.

On the second court date when the prosecutor read the same thing again, but with more details from forensic witnesses, I totally lost control and fled into one of the court offices and locked the door.
You aren't allowed to do that. The person on trial is not allowed to stand up without the judge's permission, much less lock herself in his office.

You can read the newspaper account in Spanish here:

elnuevodiario newspaper article on court case

The mother of the sisters has reportedly also been incredibly distraught, and wanted to designate her son to represent her. The prosecutor by law was meant to be representing and protecting the Espinoza family, but she has repeatedly seemed more interested in creating as big spectacle as possible. She refused the mother's request, forcing her to endure hearing exactly how life left her daughter's bodies. It was beyond horrifying.

The evaluation by the government forensic doctors concluded that my life was at risk due to post-traumatic suicidal thoughts, but I was still put back in jail rather than sent to a hospital. One of my cellmates was a hysterically psychotic woman who had drowned her baby in the toilet, and she did not receive any treatment either as far as I saw.

My father and stepmother came down and met several times with the family, mediated by their pastor and a long-time missionary from the US, no lawyers. They thought they had arrived at a settlement agreeable to all the parties. Then the prosecutor refused to accept the agreement, discounting its validity because she had not been involved in its negotiation. I don't know what her personal agenda is, don't know what is going to happen now, and I am very scared and sad. My parents went back to DC for what they said were strategic reasons, but in the moment I feel abandoned and even more afraid. My whole family is grieving about the accident, and wants to do what we can for the Espinoza family.

My brother just discovered today that Nissan did a recall on 2001 Pathfinders, the car I was driving, because the airbags were going off when they weren't supposed to - SRS means Secondary Restraint System, a techie word for airbag. So perhaps my memory wasn't so fractured after all, if the accident began with the airbags exploding in my face.

the notice:

SRS PRECAUTIONS DURING SERVICE;IMPROPER MAINTENANCE,

INCLUDING INCORRECT REMOVAL AND INSTALLATION OF THE SRS, CAN

LEAD TO A SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH CAUSED BY UNINTENTIONAL

ACTIVATION OF THE SRS ON ALL NISSAN MODELS WITH THE SRS

SYSTEMS. *

[The notice went to mechanics, not owners. I must have taken my car to at least 5 different repair shops and none of them ever mentioned this notice. Of course I had one of the only cars in Nicaragua with air bags at all, so no one knew how to maintain, inspect or fix them. How horribly ironic would it be that my concern for safety, which led to my extensive search for and purchase of a vehicle with airbags, was what indirectly killed the Espinoza sisters. Not even safety technology always makes us safer.]

Why am I writing all this? Because this accident could have happened to anyone who drives in Nicaragua. In fact, these sorts of accidents happen all the time.

I know at least five other people who have had similar accidents. Meaning they accidentally killed pedestrians.

It is horrifying. Because life is precious. Because you can't be too careful. Because terrible, tragic things can happen in the blink of an eye. Because after this kind of tragedy comes the additional hell of going through the system. I was in jail for several days without being told anything about what was going on, what might happen to me.

I am very very sad, and very very anxious, and I need moral support. And the Espinoza family needs support, even tho they probably don't want to hear from anyone related to me right now. I have been told that things are worse for me because I am from the US. I'm not sure. I just want the Espinoza Reyes family to know how very sorry I am, that I know they are in terrible pain, that I want to help them the best I can, and that continuing with this trial is incredibly painful for all of us. I really really wish, I pray, that we can come to an agreement soon and start the long process of healing. Please drive carefully.

jessica

ps I am under house arrest and we do not have internet at home. Please write back, I need all the moral support and strength I can get, and please be patient that I may not be able to get back to you for several days. Otto has been checking and downloading my email for me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[I was under house arrest for several weeks in February to early March 2009]

I'm writing this note today:
Holy shit. All this time I had let myself think homicidio imprudente was involuntary manslaughter. Because it certainly felt involuntary to me, and what happened sounded like slaughter from the prosecutor's description. But now the translation program tells me it means I was charged with (not convicted of) reckless homicide. Holy shit.

Wading In

2010-10-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today I went wading.

Three or four days into an Abilify trial

'Abilify' - if only it can deliver what it promises!

Three weeks (or so) back onto Prozac,

my first SSRI love.

When people ask me to explain the impact of selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors on my life, I tell them this:

Prozac gave me my first 'B'
I had straight A's from K through junior year at Stanford.

A few months into Prozac I relaxed enough to get
a 'B' in Organic Chemistry

What will it do for me this time?

Too much, and my legs are constantly begging to run,
but the muscles are so shortened so that
it hurts to even gesture toward my toes

Too much, and the same vibration migrates
to my mind, where a series of propellers spins in different directions
lots of wind, no useful motion

Too little and I'm sobbing all the time

especially at the high school music numbers on glee tv

With this small amount of chemical insulation around my over-sensitive nerves

I went wading -

I got in up to my thighs at the United ticket counter

I thought I was doing OK and

then the waiting, the noise, the enormous family with too

many multicolored suitcases and crying babies and the man

trying to get an earlier flight to check in for

National Guard duty got to be too much...

I felt the urge, the demanding need, to run away, to scream,

which I have done several times in public places recently but

since I knew we really needed to change this ticket I

just sat down on the floor, put my hands over my ears, and pictured

each breath dislodging some of the rocks stuck inside my head.

We were in the world today more than I've been for the past 2 months, at

a cafe - not so hard. I know what to order before I walk in

Costco pharmacy - terrifying. a million things begging to be looked at, dodged, listened to, all piled high over my head. had to discuss insurance, always a mess.

video store - also hard - way way way too many options

second-hand clothing store - high level of difficulty, YET I succeeded in purchasing a few things for my fashion experiments

silkscreen/embroidery shop, where I actually placed an order

to get my Palmer Fishman logo sewn onto my superhero costume! and we

chatted with the Greek owner about the relative

misery of his country's economy vs. Spain's.

Put off selecting the color of thread, but the guy was way cool about it

"don't worry about the color yet, just think about rolling over those eggs and it will come to you"

sushi restaurant - seemed OK, yet the noise level rose with the sake intake and in the end I had to flee.

I'm so lucky Otto was willing to wait for the check.

This was a very good day.

4 years ago - how pretty I was

2010-10-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

I just discovered these photos on my brother's computer. They were taken at his wedding and the day before. I'm horrified at how much better I looked then than I do now. I look so much more alive.

Check out my muscles! Granted, I was teaching breakdancing and actively using my body 20+ hours a week. But still! I haven't danced like a joyful fool in such a long time. From 1998-2006 I experienced multiple deep depressions, but I also became a hip hop dance teacher, of all things. I lived for the exhilaration of moving to house music in the middle of the night in basement clubs full of amazing dancers. Now I never dance. I almost never go out at night.

I've been trying to get this haircut back. What's so hard about it? I wonder if my hair is dry and brittle now from all the pills, or from the botched bleach job I got after the accident in Managua. I was afraid of people recognizing me as the killer gringa. I thought if I turned blonde I might be mistaken for a different gringa - from the Peace Corps, or one of the evangelical churches. The pink stripes looked wicked cool with the oversized sunglasses. My brother looks pretty happy too.

I know I was having a lot of trouble with depression then as well, so what's the big difference? Just age? Or being more physically active? Or having hot pink stripes in my hair?
I got the pink stripes to match a costume for a huge rave I was performing at.
This was also around the time when I dated an emotionally competent drug dealer who drove me around in his Escalade and only wore brand-new shiny white Nikes. I discovered he was a drug dealer when he left several thousand dollars in one of his show boxes at my house. He was emotionally competent because he learned to be a peer counselor in jail.
So one could argue I'm more stable now - no late nights, way less drinking, a stable relationship, a great dog.
But also no dancing, not much exhilaration. It shows in my skin.

Symptoms

2010-10-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

I know I am sick when I start imagining myself dying.

I know I am sick when I feel intensely frustrated and then start imagining my family discovering my limp body in the bathroom.

I know I am sick the way you know you are sick when you have a fever. Officially sick. Like, you can go to work with a cough or a headache, but if you have a fever? take a sick day.

I have been round this carousel enough times to recognize the horse. I know something is misfiring in my head when I think
if I kill myself the day before my partner is set arrive from Europe anyway,
the funeral will be more convenient.

This insight is helpful, because I know that I do not really want to die.

But like a hacking cough or a high fever, these thoughts of dying can't help but affect my general well-being. They're distracting, distressing, and very disturbing. They beg to be believed.

Even when I remember that these thoughts always retreat, I also remember that they always return. I know I am going to see them again, these old bullies who never grow up and never grow tired of tormenting me.

It's the certainty that this cough, this fever, these suicidal imaginings
always come back
that makes them such a bitch to endure

p.s. please do not worry, I'm on a horse of a different color today.

Smashing Papayas

2010-09-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

photo by Jeremy

I am still smashing things.
I am still smashing things.

Recently papayas, eggs, those kelp balloon-pods on the beach, and bubble wrap.

I've been trying to understand my compulsion for this kind of destruction, and its expression in an artistic context.

photo by Jeremy

I realized that my hypothesis about my 2-year-old niece applies to me.

She loves to perform "night-night," squealing with joy when I pull up the covers of my bed under her chin, yet going to sleep in her own crib at night seems fraught with anxiety. She sometimes screams her little head off.

She also likes to play "fall down," in which she gently lowers herself to to floor, dirt, or sidewalk and calls out "fall down!" with glee.

Are you guessing my theory? Right, she repeatedly performs acts that scare her, exerting conscious control over them during playtime, rehearsing for the real thing. Like a fire drill.

I keep finding new ways to perform accidents. Instead of rehearsing, my performances are more ritual reenactments in which I keep trying for a different outcome.

In my performances no one gets hurt and I can clean everything up by myself if I have to.

Of course it is really amazing when a big group of people spontaneously decides to help me clean up, as happened with the eggs on a street in Barcelona.

Consoling Words

2010-01-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

I wrote this last year, probably in late February.

Everyone has their words of consolation, their way of making sense of the accident in 5 sentences or less.

It was an ACCIDENT
IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT
It could have happened to anyone
These accidents happen all the time
Other people have survived worse traumas.
People tell you not to feel bad because there’s always someone who’s got it worse. But whatever you are suffering, you are in it, and your personal experience needs to be respected and felt for what it is
It’s about karma. When a series of bad things happen to you, you need to examine it and change your karma
Tragedies and difficulties happen in order to teach you, to push you to a higher spiritual plane. Since so many big bad things have happened to you you must have an advanced soul
Tragedies push us to take stock, to consider why. I strongly urge you to pray, and to pray to Jesus Christ our savior.
My daughter’s whole class at school prayed for you, and for the two sisters.
We’re all praying for you
You are a good person, with a good heart, who never wanted to hurt anyone, and after this accident you are still the same good person.

Yet the mother said to my attorney, You want justice for Jessica? What about justice for my two daughters?

17 Days

2010-01-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

Today is January 17, 2010. It is 17 days until the first anniversary of the Accident.

I am starting to feel an inexorable pull

on the fluids in my body,

as though a different source of gravity is affecting me

a sort of tide rising

I can't stop the days from passing

In 17 days I will wake up, it will be a Wednesday

Once again, there will be nothing I can do to stop what happened.

The liquid in my body seeping into my lungs

inevitability

will there be a memorial in Managua? of course there will be.

remembering, mourning

i see my body lying in the dirt next to theirs

how much have their bodies decomposed?

how much have I decomposed?

damp leaves

ants

plastic bags blowing across the cemetery

soft rain

Papaya Mistake?

2009-11-11T08:03:00.000-08:00

I may have made a mistake. I'm not sure yet. I'm here at art school in Barcelona, and I kept missing class because of depression, paranoia, etc. So when it came time to present a work of art related to our personal identity, I decided to drop another papaya, only this time as performance art, in a gallery/classroom. I dropped the papaya from about 8 feet up, so it did not break completely. I spoke some of the details of the accident and its aftermath. I explained that this was less a presentation of art and more a necessary communication from me to them, in hopes of dissipating my fears so that I could come to class.

They all critiqued it as a work of art - "you should have just dropped the papaya and not said anything" "you should have smeared the papaya guts all over yourself" "this is NOT a place for art therapy, this is a place for art, and your 'performance' doesn't belong" "I didn't want all those details" "I wanted more details".....and so on. It degenerated into me shouting that I HAD prepared another, completely impersonal piece, but that I needed to share this as a human being, not as 'an artist'.

So it wasn't my most successful venture.

Papaya

2009-08-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

I dropped a papaya
off the roof
to watch it smash on the ground.

Then I took lots of close-up pictures of the carcass
Why?

The car accident was an act of destruction
in which I feel I was forced to participate
I was not the author of those moments,
nor an arbiter of the physics
mass
velocity
vector force of metal on flesh
I was not acting deliberately or willfully in any way
I can't even remember what happened

It has left me
unmoored,
demolished,
furious.
It has turned my skin inside out.

I DECIDED to drop the papaya,
I carried it up the stairs,
I opened the door,
I held it out over empty space, and
I dropped it.

CRASH

I documented it myself
the pulp oozing out of the rind
the juice flowing into the grass
no police or coroners necessary.

And I cleaned it up.

Finished.

PARASITES OF THE MIND: PTSD Healing: What are the Causes of PTSD?

2009-08-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

PARASITES OF THE MIND: PTSD Healing: What are the Causes of PTSD?

Bad (North) America

2009-08-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

I am furious with Ronald Reagan, with Oliver North, with both George Bushes, and, yes, with Bill Clinton. US intervention in Central America and all over the world is perceived here in Nicaragua as imperial arrogance.

It doesn’t matter that I tried to educate my schoolmates about the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, that I marched against the first Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, that I have worked and voted in favor of greater democracy and self-determination. It doesn’t matter that there are thousands of Americans here working in public service, and that some of them have been here since the Sandinista revolution.

When something bad happens I’m immediately swept into the Ugly American category, no questions asked. Jessica doesn’t exist as an individual person, she’s just another one of those selfish gringos who thinks she can get away with anything, who thinks that brown people don’t matter. Decades of poison.

And this is only Nicaragua – think about Pakistan.

This experience of being treated with derision and hate gives me some idea of how much work President Obama, the US government, and the American people have ahead of us before people in other countries start to think well of us again.

(my photo of a Spanish-speaking worker preparing to cover a Shepard Fairey mural of President Obama on a wall in Washington DC.)

House Arrest

2009-07-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

the idea is to keep me a semi-liberated prisoner,
prevented from leaving the country,
when actually I don’t want to leave the house.
I’m a prisoner inside my own head,
captive of grief and self-torment,
paranoid that every person outside will spit on me.