Secret Sexuality : Bi but Closeted

I am a lot of things: schizo-affective, a graduate student, a minority female....and I'm bisexual. But not out. Instead, I exist in sexuality limbo, floating half way between the Straight world and the Gay world, a ghost, an apparition, there but invisible.

Today, I watched an adult video with a large breasted woman and a man. It was not the man that had me going into conniptions---it was the woman. It has always been this way...since I was in high school. The man is my boyfriend, the woman in the film is the one who gets me to climax. I am not ashamed at all, just afraid to tell anyone. I am afraid my female friends will become concerned that I want them. I am more afraid that one particular friend will realize that I really honestly do want her, that it may be a sort of love in fact, but I don't have to worry about that since I intend to keep my mouth shut.

I am bi but at the moment live a Straight life. No woman has taken me in her arms yet. I guess I didn't really choose a Straight life, I am just defaulted to a Straight life because women haven't asked me out (well, except one, but she is kind of not my type). I have always lived a Straight life---at least in terms of who I sleep with. However, when I am alone in my bedroom, the adult video comes out and it is the only breath of sweet release I get---the sight of the voluptuous female body thrills me, makes me yearn for a Gay life I have never known, and finally, induces the throes of pleasure that momentarily put my yearning to rest.

I have a boyfriend, a religious conservative man who prays every day and comes from a country where Gay is a Western "invention," something that is prohibited, allegedly non-existant, and totally taboo. I really do not know what has kept us together these last three months. It might be his kindness or the fact that he is such a good cook. I like that I am not expected to wash dishes or cook his meals. I like that the only place I have to play a female role is in the bedroom. I always thought this was a bit ironic, since in his country of origin, the female is always washing dishes, cooking, raising children, etc....

I like the freedom he gives me. Except of course, the freedom to be with a woman. I don't know what I expect---I want to be courted by a woman but I don't frequent any gay clubs or attend gay community events. I guess I have the faulty belief that a woman can see past my lipstick-colored lips, my exaggerated femininity, and my hand which holds a man's hand, and see the bisexual inside that desires a woman with thick hips to hold and an intelligent mind to hold my interest.

Ah well, I'll keep looking for signs, like a neon shirt that says "GAY" on a female co-ed on campus. Until then, I'll stick to my movies. *Confused sigh...

Society's Lowest Caste: the Mentally Ill

The following is a true story, one of many, about how the mental health care system ignores, rejects, and hates the mentally ill. I am schizo-affective, a member of the lowest caste in society; the Untouchable. The following story takes place in a city in California about 4 years ago. I have no criminal record. I don't even have a speeding ticket. And no, I would never hurt anyone who isn't physically in the process of beating me up or assaulting me. I am well-behaved. I am schizo-affective. I am an Untouchable of this society.

4 years ago------

"I need medicine," I told the woman behind the plate glass barrier.

"Talk to your doctor," she said, turning away.

"I missed my last doctor's appointment and they used that excuse to kick me out of the county program."

"Talk to your case worker," she said.

"I have no case worker. I have no doctor. I have no money because nobody will hire me. I am too manic to work, been manic for a while, no sleep the whole week. Please let me in, this is the only way I can get medicine," I pleaded.

"There's no room," she said.

Mind you, she is behind a plate glass barrier in a psychiatric triage room. I am on the Outside, two feet away from the door to a barren world that despises me and makes me feel that my persecution delusions are not delusions at all but reality. 

Behind her, a male nurse shook his head. 

"I know her. She just needs her doctor. She's fine," he said. Turning to me he said, "GO TAKE YOUR MEDS."

"What meds? I haven't had meds in months. They won't see me, they won't give me treatment and the pharmacy won't give me the pills either because I have no insurance and doctors always prescribe the 700 dollars a month anti-psychotics," I told him. I then began to jabber on about what the voices were telling me. I told them all the horrible names they called me, the fact that I believed I was going to be renditioned, tortured, killed, brought back to life, tortured, killed, my whole family would be tortured and killed, the entire constitution had been overwritten, there was a mass conspiracy to psychically drive me into committing hara kiri....I told them that I was going to kill myself by slitting my wrist with a knife I bought for the purpose of slitting my wrist.

"Jesus Christ just TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR," the male nurse shouted. I walked out into the World, unmedicated, floridly psychotic, suicidal, and abandoned by the medical system and by doctors and nurses who vowed to uphold the Hippocratic oath. 

Later that week, I was still psychotic. I went to the outpatient treatment center that had previously been treating me. They sent me to a county mental health crisis center. The mental health crisis center was humorously located behind a "WALK INS ONLY" sign. I walked in. 

"We don't take walk ins."

"How do you get an appointment," I asked, apparently an idiot, as the women behind the counter were rolling their eyes.

"You walk in," she said. I was starting to feel like I was in backwards land.

"Okay. I'm a walk-in. I need to see a doctor."

"We can't take walk ins now." I was biting my lip. I was dealing with voices, visual hallucinations, thugs on the streets who were very aware that I was vulnerable and probably wouldn't be believed by cops if they robbed or assaulted me....here I was, I could see that jerk doctor in his room, shuffling papers, his Rx pad only feet away....these women were part of the Evil System. I began to realize that the only people getting treatment were the ones who walked outside naked to get their coffee from the corner store. Seeing as how I preferred to get my coffee fully clothed, I chose the next best option. I went back to the outpatient center.

At the outpatient center they attempted to turn me away, again. I decided to die. In fact, while I was killing myself, why not do it like that Buddhist monk who set himself ablaze in front of cameras as a form of protest to an unjust system?

"I am going to kill myself if you do not put me on anti-psychotics right now," I said. The woman grimaced, shut the little window, reopened the little window, and said, "You have to go through the county crisis center."

"Okay, I just wanted you to know that I am going to be slitting my wrist right here now." I was in an empty waiting room. The nurses were all behind glass barricades and doors with alarms. I didn't want to hurt anybody except myself because I was tired of the Catch-22 that is the Evil System. So I started to slit my wrist. My intent was to get to the bone and be done with this life, with this hateful Evil System...with everything. I just wanted the staff (SAFE behind the barricades, mind you) to remember the day they turned away that schizo patient who then lopped off her hand right in front of them and died a terrible death. It would be my hara kiri. My way of setting myself ablaze. I had actually thought of self-immolation but I was afraid the fire might get out of control and damage the building. So, I opted for wrist slitting.

They watched. They finally called an ambulance once the blood started to appear. I put the little cutting utensil through the slot below the window and watched it slide into the staff's side. Most times, a pen or a paper is slipped below the window. Today  it was my life.

The ambulance guys then came, tied me up to the gurney, and complained that REAL sick people had to go to the hospital and that all I needed was to see the DOCTOR who was right in that same building. They looked at me with scorn, derision, and barely concealed hatred. Whatever, I thought. I am Untouchable. I am a disgrace. I am a sore on society. So be it. As they drove me to the psychiatric facility, still talking about what a waste of an ambulance trip it had been, I started giggling. They shook their heads with unspeakable disgust.

"WHAT?"

"You wouldn't understand," I said, trying really hard not to laugh hysterically. To this day, I will not say what made me laugh. 

Believe me, reader, if I could go to the moon and start a colony with my schizophrenic and bipolar brethren, I would. I do not like being an unnecessary burden to you or the rest of society. I did not go into my own DNA strand as a fetus and make my own DNA defective, nor did I commit any felonies. I was just born with DNA that causes my brain to perceive what is not there for the rest of you.

I suggest that society either make jobs for the nutcases so they can afford their pills or craft a gigantic spaceship to send us all into outerspace so we can start a planet of our own, because obviously affordable health care will never be a reality, at least not in the next 75 years. No, euthanasia is not an option.

******************************************************************

4 years after the previous story:

I get medicine

I get therapy

I complete my Bachelor's degree

I volunteer places

I get a little book of erotica published

I get a boyfriend

I get a 3.6 my first semester in my Master's program

I get ready to move to Sweden as an emigre if worse comes to worse. Why Sweden? They seem sensible, which ironically, the current state does not appear to be.

I get a little blog up and running where I can leave my cyber footprint for everyone to see. This is my biography. This is my graffiti markings. This is my ultimate retribution---I can be disgraced but my soul is intact. Plus, I have a plasma TV. That is more than a lot of people have. I earned my plasma TV by studying so hard I was honored with merit-based financial aid. 

Now if you will excuse me, I will now watch PBS on my Plasma TV and devise strategies to make a living and donate half my earnings to NAMI. Tata.

Holiday Blues

It is a little hard to write when my personal life (being a former mental patient) bleeds over into the national political hot zones. Bear with me, I'll try to keep it on point.

Christmas is very difficult for me. I think I have emotional issues from my childhood that never quite went away. I struggle with depression during this time of year. I feel so dumb, being 29 years old and still feeling like bursting into tears whenever a Christmas carol plays on the radio, but what can I do? My therapist is away on her holiday vacation.



The thing that sort of fills the void is online shopping. I shop like a new book is the thing that will keep me whole, keep me centered, keep me sane. I must be the only one who thinks that a book on multi-variable calculus is a life-raft.

Two of my five classes have posted grades officially. I have an A and a B. I already know I got 2 more A's that still have to officially post, and the fifth class is a toss up between an A and a B. I didn't fail miserably. I did not have a nervous breakdown. I did not wind up in the hospital corridors, cowering in the corner, mumbling about telepathy and thought projection. Instead, I am a little blue, but sane, nonetheless, sitting in my grandmother's room watching a guy talk about blueberries on PBS.

Blueberries.

Secret Shame

I go to class and I'm the good student. I turn my work in on time, orderly papers that do not reveal the hidden shame I am burdened with; mental illness. My thoughts are linear and clear in my term papers, in real life they unravel like so much yarn in a kitten's paws.

I was reading that the nra wants to create a database that lists (for the public) the names of people with a mental illness. PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, autism, seasonal affective disorder, borderline personality disorder, and the gamut of eating disorders----all of these people will be branded, labeled, posted for the public to see, and stigmatized worse than ever before.

As I said in a previous post, the last time I was floridly psychotic I believed that society was going to round up everyone with "defective DNA" and put them in camps. I am starting to realize that paranoia is just an extreme extension of ideas within the realm of possibility.

Backing anybody into a corner is obviously never a good solution. Turning into lynch mobs and threatening the Constitutional rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens is worse than this---it is traitorous.

Respectfully,
an A-student with a clean record who takes Pride in the US Constitution
~Antigone

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=148650

20 mg of Abilify later....

I feel much more at ease with society. I took my medicine last night (having accidentally skipped it for the previous two nights), slept until far too late, and woke up feeling refreshed and at peace.

I got a decent grade in my toughest class. I got a B+, which is not an A, but it's close enough to where I can feel proud about it. I got an A in an undergrad class, a prerequisite for my major, and I am still waiting on grades for the other three classes.

My medicine makes me sooooo groggy, but I guess the pay off is that I remain stable and functional. 

Returning to Life

I'm done with term papers. Now I have nothing to do but exercise and sit at my computer reading through the comments on news websites. They really, really depress me, those comments. Whatever.

My mother told me stop reading the comments. I really cannot help it; I need to know the level of ignorance my fellow skitzes and I face. Believe me, the comments are not pretty.

I was going to quit blogging but I thought better of it. I've been blogging about my life and struggles with schizo-affective disorder for about a year now. I feel that I will be more productive to society if I prove that not all skitzes are sadists. Plus, if there is some skitz who is sitting at home, contemplating  suicide because of what society is telling him about himself and his medical condition, I want him to know that there is a path towards hope, healing and regeneration.

I was 19 when I had my first psychotic episode. It was my first year in college. I am 29 years old now. I still have the condition but it is in remission and has been for the past 3 years. I have my bachelor's degree, as of this spring. No, it's not from some shady online course. It's one of the Cal States. I worked periodically through the past ten years---no real careers, just cashier, pizza thrower, that sort of thing, but I held on to my jobs for years at a time. I have had a variety of romances, maybe one too many. I've also lost 25 pounds since last year, and I'm 158-160 right now. I am not defined by my mental illness. I am a graduate student, a laborer, an artist, a loyal daughter, and a supportive friend.

If you feel like you are having trouble with positive self-identity, please take the time to do what I just did: list all the positive things about yourself then write your name above the list. That list is you.

Good luck.

Unspeakable Tragedy in our nation this week. I haven't blogged at all lately because of what happened. I think everyone across the country is in a state of shock.

*******************************************************************************

When my cousin committed suicide last July I did all my homework as a means to cope. Rather than dwell on the pain, I read British literature and wrote expository essays. The pain never went away, but I managed to cope. I think that is what I am doing right now by blogging: coping with something horrible that never should have happened.



Just to put something in perspective---  Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and every other person responsible for atrocities and genocides, were not afflicted with genetic mental illness; they were sociopaths.

I read on a yahoo comment board that "all it takes is one psycho so we should.....to all the crazy...." (he was referring to mental patients and the mentally ill). I am afraid that is your train of thought as well, reader. I once told my psychiatrist that people were conspiring to put me in a death camp because of my defective DNA. Allegedly, I was floridly psychotic at the time.

After 9/11 there was a lot of pain too. There was a lot of blame aimed at people of Middle Eastern origin, regardless of innocence. In these volatile times it is easy to punish 1.5 million innocent people than 1 dead, guilty person, but it doesn't make it right.

I obey the constitution and I hope you will as well.
~Antigone

Stress=light mania

I keep waking up at three in the morning. I wake up alert, refreshed, and unable to go back to sleep. It might be the end of the semester or my natural bipolar cycles. Whatever it is, I have been more productive because I am awake for longer periods of time and I use this time to work on my graduate term papers or to exercise. This productivity is both a good thing and a sign of bad things to come. Increased productivity and less sleep is an early warning sign of impending mania. I must make sure to get at least 6.5 hours of sleep, as opposed to the 4 hours I got tonight. The normal sleep period is 8 hours, but that is unusual for any full-time graduate student, let alone a bipolar graduate student.

While I was up I watched a documentary about Bellevue psychiatric hospital. I found it to be totally triggering. It reminded me too much of my own experiences and the sight of a woman being strapped to a gurney was especially hard for me. Oh, the injustice of my misunderstood existence....but enough whining.

I often worry about how I come across to others. Do I seem bizarre and freakish? Do I stand out? Do people hate the sight of me? Do I come across as weird, troubled, bossy, eerie? I will never know for sure. The only thing I can do is to monitor my behavior, obey social etiquette, and smile.

Anyways, back to working on my term papers.

Grad School : 5 Hours of Sleep, 5 Hours of Study

I had an interesting chat with my psychiatrist last month. I relayed my level of stress as a first-semester graduate student to her and she placed me on an additional mood stabilizer. The mood stabilizer acts on a different set of neuro-transmitters (brain chemicals that regulate mood). This new drug is supposed to moderate my level of depression. So, far it has worked. But anyways, back to our conversation.

"Oh, you are in grad school now," she asked.
"Yes, it's really different. There's a lot of journals to read and they're all really technical," I said.
"How are you doing so far?"
"I'm doing good, but I sometimes don't study for as long as I would like to because I get sleepy around ten o'clock, right after I take my medicine," I said.
"Oh, yes, it is better to stay up and study. Less stress in the long run. You should stay up and study as long as you can," she said.

I am taking her advice to heart. I scored high on my tests after our conversation. I did indeed stay up late, by drinking two cups of strong coffee around ten o'clock. I also tend to do work in the grad study room on campus after my evening class. I get home around 10. I either spend some time with my boyfriend afterwards or else I go home and pass out, exhausted, but ahead of the game.

I still have to write two term papers before the semester is over. Three of my classes are easy for me. Two require analyzing raw acoustic data, translating it into plain English, making graphs that show the results, and applying the appropriate theories to the data. I feel overwhelmed, but I am confident that I can type out some reasonable analyses in time for the deadline. I am less confident about getting an A on these papers, but I will try my best.

Sigh. I fear that if I don't perform well I will have no chance of entering a PhD program. I really want to earn a doctorate in my field. It is the pinnacle of education. I am willing to work hard, do research, work at a real job on the side, and stay in school an additional 5-6 years in order to earn a PhD.

Part of me is motivated because I have a severe mental illness that hindered my progress for so long. I was too busy curled up in bed, experiencing troubling symptoms, to study or to go to class. Now, I have medicine, a therapist, and a chance at a decent future. I want to prove society wrong about mentally ill people, not by surrendering to a fate of disability checks, but by improving my status in society and being a mentor to the mentally ill people who are talented but too insecure or troubled to reach for their goals.

Here are some tricks I learned that helped me earn my belated B.A. despite suffering from a mental illness:
1) Wake up early, take a walk, come home, and write out the main objectives for the day. For example, item 1: complete homework assignment before 10 a.m. item 2 : eat lunch, less than 400 calories. item 3 : go to campus early. item 4 : work on lit review for term paper (at least one hour)....and so on.

2) participate at least one time during class. Participate less than 4 times during class, just in case I am manic and too talkative.

3) When in doubt about participation, doodle on notes. Doodling makes it look like I are totally bored and uninterested but at least nobody will know that I am socially awkward at that moment.

4) engage in 1 minute, trivial chit chat with classmate after class, just to practice social skills and to connect momentarily with another human being. Avoid long periods of eye contact, when person physically steps away, cut the conversation short and excuse yourself politely.

5) Drink coffee.

6) Keep a diary to vent personal self-doubt, campus gossip, and general fear of society. Don't share it with anyone except therapist.

This last point should be crucial for me, but here I am; divulging my personal struggles, dark secrets, and horribly out-of-reach ambitions to total strangers. Well, that's the internet for you. :)

Race, Class, and Academia

I just finished reading a little Yahoo! article on a White sorority that took time out of their busy schedule to dress up in Mexican-themed ponchos, sombreros, and took photos holding signs that said "will mow lawn for weed." I am guessing these girls are from upper-class and upper middle-class homes that have never had to actually work at menial labor jobs for a living. More likely, they probably feel superior to the Hispanics at their school, and in society at large.

It is classist to belittle the hard work of the struggling masses. Especially since, being pretty and socially groomed for success, these sorority girls will either find cushy jobs thrust at them or will marry into wealth and security. Not so for the people they emulated for a laugh.

It is racist to assume that all Mexicans cut grass, smoke grass, and are "fair game" to belittle and humiliate.

What really stung though was the comments people made about it being a) funny and b) "ridiculously PC." At one time, saying that racial slurs is "too PC" was common as well. Civility can be a bitch, can't it, elitists?

Here's the link, please read the comments by users and see the number of "thumbs up" that anonymous people gave them. It is just a small splash in what has become common place derogatory perceptions of the underclass.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/racist-sorority-party-photo-stirs-outrage-181258221.html

Gaining Again

I gained 8 pounds in the last three weeks. From 155 to 163. That puts me back in the obese category. I feel like a failure. I succeed in school but fail in my personal life....or else it is the other way around.

My boyfriend is an amazing cook. He cooks delicious, aromatic food and then serves me as much as he eats. He then offers me seconds...dessert...full sugar soda. I am having difficulty saying no. I see it and know it is too much. I tell him I can't finish but he insists. I have this obsession with really tasty food. If it is veggies or even Panda Express I can control myself. I just stop when I am full and throw the rest away. But with home-made, spicy food I fall into this vortex of consumption. I love to eat good, home-made food. It makes me feel loved and nurtured. Then, at the end of the night, I see my belly and I am ashamed.

I lost one pound last night, so I'm 162 at the moment, but that is still 25 pounds more than my goal weight. I want to be 135 again. I was under 115 until the age of 22 or 23, when the psychiatrist put me on Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic that is notorious for massive weight gain. At the age of 24-ish or 25, I lost a lot of weight and weighed in at 133. Of course, I was floridly psychotic and malnourished from my once-a-day meal diet and I was quickly institutionalized, but I still want to be that weight again. I don't want to be 115 or below. I just want to be 135. I like having curves, but I must be in the normal BMI range. I must.

It is sad that I am content not seeing my boyfriend for the next two days because I get to go back on a low cal veggie and yogurt diet. I like his company, but I fear his two entree dinners. There must be some middle ground?

Classes are going very well. It was difficult to adjust to the new standards at first. It took a good two months to get accustomed to the daily readings of academic journals, but it was worth it. I studied hard, I read a lot, and now I have excellent grades. Term papers are coming up, and then that is the end of my first semester as a graduate student. I just have to work my butt off coming up with a good analysis of the data I accumulated.

I am feeling better about being a person who has bipolar-disorder with psychotic manias. I am beginning to see that there is a life outside of drama and madness. There is a life of productivity, moderate amounts of energy, and success. Now, if only I could lose the 25 pounds....

Notes on my Personal Life

I am up late, thinking about how unjust the world can be. But why gripe? I have more than many other people do. I have my college degree, I am doing well in the master's program, I am not mentally ill at the moment. I have no criminal record. I don't even have any speeding tickets to my name.

I  have a boyfriend. He is an international student. He cooks for me. I am very lucky.


I got an A on a tough midterm. I now have to write excellent term papers. Then, I can celebrate Christmas.

I need. I need money. I need love. I need hugs and kisses and hundred dollar bills. When I am in my boyfriend's arms it is as though he can never hold me tightly enough. I need too much. Even with my major illness gone, I am still a bit neurotic.

Look at me, typing my private details onto the cyberspace. What is the matter with me? I am ashamed, yet my fingers keep typing. I must need attention. I must need your attention. Thank you, by the way, for your attention. Without it, my life would be a solitary existence, living alone with the secret of my damaged mind, hiding behind a wall of fun-house mirrors, unsure as to which reflection is mine.

Here, I know who I am. Yes, I omit certain details of my life from you, reader. Important things? Not really. Trivial things I do not really bother to type into cyberspace. You know my bare soul. You know the secrets that I can not share, not even with the man whom I share a bed with. He doesn't know the secret of my mental illness.

He doesn't know that I learned how to sleep under bright lights in the psychiatric holding cells. What it was like---the horrible sting of light, the sporadic moments of sleep, the ever-present security guards with attitude problems and billy clubs as extensions of their manhood. He doesn't know what it's like to wake up shattered, literally bruised, with no memory.  I curl up with him and pretend like I have no past. Like nothing existed before him. The silence between our conversations like tiny rain drops that threaten to become a rainstorm. I can never tell anyone the horrible existence that American society puts mental patients through. The physical restraints, the invasive psycho-therapy, the guinea-pig drug regimens, the stigma.....it is all so middle ages.

But enough remembering about my ugly past. I must think about a future where I am not tied to a gurney, not misunderstood, not perceived as contagiously mentally ill or dangerous. I will apply to doctorate programs this semester. If I am accepted, I will request a deferment of my admission in order to complete the Master's degree. I will complete my Master's degree in two years, possibly earlier. I will take my medicine as prescribed. I will exercise and lose weight. I will apply to PhD programs in my field. I will not break the law. I will not give up the hope of a normal existence, or of a productive career. Maybe I will even have a child. But that would be after I am gainfully employed. I want my child to have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Moot point, though, I need to earn my degrees first. Wish me luck. I wish you luck.

The Future as Bright and Promising

Well, I improved my grade in that graduate class that I had gotten a C on the first exam. From a mediocre, failing C to a perfect score on my second exam! Now my grade is an 85%, up 15%. I got a perfect score! I am still proud of this. My future in the graduate program seems to be promising.

Also, I inquired to my Department of Rehabilitation counselor, my out-patient service providers, and my therapist, if a 5150 or a 5250 appears on a background check. They all said no, it is part of my confidential medical records. I was so scared before, thinking that my chances of employment were marginal, at best. Thank goodness for that one medical legislative measure that ensured our privacy! God bless the USA!!

The only thing I cannot do is serve in a position that requires a firearm. I accept this. I do not want a firearm anyways, those things are dangerous. I do not mind not being allowed to work for the police department, that is alright.

I am so grateful that I can be a teacher! I will take my medicine as prescribed, no missing, and I will monitor my mild symptoms. I vow to keep up with my regiment. :)

I am very happy. Only criminal charges show up on background checks, and I have no criminal record whatsoever. I do not even have a single speeding ticket on my driving record, and I worked as a delivery driver for around 3 years.

I now have a car I bought used. I spent hundreds of loan dollars fixing it up, but it runs reliably and more importantly, it is a Kia that is good on gas.

Yay! 

Doing Well in Graduate School

I am getting good to excellent grades thus far. I have studied so much I barely have to time to fit in my exercise regiment of walking and using my stationary bike at least 3 times a week. It has paid off, though! I am doing good. I just need to keep up with my readings and work on my term papers. So far, I have had a positive experience in the graduate program.

I feel like I am doing something noble by continuing with my higher education. Not only am I a first-generation Mexican-American to finish a B.A. in my extended family, I am also a person who lives with a genetic mental illness. This makes me sort of a double minority in Academia. I try not to see this as a thing to feel bad about, but rather something that I can be proud of---I am paving new ground!

One of my heroes, Elyn R. Saks, a schizophrenic who completed her law degree at a prestigious University, was featured on "TED." If you have not heard of TED, it is a program that you can download to your cell phone or tablet. It is a database that is filled with geniuses talking on various subjects, from the law to the internet. It includes many leaders in various fields (i.e. techno-geniuses and others). Elyn R. Saks is video taped on TED giving a speech on her struggle with mental illness, her success as a lawyer and professor, and how this relates to our policies and views on people with a mental illness. I highly recommend this talk!

Thanks for reading!

Controlling Symptoms on a Daily Basis

For anybody, graduate school and financial strife is stressful. For me, someone who has bipolar disorder with severe manic episodes (my schizo side of schizo-affective), stress takes on new meaning. Yet even this double amount of stress is possible to manage.

First, it is crucial to develop social skills required for college and life in general. This means learning to read people's body language, backing off when they turn away, smiling in return to a smile, and knowing how to understand a social boundary and where the boundary is drawn for different people. This can be a chore. It can also be embarrassing. When I am manic, I tend to be very extroverted, gushing over everybody, texting everyone on my cell phone, and generally being obnoxiously cheerful. When severely manic (read: psychotic) I withdraw completely, too afraid of being hurt that I retreat into the private domain of my bedroom. I dive into the intricate internal world of madness, denying the existence of real people in the process. When depressed, I also retreat into my bedroom, only to mull over the hopelessness of everything in general. As you can see, this affects my social life.

Learning to manage symptoms related to social skills is critical for well-being and a healthy recovery. I have to consciously remind myself that I must not raise my hand at every question when I am manic, or stare at the floor during an hour and a half lecture with a pained look on my face while depressed. It is all about moderation. Learning to compartamentalize the struggle of having a mental illness is important because it allows for appropriate social interaction. I understand that I am different and I try to "box" the parts of me that are illness-related. So, when I am manic, I put half my enthusiasm into a "box" and tape the lid down, mentally. When depressed, I put the sadness into the box and make infrequent eye contact with people around me, as I would normally do when in a neutral state.

I am still learning how to navigate around the world. My therapist says I have good social skills but I am still very nervous about my social skills. I like to practice on them by periodically taking up a conversation with someone I am not familiar with. I tend to smile and greet them, then ask them how they are doing in our classes. Then I back off a little or pretend like I need to go to the bathroom in order to make my escape.

So, I have found that with medication, a supportive network (I am lucky to have a great therapist and this blog), it is totally feasible to live a healthy life with friends and mentors. Thanks for reading!

So much caffeine it now puts me to sleep

I haven't pulled an all-nighter in grad school---yet. I did try. I pumped my body full of caffeine through various methods: Red Bull, Monster, iced coffee with a shot of espresso, and over-the-counter headache medicine that is mostly caffeine. I did all this so I could memorize a short story in a foreign language. It did not work. I must be building up a tolerance to caffeine. As soon as the caffeine kicked in, my anxiety let up and it felt perfectly natural to put my head down on the bed and fall asleep until 9:30 a.m the next day. How late did I stay up? Barely midnight. It was alright though, in a state of panic I managed to memorize 10 sentences and regurgitate them for my oral exam.

My doctor has added a mood stabilizer to my med cocktail. It made me grumpy the first few days. I was working on installing car speakers into the used car I recently purchased, and every so often I would get totally irritated, throw my hands up, and retreat into the quiet domain of my room. Usually I have a lot more patience than that. Then, about four days into the new treatment, I felt wonderfully enthusiastic about life. It finally kicked in!

I really needed that boost because I got a horrible grade on the first exam for one of my grad classes, a C!!! Yes, that's right, I failed miserably and got a C. In graduate school, a C is like a D-, maybe even an F.  The feedback said I should write in a more organized manner but that my arguments were convincing.

I cannot help but wonder if my schizo-affective thought pattern surfaces when I am writing essays. Maybe my thoughts come out out of sync with logic and that is what ends up in my essays. For the next class exam, I am more prepared. This time, I started early (she is letting us do a take-home exam so long as we do not communicate with our classmates). If I start early I can re-read it before submitting it in order to catch the little slips of disorganization. This is just part of my cognitive disability---leaps of ideas, from topic to topic, without clear associations. It is a notorious symptom of both my bipolar disorder and my psychosis. I really have to watch myself. I am going to request a piece of scratch paper for my upcoming in-class midterm in another grad class. I will need it to sort my thoughts prior to scribbling my answers.

Anyways, I feel much better. Some jerk's comments about obese people does not send my into conniptions anymore (see :Trolls on youtube suck). I feel more balanced, more mellow, and a little sleepy. So it goes (to quote Kurt Vonnegut Jr.).

In other news, I highly recommend that series "Homeland." NAMI nominated the cable show for a NAMI award for its touching portrait of a C*A officer with bipolar disorder. It is a little interesting to me that the character is only on an anti-psychotic, or at least that's what was said during one episode. Usually, bipolar people get cocktails of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, or mood stabilizers. They go up, they go down. Treating only one end of the continuum can cause the other end to spiral out of control. But mental illness comes in all shades, in all manners, so maybe taking just an anti-psychotic makes sense.

Watch it!       :)

Need More Coffee

Graduate school is a new experience for me. It requires stamina, endurance, mental prowess, and a lot of caffeine.

I have decided I prefer to call myself bipolar with psychotic features rather than schizo-affective. Why? Because, for the last two years, I have not had schizophrenic symptoms. I have had slight manic and depressive episodes. That is more how I would characterize myself, as a bipolar person who risks becoming schizophrenic if I go without sleep for more than two days. Unfortunately, it is really common that I do not sleep for extended periods once my mania sets in. However, I have been free of schizophrenic symptoms for the last two to three years. My bipolarity, on the other hand, seems to come more frequently.

For example, any time I miss a dose of Zoloft I feel sad, hopeless, and like my efforts in academia are futile. Of course, once the doctor pumps me full of refills, this tends to go away rather quickly (as in, within two hours!). Sometimes, if I drink too much coffee followed by energy drinks and diet Cokes, I can become too extroverted. It is not just the caffeine, it is how my brain chemistry responds to caffeine. I can effuse over my peers, insisting that they are magnificent people who can change the world. If that sounds really nice, well, you've never seen me manic. I just cannot shut up! I hear myself talking on and on, sometimes jumping from topic to topic, but I cannot make my mouth shut. I fear how I must come across.

Well, hopefully, I can keep my mouth shut and my eyes on the term papers. :)

Trolls on youtube comment boards suck

So, I was watching a youtube video today. joseph150ish, whoever you are, you are truly a cruel person. This joseph150ish trolled an HBO documentary on the stigma that obese people face and wrote that they should go ahead and kill themselves because they are "useless wastes, oxygen thieves." joseph150ish is likely a sociopath. A sociopath is a person who feels no empathy for anybody. Or maybe somewhere down the line he got punched in the face by a fat person and felt the need to instruct every fat person to commit hara kiri.

Either way, I still recommend the video. Here's the link, please don't write hate speech. I really feel that free speech is not ordering a person to commit suicide. Having actually lost someone to suicide, I find his comment more than offensive, I find it to be akin to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ow1uiWcn4c


Graduate school is alright, I am preparing to do a Powerpoint presentation later this month. I like to relax my walking, listening to music, and/or surfing the net. However, people like joseph150ish make it a very ugly world and someone should really report him for harassment, or just 5150 the f$%^&. But no, he would give 5150's a bad name.

Thanks for reading! 

Grad School---coffee, zoloft, & Monster energy drinks

The one thing I have noticed is that I tend to gravitate towards liquid caffeine whenever I am feeling nervous. Isn't that reversed? Shouldn't I drink green, decaffeinated tea and listen to mellow sitar music? Instead, I play industrial electronica music, pop my zoloft (all 200 mg), and run out to get myself the following: a grande Starbucks iced coffee with a shot of espresso and creamer, followed shortly by a Monster lo-cal energy drink, followed by perhaps another large regular coffee, all the while walking around listening to hard-core, heart-pumping industrial beats. That's graduate school for you, I guess.

Barrista: "Hi what can I get for you today?"
Me: "A grande iced coffee with cream and a shot, please."
Barrista: "How many shots in that?"
Me: "What's the maximum number of shots allowed?"

Thanks for reading! More to come! :)

I Passed the Qualifying Exam

I studied with my friend twice a week for a month in order to prepare for a qualifying exam. The qualifying exam is required to continue in the program as an official graduate student in the Master's program. I took it. I passed it. My friend did not. I am depressed for her, and for me.

I am depressed because I have so many 5250's on my record that I might never be a community college teacher, or have a career at all. I have been "out" for three years without incident. By "out" I mean socially re-integrated and normal enough to avoid the psychiatric in-patient facilities. I can never erase those 5250's though. They appear on my background check. I have NEVER been charged with a crime, yet I feel like a criminal for being schizo-affective. It is not fair that 5250's appear like a felony would on a background check. They should prevent this because 1) being sick is not a crime, and 2) it violates the medical privacy policies that the U.S. has in place.

If I had spare time I would rally the NAMI supporters and propose a law that states that a doctor's note can over-ride an employment disqualification due to 5250's. But I am a graduate student taking 5 classes. I have no time. I  have no life. I might not even have prospects.

It is moments like these when I close my eyes and seek a higher force. Nothing comes. I open my eyes. Tears come to my eyes, not a benevolent, omnipotent being. I feel empty and hopeless. Stigma has killed my joy. Just earlier today I was enthusiastically blathering on about my studies. Now, I feel that I have made a horrible mistake. I shouldn't bother with graduate school since nobody will hire me because they don't want mental patients working. They want us in bed, laying prone for days on end, growing plump like veal, spending our meager disability check on little art supplies so we can create art that nobody will buy.

I write. I write and apparently somebody stops by to read. Why? Who am I? What am I worth in this society? Why do I keep living when others do not?

This was supposed to be a happy post---I passed a difficult exam with flying colors. I am fully admitted to the University. I have already begun research for my term papers. Yet I am filled with ambivalence and sadness. My friend is normal, no 5150's on her record, nothing on her record. Yet she failed and I passed.

Don't worry, I do not have any plans to stop attending school or to slip further into this depression. I just needed to vent. I must accept that this is a risk I am taking---to pay a lot of money for diplomas that I might never use. Fancy, fancy diplomas. An Associate's Degree diploma. A Bachelor's Degree diploma. Soon, perhaps a Master's degree diploma will join the others on top of my tall bookcase, collecting dust, something to show off to the few friends I may have down the road.....

Or maybe I will just run away to Amsterdam and live in the Red Light district, smoking in the cafes, wandering the streets looking for menial jobs, and writing terrible poetry in the back alleys of potshops. 

From Binge Eating to Binge Shopping

I cannot tell my mother this or she will bow her head in shame. I spent all my financial aid money and now I have barely enough left to pay the registration and insurance fees for a used car I bought. Where will I get gas money? Coffee money? Money to pay my smartphone bill? Lol, get the irony of that, the cell is smart--I'm not, or I wouldn't be in this predicament.

I used to weigh 180 pounds and most of it was due to medications, but the part of it was me emotionally over-eating whenever those medication-induced hunger pangs started. Now, I'm 30 pounds lighter. I no longer emotionally over-eat. Instead, I seem to have found a novel approach to self-destruction--- binge shopping. By binge shopping I mean spending hundreds of dollars with a couple of clicks on amazon dot com (in a day).

I try to control myself. Like all my previous self-destructive behaviors (cutting, binge eating, starvation dieting, promiscuous sex, pot smoking), this one overtakes me. I literally feel that the only way to fill the psychological gap left by my chaotic past is to buy something that promises to make me happy.

Not to mention this week is Suicide Awareness week. My cousin died from suicide last year during July. His birthday would have been around this time. So, I am going into my binge shopping feeling depressed, lonely, abandoned, uncertain, and mournful. Suddenly, that 200 dollar smart phone seemed like a good idea; as did the fancy car stereo for the car that I cannot drive until I get the registration paid and the smog inspection cleared. I guess I can always just sit in the garage in my car and listen to my fancy, pointless radio.

This is getting depressing. Okay, here is what I am going to do: make money. How? If I knew that I'd be rich. I honestly don't know. I'll sell artwork, I'll sell my IPOD, I'll sell sell sell. Or maybe I'll just go take out an emergency loan (gasps of horror from the readers---yes, I said a loan). My ex-boyfriend wants me to move out to Las Vegas and become a stripper. He keeps pestering me about it, saying I'm just as cute as the strippers. He often tells me all my money woes will be solved if I just move out there and learn to scale a pole. If this Master's program doesn't go as planned I just might start to consider that (I can hear my mother's shrieks of flabbergasted disapproval now).

See, I often define myself as a schizo-affective mental patient, despite the fact that I haven't had symptoms in over 3 years. What am I then, if not a paranoid schizo-affective mental patient? Apparently, I am a compulsive shopper. I am emotionally fragile. I am broke. Now, if you will pardon me, I am going to surf the internet for jobs on my brand new Samsung galaxy tab 2, 7.0 which turned out not to play amazon instant videos, a main justification for buying it.

Gah....at least this insures that I will not have any choice but to succeed at graduate school so that I can get more money next semester and learn not to throw it at random items like 5 pairs of 50 dollar bras, sized 34F and 34FF. Ah well, the bras fit nice.

I am watching a documentary called "Jonas." The brother of a schizophrenic made a documentary about his brother's struggles with the illness. It is available on amazon dot com's instant video collection.

I recommend it not just because it is about a schizophrenic, but because it is an honest portrait of a human being struggling to overcome a major obstacle. I also liked the rhyming children's book idea that the title character, Jonas, wrote. He recites it at the beginning of the documentary.

Being a female paranoid schizo-affective myself, it is healing to see someone who is like me in some ways. His struggles were mine as well.

I am doing alright in graduate school. Nobody knows I have schizo-affective disorder. They think I am just a wild one; tattooed and a little eccentric. No, I don't resemble Lisbeth Salander. As much as I love her black Cyber-goth outfits I try not to stand out in a crowd. I do have tattoos, but I usually wear boring khakis and GAP shirts so I blend in with the campus crowds. People do not suspect I am a mental patient.

 I have been out of the hospital for 3 years now. For the last 3 years I have not heard voices, seen hallucinations, had major delusions, insomnia, or feelings of persecution. I have mostly stayed on my medication. I say mostly because here and there I would go a week without them for one reason or another (e.g. I couldn't get refills, or I forgot to take them). For the most part, I stick to my treatment plan. I check in with the psychiatrist, the social worker, and the therapist. I feel kind of like an adult ward of the state. My life is filled with people who tell me what to do---down to not spending money excessively (as I tend to do), not smoke marijuana, and they have even suggested to stop dating a guy on the basis that he didn't want to be in a committed relationship. I obey. I mean, look how far I got making crappy decisions on my own: not far. Look how far I got accepting advice and treatment from professionals: far.

I encourage people with mental health disorders to be open to others. Unless they want to cuff you to a bed---then I say call a lawyer. But if they seem to truly want you to function in society, listen to them. :)

Thanks for reading! More to come for this little public diary of mine.

Adjusting to Grad School

If you had asked me at age 18 where would I be in 4 years I would have answered: I will be a college graduate and I will be securely employed.

Well, I am 29 years old and that little bubble of hope kind of popped around the time I had my first schizo-affective episode at the age of 19. Since that time, I have ridden the turbulent waves of mental illness. I have succeeded and failed at community college, barely managing to transfer with an Associate's degree, almost a decade later. Now, I have a Bachelor's degree. It's officially on my transcripts: Bachelor's degree conferred August, 2012. Some might call me a total failure. A dreg, a former pothead, socially unproductive. Some might call me a tough cookie for managing a severe mental illness while working, going to college, and attending to my family. I call myself a masochist, in a way, for putting up with the tightening deadlines, the boss with the anger management issues, professors with attitude problems, eating myself into a size 16 pant size, dieting myself down to a size 14 (I am still considered overweight by the BMI chart but nowhere near where I used to be), making friends with sleazy womanizers, and juggling all this with the incessant stream of homework, papers, family obligations, financial strains, and (of course) periodic flare-ups of my mental illness. Yes, that little masochist in me wants to feel the pain of juggling life roles, of near epic failures, and deepening despairs concerning my future.

Yet, if it were not for the masochist I would have chosen a fairly easier route: graduate, go to a career placement service, get a job, work below my full capabilities, buy an Ipad. End of life. Despite the urge to be stable financially and professionally, I couldn't let go of the field I am studying. It intrigues me. The promised future paycheck also calls out to me like a siren in a Greek tragedy. So I applied to the same Cal State campus as a graduate student, got accepted, and now I am on a kayak heading down rapids. I do not know how I well fare in graduate school. It is something I want to do, something I am driven to do. I want to be educated. I want to be specialized. I want to feel intelligent.

This last decade I have felt dumb. I heard things that nobody else did while schizo-affective. I saw things. I believed wild delusions that anyone with normal brain chemistry could clearly see was not real. I have struggled with not trusting my mind at all and now my mind is the only thing I have to keep me afloat for the next two years while I complete my Master's degree.

I just know I want to be like Elyn R. Saks in "The Center Cannot Hold." Psychotic? Yes. Smart? Yes. Educated? Yes. Successful? Yes. She is my role model. Thank you, Elyn R. Saks, for writing your story. A year after I found out about your story I am still inspired to persevere in my life, to prove you right!

So....here I go. I am going to work on a presentation I have to prepare for a class.

Thanks for reading! 

Grad School Started!

I finally started class last week. This is my first semester as a graduate student. I am pretty excited. I am very nervous though. What if I fail miserably or have a nervous breakdown? With some luck and hard work, I should be okay.

This would be a nightmare if I did not have the outpatient care I have. I get to see a therapist twice a month, where it is okay to whine and gripe about my fears and paranoia. I also have a steady stream of medicine that keeps me from having an episode.

Along with the treatment, I also have a supportive mother who is pleased that I am continuing my higher education. She allows me to live in her house rent free while I attend college. Without her, I would be a lost soul.

The professors are all familiar to me, as I had them as an undergraduate student. They are welcoming and friendly. I feel that I can talk to them if I don't understand something.

I am looking forward to this semester. I feel enthusiastic and hopeful about my future performance in the graduate program.

So, here I go. Into a Master's program---SkizzieLizzie finally goes to grad school! :)

Link to Article on Mental Illness and Violence

http://news.yahoo.com/mass-murder-and-mental-illness--the-interplay-of-stigma--culture-and-disease.html

Above is a link to an article I just read. It debates whether people with schizophrenia are more violent than others. I feel that it is a balanced article. I have, however, read contrary evidence that suggests there is no link between schizophrenia and violence. Despite this, the author points out a vital insight: why do people in other countries who have schizophrenia never commit the crimes that our schizophrenics do? Indeed, schizophrenics in other countries have a much better life-time outcome than American schizophrenics. Why? I believe that it is due to stigma and discrimination against the schizophrenics that is a uniquely American phenomenon. If you persecute any group they are more likely to become angry and volatile. It is undeniable that in American society, schizophrenics are viewed and treated as unpredictable, malignant genetic freaks that need to be removed from the general population. Imagine how that must feel to be told you can never have a job, a family, a normal life, happiness in general; imagine that plus the added burden of being treated like a criminal without even having committed a crime!

It is hard knowing that I am hated without cause. It is hard knowing that I am persecuted (and no, that is not a delusion I hold, I really AM persecuted due to my illness). It is hard knowing that I will never be trusted, respected, or loved as I am; genetic abnormality and all. I would not commit a crime, and this is not a justification for those who commit crimes, but it is something to think about the next time you see a schizophrenic walking in the street and talking to himself.

It is difficult in times of crisis to think clearly about problems. Emotions and the need for vengeance get in the way. Yet, in these times, we must still adhere to the U.S. constitution. I do. I do not discriminate due to race, religion, age, class, sexual orientation, gender, or mental/physical disability. I sincerely hope you will follow the teaching of the constitution as well.

Thank you for reading.

1% of Psychotics Are Violent, I am the 99%

I always hate seeing violence in the news, especially this new massacre in Colorado. Every time there is a random act of violence people start labeling them "psycho," "insane," and lumping all of us law abiding mental cases in with the violent maniacs that take their angst out on innocent people.

It occurred to me that I should quote from a book written by a world renowned criminal profiler. Dr. Hickey has studied serial murderers, mass murderers, sexual deviants, and criminals in general for decades. He has published numerous textbooks on the subjects, including this one, "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," fifth ed., published in 2010. Here is a quote from that textbook:

"...[Souza in 2002] found that although mass murderers will most likely have a history of both childhood trauma and violent behavior, most do not have any significant history of institutionalization (Hickey, p. 59, 2010)."
        ---So, essentially, the bulk of mass murderers have never seen the inside of a psych ward. They appear to be normal, unlike the majority of schizophrenics, who stand out like a sore thumb in society and are constantly admitted into psychiatric facilities for behavioral modification, medication, and confinement.

Later on, the book states, "Henn, Herjanic, and Vanderpearl (1976) examined the psychiatric assessments of nearly 2,000 persons arrested for homicide between 1964 and 1973 and noted that only 1% were considered to be psychotic (Hickey, p. 62, 2010)."

This is not anecdotal stories that I just made up. This is genuine research conducted by PhD's who are at the top of their fields. Maybe this criminal is insane, if so, he is that 1% of mentally ill people who perpetrate crimes. Please do not take your anger out on the law abiding 99%!!

For those of you who do not know this, there is a state mandate that says if you have ever been put on a "5150" hold, meaning that you are judged to be a threat to yourself or to others or you are incapable of caring for yourself, you are prohibited from possessing or purchasing a fire arm for at least five years! The most chronic cases, those of us who are repeat mental patients in psych wards, are fairly likely to NEVER own a hand gun, due to the fact that every couple of years we are hospitalized.

Let us not forget that the bulk of crimes are committed by sociopaths. Sociopathy is a personality disorder, not a neuro-chemical imbalance that is inherited from one's genetics. Sociopaths are cunning, deceitful, sane, and organized (usually organized, there are some that are classified as "disorganized"). Schizophrenics are totally scatterbrained, bewildered, frightened, and busy with their internal worlds of make believe voices and visions.

Just like race, please do not discriminate due to mental disability. We are not gun wielding maniacs. We fear the gun wielding maniacs as much as the next person, even more so, because the after math affects how everyone treats mental patients, which often involves indirect victimization of innocent schizophrenics.

I  urge you to follow the laws set forth by the constitution. I vow to follow the constitution. Please do not violate the constitution.

My sympathies are with the victims of the Colorado massacre. I am glad they apprehended the person responsible. I await his day in court with the rest of the nation.

Thank you for reading. Please have a good day!

On Summer Romance

I have not been blogging as much as I would like because I have been sitting by the phone like a puppy-eyed virgin waiting for this new guy to text me.

I went into this new romance knowing it was going to be a very temporary situation. Next month I enter the graduate program and all my classes are scheduled for the evenings. Evenings are the only time he is free from work.

He is not particularly serious about me either. I can respect that he was honest to me about the fact that he does not want a commitment. We are both setting boundaries that state we have to be honest if we are dating somebody else, but there is no rule that says we cannot date somebody else; we just have to admit to it. I would honestly prefer a monogamous relationship that lasts one month and then we go our separate ways. He would prefer a casual dating scenario that lasts indefinitely.

I guess we will see what happens. I am the clingy type. Yes, I know it is not healthy. I never had a father so my model for male-female attachment is screwy. I am always afraid of being abandoned. I place too much emphasis on monogamous sex being the center piece of a serious relationship. I am a little obsessed with the sex. I feel empty and anxious if I have not had sex with my significant other in a day. I need constant re-affirmation of his desire for me. I do not particularly care if he likes me as a person, but it is vital that he physically yearns for my body, and only my body.

I have taken great care to work on the part of me that grew up in a dysfunctional extended family situation. Still, I have attachment anxiety from early loss in my childhood. I have never even had a relationship that lasted more than a year. Either I pick a guy who is a total jerk or else I wind up running away because I made a mountain out of a mole-hill.

Alas, I, as a human, am doomed to this vicious cycle of love and heart break. This guy does not want a relationship so I must not bond too deeply with him. I must keep him in the periphery of my life so that he does not hurt me too deeply. Maybe one day I will meet a man or woman who will see every part of my soul and body and will still want to be with me every day for a long time.

I have put out to the world that I am bisexual. I would honestly prefer to have a female because I am so attracted to their bodies and their attitudes about life and love. I have not yet been asked out by a woman. Sometimes I see a woman with another woman and I wonder how they ever opened up to each other about wanting a lesbian relationship.

This guy does not know I am bi. I have decided not to tell, ever since the last guy decided because I am attracted to women that I would consent to a threesome with him and some random woman. I do not like having my sexuality manipulated. It is there, but it is not something that can be folded like origami in somebody else's hands. Maybe one day, I will meet an open-minded lady who is open and extroverted.

I still want to know how women know other women are available. I am either totally unattractive to only one gender (women) or I miss all the signs. :(  For the record, I get told a lot that I am "pretty" and "cute" and have "big boobs" by people who see my profile picture on myspace, so it is likely not a physical deformity but rather an attitude issue I have or something, I dunno. Okay, I am done psycho-analyzing myself. Feel free to psycho-analyze me in the comments! Just please be tactful! :)

33 Band, 41 Bust: Or How I Lost My Boobs

Last year I was around 170 pounds with a bust measurement of 35 beneath the bust and 44 around the bust. I hated my weight but I loved the fullness of my breasts. 44 just sounded so nice, like boobs that shot out into outer-space.

I did the periodic check on my body. I lost quite a bit of weight. Today I weighed 159 pounds, but what surprised me was my bust measurements. I lost weight---everywhere! From a 36 inch measurement beneath my bust I went down to a 33 inch measurement. Worse, I went from a 44 inch bust line to a 41 inch bust line. I checked three times, yes, 41 inches when pulled tightly across my bust. Where did the remaining 3 inches go?

Many women complain about the size of their breasts being unsatisfactory. They are self-conscious about their breast size. Or else they complain about back pain. I do get back pain, sore breasts, and that self-conscious posture where the shoulders are hunched. Yet I liked my breast size. More importantly, I had spent a few hundred dollars finding bras that fit my size (my size used to be a 36FF in UK sizes). Now what do I do? I have hundreds of dollars worth of bras that don't fit properly! They are suddenly too wide in the band, causing back pain, and those dreaded wrinkles in the cups have appeared, indicating I need to go down a cup size.

This is very awkward for me. My weight goes up, my weight goes down, my boobs engorge, my boobs shrink. Now, I not only have to purchase another two hundred dollars of bras (with which I can buy all of four bras since each costs minimum fifty bucks), but I have to go change all my facebook and myspace pictures to show the lighter, flatter me.

I am getting financial aid in August when I enter a Master's program. Likely, I will have to spend quite a number of Benjamins to find new bras that are flattering, lifting, tight in the band, and comfortable in the cup. I will go to Nordstroms and get properly fitted, since I am really tired of playing the guessing game with expensive bras. I will likely be a 34FF or a 34F instead of the 34G that just barely fits me right now.

Men are lucky. They buy boxers or briefs and they never have to get their goods fitted in order to buy the right pair of briefs. Women, on the other hand, are a custom fit. That would be fine if being a custom order didn't cost so much money!

On the up side, despite losing 3 inches, I also lost weight which makes me look bustier in some weird circus mirror way. Just the other day I was at a store when some man said something to me about my breasts. While this comment was unwanted and made me uncomfortable, it did show me that my boobs have not entirely disappeared off the face of the planet, for better or for worse.

Thanks for reading! :)

Skizzie Lizzie Prepares for Grad Program

In between blogging, checking my emails, chatting via myspace and yahoo messenger, I am mentally preparing myself to go to graduate school at a state university. For most, this would be a task in and of itself, but for someone who has paranoid schizophrenia this can be quite a challenge on top of a challenge.

I have to make sure I comply with treatment. I have to let my case worker keep tabs on me by dropping by and chatting about my ups and downs and future goals. I have to make all my therapy appointments. I have to take all medications as prescribed and show up periodically to let the doctor poke at my mind for 20 minutes.

Sanity comes in three medications, refilled only three times before I have to return to the doctor. I feel like Cinderella: I must return before midnight or my ride turns into a pumpkin and my mind turns nuts. I must think of it as just a routine, like paying my cell phone bill or internet bill. Keeping up with treatment is just another obligation. Or so I would like to think.

While everyone else is preparing for qualifying exams and their thesis, I am preparing for random spurts of paranoid delusions spurred on by episodes of mania. So it goes...(as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the great modern American writer wrote...so it goes).

My therapist congratulated me for graduating from university. She said the percentage of people diagnosed with schizophrenia who go on to get a Bachelor's degree from an accredited university is rather meager. On the one hand, I know this, on the other hand, I want to be more normal than normal. I want to exude normalcy from my pores so that everyone thinks, "how can she be so composed and clear headed?" I want to achieve what a normal person achieves. I want education, I want employment, I want success, I want to change people's lives for the better!

I hope that one day there is a paranoid schizophrenic surfing the internet, debating whether s/he should even bother with enrolling at university---then accidentally clicks on this blog and reads this little entry. Then, s/he will say, "if this person can do it, of course I can do it, too!" That would make me thrilled! If you are that person, I wish you the best! Hang in there, little kitty!

Thank you for reading, and please be gentle with me! I am like a fragile dish that cannot be put in the dishwasher. :/

Why I Must Be Anonymous Here

The most obvious reason is that I divulge personal information regarding my past and my medical records. Medical records are confidential. I would never divulge my medical records to anyone because people are very prejudiced against schizophrenics. I would hate to have the loving members of my family suffer because I started a blog. This blog is meant as a vehicle for understanding. By sharing my personality, my writing, and my experiences (some of which are painful), I hope to reach out to others. I believe that reading about my life can help you understand the struggles faced by the mentally ill, even if you yourself are not a person with a diagnosis.

Also, I like to remain anonymous so I can have some privacy, which is a right granted by the constitution. Because of some of my traits (mentally ill, bisexual, minority, overweight), this leaves me vulnerable to cyberbullies and bigots. I am not really looking for notoriety by blogging. I like to write. I like to communicate my life lessons to others. I am shy. So, I chose to blog anonymously.

Lastly, I am anonymous because I need to compartamentalize my life into little rooms that are separate. So, here I am Electra. In my student life, I am student ___. At home, I am daughter ____. I am also a poet, published only once, and there, I was another alias. Dividing myself up into different personas lets me protect one area of my life from another.

I got used to being anonymous when I was recovering from an episode of schizophrenia several years ago. I was in an art therapy class. The leader of the class asked me to sign my artwork so she could put it on the wall. I was paranoid, nervous, and ashamed to be a mental patient. So I signed it under an alias. Ever since then, I have been hiding behind artistic names. Well, many artists find the need to change their names, or write under a pseudonym.

Anyways, I just wanted to explain why I have to remain anonymous. It is not because I am a con artist. I am just too exposed and I have too much to lose.

Thank you for reading!

Sugar Cookie As Symbol of my Recovery

It was two years ago, maybe even longer. The staff on the psychiatric unit were doling out my favorite snack: two soft, sugar cookies with white frosting and little colored sprinkles on top. These cookies were treats on the psych ward. We got some only at intervals, sometimes at lunch time, sometimes at snack time, never on a regular basis.

I liked to wrap my cookies in a napkin and smuggle them out of the cafeteria for later consumption. Often, I would lie awake listening to the never-ending noise in my head and reach over for one of the little cookies which I stock-piled in the dresser beside my assigned bed. They were a comfort food on the ward--sugary, fattening, sweet.

Later on, I would abhor the sight of those cookies. Once I was outside and no longer an in-patient, I was vehemently opposed to eating that specific type of cookie. One time, my mother brought home those soft, sugar cookies from her workplace. I took one look at the two cookies she generously offered me and my stomach churned. It was THAT cookie---that exact brand of cookie. I shook my head and refused it. It was not because I was trying to lose weight and avoid sugar (which I was, but one cookie would have been okay). It was because that cookie represented confinement. It represented a locked ward and horrible memories. It represented my illness.

 For two years now, I have avoided those cookies. They seem to be everywhere, at Save Mart, Target, Food Co., they are stocked in every major grocery store! I would shop for food and sigh as I passed the bakery. There, amongst the brownies and tiramisu cakes, that specific type of sugar cookie with the white frosting and the sprinkles. Those cookies haunted me for two years. Like decaf coffee, they are two fixtures in the psychiatric hospital that I can depend on to be there each time I am involuntary hospitalized.

This last week I turned it all around. I was approved for graduation from my University on July 3rd. My degree will be posted on August 10th. My admission into the graduate program was cemented. It was a great feeling. After 1 year at the University I had achieved my goal of obtaining my Bachelor's degree from an accredited University. I had gone from being a chronic hospital basket-case, in and out of psychiatric facilities and community college classes, to a full-time University student with no major psychiatric relapses. I decided to celebrate....I bought the sugar cookies with the white frosting and the little sprinkles on top. I took them home. I sat them on the tabletop and opened up the little plastic container. My mother came in and I told her the story of the sugar cookies.
"So why did you buy them?"
"Because I want to taste them. They taste like victory now. I want to taste them as a graduate student not as a mental patient. From this point, the cookies are symbols of my recovery." She smiled, I chewed. The cookie tasted delicious. :)

My Bathroom Scale Sneaked into my Bedroom

My bathroom scale sneaked into my bedroom this month. It now sits in front of my reading chair, like a bizarre ottoman. Sometimes I even rest my feet on it while I read this spy thriller, "At Risk." In order to get to my reading chair I have to step over the scale. Usually, I wind up sitting on my chair, thinking about my weight. I could take about how  weight is another corset for modern women, or how people discriminate against people who are overweight but I will not (at least not right now).

Right now, I would like to devote a little entry to the topic of why I want to lose weight. I want to look like Marilyn Monroe. End of blog, lol.

I still remember that day in the psychiatric facility, three years ago and 25 pounds ago. My social worker was telling me about my axis. Axis 1 is like one diagnosis, Axis 2 is another diagnosis. In medical jargon, it is essentially "things that are horribly wrong with you in a tidy little list." My axis said I was schizo-affective. Then, horribly, he said my other axis was clinical obesity. I knew I was overweight. I was about 184 pounds and only 5 feet, 2 inches, but obese? I thought obese was for women who could only wear mumus and whose arms were the width of my thighs. I know better know, but back then it was a terrible shock. Not only was I crazy, I was fat as well.

Two to three years later I am still schizo-affective. However, I am only clinically overweight now and not obese. I have lost 25 pounds since that initial diagnosis. My weight yesterday was 159 pounds, down from 184, which was not even the "peak" of my weight (my first semester of University I packed on pounds during finals week). I can never go back to not exercising for a minimum of 20 minutes daily, plus one hour walks, or I will gain everything back. I can also never return to eating 2,000 calories or more a day, ever. My body adjusted to getting 1800, then 1600, now 1300 calories a day. To shove in 2,000 calories would probably lead to significant amounts of weight gain. I will just get used to limiting my caloric intake. Cut fast food consumption. Cut what fast food I do eat into halves and eat only half. My staples are no longer home-cooked chicken and sandwiches. Now, my main staples are sauteed zucchini, cucumber sprayed with olive oil and flavored with Splenda packets, plain yogurt with Splenda packets, boiled and sauteed cauliflower with cumin, cayenne, and coriander spices, cereal, oatmeal, and tomato with roasted bell pepper and cheese sandwiches. When I eat fast food I either make sure I have had less than 2,000 calories for the day, or I feel really guilty and decrease my calories for the following day.

Maybe you can tell, I have not eaten breakfast yet, which is why I am rambling on about food. I am planning on having half a packet of instant oatmeal. Only half a packet because I will be baby-sitting my elderly grandmother for half of today, which means no taking hour long walks and doing morning exercise on my stationary bike. Maybe for a snack, a peach. Then for another snack, red-leaf chard lettuce mixed with mandarin oranges and a low calorie spritzer. Then lunch....dreading having to choose something for lunch. Then, a cucumber with olive oil and splenda. I like splenda on my cucumber because it makes the cucumber taste like fruit.

My goal for this summer is to lose 20 pounds. I will likely only lose 5 pounds, but whatever, at least I set a goal for myself. So if you ever stop by this little blog and see like four entries in a row of random meals, listed like some kind of restaurant menu, that is because I am concentrating my energy on losing more weight. 159 is less than 184, but not by that much. I want to reach 139 pounds. No wait, I will reach 139 pounds.

Assured I am Graduating from University

I went back to see an academic adviser. He checked with three different University employees and assured me I had completed all the requirements. I sat there, clutching my Fossil handbag to my heart, and smiled at the adviser. I am done with my B.A.! Done! Belated, botched, and barely sane, but done nonetheless! It has been a difficult decade for me. In and out of school, in and out of the psychiatric hospitals, in and out of minimum wage jobs....until now, when my future actually seems promising.

I can still remember telling my psych ward psychiatrist that I wanted to go back to college and complete my Bachelor's degree.
"No, no, you can't take the stress. Schizophrenia is very serious! Just rest." That image, of myself lying a bed seven days a week, getting up only to eat and paint little pictures, was more stressful than the actual process of going back to college and achieving my B.A. in linguistics!

Now, I have been assured my degree will be granted, I can enter next semester as a graduate student in the field of linguistics, and my life will not be spent becoming a hermit with a little aluminum foil hat. My summer is open before me, free to paint, write, draw, read, watch movies, surf the internet, blog, and enjoy free time, temporarily of course, as I return to college in August.

With my new life as a graduate student, I suddenly feel like life has a purpose. The purpose is to gain knowledge, study, make contributions to the field, and succeed. I could not have done this without my out-patient services. Despite the view (as discussed in the previous blog entry) that out-patient services create government aid-dependent, docile, chronic mental patients, I have found that these out-patient services have been a vital part in my recovery.
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I tried re-reading "The Center Cannot Hold" but I found that the descriptions of hospitals, restraints, stigma, and suffering is very triggering for me. I love the book, but right now I cannot read it because I will end up blogging about how unfair the system is, how depressing and dehumanizing it is, and I am not in the mood for negativity right now.

Instead, I am reading a layman's book on game theory. As you may know, Game Theory was created centuries ago, but was fine-tuned and perfected by John Nash, the famous mathematician, paranoid schizophrenic, and Nobel Prize winner who I idolize. Game Theory is essentially the study of minimizing losses. Pardon me if I butcher the theory, but I only got through Trigonometry and I went insane while taking precalculus, got hospitalized, had my precal book confiscated by hospital staff as contraband, and never finished the class. So, I am not a mathematician and my writing on math will reflect that...but I still have an attraction to Probability, Game Theory, and computer programming that I intend to pursue this summer. So in case you stop by the blog one day and find a random entry on Game Theory, it is because I am trying to be productive with my free time.

It figures that a paranoid schizophrenic was the one who mastered the fine art of making paranoia a field of mathematics. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the most famous example. James and Janet committed a crime and they are being interrogated separately by police. The police need a confession from one or both of the criminals in order to lock them up. They are willing to plea bargain with whichever one confesses. Now James and Janet are paranoid that the other is going to confess. James and Janet do not want to go jail. What do James and Janet do and why?

I always wondered why there are not more paranoid schizophrenics in the field of Game Theory. It seems to be fine-tuned for their paranoid and suspicious nature. For example, while slightly paranoid, I devised an excellent method of home surveillance. My natural paranoid nature was perfect for thinking about all possible entries into the home. My method involved not one, but four cameras, each located at a different part of the home (one attached to the garage, one pointing across the front of the house, one perched hidden in a tree pointing at the front yard, and one guarding the side windows). Then, my plan included two motion-activated spotlights for flooding the premises with light when intruders walked onto the property. In the backyard, more motion-activated spotlights. Motion-activated alarms would be attached to all major windows, so that any attempt to lift the window would trigger an obnoxious alarm. I was very happy with my plan, but unfortunately my mother was not pleased and discouraged me from spending a ton of money to guard our cheap possessions. Still, it was a good application for my natural paranoid tendencies. If only I could somehow build a little moat with alligators to guard our house....

More on the Recovery Model of Schizophrenia

I am reading through various journals to learn about schizophrenia and the long-term outcomes of this illness. I have access to a myriad of journals thanks to being enrolled as a graduate student at my University for this fall. These are legitimate, peer-reviewed articles, so I know I am getting good material.

As a schizo-affective person who has been chronically hospitalized since the age of 19 to the age of 26, I am eager to know what chance I have of living a productive life. Unfortunately, the picture many writers paint is a bleak life of "chronicity."

Estroff, a researcher cited repeatedly in the article, "Culture, Stress, and Recovery from Schizophrenia," [Myers] accuses the Recovery movement of creating a passive mental patient that is only independent on the surface, but is actually being "coerced" financially and medically by recovery staff. This is in contrast to society's stereotype of lunatics running amok, naked and wielding weapons, barely able to contain the urges within them. Instead, according to Estroff, lunatics are little more than clay in the hands of recovery staff, who mold them into shapes and control every facet of their lives.

I do not know who you are, or how you perceive schizophrenics, but trust me, we usually do not run amok in the streets. We are also not likely to meekly hand ourselves over to a life of poverty and constant monitoring with no reason. What could these reasons be? Well, it might be that society is prejudiced against people with a mental illness and they refuse to hire them. It might be because the only way a mentally ill person can get their medication is to give up any semblance of a normal life, deal with being controlled by outside forces (and for a skitz, this is really scary), and accept poverty and unemployment in order to qualify for government medical coverage. The other choice would be to attempt to gain a foothold in the workforce and maintain medical insurance through the employer (and what employer doesn't love the idea of paying 700 dollars for a month's supply of anti-psychotics?). Indeed, the choices in the U.S. are limited (not non-existent, just limited).

Am I painting a bleak picture? I apologize. I really want to get through this graduate program, work full-time, and maintain my illness on my own. I am just nervous that future employers will discriminate against me....but if they do...class action lawsuit! woohoo!

Below is the DOI number for the article I was reading just now. DOI is the identification number for an article that is published in an online academic journal. The journal is called "Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry."


Cult Med Psychiatry (2010) 34:500–528
DOI 10.1007/s11013-010-9186-7

Thanks for reading! If I read anymore good articles and I have a comment, I'll post a new blog entry! :)

On the Border Between Graduate and Not

I am going into a graduate program in the fall, most likely. My student report states that I have met every requirement. Then, smack in the middle, there is this little statement that sent me into conniptions. “9 units of residence GE needed: 29 units of residence GE earned. Needs: 2 units.” WHAT? I saw an academic adviser who told me it was a misprint. He then sent me to the evaluations office. I went to the evaluations office where I was told that I would find out in July if I graduated or not. WHAT? I cannot wait that long! If I need another summer class, I need to know ASAP!

On the plus side, I have a lot of time to do nothing. Having been a full-time student taking over 12 units every semester (including during the summer time), this is the first time I have had the luxury of doing nothing. I have been listening to music I usually do not listen to, such as Nicki Minaj. I like her song, Beautiful Sinner. Some people on youtube say mean things about her and her music, but I like that she has variation to her voice. Sometimes it is soft and quavering, sometimes it is deep and punching. I have also been watching movies, painting, and spending quality time with my 91 year old grandmother. I am still a bundle of raw nerves, but at least I am able to sleep around 11 pm like I like to, rather than having to stay up until 3 am typing out home-work assignments or memorizing vocab in a foreign language. 

Thank you for reading. I plan on writing a couple of blog entries about my thoughts on mental health memoirs soon. So stay tuned! Thanks!