He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can’t top it, steal from them and go out strong. *
by Zoeyjane
“Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.” – Don Quixote
I guess the best way to say it is this: Lithium sucks.
A truer way to say it is this: Lithium is saving my life, it seems.
But, I’ve already gotten ahead of myself. The new dose. It’s fucking fabulous, except for all of the damn side effects. The facial tics have thankfully disappeared. The all-day nausea is almost gone, too – the nausea that caused me to lose over ten pounds in a month because I could only stomach about half a meal a day, which caused me to feel weak all the time and have to not only quit running, but also severely limit my activity because it was causing dizzy spells. The headaches are pretty much done, as long as I have at least 10 glasses of water a day and limit anything dehydrating.
Unfortunately, the tremors aren’t gone and have actually spread and increased. So I have good moments, and mostly bad ones, where all of my extremities are shaking and I look like I must be freezing. I’m not cold.
Things that are hard to do with tremors: ice cupcakes, shave your legs, light a cigarette, type on a keyboard, drink hot tea, remove piping hot pizza from the oven.
The typing part is one of the more effecting symptoms, because I only have so much good time during the day that my hands will cooperate – so I’ve been using those good times for the stuff that will pay the bills, work. And I haven’t been emailing or on Twitter much because of it.
But there’s an underlying side effect that no one every mentions: Lithium causes whateveritis.
No, that’s too blasé.And not very eloquent.
What I mean to say is that it makes you not give a flying fuck about anything that you don’t have to.
Case in point: I haven’t mopped my floors in almost two weeks. If you know me, you know that might actually be insane. I haven’t taken a toothbrush out to anything in weeks. I haven’t fanatically checked my email, leaving it open all day and wiggling my mouse with every walk-past, in forever. I barely even remember to check my personal email. I don’t check Twitter, I have to remind myself to check my reader, Facebook really doesn’t exist anymore. Something in the back of my head told me to post this, but I don’t really give a shit about this blog.
I could quit the Internet and be okay with it.
Instead, I do care about spending time with friends, laughing in that way that makes me throw back my head, speaking in a calm and gentle tone with Zoë, baking and cooking with her or alone, consciously and unselfishly co-parenting, creating a once-again-maybe friendship with The Ex, reading with Zoë, doing work that challenges me, witnessing my internal back-off alarm when I’m too stressed or anxious, fabulous shoes, building a dress collection to die for, faking confidence until I feel it (it’s coming quicker and better, lately), planning my next few years’ finances so that I can completely pay off my student loan debts, considering buying a condo once my debts are paid off, sitting in the sunshine, reading interior design and architecture case studies, making people happy if it doesn’t make me unhappy, daydreaming of the fall.
Here’s the major change, in a nutshell: before, I was compulsive about nearly everything, and that made me anxious, I’d get quickly over-stressed and often take that out on Zoë, while I flaked out on my responsibilities because I couldn’t handle the stress-load. Then I’d both withdraw (from real life) and become increasingly social (online).
And I can tell you exactly why. Because no matter how many of you I’ve hugged, or spoken to, or eaten with or said “of course online friends are real friends” to, you people were safe. I’ve had this long life with really shitty lead characters in it, and it basically, repeatedly rammed in the notion that friends will fuck you over, or hurt you, or leave you once you become too X for them. Every single person I’ve ever met, I’ve assumed, at some point, was my friend out of convenience and that they’d eventually cut and run when a valid excuse popped up. S’why I’ve always been a people-pleaser, often creating huge costs to myself.
And online friends, even if we’re real-life friends… you’re not real. You’re words on a screen. You could bail and I might not notice, or I’d be able to chalk it up to my blog not being entertaining enough, or that I didn’t @ you enough. It was safe-feeling, because I never really depended on anyone, from my personal life or my online life, and proven, it seems because it was only when some body made the leap from Inet to Real that something would happen.
So, before, I was compulsive about maintaining my (old) blog, because without those readers, I might have no validation of my existence – because eventually all of my real life friends would leave, right? I was compulsive about Twitter because I needed the support, just in case I didn’t have them in my personal life, and because I needed the distraction when stress was too much. I was compulsive about cleaning because… it just meant the world was right and I wasn’t a failure. I can’t explain that further.
And now, I’m not any of those things. I have friends I laugh with every single day. I have a daughter who is just as much she-devil as not, but I’m finally able to be proud of her and see the good in her always. For the first time in my life, love is not conditional – I love Zoë even if she’s being a bitch to me – and I don’t cut it or affection off. For the first time, I’ve realized that I love a man. But I’m not going to do a damn thing about it, because to do so, to tell him, would be for my own selfish needs and would most likely cause him harm. I’m not taking on too much work, like I used to do because I thought that clients wouldn’t be happy with me if I didn’t. I’m not staying awake past 1am, feverishly working or reading or planning.
Now, I’m me, calmer, happy, level. I’m living.
So, Internet, I’m not quitting you, but I won’t be around much. But trust in this: it’s not you, it’s me.
And I’m fucking delighted by it.
* Can you name the movie the title’s quote is from?
