Not dead.

It's been a while.

***

From time-to-time I am overcome with the memory of an artist who lived in a flat on Brock Street in Peterborough circa 1995. At the time he painted abstract nudes on unstretched canvases with black and white oil house paint. I think his name was Steven or Stephen. He graduated from OCA in the 1980s. He was beautiful and troubled. 

He is one of the few people I regret not sleeping with. 

I wonder what happened to him. I wonder if he lived, or if he’s online. 

***

And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

 I've been writing for a couple of days. Working on using my voice. Working on the present, active voice.

Working to be better.

I'm going to try to work with the crazy.

This post is full of possible triggers. Protect yourself as you need to.

This tweet is the end of the story as of Tuesday, 11 August.

As someone who hit bottom and bounced just a couple of weeks ago, Imma go lay down.
— LKid (@LKid) August 12, 2014

***

I am not the biggest Robin Williams fan in the world.

But like with the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Alexander McQueen, Hunter S. Thompson, L'Wren Scott, Elliott Smith, Aaron Swartz, Wendy O. Williams, and Greg Giraldo; I have a difficult time dealing with the suicides of people far more talented, popular and wealthy than I am.

I mean, if these people can't find a reason to go on living for one more minute, what's my reason? 
What have I got to keep going for?

***

A little over two weeks ago I had to take my spousal unit aside and tell him that I was thinking about being dead.

I wasn't suicidal, per se, I was just at the point where if I didn't wake up tomorrow I'd be pretty okay with that.

"...I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn't feel obligated to keep existing." - Allie Brosch - Hyperbole and a Half

It's the second step down the spiral of depression for me.

***

Before I turned 16 I had more dead peers than I had dead relatives.

I had all four of my grandparents and a great-grandmother. My parents are still living, as are all their siblings, and their children.

But I had 4 dead friends - 2 by suicide. 2 were murdered.

By the time I was 18, that number had doubled. 1 more suicide and 3 auto accidents.

***

I am having a very difficult time accepting that no matter how hard I work, it's never good enough. We've been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for over a year. I really don't want to get into how we've managed to keep our plates spinning, but it can't last for much longer.

The past year has not worked out like we originally planned when we moved back east. That seems to be the nature of plans. This plan was supposed to make things better. Instead every thing is worse.

***

I first tried to kill myself in 1989 with an overdose of everything I could find in my parents drug cabinet.

I don't remember anything other than laying down in my bed. The next morning my mother was furious at me for drinking underage, after school, because I had come home, went directly to bed, and then proceeded to throw up for hours.

I would rather my mom think I was a terrible, irresponsible, rebellious teenager than know I was suicidal and had failed.

I was just immensely upset that I was still alive and absolutely disgusted with myself for failing. AGAIN.
I was so useless, I couldn't even DIE right.

***

It's difficult to have a conversation with someone who doesn't really understand how mental illness works, and is really confused because they thought that I was "over that". 

Like it was a phase, or had something to do with my level of maturity.

Trying to explain a broken brain to someone who doesn't understand can be an epic exercise of shame and self-loathing.

***

The second time I tried to kill myself was in 1990.

The rope broke. When I tried again, the branch broke.

The next day my mother was furious with me for trying to hide the "hickeys" on my neck.

I would rather my mom think I was big ol' slut than know I was suicidal and had failed.

I was so worthless, it wasn't something I think she should be worried about.

***

When I finally got it all out that I was quickly descending into depression and he, the love of my muthahfuckin' LIFE, needed to know that it was like a weight had been lifted.

Not keeping secrets really helps.

My mental health had to stop being a secret (or a big hairy lie I kept telling people) in order for me to start getting well.

It has to remain out in the open for me to deal with changes as they come up.

***

Suicide attempts obviously weren't the answer to my problems.
I was going to stop with the all-out *dramatic* attempts to kill myself.
I had a death wish. 

I regularly mixed drugs I knew were a bad addition to the copious amounts of alcohol I managed to consume.

I did drugs that I could not and didn't care to identify, though this happened less often.

I routinely got into cars with, entered the houses of, and had sex with strangers.

I was voted "Most Likely To Be Found Dead in a Dumpster" by my friends.

***

I was first hospitalized because of my mental state in 1988.

I lied to every doctor, nurse, social worker, and occupational therapist they had.

According to my mother, there was nothing wrong with me. I was just a bad, selfish, irresponsible, rebellious teenager that would grow out of it.

My parents never missed an opportunity to remind me of my badness, selfishness, and irresponsibility.

Whenever depression becomes an issue (again) that's the mental narrative that begins.

I am bad, selfish, and irresponsible.

As it gets worse, it will become bad, selfish, irresponsible and attention seeking.

***

The last time I decided that I was going to die was July 12, 2004.

I had my plan. I was going to wake up in the morning and go at a certain time because, while this method was fool proof, it would inconvenience a few people, so I wanted to make that as least chaotic as I could.

I went to bed that night feeling like I was finally going to be free.

***

Here's the thing about crazy.

It's just crazy. 

It's no more selfish than cancer, or MS, or any of the other myriad of diseases and conditions that can fuck up your life and kill you. It's not attention seeking. It's crazy.

***

A friend of mine put this on Facebook: 

""Suicide is the coward's way out" 
translates to "My pain in mourning your death (is/will be) greater and more important than your current suffering which drove you to this place, so in an attempt to avoid future pain on my part, I will pile more shame on you and on all other people who contemplate suicide. You think you're lesser than me, and I think you're right."

***

There is absolutely no judgment or slur or negative thing you can say about me that I haven't already said to myself a thousand times.

There are more days in my life when I have felt worthless and that my life does not matter than there have been days that I have felt that I have worth and that my life means something.

***

On July 13, 2004 I was woken up, not by my alarm, but by a knock on my apartment door.

I didn't die because two people from the internet - One in Birmingham, Alabama, and the other in Sunderland, England sent me a bouquet of Stargazer lilies.

And then Margaret Cho told me I didn't have to die because I had failed.

So I went to the doctor the next day.

***

It doesn't matter that you love me now, or ever. Someday, depression is going to kill me. I know this. I have a plan for this.

It isn't going to kill me today. It's not even going to kill me soon.

Your love isn't going to save me. And as crazy as it may sound to you, and as angry as this may make you, my love for you isn't going to save me forever.

It's saving me right now. And that's what matters.

Right now.

***

I am only alive today because of Canada's strict gun laws, floral delivery, and SLUT PRIDE.

***

Which brings me around to that tweet.

A little over 2 weeks ago, I hit bottom and bounced.

I told my husband my dirty little secret.

I pulled out my notes from cognitive behaviour therapy.

I started writing again. I started adding structure to my completely unstructured days. I stopped thinking about it.

***

For a while.

***

“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.” - Jean Paul Sartre

***

A Week In Review

I did four things differently last week.

1. I wrote every single day. I worked on blogs. I worked on a couple of longer/larger works I've been kicking around.
2. I turned off the notifications on my smartphone except for the ringer. I went from 8 AM Monday, August 4 to 8AM Monday, August 11 without being signaled by my phone. I only used it to answer calls or respond to messages (Hangouts, SMS) sent directly to me.
3.  From 10 PM Friday night to 10 PM Saturday night I did not use technology. My smartphone was off. My laptop was off. If I owned a TV it too would have been off. I went "No screens" for 24 hours.
4. I started x-stitching again. I'm using someone else's pattern to get my hands/fingers nimble again, but I will start creating new patterns next month.

So what does this all mean?

     a)  It means that my brain is less foggy.
     b)  It means that I both appreciate and respect the screens in my life a little more.
     c)  It means I got a METRIC SHIT TONNE done around the house.
     d)  I really enjoy stitching swear words and odd things into fabric.

Ultimately, this is what I learned:

1. My brain, some days, is not as broken as I think it is.
2. My Pavlovian response to my smartphone notifications isn't strong. That's actually a surprise. But I appreciate what they do for me to make my life easier and respect the fact they can also allow me to fuck up my day fast and efficiently.
3. I require 7 hours sleep to properly recover from a day of light activity. I require 9-10 hours sleep to properly recover from a day of heavy lifting and physical activity. This helps me with my time management more than I can possibly explain.
4. I really, really like to swear. A lot. Like as much as I love coffee and baked goods, I love to swear.
5. I really love lists, too.

Self-pity is a helluva drug

I had a really difficult time with my mental health the past month.

I had spectacularly bad times with the nerves in my right foot and right cheek.

And I still have the nagging post-viral cough from that cold I had two weeks ago.

Turning 40 was the worst fucking thing. I started falling apart 10 days before it even happened.

I bottomed out emotionally and mentally about a week ago.

I can't discuss details here because it involves private communications between my spouse and I, but what I can say is this...

Not having a goal, destination, or outcome to shoot for makes me crazy. I don't necessarily need that goal, destination, or outcome to be the thing that happens, I just need a direction. I spent my life up until my 30s with no direction. I can't go back there.

That still doesn't mean that I have any real idea about what I really want to do. So for the past couple of weeks I've been reading, writing, and stitching again. I'm doing these things because I know I like them.

***

Until I can get this nerve-pain thing in my left foot worked out, I'm not supposed to lift weights.

***

I found this sugar-free bread that is so good I can only bring myself to put butter on it when I make toast.

***

I can't say what's going on next weekend, but I hope two of my favourite people have lots of wine to drink with me.

***

Happy Lord Simcoe Day, BC Day, Heritage Day, New Brunswick Day, and/or Civic Holiday, Canada!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Dear Future Me:

Today is the first day of the year 2013. If things have gone well, you are reading this on your 40th birthday and a year and a half (or so) has passed.

In summation: you've been out of work for all intents and purposes since April 1, 2012. Your EI claim runs out in three months. You've just launched a website that boasted 129 unique hits in December, and you're wondering if it was worth all the fuss and money to put together posts that only 12 people read.

You have no idea what the future holds, but you've got an email out to a woman who wants to fire her assistant, and you know that Craigslist will start to pick up as soon as tomorrow, and as late as next week. Your career counsellor quit, and applying for a job she recommended you for didn't even get you an interview, so maybe that career counsellor isn't worth the time or effort when they assign you a new one sometime this month.

This new year finds me at the cross-roads. I don't know what to do, all I know is that I need a job. I need money because Joe quit school and thought he would find a job in just days, but it's now been two months, close to three. He has a bunch of applications out there, but they went out so late in the year it might be next week before he hears anything at all...

I don't know what I really want to tell you. What I really want to know is that shit worked out. I want to know if we made it Windsor in April of 2013, or if we had to wait until later in the year, or if we had to do something completely different...

I don't feel well. I have a wee bit of a cold, I haven't been out for regular exercise in months, and I've been off Copaxone for almost a year. I have regular headaches. I have regular bouts of insomnia, but lately I've been doing okay with getting up at 7:30 AM. That means I'm usually asleep by midnight or so. I'm usually in bed by 11 PM.

I've been packing my days full of stuff to do, most of which I don't get to because I am tired, bored, don't want to disturb Joe, or just don't fucking feel like it. I am so tired of not having anything to do so I make work for myself. I also fill my list with things I think I "should" be doing. I hope I've stopped this, or started finding some of those things useful.

I am fascinated by the future, because the present is just so bleak. For all the drudgery of the day today around here, Joe and I are doing okay...

I really don't know what else I can say to you. Life really isn't fun right now, and I hope that by the time you read this on July 13, 2014 things will be better, more secure, and more fun.

Or more - something...

I look forward to this year because looking back only makes me want to slash my wrists. I'm looking forward because the only way to go. I'm looking forward because I am sure that Future Me hasn't let me down, and life is different where Future Me is.

Love,

Past Me

MS can suck my ass.

I'm really trying to think less violently. The past five days make that difficult.

***

Dateline: Friday, July 4 8:30AM

Wake up with massive amounts of shooting nerve pain in my right foot and in my right cheek.

Soldier on.

Do some work. View a little social media. Try to make some plans for the next week.

***

Dateline: Friday, July 4 2:30PM

Shooting pains are now in my calf, thigh, and right bicep. Every movement causes more. 

Tell spousal unit that I might be having an MS attack. The weather is fair, clear, and not hot or humid, so I freak. It's super painful. We have some lunch and head for the ER.

***

Dateline: Friday, July 4 9:00PM

Released from ER with a referral to a local neurologist, some drugs that are reportedly good for nerve pain, and a recommendation to lay off refined sugar and processed flour products because they both are bad on the nerves.

Find out from pharmacist that the drug is also a anti-psychotic mood stabilizer and anti-seizure medication. Have mild mental freak out.

Get home, eat fruit, take medicine, pass out within 30 minutes.

***

Dateline: Saturday, July 5 10:30 AM

Wake up after 11 hours sleep. Pain is still in my face and foot, but it's gone in my leg and arm. Notice that the drug bottle says to take twice a day. At 11AM I take the second dose.

Dateline: Saturday, July 5 12:05 PM

Pass out with laptop still on my lap.

***

Dateline: Saturday, July 5 7:30 PM

Wake up, have dinner. Do some work. Have a shower. At 10:30 PM take third dose of medicine, because it says twice a day.

***

Dateline: Sunday, July 6 10:30 AM

Wake up. Eat food. Try to do some work. Fail.

Lay down for nap at noon.

***

Dateline: Sunday, July 6 4:00 PM

Wake up from nap. Spousal unit asks if I have taken any medication that day. Respond in the negative. Fall asleep playing Pocket Mine on my phone.

***

Dateline: Tuesday, July 8 10:00 AM

Wake up to a pain-free body. Think that it is Monday. Text a colleague that I won't be into my public office that day when I find out its Tuesday. Spend day trying to stay awake and remember what happened yesterday. Go to bed at midnight.

***

Dateline: Wednesday, July 9 6:37 PM

Write a blog post about how fucked up my past few days have been and try not to rage against the bullshit that is the treatment of nerve pain.

***

I believe that my experience was caused by a combination of not having refined sugar (and the associated regular intervals of caffeine) and taking that drug. If this is the best they've got for nerve pain, then I'm going to have to reconsider living.

Today was better. No pain, just a little bit of fatigue, but I also had 2 cups of coffee with organic cane sugar in it, so I think that was the difference maker.

Goals for tomorrow:

1. To get dressed.
2. To leave house.
3. To work on the backlog of stuff I didn't get done on Saturday through Tuesday.

***

MS can suck my ass.

HAPPY FREE AGENCY DAY, EVERYBODY!

HAPPY FREE AGENCY DAY, EVERYBODY!

Now, a moment of silence for the recently traded and those signed by Florida, Calgary, Buffalo, and Edmonton.

There is no hockey until October. I haz sad.

***

This 30+C heat and humidity is REALLY starting to piss me off. Spousal Unit took some time last evening to install the AC unit in the hole in the wall provided for such things. That has cooled down the living room, my office and the kitchen, but the bedroom and bathroom are still saunas.

Spousal Unit and I also have an ongoing debate on what temp our (US made) AC unit should be set to.

I say between 72-74F. He says between 65-70F.

He is wrong.

***

My birthday is in 12 days. I don't think I have enough booze in the house to forget that.

Though this milestone birthday year is going SO MUCH better than the last milestone birthday year.

***

Next two weeks are going to be full of introspection, writing, thinking, thinking about writing, writing about thinking, and trying to figure out where all of this is going. Deciding on where I want to be in a year. In 1 to 2 years. In 5 years. When and how I want to die.

You know, birthday-related panic and angst. Big whup.

Wish me luck.

I'm really bad at this.

Finding the balance between Routine and Excitement is what drives me absolutely nuts.

***

The heat and humidity make me very fucking cranky.

***

Nothing is going like I planned. That isn't contributing to my sunny disposition either.

***

I have a pending friend request on Facebook but I'm really afraid that I've forgotten that we had sex at some point in my ancient history and there will be hurt feelings like there was the last time I accepted a friend request from someone I had sex with in high school and didn't remember.

But I'm pretty sure that I didn't have sex with this person. Like 95-99% sure that I didn't.

***

Listen, if you're reading this and we had sex just once at some point between 1988 and 1999, I probably don't remember. If we had sex more than once, then yeah, I probably do remember that it happened. If I ever told you I loved you, then yes, I couldn't forget if I wanted to, but I don't remember specifics.

(Yes, specifics have come up. Yes, feelings were hurt when I didn't remember. What you people expect from a 40 year old brain that endured a history of substance abuse and demyelination, I have no fucking idea.)

***

I used to love summer. I can't be the only person with MS who now just fucking loathes the season?

I really hate summer. It's not even July yet and all I want is spring to just hurry up and get here. Give me 15 degrees and overcast! That's my happy place!

Seriously.

Someone is going to get a nastily worded letter if I don't soon find three steady clients.

***

Multiple expletives AND some bonus blasphemy. I promise.

***

I'm kind of phoning this one in because I have other stuff I should be doing. Like showering, and figuring out what I'm going to do tomorrow, and getting stuff done tonight that makes tomorrow morning easier.

I generally love being a grown up, but trying to maintain a basic level of competence is exhausting.

***

It's 10:39 PM and its starting to feel like I woke up for no reason at 7 AM. Which is what I did, because brain and because someone told me that drinking a half liter of water before bed was a great thing to do because it acts like "an internal, bodily alarm clock". Which would have been great if that alarm hadn't gone off 2 hours after I went to bed, and then I never really got back to sleep after that.

***

You know what convinced me that evolution was real? The human body is totally fucking inefficient.

Intelligent design would have created us without the need to expel waste. I'm convinced of this.

Stupid bladder.

Meaningful work

I'm trying to be self-employed.

It's not going well.

I have two great clients that I love. If they had more paid work for me, I would work for them forever.

I have one client that makes me want to run away.

I have one client that doesn't really know what they want.

I have one client that doesn't actually want to pay me unless what I do for her allows her to make money, and the money making venture is terrible.

None of this is particularly lucrative, either.

So...

Do I find a doctor and get written off on disability for the rest of my life?

Given the way I feel most days, it seems like a good option.

***

Marketing tips for a personal service business also welcome.

Moved

On Saturday, I think I did the equivalent of a month of Stairmaster and Joe did the equivalent of 6 months of Stairmaster.

The heat kept me from doing much stair climbing, but the 50 meter walk from the apartment to the stairway back and forth did me in more than a couple of times. My calves are so tight right now, stepping up and over the side of the tub to have a shower is a feat of pain tolerance.

I think we'll like our new apartment.The landlord is a swell guy. The neighbourhood hasn't been gentrified yet, so we've still got a lot of broke white people and a possible probable drug dealer in the basement. But other than the screaming kids in the neighbourhood, it's a lot like the old neighbourhood in that there are drunk people yelling outside for no reason on Saturday night. I just think the one's here are older than the ones at our old place.

I don't know where any of my clothes are and I have a client meeting in an hour.

I have hangers and hope.

Stuff

I was POSITIVE I posted last week, but I guess I didn't.

So, we're moving on Saturday and I'm excited as hell.

My computer is giving me fits of rage and it's everything I can muster some days not to walk it down and just toss it in the Detroit River.

A few days ago a misogynist with MRA leanings killed 6 people because women wouldn't fuck him, as was his right.

Sorry could anyone remind me of the last time a woman committed mass murder in the name of feminism?
— Lou (@Msloulou77) May 26, 2014

Tell me misogyny is no longer a problem. Tell women we have no reason to fear for our lives. I dare you. pic.twitter.com/aJ6DLPcq4U #YesAllWomen
— Becky (@Tikken) May 25, 2014

teach your kids that normal is a lie, but that human never is.
— jay, determinator (@jaythenerdkid) May 26, 2014

PSA for #YesAllMen: You are not entitled to any woman's attention, affection, body, sex, or relationship.
— bossy (@BhasChat) May 26, 2014

And that's all I have to say about that.

Blogging from Bed

I replaced my laptop battery and now I can type in bed for long periods of time and I OMG I love it so much It is awesome.

This is one of those things that I missed about my old place, but now that we've replaced the bed and the battery I can now do it forever.

Things have been very productive here on "PJs and Tea" day. I've got a whole bunch of work stuff done that hopefully pays off monetarily soon. I'm involved in four events this month which is awesome. I've got a research project for a local author too.

I'm listening to Daft Punk whilst blogging and sipping my cuppa Earl Grey.

Now to type up some meeting minutes, invoice a client, write next week's business blog post, and do some packing for our move at the end of the month, and today will be done.

A year ago...

... we were heading into St. Paul, MN from South Dakota.

I had some decent mole at a taco joint, then I drank some of the finest rye whisky I've ever had with one of Joe's oldest friends.

This has been a time of great reflection for me.

Leaving Vancouver was the only thing we could have done under the circumstances.
I know this but that is what makes everything so damn hard.

I couldn't find a job for over a year. Living on EI in Vancouver sucks about as much as you think it might.

Joe could not find a job, period. He decided that he wanted a useful second degree. If I had been able to find a good paying job, I would have stayed in Vancouver, but I couldn't, so I left with him.

The whole thing just sucked.

So we're still broke. We're living in the least interesting city of over 200,000 residents, ever. And one of the most interesting is 5 minutes and an international border away. I never have any money to go and enjoy anything that goes on there, but I think about it a lot.

We are moving out of this shit-hole apartment, into a slightly cheaper and slightly further away, reasonably good-sized apartment. It's in a more interesting neighbourhood. There's stuff there I can walk to. No cafe nearby, but maybe that will change.

I'm going to start plotting something tomorrow that I hope is a good choice.

I am really, really tired of making choices based on desperation, and I hope this isn't one of them.

If I had my way...

I would be packed and moved by now.

Right now I'm rationing the moving tasks so I don't just spend every waking moment living surrounded by all my packed up stuff until May 31.

Good news though! I still pretty much have everything I arrived from Vancouver with and we've barely added anything.

I guess there are bonuses to being fucking broke all the time.

***

I started a Coursera class on English composition to see if I can stop being tedious and stupidly wordy.

I'll let my future words speak for whether or not it was worth the time and effort.

***

I'm trying to focus on doing things that will propel my life forward.

I have no idea if its working at this point.

I'm not contemplating suicide so much anymore, so I guess it's doing something.

***

I think part of my problem is that I was being a hypocrite on a couple of levels.

See, I know how to get shit done. I know how to kick shit into order.

I just wasn't doing it because I don't like doing shit that is only for me. I don't like doing shit that only seems to matter to me.

There seems no point in doing shit if I'm the only one who sees it and cares about the results.

So I stopped doing shit because it was only for me and only mattered to me.

But then I realized that that attitude probably shows up in the rest of my life and if I want people to take me seriously professionally, I have to talk AND walk what I do in my personal life.

Otherwise, I'm just another person on the planet who wants you to do as I say, not as I do.

So fuck that.

I'm going to do some shit that will make people take me seriously.

And for something...

... completely the same.

Still hate it here, but change is coming. We're moving to a more interesting neighbourhood on June 1.

Bigger apartment, for less, in a neighbourhood that has a grocery store I can walk to.

There's a public library and an art gallery that appears to have a cafe a block away.

It's closed on Mondays so I'll have to check it out for certain before we move.

There are also 4 bars within 4 blocks of my house.

***

I love my friend Erin and I don't care who knows it.

She literally sent me mail that will save my life.

***

I've decided that I am going to stick it out here in Windsor, whilst keeping my options open to leave.

I will spend an hour a week looking for jobs away from here and making contacts with people in other cities, but otherwise my focus is on trying to make this place livable and growing my business.

This place could have so much going for it if only it would start acting like a city and not a working-class suburb of a US city.

***

“

Suicidal feelings are not the same as giving up on life. Suicidal feelings often express a powerful and overwhelming need for a different life. Suicidal feelings can mean, in a desperate and unyielding way, a demand for something new. Listen to someone who is suicidal and you often hear a need for change so important, so indispensable, that they would rather die than go on living without the change. And when the person feels powerless to make that change happen, they become suicidal. Help comes when the person identifies the change they want and starts to believe it can actually happen. Whether it is overcoming an impossible family situation, making a career or study change, standing up to an oppressor, gaining relief from chronic physical pain, igniting creative inspiration, feeling less alone, or beginning to value their self worth, at the root of suicidal feelings is often powerlessness to change your life – not giving up on life itself.

-- Will Hall, Living with suicidal feelings

Multi-tasking

I thought I had made a decision last night, but now I think it goes against absolutely everything that I stand for professionally.

What I wanted to think of as "keeping my options open" is probably a little bit closer to "extreme multi-tasking, ensuring lack of focus on any one thing and either failing at or half-assing everything."

I'm either going to be here for another year and a bit, or I'm going to be absolutely somewhere else by July. I am going to focus on finding ways to make sure that Windsor does not kill me, or I am going to devote the bulk of my daily energies on getting the FUCK out of here.

My spouse is a wonderful human being who wants me to be happy.
He'll support whatever I need to do.

Now I just have to figure out what it is that I need to do.

In Memoriam

Charles Peterson

"Kurt Cobain, Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, B.C., 1991"

When I heard the news on April 8, 1994 that Kurt Cobain had blown his fucking head off with a shotgun at his home in Seattle, I said I didn't care.

Told everyone that I wasn't a fan.

Made damn sure that EVERYONE knew that he didn't speak for *me* or anyone I knew in my generation.

But really, I was fucking mad.

I was 19, on my way to 20 years old. I was getting divorced. I was drinking too much. I was waking up next to people who's names I can't recall and who's faces I probably wouldn't be  able to identify in a lineup. I was doing a lot of things that desperate people do to kill pain.

If Kurt Cobain had nothing to live for, if he felt like this world had failed him, then what did I have to live for?

How could the man who wrote at least five songs that I love, who had money, someone who loved him, a small child, and friends who wanted nothing more than to create with him, just wake up one morning and decide that there was nothing left for him.

I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out then to fade away.

Peace, Love, Empathy.

The fact that *I* am still alive after this period of my life is surprising.

So, I just want to say this. I didn't mean what I said about Kurt Cobain in 1994. I understand the place he was coming from, and to a lesser extent I've lived there.

If I were an American citizen and resident, I would be dead now.

Sometimes I am angry I'm still alive.

 Fuck you all, this is the last song of the evening.

"I hope you are able to find new hope while living with this disease."

This is one of the things I just don't understand. This person is a stranger to me. She just happened upon my blog, and decided that I was a great candidate to give hope to other people neither of us know because I have self-identified as someone with MS.

You know what I have hope in?

Science.

I have hope that the collective fundraising groups are throwing more money at research and science than they are building websites to build hope.

Hope is a false profit.

Science, that's got the chance to really change things.

I don't believe that there's a "cure" for MS that doesn't include completely changing one's immune system. Fucking with DNA, wholesale stem cell transplants; that's where the hope is.

It's not on a website full of platitudes.

I'm still well enough that if they found a way to permanently halt the progression of my disease, I'd be okay. I could live for the next 50 like that. No problem. I think that that kind of cure isn't that far away. I suspect that we'll be there by the time I'm old enough for CPP.

It's the reversing of MS related damage... that's going to be where the money is.

Once they get there, the next thing is to prevent MS from happening in the first place.

My hope is in science, not in a bunch of people I don't know.

Wrong person

There's a comment in my previous post from some for-profit, US Healthcare bullshit, asking if I would post a short video of hope, encouragement and inspiration for those just diagnosed with MS.

I'm the WRONG person for that.

You see, I know that that the "power of positive" thinking is bullshit.

It's not going to help me get better. It's not going to make my symptoms go away. It's not going to give me back functioning ovaries, or put my hair and nails back to healthy.

I can't think my way to not having MS.

What I can do is share my experience:

In a nutshell, if you liked your life before MS, you're going to hate it now.

If you hated your life before MS, you're going to go through bouts of suicidal depression and a level of self-loathing that will make you wish you were dead.

Any plans you had that go beyond maybe a year from now: accept that they're just plans, and probably not the likely outcome.

No one has a cure for MS. From the best research available, most people with RRMS are not completely disabled after 10 years who:

do not smoke.
get regular exercise.
eat a diet of small amounts of protein and large amounts of plants.

Which is kind of funny, because that's what they tell people who DON'T have MS to do to stay healthy.

MS broke me at a time where I was just getting my shit together. I will never be able to make up for what MS cost me.

I don't have anything to offer a newly-diagnosed person. My MS isn't your MS, and if forced to choose between the MS I got and the MS you got, I'll stick with what I have. It's not a gift, it's not full of great lessons, and it did not happen for a reason.

I will concede one thing about the "power of positive thinking".

It makes my family and friends happier to be around me when I pretend I have it.

Where have I been?

So, for the longest time I didn't want to write about anything at all.

I'm not exactly what you would call "in love with life" these days.

Finances continue to be a struggle.

Car ownership continues to vex me.

The heating situation in our apartment makes me want to stab someone.

Seriously, when it's 30 below out there, it does not need to be 40 degrees in here.*

Also, when it's hovering around zero outside, it needs to be warmer than 10 inside.*

Joe's schooling continues to be a challenge. Nothing is working out as previously planned, so now it looks like he's going part-time until Spring of 2016. Which means he's gotta find a job. Find a job with a poli-sci degree in a town where the official unemployment rate is stuck at 9.5%

I'm not sure I'm cut out for self-employment, but hopefully my two new clients work out better than my three old ones.

I'm biting my nails again for the first time in 10 years. Right now I'm just glad that I haven't started smoking again.

Things are different here.

I miss living in a city.

A lot.

There's so very little from my old life that crosses into my new one.

I did the work. There's practically nothing.

I suppose that I would hate it here less if I could get away from it more often but between the location restrictions from the funding program I'm in for my business and the lack of money we're still going through, I can't really go anywhere.

***

My MS remains a pain in my ass.

I started working out with some regularity in late October of last year. The goal is to get physically stronger and improve my balance.

I don't know if it's working.

I learned that I can't do a 45 minute work out at the gym and then come home and do three loads of laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs and have enough energy to do much of anything after 4 PM.

***

I learned that cheap Indian food and a shot of Canadian Club not long before bed causes me to have dreams where I hit people I haven't seen or heard from in over a year in the arm and yell at them to stop haunting my dreams.

Yeah.

I know.

*All temps Celsius 

Long time ago

in a land, far, far away; my last and only hope to stay in Vancouver was dashed.

A year ago I got the call that I would not get the job I'd been hoping for. They decided to go with the person they thought they would get along with better.

Yeah, I know. I think about that sentence at least once a day.

I regret not staying in Vancouver less and less. When I realize how little money we actually make, we'd have been homeless by now had we stayed.

***

This weather though.
Fuck this winter.

***

I spend a great deal of my time pretending to be someone I am not.

It's difficult.

Still, I haven't had a progression in my MS symptoms since I originally got sick in December 2008.

It just the same shit, every day, all day.

I'm trying my hand at self-employment.

I really hate it.

I really hate the people you have to deal with in order to both eat AND pay the bills. I hate the person I have to become in order to be perceived as competent and capable.

I'm depressed, but not as bad as I have been before.

I hate it here.

I need to start dating an extrovert with money, because I'm bored to fucking tears around here.