I just wanted to make a quick post because I’ve realized it’s been quite a while since I posted here, and I want people to know that this blog is still active. It’s just hard for me to write here sometimes, honestly, and as much as I’d like to update more frequently, it’s probably not going to happen.
Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of my breakdown, and it’s giving me mixed emotions. I’m doing much better these days and am currently enrolled in three classes along with working part time–but still all of these issues linger in my life, because I can’t just walk away from it all completely, ever. So, right now, I need to be working on a speech for one of my classes, but I keep thinking about two years ago and how much everything has changed since then, and it’s difficult to focus. I’m currently physically sick as well and have been home half the day yesterday and all day today, which isn’t helping matters, because without adequate distraction, it’s easy for me to start feeling depressed.
Anyway, I really shouldn’t get too involved in thinking about this stuff right now, because as I mentioned, I have a speech to write. I will probably update more thoroughly on all of this stuff soon, though, once I’ve better organized my thoughts and probably talked to my therapist too. I just wanted to let you know that I’m still here, even if my updates are a bit sporadic.
Thrill the World is a worldwide event, established in 2006, to break the world record of most people simultaneously dancing the Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance. Last year, the record was 4,179 people from 10 nations.
This year, it’s being reported that 22,923 people danced in 32 countries!
I first heard of Thrill the World soon after Michael Jackson died, but there wasn’t a local event scheduled at the time. Around the end of September, though, I saw on the news that things had changed over the past few months, and NOW there were some local events happening.
Over 200 dancers had already signed up at the local chapter I chose by the time I got to it, and my schedule really didn’t allow time to rehearse the dance, so I decided to be a volunteer instead. I got my mom involved as well!
The volunteers had one meeting the week before the event to get a feel for the area, meet each other, and go over a general layout of how the event would unfold and who would be needed where. The dance was scheduled to start (in our time zone) at exactly 8:30pm, but volunteers had to show up at 3:30pm (with dancers showing up soon after) to organize everything. It was hours of preparation on our part, and days / weeks of preparation for those who were in charge of organizing the event as a whole (gaining permission for space used, advertising, etc) for six minutes of dancing! Although as some saying goes, it’s the journey that’s the fun part, not the final destination–and, boy, was that true here.
On Friday, the 23rd of October (the day before the dance), I felt pretty sick. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to attend after all. Determined, I kept going anyway; I didn’t want to miss out after weeks of looking forward to the event.
Since there was very little money for the event, the volunteers had no uniform or anything to signify volunteer status to the public or each other. We simply ended up having a strip of orange streamer paper tied around our upper arm (or neck, for some people). Volunteers were allowed to dress up just like the dancers–which I’d planned from the start–but I wasn’t sure about my clothes up until the last minute.
My mom and I looked around some stores briefly, on the 22nd of October, searching for Michael Jackson t-shirts that were light colored, for better visibility in the dark. There was hardly anything out anymore though, which surprised us. We ended up finding two white shirts that featured Michael dancing across the top, so we bought those just to have SOMETHING.
I wasn’t too happy with the shirt though, so we looked around at another store quickly. There were no Michael shirts there, either, but I did happen across a red jacket. I pulled up a photo of the “Thriller” jacket on my phone and roughly laid out a plan in my head of how to throw it all together using cheap materials and things I had at my house.
I put off creating the jacket until the night before the show, not realizing I’d be feeling rather sick that night. It was still a pretty simple creation though, and I figured focusing on putting everything together would help distract me from how crappy I felt–and I was right.
Black duct tape was used for the basic design, which didn’t take long to put together. Then, I had a bag full of old belts that I planned to tear apart and sew onto the jacket, but I ended up only using one in the end. It was a large, large, black belt that had gone around a white shirt once and which I was never going to use for anything. I cut it in half and then cut a chunk out of the middle and sewed the two pieces to the bottom of the jacket. I only sewed the ends to the jacket and then let the rest of it hang off (you can just barely make it out in the photo above). My favorite things about Michael Jackson’s performance outfits are all the belts and zippers and clanky things in general. I’m planning on creating more complicated outfits in the future in this fashion, but that’s digressing from this particular post a bit too much!
Anyway, my final outfit consisted of the pants / shoes / socks combination in the photo that starts off this entry, the Michael Jackson shirt my mom and I bought, the jacket, a wrapped up “bloody” right arm, and full face makeup (with some spray-in hair color as well).
The day of the event, I had some other things I had to take care of in the morning / early afternoon, and as I was finishing up and driving home … the car died. My brother and I have been sharing a car, and it was low on gas that day, but I hadn’t realized just how low it was (and also wasn’t entirely aware of how much my brother had driven it the previous day). Long story short, I had to get picked up and leave the car in a parking lot I’d managed to cough it along into–but it all eventually turned out all right.
It did end up making us late though. When I was finally able to get home, I changed clothes quickly, pinned my hair up and quickly sprayed in the color and messed it up a bit, then I grabbed my makeup and jumped in the car.
Using a combination of face makeup (white and black) I’d bought from a Halloween store, black and maroon eyeshadow, and black eyeliner, I created this look in about 25 minutes during the drive to St. Pete. I based the brow region on the makeup used on Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd and I blacked up the base of my nails with a marker, borrowing from a photo by Joshua Hoffine.
When we arrived, we were seated at the front table for dancers to pick up their waivers (I’m second from left in the photo, having my duties explained to me). We stayed there until around 7pm.
My mom and I took a break at a point to go back to the car and eat something before we would be held up for quite a while, lining up the dancers and such, and not getting another chance to have a break until the whole thing was over. As we were walking down the length of the pier to the car, this group of people rode past us in some sort of small cart, and shouted out to me, “MICHAEL! MICHAEL! CAN WE GET A PHOTO WITH YOU!” I was kind of surprised, but I said “sure!” and they hopped out and posed with me. Apparently, it was part of some kind of scavenger hunt they were on to find someone dressed as Michael Jackson and take a photo with him/her, haha.
I really should have worn this hat there.
Anyway, soon after we came back from our break, it was time to go outside and start setting up the dance area.
All the dancers were grouped together and awaiting our instruction (btw, if you want LOADS more photos of the event, beyond just mine, visit here!)
My mom and I walked down to the far end of “dance” area (the road leading up to The Pier) and were instructed to line up the dancers as they walked towards us. We put one arm up to signify who we were and the zombies started towards us.
We created four lines, two on my side and two on my mom’s side. I walked down the row of zombies with my arms outstretched on my sides, to make sure they had decent room between them, and instructed them to spread their arms out the same to correctly distance themselves from those standing next to them. It all went pretty smoothly and everyone was soon lined up without much of a problem.
Soon after that, the dance instructor called for a dress rehearsal, so I ran off the dance floor and stood with the other volunteers in front of The Pier building / giant screen. I hadn’t seen any of that version of the dance, myself, so it was all new to me too (the dance in the video only runs about 2 minutes, so it was revamped a bit by the dance instructor to run 6 minutes). It looked AMAZING, and everyone errupted in applause after it was finished.
After that, some people spoke briefly, sponsers were thanked, and then we took a head count of the zombies–each one saying their number in order (“1, 2, 3…”) and then sitting down afterward. We were all a bit crestfallen to see that, while 400 dancers had signed up, only 198 were on the dance floor. Still though, it didn’t exactly damper our spirits completely.
Nobody was allowed on the dancefloor but the dancers after that point, to follow the instructions given to us by the world records people, and we had a bit of trouble with that here and there, but nothing we couldn’t handle.
At 8:29pm, on a global call with Canada (where the base of this whole event is located), we all started a countdown going backwards from 60.
And then…
A close up of the dance instructor dancing on the small stage in front of all the dancers, to lead them (for anyone who wants to see details of the dance):
If you watch the first video fully, you will see someone in the lower corner walk out onto the dance floor right at the end of the dance. Barely out of frame are the volunteers (me included), who all started to FREAK at that moment.
The interuptee was a mentally retarded young woman, who my mom had apparently spoken to earlier in the evening, trying to explain that she need to clear the area during the actual dance. She had somehow made her way from the opposite end of the dance area to next to where we were, and she walked out so quickly that none of us knew what was going on until she was right in the dance area. None of us realized she was retarded until the last moment, either; we’d all thought she would stop before she entered the dance area until we saw she wasn’t just any other person who would understand the rules.
We’re still waiting on the list with details on who was part of breaking the record to see if she disqualified us or not, but honestly, it wasn’t so much about breaking a record as it was about just being there and having fun, so whatever.
After the dance, the volunteers went back to what was the makeup room before to make sure all the dancers signed out. Apparently, the dance was done again almost right after “THE” dance, so we had adequate time to prepare for the rush afterward (all dancers had to sign in and sign out as one of the many steps in the full package of being counted for the record). This was the moment we’d worried about the most in preparation, because of the huge rush of people all at once, but it went smoothly!
That was the end mark. It was all over.
Well, almost.
There was an after party at one of the restaurants in The Pier. Lots of Michael Jackson music was played and there was LOTS of dancing. Of course, the DJ played “Thriller” a few times as well, and the dancers got to get their groove on a few more times that night. It was spectacular.
At one point, “Dancing Machine” by The Jackson 5 was played, and I mentioned how someone really should do The Robot (see Michael dancing from 1:20-1:40 in the above video), and then I saw this one girl on the dance floor do it–and do it marvelously. I applauded and shouted from my seat and when she looked in my direction, I pointed at her and mouth “You are great!” which made her blush a bit and lose focus on her dancing, whoops! She was really a treat to see dance though, in every form. She nailed everything.
Soon after that, during the second time “Thriller” was played, I looked away from the dancers briefly and saw “Michael” standing on the side with a friend, watching it all. I was immediately like, “HAHA. LOOK, IT’S MICHAEL!” to everyone around me. Then I took out my phone and said to my mom, “OMG, come take a picture!”
We went over to them and I went right up to him and asked for a photo and he agreed
After that, he walked around for a bit, posing for photos with other people and kids. As we were getting ready to leave, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” came on, and I was like YESSSS and went out to dance some (for the first time). Michael walked in from being out on the patio, and I pointed at him and yelled, “GET OUT HERE!” and he pointed to himself and mimed “Me?” and I laughed and yelled, “YES, YOU. GET OUT OF HERE!”
As he made a move to come to the dancefloor, I realized I might have screwed up the guy’s whole act because I had no idea if he could dance or not.
Hahaha. Yeah, right! That dude grooved onto the dance floor and did some impressive moves before doing a spin and ending it posed on his toes. EVERYONE applauded.
THEN he turned around and danced up to me and we fell into dancing together with probably less than an inch between us. I was laughing and telling him that I can’t dance, trying to follow his footsteps, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was laughing and said he liked my jacket. Aww, haha. Then he did a kick and a spin and came back around with some wrist moves, singing along a bit to the song. Then the song started to near the end, so he slid his hand across my shoulders as he walked away, and with a smile in his voice, he said, “Thanks a lot, sweetheart!” and disappeared.
And he did literally disappear. I didn’t see him anywhere again after that.
June 25, 2009 will forever be etched into my mind. I think maybe I should borrow the lines of the Fresh Prince here: “Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down!” But in all seriousness, Michael Jackson’s death was a real (and incredibly unexpected) jolt to my life.
The evening of the twenty-fifth, I had a class (which met around 6pm, I believe), and I was lying down for a bit before leaving. My ex called me at about 5:30-5:45 and we talked briefly, which made me a bit late. After hanging up, I came out of my room to rush and put my shoes on and go out the door. It was then that I received a rundown of the news from my mom of Farrah Fawcett dying and Michael Jackson being in a coma. I think my reaction was just simply “…….what?!” but I had a class to get to, so I didn’t really think deeply about any of it.
When I got in the car and turned on the radio, I was greeted with the end of “Billie Jean.” Since that’s one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs, I started grooving along right away and felt pretty good. I remember momentarily thinking, “Wow, it sucks that it takes him being in a coma to get people to play his music,” but that thought didn’t last long … because once the music ended, the announcement came over that Michael Jackson had just died.
I was backing down the driveway, head turned to look out the back window as I did so, and I ended up slamming my face against the seat as my foot pressed down on the break HARD and rocked the whole car. I picked up my cell phone and dialed my mom (who was inside the house, obviously), then continued to back down the driveway as I told her what I’d just heard. It was all a strange reaction from me, since no other celebrity deaths over the past few years has impacted me at all, and I wasn’t exactly closely following Michael Jackson, either.
Anyway, I arrived at campus and walked into the building my class was in. I turned the last corner and saw the TV on, talking about Michael’s death, and the two janitors sitting in front of it in disbelief. I wanted to say something to them, but I didn’t because I was already late. I still think of that moment whenever I pass that corner.
Continuing on, I got into my class and started on my lesson, but the silence started to drive me crazy at a point. The class was done individually on computers, so it was essentially a study hall of sorts, which I normally love, but that day, I absolutely hated it. I couldn’t understand how everyone could be so quiet and everything remain so normal when Michael Jackson had just DIED. I wondered how many people in the class even knew about it, since I only knew because I’d been late. I kept quiet though and tried to stay focused on my work, but those two hours were the longest two hours of my life.
When I got home, despite how I felt, I kept rolling my eyes at how EVERYONE had to update EVERYTHING mentioning Michael’s death. I’ve pretty much felt that way for every celebrity death that’s happened recently. There’s always an influx of posts about the person and everyone becomes their biggest fan for a week and it all feels really fake and offensive to me. I thought the fact that I was scoffing at everything was a sign that the weird way I’d reacted earlier that evening was just a fluke.
Well, it wasn’t.
I became pretty severely depressed for about a week after Michael died. And it really freaked me out. The worst part was that I didn’t know how to articulate exactly WHY I was sad. I also felt I had nobody to talk to who wouldn’t just laugh at me. I kept it all to myself and eventually ended up crying uncontrollably one night, alone in my room, after some small thing my mom said to me (which I can’t even recall anymore) just triggered everything I’d been holding in to spill over.
I started to get it back together after the Memorial, which I only watched a small portion of. But it helped me have a definite door to close on the issue, thank God.
At some point in all of this, I visited with my therapist and discussed the issue a bit. I think I ended up crying in that session too. I managed to find the words for why I felt so bad, at least. Although I was born in the mid-eighties and have very little memory of Michael Jackson being “MICHAEL FUCKING JACKSON” and not “Whacko Jacko” and such, I still was always on his side in everything, albiet quietly. I realized that, while I’d intentionally kept a distance from being a really devoted fan (in order to avoid ridicule), I’d still always kept an eye on what he was doing and hoped for him to have a comeback / fairy tale ending to everything. When his story instead ended extremely abruptly and tragically, it tore me the fuck up. I felt like my childhood and, in some sense, hope had died with him.
As some background into my personal life to give this some context: since 2006, there has been a death in my family each year–mostly due to cancer–and each time occurring right at the holiday season. Then, of course, there has been my own mental health issues, along with my brother’s cancer diagnosis this year. It’s been pretty rough, to put it lightly. And apparently, for me, Michael’s death closed the door completely to a certain period of my life; he was the last link to my childhood and past in general.
But, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens up. In the months since his death, I’ve had a complete turnaround in everything. His death kick-started my life.
Every breath you take is someone’s death in another place.
Every healthy smile is hunger and strife to another child.
But the stars do shine and promising salvation is near this time.
- The Jacksons
While I’m still saddened by his passing, the positive impacts I’ve seen from it–in my own life or in others–have made the hope that I thought died with him return to me threefold. I believe his real legacy lies not so much in his amazing talents as a performer, but in his ability to bring the world together and teach us to love and heal each other. He also taught the world to never give up on what you love, even if you feel everyone else has abandoned you. Michael Jackson had amazing strength in many forms, and is a true inspiration to me in every way possible–spirit, endurance, motivation, healing.
I truly believe in Elizabeth Taylor’s recent quote in reference to Michael: “[...] Say to yourselves, ‘I saw genius in my lifetime.’”
A few months ago, I was approached online and asked to donate some Michael Jackson related artwork for an art project / tribute book, the money from sales ALL being donated to sick children. I liked the idea, so I gave permission for the above painting to be used in the book.
Here is a short video (not made by me) that describes the project & gives some details of what the book looks like (my artwork is included).
More background information on the project can be viewed at this site.
Hello, all. It’s been quite a while since I wrote about what I’ve been up to, hasn’t it?
Well, the truth is, I was trying to distance myself from all of this. I’ve contemplated deleting the blog. I’ve been having nightmares. It’s been a bit of a struggle. BUT! I have come to decide that I am not going to delete the blog, because I feel its presence helps people too much to just selfishly throw it all away.
But that being said … there will be times when I will be absent from here. I obviously don’t update the way that I did when I began this blog (and, frankly, I avoid re-reading old entries at pretty much all cost), but I’d never just abandon it. I do fairly regularly keep up checks on it, so even if I’m not posting or responding to comments / emails right away, I’m still around, so don’t worry–and I will reply to everything eventually!
The reason I’ve been so removed from everything lately is that I’ve been rebuilding my life, and I’ve found when I focus too much on the memories of “being mental,” or when I think about WHY I take medication each night, it starts to cause me anxiety and make me doubt myself. I’d rather just pretend that I have no issues whatsoever. Personally, I’ve found that by not giving myself the excuse of ANYTHING that I can fall back on, I’m able to make much more progress. I don’t live my life by thinking I can’t do this or that because I’m “crazy” and it’s “too hard.” What I do is stay ever conscious of my stress levels, do little things here and there to stay balanced, and I think of myself as being like anyone else.
Of course, somewhere in the back of my mind, I do constantly worry about falling apart again, but I don’t let that fear overtake everything. I have had some small episodes over the summer that did end up affecting my progress some, but I walked away from them learning more about myself rather than gaining more fear that I might go totally crazy again.
Currently, I am taking a handful of classes again and have decided that I’m going to work towards a career in art therapy, which is exciting. I’ve also found some part time work that I started last week. I’ve never worked and gone to school before, so it’s a new experience, but one that I’m pretty happy with and am learning to handle well. Going back to work is a big step for me, since I’ve kept a fear of it ever since I had my breakdown in the midst of holding my last job, but there was no way to conquer that fear and anxiety except to jump in to everything again and just go with it. I absolutely LOVE the work I do now (and I’m being intentionally vague to keep some privacy) and I look forward to advancing in school and having a career / life that I’m really going to love. It’s very exciting because I’ve never had a very clear path to my life, and I’ve obviously had a lot of obstacles to overcome, which have planted many seeds of doubt that I’d ever HAVE a real life, so being where I am now makes me so, so happy.
I also recently ended the relationship I was in for good (I don’t think I mentioned much of this since we last split a few months ago, because it was so on and off and I didn’t want to confuse people). It took a lot for me to put my foot down, but I did, and after a few days of feeling miserable about it, I bounced back and now I feel absolutely fantastic. My ex had plenty of good qualities, but the bad ones greatly outweighed the good, and I don’t think he appreciated me enough. He upset me more than he made me feel wanted, and after a recent event that he failed to come through on, that was the last straw. Our relationship was extremely complicated and spanned across six years (off and on), but this past year, especially, was a major test of everything, and in the end, I was the only one putting any effort into any of it, and that’s fucked up. I need someone who will support me equally and make me feel wanted, and most importantly, respect me. I need stability and I need a commitment. But … I’m not very concerned with this subject right now. As with other negative things in my life recently, I’ve taken this all as a lesson about myself (I now have a clearer picture of who I am and what I want in a partner, and I know I can speak up when I’m being wronged) and I’m moving on. My therapist pointed out yesterday that I’ve progressed a whole lot since I’ve been on my own, and she’s right. I’m not overly dependent on others like I used to be, but I definitely do put things off more and use them as an excuse to not get things done than I do on my own, which is why, right now, I’m actually pretty happy to be on my own. It’s going to do me a lot of good to just focus on my own goals and build up my own life for a while.
As a last note, I’ve been adding some other blogs to my list that I think you should check out. There are two blogs kept by others who also deal with schizoaffective disorder: Coping and Hoping & Suicidal No More: Choosing to Live with Schizophrenia, and then the most recent addition to the Bipolar blog roll: Bipolar: Crazy Mermaid’s Blog. Check them out! They are also linked from the main page of my blog along the sidebar.
Well, I hope this was a more fulfilling update than I’ve done in a while. I really need to get back to studying now, since weekends give me the only real free time I get now, which I need to break up wisely between school work and leisure.
Since Monday, I’ve been receiving asinine comments from somebody who is hell bent on defending Jamie Foxx to death, for whatever reason. I would have had no problem discussing this issue had the comments even made sense from the start and hadn’t come in right away being pretty rude. When I still disagreed with the logic that the comment gave me, the next reply from this person was this:
What did he actually say? What were Foxx’s exact words? Because I don’t see how he could have said “I know what it is like to be a schizophrenic” or in so many words. I am begginning to think that you are just being what you are, a schizophrenic.
There was then further explanation in reply to someone else’s comment stating that because a symptom of schizophrenia is distorted thinking and perception of reality, apparently that means my brain doesn’t work at all and my opinion doesn’t matter because it’s “crazy.”
Oh, wait, except I’m not schizophrenic. There are more than enough clues to this all over this blog. Schizoaffective disorder ISN’T straight schizophrenia. It also has never affected my way of thinking in the way this person is implying (and it’s puzzling why this person so badly wants my positive opinion on Jamie Foxx if I’m so damn “crazy”).
So there’s that for the moment. Now I’ve gotta run to get to my class.
A REAL class. At a REAL college. Oh, shocking, I know.
I was originally going to update about how I’ve been doing lately, and I will still do that sometime soon, but I just came across this article and felt the need to ramble on about it in certain parts. Understand, whatever I write here is just my opinion and I’m not any sort of professional or someone who has any further insight into this case than what is present in this article.
For the sake of keeping everything in one place, in case this link dies in the future, I’m going to quote the entire article here, bolding parts that I wish to highlight on. The article is extremely graphic and disturbing, as a warning to those who may wish to skip it.
SAN ANTONIO – A Texas mother accused of decapitating her 3 1/2-week-old son screamed “I didn’t mean to do it. He told me to” while her sister pleaded for an ambulance to bring help in a desperate four-minute 911 call released Wednesday.
Otty Sanchez, who police say told them the devil made her kill and mutilate her only child, screams “I love him” and says she’s stabbed herself in the heart and stomach while her sister tries calming down the 33-year-old mother.
At one point during the frantic call, Priscilla Garcia tries reassuring her sister that she is actually in the house.
“I’m not dead, Otty. I’m standing right here talking to you,” Garcia said.
After a dispatcher tells Garcia that an ambulance is on the way, the sister moans, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Sanchez is charged with capital murder in the slaying of Scott Wesley Buchholz-Sanchez, who authorities found decapitated and grossly mutilated in a bedroom of her sister’s house early Sunday. Police say Sanchez chewed off three of her infant’s toes and ate parts of the brain.
Garcia tells the dispatcher that her sister has stabbed her child and that blood is all over the bed.
“She’s gone crazy last night. She was hearing voices,” Garcia said. “She kept bringing me the baby. Finally she calmed down and I took her back the baby. And now I just woke up to hear screaming.
“The baby is dead. The baby’s dead. Please, somebody come.”
Sanchez is being held on $1 million bond. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether she had an attorney.
Scott W. Buchholz, the infant’s father, said Sanchez suffered from postpartum depression and that she told him she was schizophrenic a week before the slaying. Buchholz, who said he is also schizophrenic, said he wants her to receive the death penalty.
A family member has said Sanchez had been undergoing psychiatric treatment and that a hospital called looking for her several months ago. Gloria Sanchez, the mother’s aunt, said her niece had been “in and out of a psychiatric ward.”
In May 2008, Otty Sanchez’s mother, Manuela Sanchez, called police after her daughter didn’t return from a trip to Austin, saying she was concerned about her daughter’s safety. Manuela Sanchez told police she suspected her daughter was into drugs and specifically told police she wasn’t suffering from any mental issues.
I was surprised to see the mention of schizophrenia, and that apparently both this woman and the baby’s father might suffer from it. I was also appalled that the baby’s father seeks the death penalty for the woman in this case.
So, let me back up again.
This is clearly a truly awful situation, there’s no denying that, and I’m not a fan of excusing behavior entirely because of someone being mentally ill. But this story … Christ. First of all, whether she was schizophrenic or not, new mothers run the risk of dealing with Postpartum Psychosis (although those suffering from certain mental illnesses, or with mental illness running in their family, are more at risk). Everyone hears about Postpartum depression, and, while also a serious issue that one should seek help for, Postpartum psychosis needs to be talked about too, because … well, stories like this could possibly be prevented if it were.
From my non-expert point of view, the fact that she harmed herself, and had to be reassured by her sister that she was still alive and in the house, says to me that this wasn’t an act of cold-blooded murder, and the woman was clearly seriously ill. Whether or not this was somehow the effect of being on drugs, I don’t know, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to focus only on this issue assuming she was dealing with psychosis of some kind, and not going back and forth on whether it was drug induced or not, because I don’t know that information.
Anyway, as gruesome as this whole thing is, I think the baby’s father calling for a death sentence is pretty screwed up. I can understand how upset he must be, but if they are both indeed suffering from schizophrenia, I can’t see how he could be so malicious towards her overall. Again, what she did is extremely fucked up and disgusting, but it seemed to come more from someone who really needed help and wasn’t fully in reality rather than someone who somehow took joy in the murder.
Stuff like this is difficult for me to sort out in my head, because on one hand, I think the woman was clearly ill, but I also feel a bit wrong blaming mental illness or psychosis entirely for things like this, because I feel as if I’m saying being violent during an episode is something that happens to everyone dealing with any schizo disorders. That’s what most motivated me to write about this article. Most of the time when schizophrenia makes it into the headlines, it’s connected to something violent, and I fucking hate that. I’m not saying that violence from schizophrenics never happens, but I feel it’s unfair to classify everyone as such, which is what seems to happen more often than not. Not only in news articles, but films and stories as well.
I’m pretty much at a loss for words for what else to write about all of this. I just hope society doesn’t blindly crucify this woman, because I think quite a lot of things need to be considered beyond just the initial reaction of “HOW COULD A MOTHER DO THAT TO HER CHILD?!” I think she needs to receive psychiatric help instead of persecution. Her own guilt and full realization of what she’s done, wherever it lies in her brain, will be enough of a punishment to her when it finally appears, I think.
Man, screw my dreamwidth journal. I never update that one. I’m around livejournal a lot more, so seek me out there if you give a crap.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I updated here about what’s been going on in my life, so I figured I should write something up this morning.
I’ve been pretty busy. It’s nice, actually! I’m taking a math class at my college three days a week, and I’m doing really well. The last semester that I attended classes (last winter), I took a similar class with the same instructor and passed with a decent grade. I’ve been horrible at math and hated it forever, but the way these classes are structured works really well for me, and I’m finally understanding everything! Basically, each student works at his or her own pace using a computer program, although you’ve got to finish each lesson on time each week, so it’s self-paced but also … kind of not. Anyway, everyone works individually at a computer, and the professor is there to assist with questions. I think it’s working so well for me because, unlike lecture type classes, I’m allowed to figure problems out on my own, at my own pace, without the professor whizzing through it all on the board and losing me halfway through the formula. I actually kind of love math now, and it’s really helped me out to excel at something that I’ve failed at for so long, and to do it all mostly on my own!
I plan to take more courses in the fall; I just have to figure out which ones.
I met with my therapist yesterday, after about a month of delays in keeping our appointments, on both my end and hers, and things went really well. Over the weeks that I ended up not being able to meet with her, I forced myself to overcome my feelings of inadequecy and just DO stuff. I started to write down lists of things to do each day, and attempted to finish at least 70% each day. That system really worked for me, and I’ve somewhat slacked off on it lately, but haven’t given it up entirely. The way I tend to work is that every so often, I just have to mope around for a bit, until I get really sick of myself and find the motivation I need to get up and work towards changing things for the better.
My goals for this coming week, which I told my therapist, are to sort out some school business, and apply to at least five places for a job. There’s still a part of me that’s a bit freaked out at the prospect of handling school AND work (I’ve never done it before, and doing it post-crazy still concerns me a bit), but nevertheless, I’m mostly confident that I can handle it. I also have some side notes to all of that which I hope to accomplish as well (purchasing new “work” type clothes, searching for a good, used car to buy, updating my license, etc), but all those things shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Honestly, most of the time now, I barely think about my mental problems. I still tend to hallucinate mildly here and there, but it’s become so common that it doesn’t really register as being anything “wrong,” especially as I just ignore whatever I’m “seeing” and focus on what it is that I’m doing instead. I don’t feel uneasy about being out in public, driving, or generally doing anything “normal” anymore like I used to. I pretty much feel like I’m back to how I was prior to all this crap happening, only, I think, a bit happier and more confident.
I’ve mentioned this around to people here and there over the past week or so– I’ve noticed that when I think about my mental problems, I don’t personalize it like I would / have done with any emotional problems I’ve had / have. What I mean is, before my psychotic symptoms took over as what I mainly deal with, and everything was more focused on my emotions, I felt a lot shittier. It was easier to blame myself for a lot of things, especially since most of my problems were focused on self-destruction of some kind, and I kept wondering why I could never just snap out of it.
Since my breakdown last year, though, my issues have shifted to being more about psychotic symptoms and less about emotional ones, and I no longer place blame on myself for anything. It feels much more like a type of physical disorder to me, because, even if everything’s in my head, it still doesn’t feel like a part of me, if you understand. I mean, when someone intentionally harms themself in some way or feels depressed or whatever, it’s at a level where the person realizes he or she is doing it to him or herself and there’s that level of self-disgust about it all. When symptoms are less about you hurting yourself and more about them wanting to attack you, it’s no longer something you feel you can blame on yourself. Well, I realize some do, but that’s not what I do. I suppose I could easily allow myself to fall into thoughts like “I’m so fucked up,” but I just honestly don’t feel that way. I’m proving to myself that I can function fine and I’ve never felt ashamed about my diagnosis. Shit happens in life to everyone; you just gotta learn how to work around it.
Btw, apologies if I’ve not returned emails to some people. I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve just been so busy and sort of lost track of things. Always feel free to email me again if I don’t reply for a while, cos sometimes I do need a bit of a nudge. Also, I’ve changed my email address (see the “Contact Me” page) so that I can better keep track of emails coming from this blog. If you’ve got my old address, that’s fine to continue using, but it would be more helpful to me if the new address were used instead. Thanks!
In conclusion, here’s Hugh Laurie in a bumper car:
While perusing deviantart the other week, I happened upon this piece by a Hungarian artist working under the username KA-113. I found the photograph so haunting and well done that I decided to check out the rest of her work.
When I came upon this piece, I immediately loved it. I kept the window open while I worked on something else, and kept returning to it, wanting to comment, but being unsure of what to say, exactly.
Then it finally hit me. I was drawn to it so much because the creature looked so much like the most dominant group of creatures I’d feared during my psychotic break (and at times outside of the break, but their presence was the most severe during that period).
I commented to the artist, not sure if she’d understand what I had to say, but needing to say it, anyway. I summarized my disorder and explained how I’d finally realized why I liked the piece so much and what it meant to me.
I received a reply comment the next day informing me that the artist herself was diagnosed with schizophrenia last year as well, and “these demons” had “hunted [her] year by year.”
I was taken by complete surprise at her comment because I hadn’t expected her to understand much of what I meant (regarding my disorder, not my English), let alone apparently share the same hallucinations as me! It was utterly bizarre, but also quite “nice” in a way. When it comes to hearing voices, having various delusions, and hallucinating, it’s very difficult to communicate what it’s like to anyone who doesn’t deal with the same thing, and even when one is able to find another who understands, everything rarely matches up exactly the same. There are similar stories of what people experience (delusions of being persecuted by the government / other people in general / the devil probably being amongst the top “popular” categories), but it’s rare to find someone who shares your experience completely. This woman is the only person I’ve come across so far who has apparently seen the same things I’ve seen, and it’s a “relief” in an odd way. I’d obviously prefer that nobody deal with anything like this, but it’s nice to stumble across someone who can understad more than others about what my world is made up of at times. I think the biggest frustration in this all is that it’s near impossible for other people to truly understand anything about my experiences, and it’s unsettling for me to realize that this whole other world only exists to me, so it’s nice to find someone else who can understand better than most about where I’m coming from.
My name is Kelley. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in early 2008. The purpose of this blog is to connect to others who struggle with this illness the same I do, or know someone who does and want to better understand the disorder.
Posted by K. - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder 
