The Lunatic

I often feel like I live with a lunatic.  No, not Ronnie.  It’s that person I have to hang out with all day and all night for my entire life.  It’s me.

I live with the obsessions, random thoughts, anger, and passion. The repetitive stories, memes, complaints, dismay, complexity.  I get to hear it all and for what?  Just a life well lived?  When did I say yes?

Does a life well lived make up for it?  The carrying-on, the whining, belligerence, bad behavior, insensitive spoken words, and all the rest?  Underlying it is the voice asking, “Why?”  “Why do my feet hurt?”  “Why did my car get dented?”  “Why do I love this fraying shirt so much that can’t be replaced?”  Why, why, why?

Or does the love, a kind gesture, or a listening ear even when I’d rather howl, become a gift freely given that counts most in the physical world and that of the soul?

Do these things balance out even though I live with the person that can’t explain the mystery of life, or why I hurt so bad for no reason, and why I want to slug inanimate objects, or pull out my hair?

As if this weren’t enough, she’s also busy in her virtual reality. Her dream world is not observable by others but very, very busy including most Popular Annoying Moments, Scariest Worries, and Regurgitating the Past with Nazi Appearances and other Frightening Creatures. (I’m so grateful I never saw a zombie movie.) Sprinkled in are Murder Mysteries and Great Spy episodes with me starring as protagonist. I didn’t know I could play a clever secret agent man or an indomitable Sherlock Holmes. I wake up to just get peace and quiet. 

The lunatic has problematic play lists for daytime hours too.  Greatest hits include, “Most Embarrassing Moments,” “Biggest Mistakes” and the most popular, “Best Bad Decisions.”  Please, amnesia would be good right now.

In all this, if I sit quietly, I can feel the love inside, the desire to do good or at least do no harm, the knowledge or belief, if you will, that I am part of the earth and no more important nor less important than the smallest of life.

The lunatic often apologizes to inanimate objects or what some people would consider non-sentient  beings. I had an influx of tiny sugar ants on my desk. The lunatic hated to kill individuals and apologized to each one when forced to do so. After treating my desk and finding a dozen or more dead, the lunatic had a memorial service. I have to be vigilant in keeping her from taking me altogether down Crazy Street. 

Awhile back, I made a file folder called, “The Good Things” so when I’m feeling blue I can reflect on them.  It includes nice things people said or wrote to me; text exchanges; and my written remembrances of conversations about qualities of mine that felt good. My daughter cites a statistic that for every negative comment, it takes ten positive comments to erase that one powerful negative.  The folder could be my ticket out of regret lunacy.  Put another way, it keeps the lunatic focused on good things when I need a break. 

In addition, the lunatic thinks I’m some kind of writer. She’s forever taking notes, writing things down, electronically filing email exchanges. She thinks she’s a reporter at Life’s front. She pesters me to write things down anywhere, anytime, and thinks she has to report them to the internet newsroom. There’s only so much I can do with this kind of lunacy with a front row seat 24/7. 

I think we all have some version of that chatter. We give different names to that inner Critical Voice. Still, who is going to turn off this ghastly noise in my head?  I breathe deeply.  I meditate.  I gratefully watch the water, trees, birds, bugs, and mountain in the land of my birth.  In a final desperate distraction, I watch a Mets’ baseball game or a Monte Python movie.  I still hear those thoughts, “You should have bought that.”  “Didn’t you feel ashamed?”  “That was a big mistake.”  “How long are you going to hold onto that?”

They say the only way out of life’s problems is through them.  That’s no joke.  I gotta keep living this life.  I’ll see where it goes and where it ends.  In the meantime, this shit is hard work.  I don’t remember signing up for this. 

I’m still looking for the 1-800 number to express my dismay.  If I find the number, I’ll probably be on hold for a century.  That’s how they get us to buy into this life.  We can’t get a hold of customer service to resolve our complaints.

To Life.

Joceile

4.5.22

 

[Picture of me and cat, Scarlett, while I try to get a grip on the lunatic. There’s no certainty Scarlett has an internal voice like mine. The creep!]

Today in History

May 19, 1972. Fifty years ago, a junior high school counselor had spent three days researching with the district psychologist the best course of action for an extremely suicidal, intelligent, anorexic student she had worked with for the past year who could no longer stay safe with equally unsafe, divorced parents. On this day, the counselor obtained permission to drive the 14 year old Joceile to Child Study and Treatment Center, a part of Western State Hospital, to commit her/me. That was the summer I woke up from a childhood nightmare to a life that finally belonged to me. Fraught with continuing danger, I began my travels to the land of mental health that last to this day.

I was in that psychiatric residence for five months. To many people, this would be an event happily blotted out, forgotten, never to be revisited.  To me, it is annually celebrated as the beginning of my healing.  It’s not that Western State Hospital was perfect and didn’t have it’s therapeutic problems.  It’s that it was also five months of firsts in a long, painful experience with adults working to keep me safe.  

One example is that I learned how we all give cold pricklies and warm fuzzies to others.  Of course, they are silly names used for children’s learning. But it was a concept for identifying how we treat others. An outcome was learning for the first time that I could ask for a hug (a warm fuzzy) from adults I trusted and get a safe one in return. I could also give one. What a revelation for a kid starved for safe, unconditional affection!

There were many other firsts.  Some profound.  Others less so but memorable.  Group hiking trips, train rides, movies, walks, shopping trips, and backpacking with staff who truly cared.  These all happened in the company of a small community of 14 to 17 year old girls and a diverse staff whose job it was to look out for us and us for each other. (I’m sure not every patient saw it that way.) I remember going to the Puyallup Fair with eight to ten girls and staff. I couldn’t not keep track of the other girls. I remember a staff member looking to me when looking for a missing girl and I’d gesture to where the girl was last seen. It was an overdone strength, impacting my enjoyment of the fair, but I had to look out for our safety. It was emblematic of the struggle for my own safety. 

I have only four pictures of me in that transformative summer. This is the me that held on bravely and took each step that presented itself without knowing the final destination. In October 1972, I was discharged to go live with my beloved grandparents. Taking in a troubled teenager is another act of great bravery and love. Joe and Lucille are gone but their love surrounds me. 

I am filled with gratitude to my 14 year old self for her breakout contribution to a life well lived and to all of us who continue in life by putting one foot in front of the other, embracing love for ourselves and those we come in contact with. If love is a religion, it’s mine. We can’t know another’s path but we can assume they need kind regards as much as we do. 

Reporting from Life’s front. 

Joceile 

5/19/22

The story can be found here:  https://joceile-memoir.blogspot.com/2018/12/entry-1-july-28-1986.html

Pictures:  1) My counselor, Jerry, and I in the woods. 2) A volunteer, me, and a patient on the campus. 3) Me at the ocean. 4) Me after the girls badgered me into letting them put eye make-up on me—never again!

Scarlett’s Words to Live By

Scarlett, Queen of the Cat Empire, has deigned to teach me her magical secrets of success. Those of her kind frequently reiterate them. She whispers them in my ear. Just listen:

“Now is a good time to nap.”

“Nap now, not later.”

“Long naps are the answer to peace and tranquility.”

“Aren’t you feeling nappish?”

“If you wake up, you can always look forward to a nap.”

Scarlett says, “This is how those of my kind have ruled since we came upon those of your kind.”

According to Scarlett, this is my retirement plan. She doesn’t care about 401Ks, pension plans, Medicare, or social security. (She might if she was paying the bills.) As for me, I’m so tired that if you plugged me in as a 250 watt lightbulb I’d have the brightness of a 30 watt bulb. Maybe Scarlett has something here. After all, those of great royalty should know.

Joceile

5.12.22

[Picture of Scarlett, a cream colored long haired cat with tabby markings on her head, laying on a blue comforter. Her blue eyes are half open with undisguised wisdom.]

Dear Mother

“Dear Mother. I’m reaching out to you to see if it’s possible for us to have email conversations. This is a big step for me. I request that you be gentle in your conversation with me. I will do the same. 

“The two of us will not continue to be on this earth together forever. This email is an invitation to communicate a bit at a time.”

I write these words and I’m filled with the impossibility of the task. It’s been 50 years since I ran away. I don’t believe my mother can maintain any sustained level of communication without ranting about the ways she has been wronged. It’s not possible for me to believe. 

I’m making myself wait until after May 7th when she gets the card for her birthday and the delivery of tulip bulbs in a woven planter. I’ll see if and how she responds. I don’t trust her. I have nothing to base any trust on. 

I remember my year 14. I remember her picking me up from Western State Hospital to deliver me to my grandparents. I remember my year 15 when she told me my beloved school counselor was jealous of my relationship with my mom and wanted to come between us because she didn’t have that kind of relationship with her own daughter. (Oh for god’s sake.) It was the moment I knew she would do anything to manipulate me and could never be trusted. It was the moment I saw her as a difficult, troubled human in addition to being my mother. 

I remember living with my grandparents and her getting a job in the donut shop across the street from the service station where they lived. It meant she was watching every day after school when I got out of the car and walked inside the station. Every damn day I had to decide if I was going to cross the street to see her. Every damn day. God, I felt tormented. (I’m sure it was no picnic for my grandpa while he worked at the station all day. They weren’t speaking at the time.)

Kindness and justice was not in her behavior arsenal. I was hers and I’d been stolen from her by my grandparents and others through no fault of her own. Her only alternative was to woo me back. She was relentless in this “see, I’m not doing anything wrong” way.

I was a troubled kid trying to navigate my way through mental illness. She didn’t believe that my condition was valid. My situation was all manipulation on the part of my counselors, my grandparents, or me depending on the day. Someone had to be at fault besides her or my father. Someone did this to our family but it couldn’t be the two adults in the house. It had to be an outside force, a diabolical conspiracy to separate me from my parents. “Oh. It was, Mom.” It was a conspiracy of generations of parents and other adults abusing kids in the secrecy of home, school, and church without penalty or accountability. 

I still fantasize about making more meaningful contact with my mother as we approach her 87th birthday. Eighty-seven!  I haven’t seen her since she was 54. I could bow my head and pray to the god of grief.  The pain of disconnecting to a person that was so crucial in my child life feels like too much to bear until I remember the treatment when I’ve tried to re-engage. I am painfully aware that time is fleeting. But I can’t believe she’ll respond to me any differently than she did when I was a five foot ten inch tall, 14 year old girl weighing 112 pounds. A stiff, restrained girl trying her best to avoid the traps of generational illness and find a way to thrive in a life that looked bleak. 

Fifty years later, I’m here to say that it can be done but not without determination, persistence, and a shitload of luck. I’m sorry, mom. I don’t believe you’ll be on the other end of the line without more of the same. I can’t fool or trick myself into believing you’ll be there with what a loving person would find as gentleness and acceptance. 

Since the conspiracy of the day and an ex-president has been a massive disappointment to you, mom, I can’t imagine I’ll do any better than I have in the past. If death provides any relief at all, I hope you find it. I hope your god shows up in unexpected ways for you. I can’t give either of us relief in this corner of the world. 

Sending my love, virtually. 

Joceile 

4.30.22

[Picture reflecting clouds on the lake and houses on opposite shore in the waning light of evening.]