Mental Illness Blogging: Holiday Mania

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Monday December 21, 2009 · 6:43 PM PST

2009/12/21 · 18:43

The Candy is made and much of it is eaten. The cookies are baked lots of those have been eaten already too. Most of the presents are wrapped. The goodie bags are put together and most of them have been handed out. We had the neighbor kids and moms over to make ornaments. The decorations are up and almost everything is ready. Oh yes, I also decorated a tree in the courtyard with cranberry and popcorn garlands and an aluminum foil star and we left out lots of bird food. Ahh the joys of being Bipolar during the holidays.
I began freezing cookie dough in mid November while I was stewing about healthcare reform. I began decorating the weekend after thanksgiving while my daughter Heidi had a staph infection and I worried about my uninsured daughters. I started baking early last week as I raged about healthcare reform and the failure to regulate banking. And today I even managed to go to the park and pick up evergreen branches and cut some holly off our trees and put it up in honor of the winter solstice. I have gotten to the point that I cannot watch the news without yelling at the tv. And today I got a nice reminder that I am in the early stages of menopause.

stevie avebury

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Thursday November 19, 2009 · 8:45 AM PST

2009/11/19 · 08:45

This is a sort of update on my friends situation and some observations on how the criminal justice system works for persons with mental illness. My friend Craig was arrested last month while in the middle of a mental health crisis. He is now in jail and awaiting a hearing that will determine his fate. I have a clearer picture of the story of how this all happened now and would like to share what I know. Both Craig and his partner Heather have given permission for me to write about their situation. Both of their names have been changed to protect them and I will not give the name of the state or city where my friend is jailed. For the whole story please join me below the fold.

stevie avebury

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Sunday October 25, 2009 · 12:37 PM PDT

2009/10/25 · 12:37

I do not have too much information about what will happen to him but a lot more information about everything he has gone through in the past. And I have to talk about the aftermath in our lives.
First I want to say that Craig and Heather are not my friends real names. They have both given me permission to blog about them and even asked me to write about them. I think they also believe in giving the wider world a look at what life is like for people like us. Heather knows that I am writing and I believe that craig would agree.

stevie avebury

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Thursday October 22, 2009 · 1:20 PM PDT

2009/10/22 · 13:20

I am going to get right to the point since I really feel scared for my friend right now. My friend Craig is in the middle of a huge episode right now. He has been halucinating off and on for several days. Or maybe it is delusional. I am not sure. He has a long history of mental illness and drug abuse. I believe he was on meth from about 16 to age 35-36. He has not done anything harder than marijuana since I have known him and I don't think he has relapsed as heather would have walked out by now if he had. I know for sure he is bipolar. I am not sure if he is Schizo-effective or not but his behavior seems schizophrenic to me.
I need to know at what point to call for help for him. and I need advice about it. I know from those who have commented on my previous diaries that there are mental health professionals in this community and it is to you I am appealing for advice since I do not know where else to go.

stevie avebury

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Thursday October 15, 2009 · 6:13 PM PDT

2009/10/15 · 18:13

I have talked about my bipolar disorder before and since I am coming off a very long, deep depressive cycle I thought it might be helpful to diary the outcome. This is because I have seen several diaries lately about depression and maybe for some people this can be helpful.

stevie avebury

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Thursday October 01, 2009 · 2:09 PM PDT

2009/10/01 · 14:09

Since Congressman Grayson spoke his now famous words comparing the loss of life in the healthcare crises to a holocaust I have heard many on both the left and right denounce his choice of words. But I wonder, is it not a holocaust? Can it be in the most true sense of the word A Holocaust, An Offering?
I admit I had to google the meaning to be sure. I grew up in L.A. in a mixed race neighborhood and always had Jewish friends and I always believed that holocaust meant the genocide against Jewish Europeans. Later on I picked up that it meant a religious offering and when I studied catholicism and read the bible I understood the original meaning a little better. A sacrifice, an offering. I learned something else in my catholic studies. We were taught to offer our sufferings up to god. To make our sufferings a gift to Jesus who suffered so much on our behalf.
Maybe it can be a holocaust. But what are we sacrificing and to whom?

stevie avebury

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Monday September 28, 2009 · 10:08 AM PDT

2009/09/28 · 10:08

This is hard to write. And yet I can only write it because I am getting better. The little yellow bellied sap suckers who live on the hill behind my home have been a great help. So have my pooties. I have been deeply depressed for some time now. Follow me through if you dare to see all the crap swimming around in my head these days. I will try to organize it.

stevie avebury

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Saturday August 08, 2009 · 8:15 AM PDT

2009/08/08 · 08:15

A friend of mine once said that she believes that most people stop developing when they meet their first serious trauma. If that is true then I probably have the emotional capacity of a three year old. I think that in many ways it is true. At least I have to now admit that my emotional development slowed down dramatically. I do not remember when my father began to molest me. I believe I was three when he began to allow others to do so and photograph me. ( When you dissociate it's hard to remember.) It was the age at which I began to retreat into my own little world. When I retreated into my own little world makes me the center of my world.
I also once heard that our brains do not finish developing until we reach our twenties. If that is true then maybe I never had a chance. My siblings never had a chance either. Thousands of children in America and millions of children worldwide have never and might never have a chance to develop normally.

stevie avebury

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Saturday August 01, 2009 · 9:28 AM PDT

2009/08/01 · 09:28

Kossacks my age and older will remember the term Iron Curtain being used to describe the cultural and political wall which separated of eastern and western Europe during the cold war. There is another such wall between the military and civilian worlds. I call it the brass curtain. Those who have never served in the military can really get a clear picture of what life in the military can be like.
I served only two years in the US Navy. My mental problems made it impossible to deal with the kind of insanity military personel must deal with on a regular basis. I was discharged under honorable conditions due to my preexisting mental illness. I still have nightmares about it twenty-two years after I got out. In my dreams they are coming to get me to bring me back to the military. In my dreams I run away, jump into the sea and try to swim away, anything to get away. In my dreams they want to force me to go back to the ship I was stationed on. I was stationed in a bad place in the Navy.

stevie avebury

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Saturday July 25, 2009 · 8:14 AM PDT

2009/07/25 · 08:14

My friend Craig was apologizing for being screwed up the other day. It seems that while speaking to someone he met, he let out that he is on disability and the inevitable question came. "What do you do all day?" I have been asked the same thing many, many times. He then went on to tell me that he feels "Screwed up for sitting around watching cartoons all day". I wanted to make him feel better and did not know what to say so I said, "You're talking to someone so screwed up I can't get to sleep at night unless there is a war movie on."

stevie avebury

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Saturday July 18, 2009 · 7:58 AM PDT

2009/07/18 · 07:58

I come from a racist background. My parents were deeply racist. They were also both mixed blood Native and Euro-American. I grew up in a mixed race neighborhood in Los angeles in the 1970's. The racism that I experienced there, in the home where I grew up and the community at large, was deep and deeply scarring.

stevie avebury

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Sunday July 12, 2009 · 10:52 AM PDT

2009/07/12 · 10:52

I am dissociating as I type this so please forgive me if it comes out wrong. I had a serious panic attack yesterday and I thought it might be instructive to diary it and my reaction to it. I have a combination of mental illnesses. A personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and am bipolar. I grew up in a world of violence and chaos and have worked very hard to get away from that. I work hard to understand my illness and to work on healing myself and being a better person.

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Mental Illness Blogging: Holiday Mania

Mental Illness Blogging: Craig and Heather

Mental Illness Blogging: Update on My Friend

Mental Illness Blogging:Update on a friend in crises

Mental Illness Blogging: Riding Out the Storm.

Is It A Holocaust?

Mental Illness Blogging : Ranting and Raving

Saturday Morning Mental Illness Blogging: Childhood, Trauma and forgiveness.

Saturday Morning Mental Illness Blogging: Behind The Brass Curtain

Saturday Morning Mental Illness Blogging: Screwed Up

Saturday Morning Mental Illness Blogging: Racism and Me

Mental Illness Blogging: It Happened So Fast...