BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 – LETTER “M”

MIND, MOOD and MEMORY

I blogged about this for the Parkinson's P.A.N.D.A. Foundation once. At least I think I did. As I remember it. The funny thing about these three “M” words, is that they are closely linked. We tend to remember our experiences colored by our moods at that moment; good or bad, or blah, or happy, or mad. An obvious statement if ever there.

But, how reliable are our memories really when we are mentally ill, or are dealing with something like a bipolar condition? Or Asperger? Is it possible to go back later on and dissect some incident of the past in a rational manner, when you weren't in a rational state of mind during the incident itself?

My brain is attached to my mouth and it's going constantly.

I think if one is able to look at one's own behavior dead on and honestly, that answer is “yes.” I've done it. Over the past year, I've learned a lot about what it means to live with all manner of odd behavior; running the spectrum of being numb (not catatonic) to just short of schizophrenia. I have a cousin who is schizophrenic and has been most of her life. Consequently, I am shunned by the rest of my surviving family. Not that I give a damn.

Other than my first psychotic break, I've been able to either get on top of my episodes of dementia and remember them, and I've only come close twice to full-blown psychosis again. These are usually brought on my physical triggers and I know I have to get to a hospital. The saving grace is, I remember them. I didn't the first time and that must have been a doozy. The 2^nd time, I called 911, here came the fire trucks and half of the Tampa Police Department. Oh my! I remember Officer Fair and he lived up to his name.

Officer Fair was nice, but nervous. I think he thought I might bite him. My dad cured me of that when I was 4. He bit me back. That shit hurt!

So, either because I'm a fast learner, or because I don't want to spend my life in either the Mental Hospital or Jail, I figured I should learn some of the triggers. Frustration, total lack of understanding by people who should know better and problems with my sugar play huge issues. It's amazing how large a part some of these things can play, especially if they build up day by day. But, everyone has these issues and they don't go off the deep end. This is where the Parkinson's comes in. It is a constant emotional roller coaster. Up and down. There is no even keel. It's like bipolar on speed.

Every once in a while, I get the bradykinesia (freezing, or stop-action movement) associated with Parkinson's. It's weird, just weird. Mostly, I'm ahead of myself. Chronos is broken.

Anyway, I think it is possible to go back and mindfully dissect those memories. Bad mood, good mood, to draw conclusions that will help in the future. I really, really don't want to wake up in some Mental Ward, having been Baker Acted (committed in Florida) again after a month's sleeplessness, with a psychiatrist asking me, “Just what were you trying to do? Hmmm?” 

Source: www.parkinson.org and me.

#ROW80 POST 13 SUNDAY CHECK IN – DYSTONIC DISAMBIGUITY, OR JUST SAY IT ALREADY

Arresting title, isn’t it? I had my first experience with dystonia in my right hand the other day. Dystonia is just a fancy, schmancy word for “cramping” up. But if this is a cramp, it’s an odd one. It’s more like “ball o’ fingers.” Anyway, it went away and life went on. It always seems to do that.

I’ve decided that if I’m going to do this writing thing, I’m going to go whole hog. This dipping a toe in, and then waiting around to see if anyone notices, or goes into a lather, or the world melts, before dipping in another toe is ridiculous. I never really did that as a musician. I just went out and flopped gloriously for a while. I failed auditions right and left and worked at stupid jobs. I played half-assed gigs and started getting better gigs through word of mouth. Better playing and not being so green helped a lot, too. I ripped and snorted my way through the musical world and had a grand time.

After I went back to school for computer science, and was applying for jobs, I received job rejections, due to my lack of experience in the field. Rather than worry about that, I threw my c.v. and GPA and all that good shit out on the Florida jobs network, packed up my wondrous viola, "Wolf" and went on a tour with some half-assed orchestra for a few weeks to make money.

When I came home from the tour, I found out that I had a response from IBM. I interviewed; they hired. I went to work. For the next 3 years, I worked for them. Sometimes in-house; sometimes from the road. Sometimes from my own single-wide. I helped a guy rebuild his utterly hosed O/S2 system on his ThinkPad 360 once. I remember pacing back and forth in my living room, watching the clock; it was 6 am. He had an entire hard drive’s worth of contracts worth millions. I had a plane to catch to Atlanta at 11 AM. This was before anyone saved anything on remote servers. We still had the portable hard drives that smoked and caught fire. Guess what happened to his backed up data? So, we were able to fix his badly scrambled OS/2 system, which was good for our in-house support team. It helped that I knew the difference between system file and a text file. I also knew not to erase my hard drive which is more than I can say for MS Engineer Dave who did that very thing at Verizon. Oops.

Anyway, with all that in mind, instead of just dipping in one or two more toes, I’ve decided to put myself out there and go for it. If we’re going to write, let’s not pussy-foot around. Let’s just get it over with, kind of like when you decided you no longer wanted to be a virgin and any old dick would do. Well, not quite like that. Good thing my folks are not still alive to see that one. Who am I kidding? I really hate ambiguity, almost as much as I hate obfuscation. Yet, sometimes, as much as I try to clarify something, or cut to the chase, or get to the point, I end up with such a tortured phrase, that when I do go back and read it, it either a) means nothing, or b) means something else. The worst of all possible worlds is c) d) and e) ad infinitum, where you return to it, repeatedly and it means something entirely different in a Rashomon-like way, every time! Argh!

So, with no further ado, I have decided at the urging of the lovely and extremely talented Jade Kerrion the author of "Perfection Unleashed" to participate in NaNoWriMo. This NaNoWriMo is a National Writing challenge where one writes 50,000 words in a month, that will, hopefully, turn into a novel when I am all done polishing and waxing. How insane am I? Well, that is a question. Since I am the one who stayed up all of February of this year and was Baker Acted for most of March, which by the way, I remember almost none if, with the ironic exception of St Patrick’s Day, and the last part of March, I guess on that count, I’m fairly qualified. Judging by my past life’s history? I’d say it might be business as usual and a good move for me.

I’ve certainly made some progress in this whole write-o-sphere:

1. 2^nd ROW80 (could be posting more) 

2. Editing essays from past (no, future, Duh) posts Homeless Chronicles in Tampa

3. Start planning out word count for NaNoWriMo

4. Bone up on my "Perfection Unleashed" portion of Jade's Blog Tour! Yes! For January 2, 2013. I am very excited about this. Further updates forthcoming for this portion. She along with, Jess Witkins' Happiness Project are also GoodReads friends, too. As is Amberr Meadows at Like a Bump on a Blog. 

On that note, does anything ever have a completely non-complicated acronym or just words anymore? This whole “PD non-PD” thing is driving me even more batshit. I may as well be typing with my elbows anyway. Dystonia = cramps. Dementia, Delirium = crazy (bipolar.) Tremors = shakes. Enough. Pictures say a thousand words. 

Smooth, even strokes when I move quickly. No tremors.

I slowed my movements down about 10X, you can see the "tremors."

They are not constant. This was done at about 6 pm.

Post 14 is going to be a very special post for a very, very dear friend in memory to another dear person who died recently. You will understand more why this hits close to home after the post. This will be in honor of someone close to me for someone close to my friend. I didn't know this young man, but that is not the point. I still grieve.