Some honesty

Sometimes I think it would be nice to move to a desert island and start an art career. Just paint in the sun all day long, sell a few paintings, but basically play in the sand and water all day long with Sunshine and Matt.

Then I remember that I’m a mediocre artist and would, therefore, need to be independently wealthy to accomplish such a life, as I’d be unlikely to sell anything… and even if I did manage to become really good, I’d still need a way to eat during the start-up period.

Pragmatism. Ruins way too many daydreams.

The point of the daydream though isn’t so much about the desert island or the painting. The point is about living a life without labels.

Lately I’m really fucking tired of being a Mental Health Consumer. I’m also tired of being a First Mom. I got tired months ago of being an Adoption Blogger, and especially a Birth Mom Blogger. I’m tired of being A Family Member of an Alcoholic, tired of being The Coordinator of XYZ Program at XYZ Organization, tired of being A Good Source of Info on Recovery, tired tired tired.

I was thinking back to highschool and college the other day, trying to remember what it felt like to just be Me, Nicole. That’s still all fucked up because even then I struggled with shit, but at least it was ME struggling, not some representative of Adoption Reform or Mental Health Recovery.

Sometimes I don’t write what I really want here because I think “How would it look? How does that relate to ABC label?” It’s not that anything I’ve written here is dishonest, it’s just that some posts have gone unwritten.

That is striking me, tonight, as a little f-ed up. Because if there’s one thing recovery is, it’s honest. HONEST. If I’m not being honest, then I’m not practicing recovery.

So for right now, screw the labels. I don’t care if this post lives up to them or not. Time to get some stuff off my chest. Here are some things I’ve wanted to say lately but haven’t, for one reason or another:

(1) Alcoholism sucks.
(2) Sometimes I want to go back in the closet. Sometimes I panic at the thought that my job may have forever branded me as a Mental Health Consumer, that I might never be able to get another job in mental health in PA without someone knowing my own status. That I might be discriminated against getting future jobs as a result, or that I might face stigma in the workplace as a result.
(3) I don’t have a definitive opinion about psychiatric medications. I feel ambigous about them right now.
(4) I stopped taking Lamictal because it made me sick. I went to the beach, got a sunburn, and spent the rest of the night vomiting. It was a damn reaction to the sun+Lamictal. It was NOT the sunburn alone. If other people believe this was a stupid reason to stop taking medication, so be it: my body, my choice.
(5) Medication makes me feel unlike me. And that is the worst side effect possible. And if people can’t understand that, oh well. I’m not trying to explain, not right now.
(6) I am starting to feel like adoption reform isn’t my fight.
(7) I am starting to feel like my stories–both of them, adoption loss and mental health–aren’t really so bad, and also that they’re not extreme enough for me to set myself up as any kind of “expert” or go-to girl.
(8) What I really want is regular psychiatrist appointments with a shrink who’s willing to just see me for fifteen minutes every two weeks, though, without rx’ing anything. What I want is that safety net, so that if I do need something, I’ve got appointments already. But is this possible in our current mental health system? Why no, no it apparently is not.
(9) I am still like a little girl when it comes to horror movies. This entire post has been largely an attempt to get the scenes from Vacancy out of my mind.
(10) Real life friendships elude me. I have got some serious shit to work out but don’t have the faintest clue how. Yep, me, the symbol of Peer Support… unable to make real friends.

There. That was all pretty damn honest.

I’ll probably panic and password protect it all. Ha.

My shoulders hurt from hunching them and from shaking while watching Vacancy earlier today. It’s 1:50 a.m. I let Sunshine sleep on the couch. I’m hatching out ways to grab her and get her out of the house in case a serial killer breaks in. I’m avoiding bed because I don’t want to dream about murder all night. I’m wondering why it’s the end of November and no pictures of Moonbeam came–now one month or two months late, depending how you count–and I’m chiding myself for even writing that they’re late when it will look like complaining and it’s not fair to complain because I haven’t taken any initiative to ask. I’m taking my fingers off the keyboard and now I’m lighting a cigarette, and maybe just maybe soon now I’ll go back downstairs and face a few hours of sleep.