October Blues

My head is still cloudy, my eyes swollen, my face flushed with heat, and my chest heavy with the pains of sorrow. I find myself constantly hiding in bed under my blankets trying to chase away tears. I know there are people who care about and love me, but my body goes through this terrible grief at this time of year. My moods are swinging like a hanged man -- one moment I'm well, the next I'm howling from emotional pain. It's my crazy again. I just admitted myself into the hospital ER this evening. I kinda hobbled in, hyperventilating, choaking on my tears, vomitting up what I just ate, and looking a complete wreck. What triggered this?




An argument over money with my brother. I need to survive on more than $20 a week. He refused to give me anything more than that. I made a list of everything I need to buy. It still didn't matter. My brother refused to budge. But it wasn't really about the money. After he spent more than a week very deathly ill with the H1N1 flu virus (scaring me half to death) I patiently waited for him to be well, waiting constantly by the phone for updates from him. When he's finally well enough to go out to eat, he's a complete sour puss, talking down to me, and flat out insulting me in front of strangers. He tries to apologize, but it gets under my skin.



I love to share my artwork with friends and I consider my brother one of my best friends, but after we get a table and sit down to talk, I pull out my sketchbook to show him my latest illustrated ideas. He scoffs at it and then asks, "Why do I have to look at this?" I almost break into tears. I scoff back with, "You're just like our other relatives, Star, not interested in anything I do. One day you'll regret that." He just gently tells me to shut-up because he's just gotten over the flu and needs silence. "This is why I didn't want to eat out," he says long after we've ordered food and sat down. I can understand being grumpy after being sick, but... my feelings get hurt anyway.



I hold back anything else I could say that would be nasty and maybe that's not such a good thing. Holding back hurt tends to build it up. So all my concern for my brother's well being and my eagerness to share with him after I'm happy he's well is shattered by his sour pussing put-me-downs. I begin to feel like if I can't have my brother's care and approval, how can anyone else really care about me? A dark cloud begins to overshadow the entire day. The more time I spent with my brother, the more he made it clear that spending time with me was a chore he desparately wanted to be over and done with. It's that kind of attitude that compells me to be an introvert.



Why does my family treat me this way? Why can't I have their support and love? Why don't they love my drawings and creations the way my friends do?



After we argued over the money (I have over $300 in the bank, mind you, enough to pay bills and have some fun) I literally exited my brother's car and took off for the hospital because an anxiety fit was coming on. It started to feel like the whole world was crashing down on me and the only place I felt safe was the hospital. By the time I got to the front desk I was sobbing so hard I couldn't articulate what I was going through. Even though I kept telling her not to fuss over me because I'm just depressed, the receptionist felt bad for me and walked me over to the ER. On the way, I nearly lost my dinner, throwing up half of it on the carpet and just feeling very pathetic.


I felt worse in the waiting area trying to control my emotions. There was a little boy nearby who was screaming and he paused when he saw me, an adult, weeping as bad, if not worse, than he was! I laughed while crying, mirroring my own, his eyes twinkled with tears and for a meek little second he seemed to crack a shocked smile back at me, as if his heart were pointing out to his mother, "Hey, Mom, I didn't know grown ups could weep worse than me!"


There's nothing worse than going to the ER for anxiety. Only a psychiatrist can handle you if you're mentally ill, a regular doctor on call at the ER can only pat your shoulder, so to speak. But it's better to have a breakdown in a hospital than it is to just go ape shit on the street. The doctor I did see had asshole bedside manner, making me feel like the anxiety is all in my head, but, hey, "take this pill and go home to relax" and once again I'm left feeling like a problem easily shook off his shoulders.



The nurses on staff tonight all had wonderful bedside manner and were happy to try to distract me from my weeping fit. One way to distract me was to turn on the television and watch the history channel! And the first thing I did with the meesly $20 my brother gave me was rent a few movies. It abates the loneliness and fuels my creativity, but I'm still left with the after taste of sorrow.



As I write this, I begin to figure out what else could be bothering me at this time. October is a month when a lot of violence and emotional break-ups happened to me in both my recent and distant past. The only joy I get out of October is Halloween and Samhain -- the dressing up, the candy, the horror movies that go on sale, and dreaming up ways to decorate my altar, creating spells, working out a list of things I'm thankful for and wish for, blahdee blahdee da! But no matter how much I put it in the back of my mind, my heart skips several beats and my body remembers better than I do what I have survived and I get all bent over with grief. I spend a lot of time in bed this time of year, making me feel all the more of a loser. What can I do to shake out of this?



For the time being, I'm making a mix CD of my favorite haunted house themed music and keeping my chin up believing that nothing can get worse now. Okay, so I have less than $20 to keep me comfy for the rest of the month, or at least until my brother (my payee representative who is the only person authorized to handle my finances until I'm deemed less crazy) decides to agree with me that I need more, so I should make the most of it, right? *grumbles*



Right now I want to just want Taco Bell for supper. I think that is what I'll do. I want to write more off my shoulders, but after re-reading midway through this post, I feel the need to end on a cheery note so friends don't worry about me. I don't often like to write out my feelings this much on my blog anymore. I try to make it a goal to post mostly my art and keep positive about the future. I ache to show off to myself, if no one else, that I am keeping productive, even though I'm not making money and feel the urge to push myself harder to submit my work to publishers. But the act of producing art has a way of keeping me sane and I don't need the rejection of publishers to take away the joy I get out of drawing. I want so BADLY to tell my stories and share my characters with the rest of the world because I really do believe you all will love them, so I create with much emotion, obsessing over details and taking a long while to form ideas and images, etc. Besides feeling sorry for myself, I really feel bad that I am not mentally and emotionally well enough right now to network.



Perhaps I just need to be a little more gentle and patient with myself?