2006 Top Stories

This is has been quite a year for news. My ocd disappeared inexplicatebly. I was awarded a $50,000 grant to study painting in Umbria, Italy with my family. They developed a cigarette with no ill-health effects, the Democratic Socialists swept both houses of congress in mid-term elections, Former President Bush resigned from office along with his entire cabinet, converted to Tibetan Buddhism and is devoting the rest of his life to charity and volunteer work in an attempt to fix some of the wrong he has loosed into the world and every person in the world was given a pink talking pony named Kip.

If only that were true...

very few of the ponies were actually named kip and while they COULD talk, they seemed more interested in rioting and looting...

and my ocd is still with us. i have been back on my medication for two months at the time of writing and it has improved a lot. Still having problems with insurance covering visits to doctor a (must remember to send them a pony...)

i have had some nasty insomnia...i fall asleep about a half-an-hour after taking my medication buy wake up almost exactly 4 and a half hours later, wide awake and am unable to return to sleep for about another 45 minutes to an hour...if i don't take my meds, i can't fall asleep at all.

i seriously hope someone is working on that cigarette.

more edgar allen ocd poetry.....

the haunted palace

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch
Thought's dominion-
It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.

- Edgar Allen Poe, 1839

this post is the rats who hurled themselves in the ocean when they saw the explosives in the cargo hold were just about to blow...

soooooooo....

i am back on my medication and recovering nicely from a death spiral into insanity that would have taken you all down with me...

but thankfully (and lucky, for you...) i am doing much better. better than i've been in a very long time, in fact.

in the past month or so, i've gone from having regular "episodes" (ocd related episodes in which johnny depp DOES NOT appear are copyright 2006) to being able to cut myself at work and not having to lie about being sick to go home for the day...

in fact, last week, a co-worker sliced her arm open accidently and i was able to bandage her wrist without freaking out too much, thus remindng me to charger her the appropriate co-pay...
(remember, when administering first aid, always get the money before helping. this ensures you are paid for your services should the patient die later).

i am back working at the bank again, but this time i am working in the vault which means no contact with the general public, which is good and ensures a minimum contact with "evil" which can be transmitted through touch or breath but means that i have daily contact with both money and filthy filthy dirty dirty bags which come off of the armored cars...

not to mention that people are constantly cutting themselves open and bleeding everywhere...at least once a week, someone gives themselves a ghastly razor blade wound...

all in all, i think i've handled this well, in no small part because i have been able to go back on my medication with my new healthcare...they cover all of my medications...two are generic so i only pay $10 a month for each and two i pay $25 for...so, i am getting $677.89 cents worth of medication for only $70 a month...which is excellent news...

next time, i'll tell you about my first appearance on 21 Jump Street..............

i mean jesus christ, a hundred people die in iraq everyday...they find them mutilated and shot in buses and ditches, there's a new nuclear arms race, there are people who are organizing themselves to attack us, a father walked into a schoolroom to shoot little girls...

and you think that it's unreasonable that i'm anxious?

this culture is a virus, mental illness is not an individual problem, it's a manifestation of our collective illness as a culture...

why should i allow myself to be a part of it at all?

do you know what akathisia is?

i have been back on my medication for 3 days and i already feel better...the agitation is gone and i feel like i can sit calmly without having to DO something, i can check my handwashing better and i'm not obsessed with the number 3 and it's multiples for the past day. can the drugs already have such a strong effect? i'm not even at half my full dosages...

what part of myself am i murdering?

there is a growing movement of people who believe that psychiatry is more than just a psuedoscience, that it approaches the levels of huxleyian nightmare scenario where any inconvenient emotion or thought dispensed with the aid of tiny capsules of bliss...

and i can't help but see at least a little veracity in their paranoia...if you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention, silly bumper sticker but like every cliche'ed statement it carries some truth with it...

as a parent, as someone who is responsible for protecting and raising a beautiful person into adulthood, i am terrified of the culture she'll be exposed to, the toxic mindfuck we're all exposed to everyday...the non-stop advertisements, more than just an annoyance, are a calculated way of bending our will, an effort to make us recreate ourselves in another way...
it is far more common to be a consumer than not, surely that is true and how often do we look askance at people who wear ratty clothes from 40 years ago and not because they bought them at a vintage store for three times their original price...
you know the people who drive unfashionably small cars from the 1980's or WORSE, forego car culture and instead take the bus, or bike or (shudder) walk to their destinations, people who buy their groceries based on ingredients and not on brand names, people who wear a sweater because it's cold and care not for designer labels, people who don't know who jennifer aniston is married to or dating or what movie she's opening in 738 theaters nationwide...


isn't this all a distraction?


i can't help but feel that i'm part of a larger machine that is meant to keep me from living a life that we are meant to live...
we are consumers and really that is our first responsibility in this culture. you don't consume and you're not helping america...
3,000 people die on a crisp early autumn morning, incinerated and torn apart against a blue sky and forever in our memories and we're told the most important thing for us to do is keep shopping...

that is the appropriate response of the 21st century...

you are what you own after all, your belongings define you and where you fit into our culture and our world.

this has all been said before by many people more eloquent than i...

i worry that we're losing ourselves, that something human is slipping away and perhaps all this mental disquiet is a symptom of that...maybe the depression and paranoia and obsession and fear are justified...

maybe we're not the sick ones...or if we are sick, it's because our mind is rejecting the programming...

does that make it all seem too noble? just take the soma and shut up i guess

i'm back in the saddle again...

it's been a while since i posted, so long that i've probably lost both of my faithful readers and any chance of that movie deal with orion pictures.....

he's too difficult to work with, they'll say...

since i posted last, i got married. i am married and have a child and hopefully a second one soon...we have a house with all kinds of cool kitchen accessories, a washer and dryer, a back yard, a cat we inherited from my mom and two ferral cats that we feed because we're stupid and don't want to see them hungry...

but enough about all of that...how is the ocd you say? afterall this is an ocd/crafting blog (more ocd than craft) and you're here to read about all the nastiness and epic mental battles...

wednesday i saw dr. a for the first time in about a year and talked at length about the state of my ocd and medication, which i have been off of for several months, because of money mostly...
but with my new job comes new medication coverage and i'm able to get all four of my prescriptions for a mere $70 per month. OUTSTANDING! these wonder tonics follow the secret recipe of an ancient indian voodoo witchdoctor and it's guaranteed to cure thrombosis, trichonosis, and halytosis and will fix a sour stomach...side effects may include diareaha, upset stomach, headache, bloody stool and spontaneous combustion...please consult your doctor if you intend to become pregnant as these drugs will seriously fuck up your fetus.....

so i'm back on the meds and so far doing fine, but i've only taken them for two days so...

fortunately, ocd is not a disorder where stopping a particular medication causes it to lose effectiveness when you begin it again...

and now for the really important things...i...what? orion has been bankrupt for years???.......

well i'm just too unresponsive to continue.....

i'm back on my medication again after being off of it for about two weeks......
it was definitely a mistake to stop taking it (although it was a mistake that couldn't be avoided really, my financial situation being what it was)......

i've noticed that i'm definitely more on edge, shorter tempered and anxious......
my fingers dance around when they are about to do something and my muscles in my back ache from being constantly tense......i have to remind myself to relax them and then there is a sudden release and i realize how taut they were......my breathing is shallower and my memory is foggy......
i'm having serious trouble concentrating and i forget things easier than ever......
worst of all, the handwashing is back, but only at work......
everything has to be in multiples of three right now, three for beth, lucy and i and six is the prefered number for most things, especially ellipses and other punctuation......
actually, only ellipses but i had to type "other punctuation" or something bad would happen......
there are some thoughts coming back but they aren't as persistant as they were and the graphic images only come occassionally......
mainly the thoughts are uncomfortable fixations, mainly sexual or death related and they don't command the need to ruminate like they did before, it's more like passing a bad automobile accident, one where the occupants most surely died and you find yourself fixated by it, looking for the form covered by a blanket or in a non-descript bag, bulging to indicate the thing that had once been a person underneath it......
you don't mean to look, you don't do it consciously and you don't enjoy it but you find yourself staring in spite of yourself......


medication has to be a priority......without, i'm not myself and i'm not there for beth and lucy, not the way i should be......

i know i haven't been as loving or tender with her as i used to be and i've quiet......very quiet, and not a very good companion to her and i've been too easily frustrated by lucy and her newly formed sense of independence......

i need to stop doing this now and come back to it later......

"you don't know the history of psychiatry matt, i do......"

it used to be that i only disliked tom cruise because he lacked the talent to make breathing seem convincing......

despite my support for ocd medications, i have to confess that i haven't been on them for a while......

about 2 weeks......

i'm doing better than expected but not great......
i just haven't had the resources (read money) to pick them up......i do have healthcare through work, but it's kaiser which means that i will have to make an appointment with a kaiser doctor and then convince them that i need 4 different medications, (only two of which are established treatments for ocd and one of those i'm taking twice the recommended maximum dose, per dr. a's intrustions......)
one expects to deal with bueraucratic bullshit when it comes to health care but considering the drastic increase in work and religious redtape as of late, the last thing i want to do is argue with a doctor......