Tag Archives: journal

Rediscovery

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9-25-10                4am-ish

I found this today in a drawer I was cleaning out. I don’t miss the fear of feeling that way but I do miss the fascination of those sensations. I was working as a job coach at the time for adults with developmental disabilities.

4-17-16                9:13pm

I’m feeling really weird today. I’m very anxious and nauseous and I’m disoriented too. Yesterday I felt like I was going to collapse and today too. Mark said to check out the dance and theater programs at UI, that they’re amazing. I was one step ahead of him. He said he’ll only approve of my trip if I have time on the books but can he do that? It’s for a neuropsych eval. I have a brain disorder (and a booger I can’t get out of my nose). I’ll ask Vickie – not that I think she’ll know.

Today is one of those days I don’t really feel safe and probably shouldn’t be supervising consumers, especially in the community. My ears are invisible, my brain is morphing like a lava lamp and light like Model Magic, and my teeth feel like they could fall out of my head just like dentures. My eyes are floating, suspended in their sockets and tingling.

The NAMI Walk and being with D- were big triggers for me. I’ve been hiding my mental illness for so long and denying that it’s there. It is. D’s having a terrible relapse. I feel sad and concerned, for both of us.

The driver’s playing classical music and I’m beginning to dissociate. Yawning but extremely tense then a burst of energy and lightheadedness…..

And everything’s fine.
Yesterday was Easter.
It’s supposed to rain today… —

© Michelle Routhieaux 2006

Dazed, Dazzled & Confused

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9-14-10                3:45am

I’m so tired. I miss –. It’s only been 3 days since I saw her but it feels like forever. I haven’t been thinking about my last journal entry (not posted here). I just miss her hug.

I finished printing all of my blog posts tonight. Looking at the stack makes me feel accomplished. (I hear that guy whistling outside again. At least I think I know who it is.) I started blogging February 21st and the notebook is almost full.

Hard copy of my blog


It’s just a handful of the writing I’ve done. It’s interesting to see it all in one place.

(sigh) I feel so tired. I know it’s almost 4am but the amount of time I sleep doesn’t affect my level of tiredness.

I hosted a lecture tonight at my group. Stupid damn Monday night football screwed it up. The last 3 lectures I averaged 60 people. Tonight? 20. Grrr…

I need someone to talk to. It gets lonely in my quiet kitchen at 2am when I’m filled with thoughts and anxious energy and have no place to put them, no reason to say. I keep hearing “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos.

There is something about speech that is soothing. When the words are inside me they stir in my heart. They make my soul tremble and throat ache. Just the vibration of sound helps ease the tension. But where do you put the sound at 4 in the morning when everyone’s asleep? Reading my writing out loud can be such a release. (street sweeper)

There is so much to say and yet I feel quiet… My eyes water, my neck twitches. Dogs bark and the cars fly by. The fridge is noisy. I think Mom’s asleep. I’m curled up in the big chair writing. It was my dad’s chair, although he never used it. I miss him. I wish I could talk to him now and that he could answer back. I need his wisdom. I need his experience.

(break to hear music in my head)

I can’t, I can’t.
I can’t right now.
Colors, shapes & music.
I feel confused now.
Touch. Touch.
Let me sort something.
Dazed, Dazzled & Confused
He ordered the test.
Just sing. Just sing.
Please sing.
Please sing. Just don’t stop singing.
Thoughts Go away, go away.
Go away.

-M

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010

They call me Ms. Marshmallow

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9-8-10                  11:32am

There were times in my life when I would have considered an 18 minute yoga video for beginners lame. However, today I approached it with VCR remote in hand and cursing at the tv. Are you supposed to curse at a yoga video? Seems rather un-zen. Anyway, I made it through in about an hour, quite ungracefully, and rather perturbed. If I’m going to go to the effort to get INTO a yoga pose I’d like to stay there for more than 5 seconds (I counted – hence the pause button). You’d think I hadn’t taken a step in 3 years. Yes, Dr. T. I’m a marshmallow. Ya happy?

I woke up this morning at 7:33 thanks to forgetting to take my night meds. I don’t even know what my meds do anymore. I’m just so tired. So I decided to stay up, even though I’d only slept 4 hours. Why not? Well, we’ll get to that later. I’ve been experiencing this thing where I feel very agitated with an extreme desire to move with zero energy or ability to do so, often when I wake up but other times too. It’s like torture. Like being trapped in your own body. With the blanket on I’m too hot, with it off I’m freezing. There are small bursts of energy when I finally flip myself over like a pancake or roll to one side. Then I lay there not moving, wondering why. It’s like all contact from my brain to one or more of my limbs has completely gone away. Sometimes my voice goes on hiatus too. The thoughts are there, but nobody’s answering.

So I finally found the energy and wherewithal to get up and decided to start my journey to non-marshmallowness by attempting to walk to the donut shop. Dr. T had suggested walking somewhere for coffee but I don’t drink coffee, and I like donuts, and I happened to remember there’s a shop up the street. Ooh, I just remembered 7-11’s closer. Might start with that. But I needed to take a shower. So I took a shower and then couldn’t breathe, so out went the donut shop. So I settled on sitting for awhile and then had a bagel and watched Nick, Jr. I was cool with traveling with Dora through the desert to deliver Cowboy cookies to a blue cow named Benny playing harmonica in a rocking chair, but traveling through space to return Inky, Plinky, Blinky, Dinky and Al to the purple planet is a bit much. What do people DO during the day who don’t work or go to school? I sleep until my life starts around three every day. Today I played with Zoe, whom I might add is fucking crazy.

I eventually decided to try one of my many exercise videos that I’ve owned forever and never use. Instead of Richard Simmons that I know I like I figured I’d start with something simple – AM Yoga for Beginners. Grrrr. I even got out my pink yoga mat. I made it through, huffing and puffing and cursing and pausing and cursing some more. It’s supposed to make you feel energized. Energized is not quite the word I would put on it. I feel mentally alert, but I’m physically exhausted, and shaking, and my eyes are watering, and I can’t stop yawning. Not sure what about that is energized.

So now it’s 11:46am. I exercised on purpose today. The result – urge to watch QVC and say, “That shit is whack, man.” Not sure what they’re putting in that AM Yoga video. I’ve been up for 4 hours. In my normal day it would be dinnertime now and I would be off to a group or to see music or something active with people. But no, it’s not even noon. What, the fuck. Seeing my therapist at 2pm. Hoping to be awake for that. I need a nap…

(sigh) 11:52 and it decides to kick in? NOW I’m agitated? It said ENERGIZED not AGITATED. (zap) Breathe… I need structure and people.

-Michelle

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010

Comfort. Bliss. Pain. (clogging)

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This is part blog, part letter.

8-29-10                1:52am

Comfort. Bliss. Pain. (clogging)

There is no feeling I know that tops twirling on a dance floor while clogging with people I love. There are people here this weekend that I’ve known forever and love dearly, whom I never see. They are my family. I just want to be near them. I’ve not much to say. I just want to be close. There’s something special about not having to say anything…

(fight with Mom)

Breathing. Tears. I don’t want to leave this place. I don’t want to go home tomorrow. Not because nothing bad ever happens here but because with these people I know it will be okay. That I will be okay. And I’m not.

I just watched Boston Legal. I went to a gathering last night of friends and it felt so good to have fun, to laugh and feel happy. And to be physically close to people. There are hugs here that make me feel loved…

I don’t see a lot of people like that. And sitting next to one makes me happy and sad. Happy and grateful for the moment and sad that it’s ending. I long to be close to someone, to be held and comforted and loved. To have someone to curl up with, a hand to hold. Instead I have a pillow at the end of a hotel hallway, a purple pen and a journal. And an angry mom sulking in a hotel room over me not putting my pajamas on. What the fuck? Yeah, I’m bitter. (deep breath…) Crying.

Your life is fundamentally at odds with the world. Therefore nature rejects you. (Failure to Launch)

—

This weekend has not been about illness or drama. My illness has affected my dancing but no one has asked me about it. No one’s asked much of anything. It’s been nice to have a break but it feels like this huge secret. I have this big clogging family and they’d be supportive if they knew (I imagine). But they don’t…

I cried at Lynnda’s slideshow tonight not because I knew her well but because I think of that stuff. I wonder what will happen when I die, who will notice, what the service will be like. I cried for me. In case you’re wondering, when I die you should dance. And if there’s a slideshow, please splice the music smoothly and don’t use “I Will Remember You.”

… I don’t have a name. I just want to dance, to feel that free feeling and the warmness of being close to you. You bring me comfort. I don’t know why. You just do. It makes my heart tingle. And for that I am grateful. Thank you.

(deeeep breath) I just wanna dance.

-M

Be happy for my happiness, Spongebob

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2-21-10 4:30am

I just said that to a friend. Be happy for my happiness, Spongebob.

Yes, I know it’s 4:30 in the morning but I’M HAPPYYYYYYYYYY! (said like “It’s Bacon!” from the Beggin’ Strips dog treats commercial). I want to skip down the middle of my street in the pouring rain and twirl around. (sigh) My happiness is tempered by mom’s barking about going to bed, but the rain is simply intoxicating.

I just listened to the whole cd I bought tonight. The music is even better to the rain. My Spongebob friend, whom I’ve never called Spongebob before, made reference to the difficulty in telling the difference between happiness and hypomania. I don’t really care what it is as long as it’s not destructive. Spending lots of money I don’t have, running in front of cars – bad. Bouncing up and down in the kitchen overwhelmed by the excitement of rain and good music and a good day – not bad.

Tonight I finished most of a project I thought would be really hard in about 10 minutes. I don’t anticipate it being difficult to complete. I did a bunch of fun things, took chances. And I feel GREAT… And I know if I continue to feel great it could be dangerous.

I hate the knowledge. (sigh, shake my head) I hate having to wonder when happy is too happy, if feeling happy tonight and then happy tomorrow will mean another “vacation” sometime soon. What do you do when you want nothing more than to be happy, to feel like I do tonight, but when you’re happy the happiness scares you? Is avoiding a dangerous high worth staying sad for? I don’t think so. Be happy for my happiness, Spongebob. And hope it doesn’t last long. I don’t want that to be my motto.

I want to feel free. I want to fly without fear, to run lightning fast without my mind stopping me. To walk on a beam successfully, you don’t look at your feet. You don’t think about dance, you just dance. Close your eyes and let your feet do the work, let your body feel the motion. Sense the people around you. Be happy for my happiness, Spongebob. I feel a little sad.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010