My Habeas Corpus

Transitioning to working at Starbucks was a growing period in my life. I was adjusting to a new way of life. I wasn't in school for a few months, I was processing sadness, confusion, new meds, and a loss of friends, but I was working. Knowing I could work again after two firings and two times dropping out of school was such as relief. I could make money. I could hope to take care of myself. I could imagine the possibility of not being stuck at my parents. I woke up at 4:45 am, had espresso and went to work. I worked with some really kind people. My identity was changing. I wasn't showing up as the straight A student who thought she had her shit together and was just making summer cash. I was there trying to survive, pushing through the daze of what felt like a difficult and somewhat unappealing existence and just following the training I was given. The structure and culture at my work then worked well. The manager was my favorite manager I have ever worked for. He was a s...

Today was a particularly brutal day at work. I am in pain, feeling weak and exhausted from a recent dental procedure. There was an awful conversation that really made me feel like I was on the ropes. I hate that feeling, kinda vulnerable, not treated the way I like to be. That level of weakness really cuts deep. Beyond all that, I suppose is still the ever present memory and struggle of managing my mental health, emotions, stability. Always striving to maintain that evenness, that keel that I'd say comes more naturally for other people. Between my waves of passion - which I have full measures of - there is a calm eye of the storm that I know I have to live in. But sometimes that eye seems so small, and the storm of life surrounding me feels so so big. Practically speaking, I have doctor's appointments I have to schedule into my life, my day, my time. I have medicine I have to pick up. I have prescription appointments every 3 months. I have counseling appointments I schedule...

For parts of this story I've thought through over and over, I don't like telling it as much. It's just facts I am unleashing from me brain. I want to move forward, but I will get this out. Um, well, I have always loved singing. Really really loved it. I sing in church most Sundays. A few weeks after my attempt, I was trying to sing and my voice would hurt, feel like a tiny guitar pic was like poking in my vocal chords or something. It seemed like certain notes. And it felt kinda hoarse, and just like catching, so I couldn't create whole round sounding notes. maybe like something inside was choking my singing voice. So we went to a doctor to evaluate it. My mom did haul me to an awful lot of appointments those days. Anyway, this guy stuck a camera up my nose and down the back of my throat. I think he might've looked down my throat too. I think he was an ENT. He found scar tissue he thought was causing the problem. The scar tissue was from when I was intubated follo...

In between all of the depression, med visits, doc appointments and my mom dragging me grocery shopping, clothes shopping or to lunches, I had the trouble of what to do with time. My mom had enrolled me in community college classes, but then the medication was making my mind fuzzy and I couldn't concentrate. I had to drop those classes and try to get a refund. My mom marched me to the college office to plead my case as a bipolar depressive who couldn't hack it. It was miserable. There was something so shameful about how she had me keep the illness quiet unless there was money to get back. I don't know. Maybe I am misremembering parts of this. Anyway. I had to drop out of college a second time which was a blow to the ego. Meanwhile, she was pushing me to get a job. I had started out wanting a job, just as I had wanted college, just as I had wanted to live, just as I had wanted freedom. But with all the steady, deep and unexpected blows, I wanted very little. However, my mom ...

It's a bit hard to tell this whole story amidst the fog of time, sadness and medically altered reality. Some of the events I remember after. Before my attempt there had been another time I was almost hospitalized. It had been a late night of feeling trapped, painting and the feeling the frenetic energy of someone imprisoned in their own home because of their own mind. Oh, wait, now I remember more pieces of this stretch. It actually happened maybe 6 years later. If I don't have to discuss this bit not, then I won't.

Once I was released from the hospital - and back into my parents' care - my mom and I went and stayed in a guest house/mother-in-law suite on a church friend's property. The house had light pastel colors and a very peaceful feel. It was clean, it was a little comforting. It was good to not be back in my parents' house yet. My mom and I stayed their maybe 3 nights. The second day a friend came over. Becca was in massage therapy school. She brought her table and gave me a full body massage. Something about the act and experience was so healing. I think it helped that I knew her. I think she was praying for me and maybe sharing kind words. I felt strengthened. The first night there, I had gone to sleep craving the nothingness of sleep, still so antagonistic towards the thought, concept and act of existence. When I woke up though, I felt refreshed. I decided I wanted to live. Hell, I even wrote a poem about it. Maybe it was the medication stabilizing me finally. Maybe it was...

After the attempt there was the mandatory 72 hour watch of being on lockdown in the hospital. It's good I was there. I still wanted to die. I found a drawstring on my basketball shorts. I was in the shower area. I tried to form a noose type thing. That rope was so weak and there was nothing to jump off of and really it was too much effort to try and figure out how to end things, how to escape the pain of the reality I abhorred. So I went back to napping. A conversation with my psychologist who had been meeting with me at the time actually helped wake me up. He actually came to the hospital and visited - he's the only doc to ever do that. It said a lot. He asked how I was doing. I made small talk. I made jokes. I was always trying to see the funny part of life, find the joy, laugh at the bad...there was so much bad. And he stopped me. He stared me dead in the face and asked why I was laughing. I said because I said something funny. He told me none of it was funny. I had just tr...