Sex! Again?

First, I want to ask the forgiveness of all my blog followers for not posting for two weeks. Sorry, I have been physically sick. Now on to the interesting topic of sex! What does it mean to us? There are some mentally ill people that have an addiction to it. Some may know that there is a Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. And some of us just don’t have the desire for sex anymore. One of my friends in group doesn’t feel like making love to her husband anymore because of side effects of her meds! I know when I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia my Mom said, right to me, that she read either people with schizophrenia are very interested in sex or they don’t want anything to do with it!

Well, I really am fascinated with sex. However, I wouldn’t call myself a sex and love addicted. I am going to tell you a secret. Well, I tell this to everyone so it’s not that much of a secret. I am going to be thirty years old in January and I have never slept with a man! I was raped by a woman in Oct. of 1999 and I don’t remember everything happened to well because I was going through a schizophrenic break! About two weeks ago I was finally brave enough to ask my OBGYN if I still had a hymen and she looked and said I don’t. My GYN told me that it could not be from the rape it could be from riding a horse or something unrelated to the rape. Blah! Blah! Blah! Anyway, I am virtually a virgin without a hymen. Now people I know this might be too much information, but if you don’t want to read it then don’t.

Anyway, my point is that society makes us believe certain things. For example, the Roman Catholic Church (all of it because I discussed this in New York, Chicago, and Cali) believes that masturbation is wrong. However, in therapy we learn that it is normal and healthy. Also when Governor Palin was running for vice president everyone made a big deal because her daughter was pregnant. Is that really that usual of thing? I know when I went to high school at least one girl in each class would be pregnant. I remember what the rector of the Episcopal church which I attended told me something I will never forget. He said, “Sexuality is a gift.” So why do we trash the gift by making everything taboo? Now I do admit there are people that really are Sex and Love Addicts. However, I am just saying we shouldn’t be embarrassed by sex. I think that as long as we aren’t hurting some else it is a gift between you and God perhaps another person.

An Invisible Disablity

I have written a lot what it is like living with an invisible disability, but I haven’t explained what an invisible disability is. There are a lot of people with lost limbs, blindness, and even mental development problems. However, what about people with mental illness? Can you tell the difference? I am sure the check out lady at Price Chopper where I get my grocery doesn’t know I have a mental illness. I am sure the man that usually sits across from me at church on Sunday doesn’t know I have mental illness. I am sure the family that lives across the street from me, that the only contact I have with is a simple wave, doesn’t know that I have a mental illness.

I think that’s why it’s so hard to get out of bed in the morning. We, mentally ill, don’t know if we are going to do something like lay on floor in church and cry (like I did) to let our invisible disability away. We don’t know if we go on a date with someone and things get serious when the right time to tell that special someone is. We don’t know if we will do well at work. As long as we stay in that bed, then no one has to know. I know I didn’t go to my high school reunion because as far as those people know I am still only 135lbs and have a degree from the college I originally got my scholarship to.

Maybe it would be easier for us if people could see? I mean then we wouldn’t have to explain why it took eight years to get a degree, or why we don’t know about having kids, or why we need more time at work. I mean maybe if people could see then we wouldn’t hide in the shadows. I remember my first inpatient visit to the unit, when I was first diagnosed, they told me not to tell anyone I didn’t want too. I felt like I should keep it a big ugly secret.

Well people I write this because mental illness, while an invisible disability, shouldn’t be in the shadows. It’s shouldn’t be a big ugly secret! If we all wake up to that fact, then we might realize that the lady in church, or the man next door, or the people in the grocery store have a mental illness too! It could even be that dream guy we met across the room at a party. Everybody lets stand up and say it may not be something you can see, but I do have a disability that I can overcome, and you can learn about!

A poem for breaking false images

Isolated
By Amanda Robin

I see you through the fog
Of my life,
Standing there with your friends.

I think to myself,
Should I go over there
And introduce myself?

My throat feels like
Pine needles stuck in it.
My eyes feel focused
Like a hawk.
My lungs are tightened
Like a crushed can.
My palms are as wet
With sweat as
Niagara Falls.
My heart is in
My stomach.

And you know what?
They want me to find
My soul mate!
I can’t even talk
To you my friend!

What does my Jesus do for me?

Now I am no much of an evangelist, but today I am going to talk about my bridegroom, the keeper of my heart, the one I run to when things go crazy, my best friend Jesus Christ. When I was little I loved Him with all my heart and couldn't imagine being away from him. However, as I got into middle school and started to reason with myself, how could someone be the Son of God. I mean REALLY how could someone be God, but God still be one person. I also reasoned if Catholicism (which I was raised) was the first Christian Religion and that was the true church, than wouldn't Judaism be the ultimate religion? Now I am not mocking Judaism, but it wasn't what God intended for me! Finally, I went away to college and lost all religion Sundays were family days and so going to church without my family felt weird. There was no temple to become Jewish like I had planned. So what I did was float between classes, friends, and parties.

My Illness is what brought me back to Jesus. When I was court - ordered at nineteen to a mental health unit and He was all I had. For about two months before I was placed tjere I was in a really abusive relationship and I could hear Christ calling me. Now we all know that schizophrenics hear voices, but that not what I hear, rather I felt a pull in my heart. Then I knew I was not living the way I should and I went to the Newman center on campus and confessed everything. To this day only my one of my close friends, the campus police, and the priest who heard my confession know exactly what happened the night I was raped. And you know what? It was that priest first suggested to me that I could have been raped. Then there was that morning in the mental health unit. I felt like no one believed sick. I hadn't talked to a psychiatrist the night I went in and they told me I wouldn't be seeing the doctor until the afternoon. I don't know what make me do it, but I curled up in a little ball and just prayed, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." I consider that the moment I was saved. That afternoon my Mom who had flown into Indy airport and made the hour drive from there to Muncie, showed up with the Newman center priest. I told him I wanted to receive communion. Later that evening he came back with the body of Christ and I slept like I hadn't in forever! I felt so good.

Then there's tonight. I went to an Episcopalian healing mass. Now your like wait a minute she said she was Catholic. Really I consider myself Catholic Episcopalian with a sprinkling of Pentecostal. I was a cradle Catholic and then at the age of twenty - four I was received into the Episcopal communion. My current Sunday worship is at a Catholic church, but I've started going back to the Episcopalian one on Thursday. I would like to share with you a thought that the priest Mother Laurie offered. Today they celebrated the man who started the first school for the deaf in America and the first deaf Episcopalian priest. No I don't remember there names. But Mother Laurie said that the deaf people probably all prayed for the hearing to come back, but instead they started a new way for deaf people to communicate. So God helped more than just one person to "hear." Also my friends blog Gaining Insight is about the stigma of mental illness. I think this story of the group of deaf people gives us hope! Once marginalized now beocme main stream.

What to do?

It’s really weird when I was first diagnosed with a mental illness, I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to leave my bedroom or in the case when I just got out of the hospital, the room I was staying at the recovery house. I have always said that half the battle of mental illness is getting out of bed in the morning. I still have those days where I don’t want to get out of bed because it is a big scary world out there!

However, now that I am over nine years in therapy, I feel like my day is always planned out for me, doctors’ appointments, group therapies, reaching out to friends so I don’t isolate. Yeah, that’s still a problem for me. I tend to hang out with my parents and my Uncle Jim a lot more than my friends. However, I am ALWAYS DOING SOMETHING. And guess what? I fell and twisted my knee! I don’t even know how to spell the name of the thing they said was broken. It’s soft tissue in my knee, something between my knee bones where the two bones meet at the joint. I know this because the REALLY cute P.A. showed me exactly what he thought it was. OMG… this P.A. looked around my age and he had NO ring on his left hand. I digress though; this is not about hot P.A.s I met in my adventures of being sick all the time.

What this is about is the fact that my knee hurts and I am not supposed to be doing ANYTHING! It’s hard. I feel like I should just go for a walk or something! I still go to my group therapy and I went for an MRI today (for the knee). However, I can’t just sit and watch T.V. It’s like the mental health system has programmed me to not be standing still for one minute. I am actually washing my clothes today which I shouldn’t be doing. I feel stuck. In limbo.

Prespective

I wanted to share a poem with you all that I read on camera for my amazing friend's documentary. If you would like more information on her work. Look at her blog Gaining Insight. However, this is my work that was inspired by her work. She just inspires people.

What do you see when you look at me?

by Amanda Robin

What do you see,

A nutty squirrel,

A psycho crazed lunatic,

A person without all her marbles?

Tell me what do you see?

Do you see a woman lying on the floor

Of a Church crying because

The priest eyes look funny?

Do you see someone who is

Hallucinating so painfully

That she is ripping her hair out?

Do you see someone who laughs

So ill - fatedly that she throws up?

Tell me what do you see?

A bright young woman

Who has her bachelor's degree

in Cultural Studies?

Do you see,

A talented young published

Author?

Do you see,

Someone wanting to be

Your friend?

Tell me what do you see

When you look at me?

What is well?

First off, I would like to apologize to everyone for not updating my blog sooner. I have been lazy as of late! My question today that I pose to all of you is what is well?

Some of us take our medicine and others do not. Does one make us more well then the other? I take my medicine as prescribe and I still get schizophrenic episode. However, if I didn’t take my meds. I would probably be homeless and wondering the streets!

I mean does going to therapy make us well or not? Sometimes when we in therapy stuff stays with us because our time is up and we can’t work through the rest. I realize a lot of people practice “door knob” therapy, where we don’t tell the therapist what’s really serious until fifteen minutes before time is up. However, does crying and releasing all this sad emotion good? I have often wondered if a hundred years from now if they would think that is just inhuman. However, hashing through serious stuff in until it becomes a scare and not a wound helps a lot. I know I said it before group therapy helps me tremendously. Without the support of my fellow peers in the rooms, I don’t know where I would be.

Does living a normal life make us well? For example we could go to work. But isn’t true that sometimes it brings more stress then it is worth? However, don’t we want to be productive members of society? I think that is good for the soul. Although, I don’t hold a job, I volunteer.

I think maybe we have to choose the lesser of two evils. What is well anyway? I think it’s funny if a poor person is mentally ill, she is called crazy. However, if a rich person is mentally ill, she is called eccentric. In this world we have to be ourselves. The most important thing is to be true to ourselves. And if that means sometimes we seem a little off to people, well so be it! However, keep taking those meds, going to therapy, and being productive members of society.