Small Business Ideas & Budding Friendships

I downloaded a book to my Kindle a couple of weeks ago.  It's called The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin and it is a business oriented book on how to sell handmade work online and offline.  She takes the reader step by step through some of the basics of business practice such as advertising, blogging, podcasting, using social networks, setting up an online shop, selling to local businesses, doing the craft fair scene.  It's an overview to turn the serious amateur into a professional.  I bought the book because I was curious and because I really do want to earn some income this year, however small.  Ms. Chapin made it clear that there are lots of options for selling one's work (as long as the work is good quality).  It also became clear to me that in order to start a small business it takes a lot of effort and a certain amount of enthusiasm.  In addition to creating quality work you absolutely have to promote yourself to others and on a regular basis and that's something I have resisted.

So I've decided to start small, do a garage/yard sale in about a month.  I haven't had a sale like that on my property since I arrived over 20 years ago.  I've always been a very private person, to the point where I barely know my neighbors.  But if all goes well, I will try to lure people to check out my stuff.  This means I have to clear out the garage and organize it and make good signs to display outside my house and maybe along the road.  I will also be crocheting, making hemp jewelry and trying my hand at tie dyeing.  I don't know how far I'll get with that in a month, but I'm willing to try.  Ideally, I would like to sell my crafts from out of my garage during the warmer seasons, become an actual small business, have a professional sign made, but I don't know if it's legal yet.  I talked to my therapist about it and she said that she knew that she could have a business from her home, but she didn't know the particulars.  I have to do some research.

I'm going to need some help too from my brother and Richard.  I'm going to ask my brother to act as a bridge between me and potential customers because he's good with people, loves to talk whereas I am rather shy.  He might eventually get into making some of the tie dyes too.  I need Richard to help me clear out the garage and reorganize it.  I'm thinking about at least putting a coat of primer on the walls to lighten the space up more.  I'll need to buy a couple of tables and maybe a double clothes rack to hang up used clothing and the tie dyes.  And so I'll be spending a couple of hundred dollars on that, but I see it as an investment.  I also need to use one of the tables to do my tie dye work on in the garage, so that will be part of my shop.  The other half of it is in the adjacent laundry/kitchenette room.  I was going to try working out of my former darkroom, but the ventilation is so poor and the darkroom sink is not hooked up and there are all kinds of chemicals that have been sitting around for years in there.  Not appropriate right now, though I would like to clear a lot of the junk out of there so that I can use the space for some supply storage.

There are some local craft fairs that go on in the spring, summer and fall.  I won't be able to apply for them this year, but I can go and check them out and apply for next year.  Hopefully by then I'll be able to afford a good tent with four sides to it and maybe an outdoor storage house to keep my work clean and away from the cats.  The acid test is whether I can be successful at garage/yard sales, whether I can promote myself, interact with people, handle money, produce cool crafts and display them properly and get help from family and friends.  I honestly don't know if I can.  Somedays I'm all gung ho and others days I'm anxious and withdrawn.  I'll have to wait and see how much I get done this month.

On another note, on Friday I got a 30 minute audio tape from one of my best friends from my adolescence.  This past year we got in touch through facebook, but she works full time as a teacher, has two small daughters and a rather unhelpful partner and so she's been very busy and hasn't had time to keep in touch with me.  A couple of months ago I sent her a 60 minute tape telling her some of my story in a very honest and forthright manner.  I told her I didn't expect her to send me back a tape, but if she could swing it, I would love to hear from her.  And so now I have and it was wonderful to hear her voice after over 25 years with no contact.  I felt a bond with her right away because a lot of her voice and mannerisms were as I remembered them.  Of course, now she's older, wiser and tougher and yet still her own bright and sweet self.  She graduated from art school in the 1980s and has returned to her artistic pursuits off and on during the last 20 years.  Though her passion now is teaching and tutoring children, she says she wants to continue drawing again.  She mentioned a particular type of sketch/journal book that she particularly liked and was planning to get and so yesterday I bought her one and some drawing supplies and I will be sending out a care package to her early next week.

I have been blessed twice this past year and both through facebook.  First, when I reached out to an old friend from grade school and junior high school.  We have been exchanging tapes for months now and I love it.  And now with one of my best friends of my youth.  Living with schizophrenia these past almost 13 years, and even before that, has left me quite isolated.  What I had only dreamed about sometimes, that I would re-connect with old friends, has become a budding reality.  Living in the computer age has salvaged some of my relationships and also has allowed me to write this blog and connect with other great people online.  Though mental illness is still a serious affliction, access to the computer and the internet and medication takes quite a few of us out of the dark ages of permanent institutionalization.  It give us a voice and the means to be creative with what talents we have.

An Online Meeting And Thoughts On Music and Work

A couple of weeks ago I got a facebook friend request from a former neighbor.  We grew up together in Park Slope, Brooklyn in the 60s, 70s and 80s.  He lived across the street from me.  I didn't know him very well, but for one month, when I was 24, I had a month long affair with him.  He wound up breaking it off because he wasn't feeling good about himself.  At the time he said that I should be someone's sweetheart, but it was obvious he wasn't ready for something serious.  We continued to live on the same street for a couple of more years, which was awkward, but I didn't have any contact with him.  And so, I was surprised when he recently wanted to have contact with me again...but pleased, too.  Tom was and still is a musician and an actor, only now he teaches acting in the New York school system, has been happily married for over 20 years and has two talented daughters, both in college.  When I knew him, he was conflicted and, as he put it, "self loathing", but he bit the bullet and grew up into a well adjusted man.  He said that for 7 years he had a 9 to 5 job while his kids were young, but that after his mother died, he decided to return to music and acting and has been lucky enough to have a kind of freelance career going from school to school, doing what he loves.  So, in short, he is a real success story, especially for someone with artistic abilities.  

I learned all this about him through facebook emails, but, of course, I had to tell my story, which is not a success story, but a story of dysfunction, abuse and mental illness.  He did get to see and respond to some of my artwork and last week I gave him a link to the sample of my songs on the Soundclick site.  I listened to my CD from the 1990s again and that inspired me to continue working on some new songs.  I have an 8 track tascam portastudio which I bought a couple of years ago, but never learned how to use fully.  The reason for that was because after I had made up my CD for the first time in a decade and sent it out to several friends, I began having psychotic symptoms.  I thought the music was way better than it actually was and that I would hook up with other musicians and start a band or something, get noticed, etcetera.  Needless to say, that didn't happen.  My friends listened to my CD, enjoyed some of it and then put it aside, while I backed away from it.  In the last two years I have worked on a lot of new songs, but I never refined them, recorded them properly or shared them online.  When I thought of Tom listening to my music, I was excited at first because he is a songwriter and musician, but then I didn't hear from him and I started to come down to earth again and get practical.  I began to realize that my music is more for myself than for others, though I still have the desire to share some songs eventually online, but mainly with just a few friends.  

Tom did get back to me today and he said some very nice things about the music, but more to the point was that he had been busy with his own life, working, playing, teaching and performing.  I was pleased by his response and relieved because I didn't this time fall into psychotic symptoms even though I worked on and recorded two songs using my portastudio.  The songs I recorded didn't come out well, but I have to wake up and realize that making good music is not about instant gratification, it's about practice.  So I will slowly keep working on the music, switch off between that and my reading and writing.  

While looking for the owner's manual to the portastudio a couple of weeks ago, I came across some writing that I did in 2002 and 2005 that I hadn't remembered and began reading through it.  A lot of it was journal/ memoir related writing, but there was poetry and a couple of story fragments.  I was pleased with parts of it and want to type up sections and try to expand them into perhaps a chapter or a section of a chapter.  It is good to write and then put the writing aside for months, even years.  I may write about the same subjects over the months and years, but there's a fresh slant on each recollection and a deeper resonance.  A lot of creative work is just showing up and doing the work, but it is also reviewing, reflecting, re working the raw material.  Eventually your personality or voice shines through.  

I've also been thinking about getting back into craft work so that I can earn some money this year.  I'm going to learn how to make tie dyes.  I bought all the equipment for it a couple of years ago, but never went through with it, but now, with the downstairs done and providing a good work space, I want to try it.  And I want to make hemp jewelry and do some crocheting.  All this means that I have to shut the cats out of my work space, but it has to be done.  I've missed the craft work.  I used to do a lot of it while I was acutely psychotic and it was very therapeutic.  

Many thanks to everyone who has been posting comments lately.  I appreciate all of them.   Thanks for reading.   

Crossroads

I went out Wednesday to the dentist because one of my back teeth cracked in half and because I have infections on either side of my mouth.  I've had these infections off and on for several years.  For three years I wouldn't go to the dentist and deal with them.  That's very typical of people with mental illnesses, they don't get the help they need right away and put things off.  Sometimes such neglect leads to serious illness, even an early death.  So don't do as I have done.  This time, after my tooth cracked last Monday, I called the dentist without delay.  He gave me a prescription for antibiotics for 10 days and then I will return and he will remove my cracked tooth.  On the other side of my mouth, I need yet another root canal (I had one done last year along with other stuff), but he wants me to go to a specialist who is a 45 minute drive away.  I have to get my courage up to give the specialist a call and set up an appointment, though not until the weather gets a bit better.  The dentist said it was okay to wait a month and so I will.  For now, I have to chew on the left side of my mouth to avoid making the cracked tooth on my right side of my mouth any worse.  It's a bit awkward, but okay so far.  And I'm not in any pain, thank goodness.

Otherwise, I've been struggling with the usual:  moderate depression, bouts of anxiety, an increase of voices and isolation.  I'm not miserable, yet not quite content either.  I saw my psychiatrist last week and asked him if the voices will ever go away and he said no they wouldn't, unless some new drug gets created that eliminates them.  He said that he knows of several people as old as 90 who still hear voices, but who take their medication, get enough sleep, take care of themselves and are basically content.  He referred to them as "happy" psychotics.  I generally fall into this category, though as I said, sometimes I am not so content, but rather restless, down, anxious, etc...  Even so, there is enough good in my life that I don't get swallowed up by the negativity.  I also realize that we all struggle being alive, regardless of our level of mental health.

I can only afford to see my therapist every other week and this past week I saw her.  I told her that I was returning to working on my memoir, but that when I read through some older journals, my voices began to react against it and so I backed off and took a break from reading.  She warned me that I could return to acute psychosis despite the fact that I take the medications and go to therapy.  That woke me up a bit because I have somewhat taken for granted that I won't get really sick as long as I take care of myself, but taking care of myself also means not antagonizing the voices by doing things to create conflict within myself.  Still, I am stubborn; I feel the need to continue with the memoir, I just will go more slowly through the process.  Ironically the journals that upset me were not the ones from when I was deeply psychotic, but rather the ones from earlier on in my recovery when I was in school and caught inside a depression that almost made me drop out of school.  I kept returning to the theme of who the voices were and why they were here.  Some of that was interesting, but much of it was redundant.  I also blamed the voices for my unhappiness, which is something I no longer do.

It's a relief to not blame anyone or anything for my illness.  Part of why I don't is that I've come to see my illness as a part of a spiritual journey, thanks to Pema Chodron's view of Buddhism.  I know that most people who suffer from schizophrenia either see it as purely a biological illness, thus trying to distance themselves from their symptoms, or they are caught inside a resilient delusion of some sort that serves to explain the existence of the voices.  I believe that the illness has a biological basis, but I also believe that it is much more than that.  I believe that there are higher forces at work for all of us, but that those with schizophrenia are more conscious of the connection, for some reason unknown to me.  That is why in different cultures at different times in history those who we would now deem mentally ill were seen as shamans or healers with magical powers.  It's not an either/or equation.  It is not enough to say that we have a physical illness like diabetes that needs treatment, though this is true enough.  There is a rich psychological/spiritual element to the phenomenon of schizophrenia that I am not willing to ignore.  It's what gives meaning to my life.

But can I translate this perspective into a memoir?  I am at a crossroads.  I'm unable to narrow down my intent.  I have so much material to work with, years and years of journals and this past fall I began to seriously collect memories of my childhood and explore the facts of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents lives.  I know the process just takes time and that I must be patient.  And I know that when I get disturbed by some of what I find that I must back off for a few days or weeks and digest the new perspective.  But when I sat before my therapist and she said I might return to acute psychosis if I delved into my past, I almost believed her.  I'm convinced that part of the process of writing includes not only self questioning, but naturally, self doubt.  In order to be absolutely honest, I have to question my own assumptions, but I also have to rise above the doubts and press on, even if it takes me a decade to write one book.

Is it ambition or is it a desire to give succinct meaning to my experiences in life?  I think my desire to write a book is a desire to put a partial end to my isolation by opening my story up to other readers (if I'm fortunate enough to get published and read).  There are times when I have to count my blessings and not push it, but there are also times when it is healthy to give a little push here and there.  It is my psychiatrist and therapist's business to be cautious and many times I agree with them, but it is not a hard and fast rule.  There are no hard and fast rules in life because different situations and different people require different treatment.  The pain and beauty of life is trying to find that magical balance day to day.

Meditation: Letting Go Of Ambition

Krishnamurti, the Indian social critic and sage, says in the book Think On These Things that ambition breeds anxiety and "therefore ambition does not help to bring about a mind that is clear, simple, direct, and hence intelligent."  It is relatively recently that I've identified in myself the cyclical spurts of ambition.  I want to write a book and paint pictures and become a Buddhist.  I want to do something in order to be someone.  I don't see that in existing I already am someone.  In modern western culture we are asked at a young age, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I knew I wanted to be some sort of artist.  Here and there I have embraced that intention, but I never committed to it for the long haul.  And so I have judged myself as not living up to my potential.  This is a subtle form of aggression towards myself, one that I share with many other people who aspire to creative success.  Krishnamurti also has said, "Is not ambition an urge to avoid what is?....Why are we so frightened of our loneliness, of our emptiness?"  These questions bring me back to the Buddhist practice of sitting with my discomfort, of not running away into one of the many ambitious activities I lay out for myself each day.

I have been meditating, but I am a restless meditator.  The nature of meditation is to face and accept the eternal restlessness of our spirits, to keep coming back to the breath, to keep touching and letting go of thoughts.  I used to see meditation as relaxation, and when I practiced it in conjunction with yoga, it often was deeply relaxing.   Now I experience it as more than a relaxation technique.  When I sit on my meditation cushion I try to imagine myself as an eternal witness, a breathing Buddha statue.  At the same time I resist that stillness.  I scratch my nose; I look over at the clock; I shift my legs.  My natural tendency is to react when I feel any discomfort.  This tendency has a long history, as long as I've been alive, and so it is no wonder that I am a restless meditator.

The fundamental nature of mediation is discipline; it requires the ability to both concentrate and let go simultaneously.  That sounds like a contradiction, but anyone who has meditated knows that it is not.  You let go into concentration; the concentration in turn lets go of all those restless urges to interrupt concentration.  You have to make the decision to do that.  Without a commitment, you will be caught up again in thoughts and desires.

Ambition is all about thoughts and desires and thoughts and desires are all about how we see ourselves, about our egos.  Buddhists describe the ego as a fixed sense of self, an unchanging "I", but the very nature of life and self is change.  Ego is nothing but an illusion; there is really no fixed and solid self.  Who I am now is not who I was last year or who I was as a young adult, or youth, or child.  In some ways that saddens me, as in the loss of the resiliency and optimism of youth, and in other ways I am relieved, as in I am no longer caught in debilitating delusions and paranoia.  Moving on in life frees me and confines me.  I am free to choose my direction in life, but confined by all the choices I've made to get to this point, confined by my karma.  I can transform negative karma into positive karma through consistent effort, but I can't change past choices or how those choices affected those around me.  I can only work with the fluid process and personal awareness I call, for convenience sake, my "self".

I struggle with the illusion that I have a fixed self and that that fixed self has to get somewhere else and improve itself in the process.  This struggle, this restlessness is counter to the aim of meditation, which is to be here now, to accept self and circumstances exactly as they are.  When I settle into a good zone within the meditation process, I feel peace.  It is then that I experience my own personal dignity and worth.  It is then that I have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else.  No wonder Buddhist teachers continually stress the necessity of including meditation practice in one's life; the goal is to incorporate the practice into daily life activities that go beyond the traditional seated meditation.  Meditation then becomes not some temporary isolated activity, but a way of being.

It is my wish that my meditation practice will grow and deepen into just that.  If I can be mindful of my moments, I believe I can let go of the restless quality of my ambition to become something else and instead rest mostly content with just being.  The real reason why I love artistic creativity is that when I'm in it, it is meditation and so I will continue to write, to paint and to make up songs.  I would like to write a book, but I want to change my attitude about why I want to write a book.  I still hold on to the idea that if I create a book, it will validate my existence, that it will give my life the meaning it presently lacks, but this is a grave misconception.  My life has meaning; it is the process of being and creation that gives it meaning and not the end products.  I am more than what I create.  The reason for creating anything is not self validation, but to help and give pleasure, maybe understanding, to others and to deepen the sense of our interconnectedness.

A Couple Of Quick Portraits

I painted these two portraits yesterday using acrylic paints.  The top painting was done on a 11" x 14" canvas and is based on a photograph someone in my family took of my mother's mother (nana) when she was quite old.  The other portrait was done on a 10" x 10" canvas and is based on a photograph I got for free online.

I approached these two paintings differently.  In the painting of my nana I began with a canvas that I had recently done a primitive self portrait on.  The portrait was done vertically and so I turned it on its side to create a horizontal picture and began to draw with ultramarine blue paint over the previous painting.  This was a bit tricky, trying to create new shapes over old shapes, but it also forced me to paint more boldly.  In the second painting, I began with a new canvas and I drew the details of this girl's face with a pencil.  I painted thinly, barely covering the canvas.  The brush marks are therefore less obvious than in the first painting, though there are thin spots in that one as well.  Though I enjoyed painting both of these portraits, I respond more to the way the first painting was painted.  Using the paint to draw over an already covered surface means I go for approximate shapes and overemphasize them in a dark color, so that I can paint into them with a lighter color.  I did that with the eyes particularly.  This is something I learned in a 5 day a week figure oil painting class from an exacting and talented artist named Mary Beth McKenzie.

I think these two painting have different head sets.  The first one done in a painterly style and the second done in a design style.  The reason I respond to the first style a bit more is that I am not a careful designer, which is why I also like to paint abstract painting that are not carefully designed but more spontaneous.  Actually there is some careful designing within the spontaneity, pauses that make up intuition, but mostly it is me in action.  

I was watching a program that was on PBS called Art21 which is a series of documentaries on artists and one artist who caught my attention was a young woman who grew up in Pakistan.  She paints miniatures in a very old style, very traditional, but with modern accents in the subject matter, carefully constructed and political.  She is a design type painter, extremely precise and patient, and I admire her because I haven't painted that way and probably can't because it takes so many years of practice.  And yet, I have put in enough time painting over the years to apply the lessons I've learned through trial and error and this is still exciting to me.  The learning process is magical.  I felt the same way when I used to developed film photography prints in the darkroom watching the image materialize in the developer.

Untitled Acrylic Abstract Painting

I painted this 16" x 20" painting tonight.  It's been quite a while since I painted abstractly with acrylics.  This one came quickly.  I kept the palette simple.  After I had gotten a third of the way into the painting, I realized I needed a new perspective and so I pulled out a book of Kandinsky from my bookcase and opened it randomly here and there till I found a couple of paintings that I responded to.  I wanted to use bold, bright colors the way he did.  I appreciated how he varied his marks.  I let his visual voice wake me up a bit.  So he helped me to paint this painting.  I'm not sure what to call it.  I have to live with it, see what it looks like in daylight.

Bittersweet Success

Yesterday I was trying to write a blog entry about success, how to measure success when you have a serious mental illness.  I kept getting stuck and then negative.  What is success for many of us?  A loving partner, wonderful kids, a rewarding career?  How many attain all three at once?  I think some do, though the stories I've heard online and offline are that people struggle with their life situations.  People who live with chronic mental illness struggle even more.  I don't have or expect to have any of the three success elements, partner, kids or a career.  I've gotten past wanting a partner or a child and I don't want a career so much as regular, meaningful, creative work, but then I am almost 50 years old and not at the beginning of my life.  If I were in my 20s and into a recovery program, I might very well want to be with someone and have a successful career, maybe even a child.  I'd want to strive towards being normal and be able to see my progress, my successes.

I'm not normal, not even as a schizophrenia sufferer.  I am in the minority, but being abnormal is not being less of a human being.  I consider surviving a serious mental illness as a bittersweet success.  I am moderately proud to call myself a survivor, just as I am proud to associate online with others who have survived acute mental illness.  Too many of us don't.  And that is a measure of how hard the acute part of this illness is, hard enough to rob you of the will to continue living.  That schizophrenia strikes many in their youth and young adulthood allows for the resilience of youth to withstand psychological blows, but it is a time of great vulnerability.  It is a time when young individuals need guidance and direction, even if they don't have mental illness, but exponentially more when they do.

People measure success based on different things.  If you're young perhaps you want it all and if you're older perhaps you compromise.  Either way we need to work within our limitations.  If you're really suffering, take small steps.  Success for the day may be taking a bath or getting enough sleep or sticking to your schedule of taking your medications.  Generous thoughts and small actions do count for something.  Work with what you can handle because increasing levels of stress does act as a psychosis/anxiety/depression trigger.  Be kind to yourself and go gradually.  I'm saying this as much to myself as to you because I rush, looking for instant gratification.

In my mind I go back to the lingering after effects of psychological trauma.  I haven't heard this often, but I think people who have endured through acute psychosis naturally suffer from variations on PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) long after experiencing the trauma.  Trauma leaves deep scars, often buried in a kind of amnesia.  I remember thinking that what I was going through was like a daily psychic crucifixion and at the time I meant it, but now, years later, into a modest recovery, I can't feel it.  And yet I do feel myself shut way down whenever I hear people argue.  Even the hint of aggression and I'm back with my abusive boyfriend anticipating violence.  The other day my brother was giving an impassioned speech about the need for gun control, but I became threatened.  I stopped talking and I felt anxious.  But that's my normal response -- to shut down, blank out and get uptight.  It's just this time the thought about identifying it as PTSD came into my mind.

I guess one of my points is that schizophrenia is not just a youthful detour.  Anyone who's been through it knows that it is traumatic, but people handle the trauma in different ways.  Some get on the road to recovery right away and have access to several support systems, this support gives the needed guidance and direction, but it doesn't remove the trauma.  Not dealing with the truth of what has happened to you can be put off for a long time, but in some way it will block you from the success you want in life.  It's not always just about moving on and coping, not about doing things the "right" way and fitting in.  Sometimes you have to sit with yourself just as you are.

My bittersweet success is mainly the realization that acute insanity does not have to last forever, but what comes afterwards is still up to me to make or break.

Review Of The Film "Canvas"

"Canvas"(2006)  is a film written and directed by Joseph Greco starring Marcia Gay Harden as Mary, a wife and mother who suffers from schizophrenia.  The character is based on his own mother and the story is a re-creation of several months of his boyhood that he spent mostly with his father and at school.  Before she goes into the hospital, there are set-up scenes where she acts out in front of her family, the neighbors and the police which ultimately leads her into the hospital.  The reason the film is called "Canvas" is that the mother is a part time painter.

"Canvas" is a "nice" film, a family film that is more about a father and son's reaction to having their lives disrupted than about the interior life of a schizophrenia sufferer.  Visually it is pleasing as it is set in Miami near the ocean and the acting is good; it is the writing that leans towards the conventional.  By the time we see the small family, Mary has been diagnosed with schizophrenia for about 18 months and is only intermittently taking the medication.  Even when she does agree to take the medication later on in the hospital, she continues to hear voices and to act out during visits with her husband and son.  She paints when she's at home and she paints in the hospital saying that the voices go away when she does.  Considering it is early in her psychosis, at a time when the illness tends to be acute for many people, she paints pleasing "normal" paintings, portraits of her son and of the beach, that don't give even a glimpse into the turmoil in her mind.  Other than that she seems more eccentric than deeply insane, despite the  scenes of acting out.

From what I can remember of the acute stage of my own illness, I was deeply withdrawn from people.  I had great trouble concentrating when people did talk to me because the voices were so intense in my mind.  I couldn't watch TV or read or paint, though I did still do some journal writing.  When I was alone I talked aloud to my voices and to the people I believed had bugged my house and car, the people who followed me whenever I left the house and drove by my house regularly, sometimes beeping their horns to let me know.  Mary, in contrast, almost always makes eye contact, she paints, she cooks and from the state of their house, it looks as if she cleans too.  Yes, she appears to hear voices and is somewhat paranoid, but there is little indication of a deep disconnect with her surroundings, no extended monologues, talking to space, no disappearing for hours in the car, no obvious lack of self-grooming, no growing mess in the living space, no deep earnest confessions to family members of a conspiracy, no delusions of grandeur and no staying up in a manic state till the break of dawn, repeatedly.

When I got sick, I was alone.  Months later in desperation I called my parents in Florida and told them I was hearing voices that were telling me I was evil, then I went to a local hospital and had to convince them that I was in enough pain to warrant being checked into their psych ward.  My father arrived the next day and got me out, but only after I got the diagnosis of schizophrenia and a prescription for Prozac and Zyprexa.  My parents lives were disrupted for two months.  The first month my father stayed with me and the second month my mother stayed with me; my brother was living in another state.  Mostly my family didn't have to deal with seeing me out of my mind, but Mr. Greco, the director of "Canvas", must have seen his mother day after day in all kinds of states.  Obviously, the experience affected him or he would have never written the screenplay or directed the film.  It is unfortunate that he wasn't able to go more deeply into the experience.  Being alone and suffering from schizophrenia is hard enough, I can't imagine what it would have been like to be both a mother and a wife at the same time.  In the film I get the point that the father and son were upset by it, but there is no real going inside their minds either, it all too much on the surface.

I know it is a challenge to try and visually describe severe mental illness precisely because it is so much on the inside of an individual.  I'm also aware that making a film like this is a business venture and that the director probably had to please other people with his treatment of the story, but the film could have been much better.  The actors, Marcia Gay Harden and Joe Pantoliano, who played the mother and father, are good actors and could have been pushed further into their roles.  The son, played by Devon Gearhart, is a cute and likable actor, but cute and likable is not what's called for here.  The subtle bond between mother and son, and the mother's break with reality and with her son, is not realized, except in a conventional way.  Obviously, I am not a big fan of the conventional and safe, especially when it comes to depictions of mental illness because mental illness itself is not conventional and safe.  Mental illness is challenging to experience and to describe.  Still, this film could be a stepping stone in the right direction.  It does portray the mother as a sensitive and suffering individual and not some deranged monster, and so it puts a human face on a complicated illness.  I guess what I'm looking for is an insider's view of mental illness, or at least a close consultation between a "sane" writer and director and someone who has survived mental illness and is in recovery from it.  "Canvas" is not a bad film, it's just not a great film either.  You can judge for yourself by watching it for free on Hulu (with commercials) here.

The Need For Mental Health Support Groups Is As Strong As Ever

I just listened to a 50+ minute National Public Radio show hosted by Diane Rehm on January 11th.  You can find the web page and audio link here.  The topic of the show was called "Serious Psychiatric Disorders Among Young Adults" and was aired in response to the January 8th shooting by Jared Loughner in Arizona.  For the past week I've been avoiding listening to or reading news reports about the shooting, but then I read Jen's Blog today and that got me thinking about the lack of basic services in this country for the mentally ill.  There's no doubt in my mind that anyone who wields an automatic weapon and fires on innocent and defenseless people is mentally ill.  I still believe that violence is a form of mental illness in anyone, but we live in a culture that defends certain forms of violence particularly by police officers and soldiers.  And I bet if we could get inside Jared Loughner's mind, we would hear similar justifications about why he resorted to violence.  But aside from some people's fixation on the right to bear arms in the United States, the real issue here is not only the need for gun control, but the need for a vast improvement in mental healthcare services in communities both large and small all across the country.

There has been massive deinstitutionalization of mental patients since the 1960s, the result being that many of those patients became either homeless or put in prison.  What was needed then and still is needed some 40 years later is a functioning community service system for outpatients which includes access to medications, housing, therapy and local mental health support groups.  Of all those things, the one thing that doesn't require much money is support groups, preferable groups for families and friends of the mentally ill and and groups for the mentally ill themselves.  Advocacy groups for and by the mentally ill like NAMI are doing a good job in creating a weekly 90 minutes peer led support group in some places, the problem is that there is both an application and approval process and a 3 day training program that must be gone through before a group can start under the auspices of the NAMI organization.  Unfortunately, the training programs are relatively few for the size of this country.  In my state of New York this past year were only about two.  NAMI is an important organization, but it is not large enough to supply the services that are needed, particularly in rural communities.  I believe that there should be other organizations that focus specifically on cultivating the wide spread of mental health support groups.

I have stressed the importance of support groups before and have even dreamed of starting a group in my town, but on my own and without help from others I am not strong enough to get the job done.  Initially there is the need for a couple of highly motivated people in the community to set up two groups, one for the family and friends and one for the afflicted.  These people need to be either mentally healthy or firmly in recovery, able to show up to the meeting place each week, rain or shine, regardless of whether anyone else shows up.  I base this idea on the Al-Anon group I used to go to where there were two to three people who showed up each and every week.  Their dedication made the group viable and welcoming.  And though I have never had a sponsor, I think sponsorship should be encouraged in mental health meetings that have people who are grounded in recovery and willing to guide a member who is less far along.  This is just common sense.  I also believe that every college out there should have at least one mental health support group organized by the counseling center or the students themselves.  The university in my town gave up on a group a few years back because no one was showing up.  To my mind that is not a good enough reason to stop.  The founder of the Al-Anon group I mentioned showed up consistently for months before a few people started to show.  A meeting place, preferably two people and consistency are key.  That should be doable, especially in a college.

It's so obvious to me now that those with schizophrenia go through definite stages, a "normal" stage, a pre-psychotic stage, an acute psychotic stage and, for those who survive the acute stage, a recovery stage which can be broken down into various other stages from mild recovery to strong recovery.  Those in the pre-psychotic stage or prodromal phase might get the help they need very early if family and friends and teachers, etc... are perceptive enough to notice and remark on certain behavioral changes.  I lived in an extended prodromal stage from my mid 20s to my mid 30s.  I was socially isolated.  I didn't get a job or leave home and I heard occasional voices which I didn't discuss with anyone.  By the time I was 27 I was in a relationship with an abusive, addicted and mentally ill partner.  It was only then that I began to admit that I was mentally ill.  It took three years out of that relationship before I showed signs of being delusional and paranoid.

The problem with the early stages of the acute phase of psychosis is that some of us are not ready to accept the label of schizophrenia and others aren't able to admit that they are ill, but it is then that an intervention can really do some good.  Jared Loughner acted out enough in school and in his YouTube video to warrant an early intervention, but the people in his life didn't take action soon enough to prevent him from acting out with an automatic weapon.  The people in my life didn't take action either, though, in retrospect, I wish they had; it might have led me into treatment much earlier, might have kept me from getting involved with an abusive person, might even have averted the suffering of acute psychosis altogether.  As it stands, I wasted a chunk of my young adulthood, hurt my partner by accepting his abuse, and endured a lot of psychotic pain.  Like most of the mentally ill, I didn't become violent, but I know that if the circumstances had been a bit different, I could have.

The hard part for all of us is taking responsibility for ourselves and each other.  I think that when people act badly, it is because they feel badly.  So the loud, obnoxious, abusive people in this world don't need to be dismissed or put in jail, they need to be taken care of.  Suffering is expressed in all sorts of ways.  If violence was seen as mental illness, Jared would have been treated a long time ago.

Good Day

     

                                                                    
A couple of photographs from the Christmas holiday at my parents' apartment...


The portrait of Pema is only moderately good because it's the first portrait I've painted in months if not a year.  I painted it before I visited my parents in Florida and have it hanging on my living room wall behind my couch where I can see her when I meditate.

Today was a good day because last night was a good night, but before last night I was feeling that shut down isolated feeling.  I've been staying home due to the snowy weather for over a week now with no contact with other human beings.  Why was last night good?  Simply because I allowed myself to enjoy an episode of Saturday Night Live from December 1975 (with Richard Pryor and Gil Scott-Heron as musical guest) and to enjoy an old 1940 black and white film of Pride and Prejudice.  Why was this special?  Don't most people watch TV and DVDs?  Probably, but not me.  I haven't had satellite TV for maybe a couple of years now and I don't often watch DVDs though I like to.  I don't often watch DVDs, though I have access to many of them through my brother who is a collector, because I become anxious when I have to choose something to watch.  I get overwhelmed by the choices and worry that such and such a DVD will be too violent or negative for me to watch.  I also feel guilty about just relaxing and enjoying myself.  Lately, most of what I've been doing is studying Buddhist books and audiobooks, taking notes, reflecting, trying to meditate.  I enjoy doing that, but it's all a bit serious and I start to worry that I'm not a good enough person because I'm not helping enough people.

Pema Chodron has said that the greatest obstacle for Westerners on the Buddhist path is self-denigration or, in other words, putting yourself down.  I don't mean to do that, but ultimately I do.  Last night after I watched the DVDs I felt some liberation from my isolation, if only vicariously from watching other human beings acting.  I realized that I had given myself permission to be happy in a way that I hadn't done all week long.  In fact, I have unwittingly told myself that I have to be and act a certain way before I can be happy.  I've said to myself that I have to be a deeply compassionate person who helps others, a sort of bodhisattva in training before I can enjoy the fruits of my altruism.  Now, almost by chance, I am coming to understand that I should strive to always enjoy my life, through thick and thin, and that in enjoying this precious life I can become of more benefit to myself and others.

Buddhist teachers regularly say that all human beings have one thing in common -- they all want to be happy.  Pema Chodron's main teacher Chogyam Trungpa first taught that the basis for having compassion for others is to first practice deeply lovingkindness towards yourself.  It's taken me a while to get to this point, to just see that it is okay to pursue my own happiness each day and that the happier that I am, the more of a benefit I can be to others in the long run.  I have thought before that I am very fortunate.  I have food and shelter and a loving family, a few friends and a bunch of cats and a wide range of creative activities to partake of -- art, music, books, writing, etc...  

Studying Buddhism has put my life in a better perspective.  I feel more able to accept myself in my small capacity to do good.  When I was acutely ill I was under the delusional perspective that I was some special person.  Once I entered recovery that feeling that I had to be some special person lingered if only unconsciously.  I've had thoughts more recently that I should aspire to be a Buddhist nun, a bodhisattva.  Before that I thought I would become a published writer.  Before that I thought I was supposed to be a paid artist.  Before that some kind of famous singer-songwriter.  But the reality is that I am almost 50 years old and I am not meant to be particularly accomplished at anything.  This is a relief; it takes the pressure off me to be who I am, a small piece in a large and complex puzzle.  I am grateful that I am not special because if I were I wouldn't be able to handle the attention and pressure I would receive.  I am also in very good company with most of the rest of humanity.

But the delusional feeling that I need to be special can creep back into me and so I remain vigilant, more vigilant now than I have been in the past.  My new focus is to do what makes me happy and stop anxiously censoring my activities.  New mantra = have fun Kate.  There have been stories of angels who have become human and who savor each moment with all of their senses. I'd like to be like them, rejoicing in what's good. There is so much misery in the world, but with the right focus I can lessen that misery by becoming a happy person and encouraging others to do the same.  The trick is to count your blessings, especially during the tougher times.  The other trick is to rejoice when things are going well.  Today things went well because I've had a shift in my overall perspective.

Blizzard At JFK Airport

Life is precious and hence my flight to return home was cancelled at the last minute while our plane with all of us in it taxied on the runway.  The airport was closed.  We were told that we could get our luggage at the baggage claim area and then we would have to find an active service counter and try to re-book a flight out of there.

For the previous few days I had been tracking on the Weather Channel the winter storm that was working its way towards nearly the whole of the Eastern Atlantic coastline.  The first report I heard said the storm might hit right along the coast, but the next report said it might just miss the coast and move off into the Atlantic.  The night before I was to leave the Florida Gulf the more definitive report was that the storm had been upgraded to a blizzard and that it would hit the southern coast in the morning and then work its way up the coast towards New England by afternoon.  My flight to the JFK airport in New York City was scheduled to leave at 7:20 am and meant to arrive by 10 am in New York.  I woke up at 4:15 am hoping that getting up that early would also mean that I might just miss the blizzard and that once at JFK I could get my connecting flight at 1:25 pm to Rochester where the weather was not supposed to be as bad.  My friend Richard was even going to pick me up and drive me home.

I flew up to New York on the an airline called JetBlue.  They boast of having more legroom (which they do) and access to Direct satellite TV for each seat.  I watched the progress of the storm once again on the Weather Channel, still hopeful that I would get home by nightfall.  The weather was calm at JFK at 10 am.  My next flight was still scheduled to be on time.  Unfortunately, the flight kept getting delayed and I wound up kicked off a cancelled flight standing at gate 8 of the JetBlue terminal feeling helpless.  It was after 5 pm, I was tired and a bit hungry and had no desire to get on a line to rebook a flight that might not be leaving for at least one full day if not longer.  I decided to get my luggage, one blue and white floral pattern L.L. Bean duffle bag, not easy to miss.  The problem was that I would have to leave the main terminal.  I half realized this wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know what else to do, so I crossed the security line and headed for the carousels.  That alone was a big mistake; I wouldn't get back inside the main terminal till the following day.  

The baggage claim area was chaotic because we all were clueless trying to act as if we still had a clue.  I discovered soon that the baggage was being indiscriminately thrown onto any carousel and there were at least six of them with two operating.  This meant that you couldn't park yourself at just one specific carousel and wait patiently (or impatiently) till your luggage turned up, but instead had to move restlessly from one to another across a large and chilly room crowded with people old to very young.  The reason the room was chilly was because there were three very large spinning doorways with people going in and out either to smoke a cigarette or look desperately for a taxi or just to watch the progress of the blizzard.  I had no desire to do any of those things and once I got my bag I headed for a corner wall where I could sit down as I had been standing for an hour or so.

I saw that other people those with families or couples or people like myself who were on their own were finding their spots and taking a break till they could figure out what to do.  Many people were on their cell phones either talking to friends and family or trying to contact JetBlue to rebook a flight.  I wasn't ready yet to call my family.  I was continuing to feel vulnerable and disoriented...and hungry.  The only thing I had to eat were six small cake-like treats that my mother had given to me the night before.  Not the best food, but I ate them. I had spotted in the middle of the room on the side of the spinning doors one lone small Dunkin Donuts with a very small store selling water, drinks, chips and candies and other not very nutritious stuff along with large cups of coffee or hot chocolate.  The problem for me was that I was alone and couldn't leave my duffel bag with anyone.  I also had a fairly full messenger bag and a small camera bag with my digital camera in it.  Around my neck hung a wallet to hold my passport and some money and also my iPod in its padded little case.

I called my family in Florida.  My father and brother wanted me to take the subway into the City and get a hotel room in Greenwich Village somewhere.  They said I might not get a plane out for anywhere from two to four days.  I knew right away that I was NOT going to do that.  I was disoriented enough and didn't need to get lost in a blizzard in the City with no boots, gloves, hat or coat and carrying a heavy bag with no wheels on it.  At least at the airport there was shelter and some heat (though not a whole helluvalot I found as the night progressed in the baggage claim area), clean and fairly empty toilets, access to water and a tiny bit of food, but more importantly I would have much closer access to eventually getting out of the airport on a moment's notice if a seat opened up in stand-by.

My father reminded me on the phone to not neglect to take my pills and really I needed that little nudge and I did get some water and take my pills.  Then I went up one level to the ticket counter for JetBlue and waited online for a hour and a half.  It was 9 pm on Sunday.  The man behind the desk said that he could reserve a flight for me leaving on Tuesday at 7:59 pm.  Most people were talking to their particular airline representative for a chunk of time, but I didn't know what to say, except that I wanted to get inside the terminal again where there was proper heat and the hope of eating a hot meal.  I didn't complain and I was sympathetic to his plight (hundreds of disgruntled customers to take care of).  He didn't give me a boarding pass, just an itinerary ticket which might be able to get me a boarding pass in the future.  As I walked away from him, he took pity on me and said there might be a stand-by spot on a plane that was supposed to leave the next afternoon and to show up here again tomorrow.

I headed back downstairs and picked a spot where I had access to an outlet and watched over my cell phone as it charged for an hour next to a man who was lying on the floor covered up with two small Yorkshire dogs cuddled next to him for warmth.  He was using the other outlet to charge one of his gadgets.  There was an Hispanic woman sitting near me shivering and holding onto her stacked luggage with wheels.  She didn't make eye contact with me and talked only to another Hispanic couple, but it was obvious that she was cold and I heard her say the word "frio".   I opened my duffle bag and pulled out a long, large, black knit cardigan sweater that I had just gotten in a thrift store in Florida for $5 and decided to give it to her, which I did.  Later, as I lay down on the floor and covered myself up with my fleece and rain jacket to try to get some sleep, she attempted to return the sweater.  It was obvious she didn't speak much English, but I made my point that she could keep it if she wanted to.  She thanked me and moved off.  I felt good that I was there to be of some minor use.

To make a long story short, after shivering myself, and wandering and getting some fitfull sleep, after drinking a large cup of coffee, eating a little candy and talking to a mother guarding her sleeping son, I got through the night and into the morning and back up to the ticket counter.  I learned that only people with a ticket and carryon luggage could get into the inner sanctum of the terminal.  I was willing to wait another day and a half to get on the Tuesday evening flight out of there, if I could get inside and feel the heat and eat a meal.  The African American man behind the counter was polite and articulate and responded to me being polite and sympathetic, if not so articulate.  He sympathized with me and managed to get me a ticket and said I could take my duffel bag as carry on luggage, it happened to be small enough.  This man was clever, he gave me a ticket to a flight that he knew was or would be cancelled and had me keep the itinerary ticket to get me on the later flight.  This is the ticket that got me through security and into the terminal proper.

The first thing I did was get a hot meal.  As luck would have it I didn't even have to pay for it because the stores' computers were down for 5-10 minutes and the person in charge let the four of us on line take the food instead of awkwardly standing on line holding all of our parcels and bags.  I was very tired and I tried to eat slowly and savor the food and get my energy back to keep on keeping on.  The airport was closed and it nearly looked it -- not a lot of people and only a couple of food/convenience stores open.  I was very lucky to have gotten that far.  I stayed there overnight and then the next morning got booked on a flight that was supposed to leave at 9:30 am.  Almost 12 hours earlier than the other flight I had been placed on.  This time I got a boarding pass with a seat assignment.  The flight, which changed gates three times, began boarding at noon and left at one or one thirty.  I got to Rochester at around 3 pm where I called my family and also Richard.  I would get home by 6 pm.  Once my seven cats were all accounted for to my great pleasure, I called my family one last time to say that my ordeal was finally over.  I had been mostly awake for about 62 hours and had just run out of my bedtime anti-psychotic medication.  I went to sleep anyway.

I'm grateful that I was safe from harm, that I had my family and Richard to talk to, that I endured without complaining,  that I got to talk to several people in the airport and that I got home.  This experience taught me a tiny bit of what it would be like to be homeless -- the wandering from place to place, to where bathrooms and water fountains were, to where outlets were, to where food was, to where shelter and heat were, having to guard your stuff, catching a little sleep here and there on the floor or ground, talking to other people who were also homeless,  perpetually waiting for something good to happen but feeling tired and almost resigned, living in twilight world, never at home, always a not quite welcome guest.  So tired, so sad.  In limbo.  And without proper facilities to shower and brush your teeth, to have that luxury we call privacy for 10 to 15 minutes, you will begin to be identifiable by smell as well as sight branding yourself as one of the walking wounded, homeless and quite possibly mentally ill.  For who remains sane without proper sleep and nutrition, living in continual stress in order just to survive?  I'm grateful I was given this window into the lives of the homeless because it has made me appreciate humanity all the more, into the sheer endurance and flexibility of the human spirit.  I was also pleased to note that most people behaved very well considering they were stranded.  We all knew that we were strangely united by the blizzard raging outside and that we would have to wait together in peace.  And we did.

I saw nothing that would make me say that we were all just a bunch of sinners getting what we deserved; there were no shouts, no aggression, very little bad behavior at all.  As far as I could see, there was a lot of Buddha Nature being passed about within us and between us.

In a few hours it will be the first of January, 2011.  I'm going to think of all those people (including the elderly and children of all ages) who are stranded in airports around the world or homeless and cold at the stroke of midnight.  I'm going to be wishing them the best new year of their lives because they deserve it just as much, if not more than, the rest of us.  No, really, we all deserve a happy new year.

Happy New Year Everyone!