And Finally...

Final Prompts from HWAMC:

 You made it! 30 posts in 30 days! Today, write a recap of your experience. What was your favorite prompt? Least favorite? What have you learned?
 Describe your HAWMC experience in one word!

Recap: April has been an extremely transitional and often uncomfortable month. I transitioned away from two months of dog-sitting in a comfortable, large, somewhat remote home. My grandmother, who is very important to me, died--age 93 and ailing, but suddenly nonetheless--and I found myself dropping everything, including an enormous amount of money, and flying to Israel. Then I returned to AK, spent less than two weeks alone in the water-less cabin that has been my home for several years and is no longer, and thence out to Athens, GA, where I am now. Even without the extra trip provided by those few days off my meds, the month has been a whirligig of displacement, recollection, keen emotion, and uncertainty for the future. Nonetheless, there have been some glimmers of optimism toward that future also. 

Additionally, I finally got my own domain and started this wordpress blog, as I'd been talking about doing for about two years, thinking I'd have time this month to learn/teach myself how to do all sorts of things to make it just how I wanted it, as well as migrating the original blog over here.

Was I crazy? I don't even have my blogroll in my dashboard, let alone the comments set up, such a big reason for me to move... -- But therein lies much of what I've learned in this month. Life is full of ironies, and:

• No matter how pretty or not-pretty it looks, the blog comes with me everywhere.
• Sometimes having a prompt helped get me to write a post even when the day was basically over; other times the prompt was a turn-off to my creativity.
• Paradoxically, I think I may have lost readers during this process. I don't think anyone has come over to my blog from HAWMC either. Paradoxically, I'm not feeling too hurt right now. As I breathe life into this new blog, I draw on my new sensitivity to and understanding of audience/readership and feel I'm honing it even when I suspect no one's reading at all and 24 out of the 24 comments I receive are spam trying to make my nonexistent readers buy sunglasses, solar panels, or penises.
• Despite being a constant companion, my blog hasn't taken over my life, not remotely. But I think I only skipped one day the whole month, this past Sunday, despite all that long-haul travel.
• I'm learning how to talk frankly and openly about having bipolar disorder and beginning to recognize that if I am willing to be frank and open, my eloquence as a writer may turn out helpful to others. May turn out to be helpful to me, too!
• I'm (back) in the "Well, I don't really have anorexia" frame of mind. Do you think I do?

Prompts: I liked the "day to day" prompt because of how it invited us to look at our conditions integrated into the rest of the world and life, as they in fact are. Adversity the day before got me going, so perhaps I liked it in that sense. I didn't like the prompts about social media and making compilations of those. I'm simply too ignorant.

The HAWMC experience in one word? Sidewinder.

Huzzahs and Back Slaps; My Trifecta of Talents (?!)

HAWMC Day 29 Prompt: Congratulations!

We all know Health Activists are awesome. Share three things you love about yourself, things you’re great at, or just want to share. Don’t undercut or signpost!

I just slipped up and failed to produce a post at all yesterday, because I stayed up working instead. The night before, I had to leave my post unfinished because i was asleep. To be fair, I had just flown to Georgia overnight (hey from GA, btw!) and had brought work with me and worked late.

Then I slipped up again. I determined almost a month ago that I need to give my body a break from chocolate. When it goes in my body, it's only producing compulsive, out-of-control feelings as well as self-destructive urges and physical discomfort. This happens every now and then with chocolate, I know it, and the solution is simple. Don't eat any chocolate for a couple months, dummy! So, what did I do this evening? Ate the small remaining amount of chocolate I'd self-sabotagingly brought with me, having eaten the rest of it previously. Yes I know I was running a cal. deficit, which made me vulnerable to the chocolate siren (what an image that is). But it's hard for me to forgive myself when I do that.

And having failed as a blogger and as a self-disciplined restricter, I'm supposed to toot my own horn? Where are the beans???

Well, nonetheless, I'm always game. Okay, three things I love about myself, am great at, or just want to share. (That last one's a cop-out, isn't it?)

1) Today was my first day interning at the Georgia Review and I loved it like it's what I'm meant to do. I spent the day looking at manuscripts that had been submitting for consideration at this wonderful literary journal. I got to see what kinds of things were getting submitted and also what kind of reader I am in this context. I love it. I'm excited for the next two weeks; I can already imagine I won't want to leave!

2) I am so grateful that I'm such a great traveler. My psychiatrist said it's probably one of the only good effects of being bipolar. I hadn't made the connection but I'm sure she's right (except "only" seems pessimistic). I don't get jetlag. Yes I'm anxious by nature, but usually when something goes wrong on a flight I'm the one turning it to funny or reassuring other passengers. One time a flight from Amsterdam to Athens, Greece, was delayed when we were all on the plane already, and a lot of Greek passengers were panicking and others were going in the toilet to smoke and the poor Dutch air stewards were wringing their hands. I ended up interpreting--the Dutch folks couldn't speak Greek and the Greeks couldn't speak English, but I could speak Greek and the Dutch ladies could speak English...and we worked it out. 

And actually that last anecdote is 3) I am so grateful that I love languages so much; that even at times in my life when I haven't played with language as much, it's been there for me. Nowadays, I'm even more grateful that I'm taking lithium, so that I can know there is a felt world beyond language. Until then, language and words were all there were for me, they held the place of parseable emotion. Now, the world is velvet-richer.

Dear readers, please tell me your three!

Pain-Free Pass

--What’s a day that you wish you could have used a pain-free pass (either in the future or the past)? How would being pain or worry-free impact that day?

This is going to be another quick post, as I'm about to get on a plane.

I'm just going to say it, having given very little attention to this issue for almost the entire month of health advocacy posts.

Anyone who's talked to me since I got back from Israel will have heard about how beautiful, fresh, delicious the food was; what a contrast the catered meal at the end of the mourning week was from what an American catered meal would have been like...on an outing to a small village, we went to a falafel joint and I was expecting just to eat my packed snacks, but no, they had made a special point to have gluten free falafel.

So I had to eat falafel.

And therein lies the pain. I don't mind so much about the falafel day, but the evening on the last day of the Shiva, honoring my grandmother who honored everyone she came into contact with through her beautiful food preparations, I would have liked a pain-free pass from the constant agony, misery, concern and preoccupation around food.

These recent days I've been denying I even have an eating disorder anymore. I've got 'em persuaded my weight is where they want it to be, I'm feeling fairly okay with how I am physically most days, I'm eating three meals a day and sometimes snacks; I'm motivated not to be completely dead of starvation while I have so many things I want to show up for. But underneath it all, there is so much agony. Physical too, more often than I'd like.

These ten days between Israel and the plane that's boarding right now, I had a good rhythm and was feeling much more balance around the food thing. But I was alone almost every meal, in control of my environment. What about the next three weeks?

OK, I have to get on the plane.

Pickin Back up, Starting slow....

See also at :http://ulteriorharmony.org/?p=153

So I dropped a post. I said Pinterest Schminterest and made my Wordless Wednesday also an absent/retreated Wednesday. Also a driving day with an early departure. I got less than an hour of sleep Tuesday night, so I kept the promise that I would sleep, but just barely.

I forgave myself for missing a post, outrageous as it seemed--why couldn't I just stay up another hour and knock one out, after a day on the road with two intense appointments and the usual intensity of the big town. Tomorrow i leave for Athens, Georgia. So much to look forward to about being there, so many unknowns. We'll see how well I manage to keep in touch from over there. my intentions are good.

And since it's already the next day, can we please indulge me and pretend  it's still Thursday? Time is fluid, right? This time tomorrow, having lost four hours, I'll be just about to land in Atlanta. Sleep, girl, no??

Today's prompt:

Share something you learned from another Health Activist (that everyone should know!).

 Share something you’d like to teach other Health Activists.

Something everyone should know, as expressed by  Health Activist---I'm going to go with something I've heard over and over again from different people. Namely, if someone has a chronic health condition, managing that condition should be considered as a member of the set of things s/he must pay attention to every day, making sure basic needs are met to function well, evaluating whether this is a good or a bad day and if the latter what to do to help it. Being a good Health Activist is very difficult when you're beaten down and depleted yourself.

Something (else) I'd like to teach Health Activists. I'd love to be able to teach Health Activist an attitude of nonjudgment around different ways people get help. My excursions off my meds are generally responses to a sense of being judged for taking them. I've seen medical literature absolutely scoff at the idea of someone deriving significant effects from herbs or homeopathy.

I am literally falling asleep as I type this, and should try to get at least three or four hours here, before I have to finally be finished packing already!

Much love,,,

Needing Some Extra Prompting...

Today's Prompt:

“I wish this gizmo could track my condition!” Write about which device, application, program, etc. you wish helped to track your health.

When I first saw this prompt, I couldn't imagine what I might write about it. All I could think about was that just like blind and deaf people sometimes have service dogs, some epileptics have a service dog that can sense if they're about to have a seizure and prompt them to get to somewhere safe. All I could think was that I should have something like that too. Well, as we tick-tock past midnight even here in the far far west, I'm going to run with that idea. The mood-stabilizing meds I take were even developed originally as anti-seizure meds, and funny Dr L. at Foie Gras Farm thinks bipolar--and other conditions too--are really seizures, as mentioned before.

And it turns out I received two indicators today that I really could use some sort of seeing-eye dog gizmo--on my phone, on which I rely a fair amount, or somehow implanted in my psyche. I received two messages today that I need some better moment-to-moment oversight and reality check. Namely, I had negative feedback on my work from two different employers today, both of them on work I'd done precisely when I was off my meds last week.

The translation job was no big deal, not really about quality of work. Translators submit work done in batches, and I had accidentally submitted several entries I hadn't actually done. So those got sent back to me, I translated them, submitted them, and all was well. But it was still a boo-boo.

Worse was my editing work, where I had missed some stuff I'm paid to notice and fix. Which then reminded me of a mistake I'd made in another document as well. It's extremely important to me to be meticulous with my editing, both because it's extremely important to me that my client have a flawless product and (obviously) for my own self-esteem and sense of worth. It's not okay that I provide a service that's inferior in quality. What makes it even worse is that this particular editing is work I'm subcontracting for a friend. Working for a friend, having a 'boss-employee' relationship superimposed on a 'friends' relationship, is an act of faith and courage for both of us. When I fall short of my high self-imposed standards, I'm letting down a friend as well as a boss. When my friend, who is extraordinarily good at what she does and also has extremely high precision standards, receives substandard work from me, she has to avoid judging me as a person as well as an employer. Thankfully, my friend is one of the best people I've ever known at compartmentalizing, but I still have the fear of showing up in a bad light.

What should I have done? Should I just have not worked while I was crazy? I'd have had the long journey as excuse, even though everyone knows I don't get jetlag and am a phenomenally good traveler. Obviously, I should have stayed on my meds. 

As I've been gathering together my things for my semi-long trip to GA coming up so soon now, I found in a drawer a sticky note from my naturopath from years ago reminding me that everyone with bipolar decides to go off their meds and that it's a bad idea. So, some sort of seeing-eye dog that forces on my awareness the content of my naturopath's note and follows through on it. And then if I still go off them, or if I have an episode even when I'm on them (as happens), this gizmo, this virtual seeing-eye dog, will remove me to a safe place, away from old beat-up vehicles, sharp knives, work I won't be able to do to my standards, and other dangerous objects.

Source: http://www.myaudioschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/FLS-Drop-of-Water-falling-from-a-piece-of-ice-photo-released-to-public-domain-by-its-creator-Jonas-Bergsten.jpg

So, how about some context and compassion? I am leaving tomorrow at 7am. I'll be in Anchorage for two days, floating around, and then will fly to GA for three weeks plus. When I get back here, I'm moving. So I've been tidying, gathering, consolidating, packing, shopping...and also had a therapy appointment, a meeting, and several important errands. Additionally, I've been working on two editing jobs, one in MLA, one in APA, two different computers going. It's been crazy. I have done so well not melting down. I have done so much today and am not done yet. I may make one or two mistakes I wouldn't normally make in my editing, although I cringe to think that. I will do my best. And at 6 tomorrow morning--this morning by now--I will have had some sleep, and I won't have more than twenty minutes of stuff to do before I'm out the door and on the road. Don't I deserve some compassion? And a sensing gizmo?

Celebrating Everyday Precarity

 Write about something ordinary that’s inspiring to you, something simple, perhaps overlooked,

that fuels your activism.

Today’s prompt was recommended by Abigail of http://hiddencourage.wordpress.com/

Something simple and everyday that's inspiring to me...something most of us, well or sick, handle almost every day...something that flows; ebbs, too...something many of us worry about inordinately...Today I'm going to take a brave step (yes, I say so myself) and give thanks for something I'm about to step into huge uncertainty and precarity around: MONEY, and specifically HEALTH INSURANCE!

I've never been close to wealthy; in fact, in Hawaii I lived on next to nothing for a few years. And yet, no matter how much I've felt precarious and fearful, I have always been provided for. This, I know. Of this, I remind myself when I feel like the bottom has dropped out.

When it comes to healthcare, I am so grateful I have been provided for. I am sad that healthcare in this country is so monetized--perhaps one of these prompts will get me started on the sickening, sometimes life-destroying monetization of eating disorder treatment centers; the callous, sometimes warningless spot decisions of insurance companies who couldn't see the patient at all... (okay, I just deleted a bunch there for a different post, was starting to get heated about something other than my theme for today.)

As I prepare to leave for my next trip and make gestures toward tidying up this cabin, today I went through a pile of health insurance paperwork Phil had left out for me to check. Various appointments, hospitalizations, ER visits, all the way back to last Fall. Some of the figures made my eyes ache. They simply didn't mean anything in the context of people's lives. Especially non-wealthy people's lives, and people with mental health conditions are often not wealthy. There were two health insurance company decisions I need to query and one bill that needed paying; otherwise, these tremendous sums were taken care of!

This reminds me both to feel immense gratitude and to advocate for healthcare for everyone. No one should have to worry about the bill when she comes out of a psychotic episode; no one should have to drop therapy sessions because his insurance decided he doesn't need it. No one should have to pick what meds they take based on whether there's a generic or not.

And here I am, about to lose health insurance within a few months as our marriage (through which I'm insured) dissolves. My mom said yesterday that it would be a different matter if I could just "pull out of all this" and not need the insurance. Yes, wouldn't that be lovely? When I pointed out that my previous attempts to do that had not worked out well, she agreed.

Yes, I have felt, will feel, scared, worried, frightened about this. Precarious. Do you know what precarious means at its root? It means a situation that merits praying over. So, I choose to surrender, pray, trust I will continue to be taken care of, that getting my meds and other healthcare taken care of is part of the magic that comes from outside the dominant paradigm into which healthcare is dragged.

Am I crazy? What do you think?

Don't Believe What They Say About Adversity! --HAWMC #21

Also at http://ulteriorharmony.org/?p=135

Today’s Prompt:

• “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” – Mulan. True or false? When do you bloom best?

The tree is dead, but life blooms from its demise, still in the grip of winter.

Well, I could go all analytical on this statement and its logically possible interpretations, like I always do. An oasis in the desert seems so much more beautiful than it would in the middle of humid country. What's rare is special. This is both about our achievements and about the sort of environments it behoves us to seek out. A flower in adversity is especially beautiful because it's rare--a perfect mixed metaphor.

No!  No, that's not the way I'm going to go today! Rant alert! I'm not denying the triumph of achievement under duress and against the odds. I'm not denying that sometimes hard and lonely work leads to deep satisfaction. Least of all am I denying that those of us with health conditions are capable of producing some of the most outstanding creations.

But PLEASE! Stop with this myth that any worthwhile creation has to be the result of working to the death-bones! Stop with inciting this competition to see who is working the hardest, who pulled the most all-nighters, who is the most burnt out and sleep-deprived! Stop with the images of business-people walking around with one phone in each ear and all sensory orifices blockupied, so important, so disconnected from the pulse!

I first encountered this mindset in grad school, where several of my peers seemed to consider it a point of pride to see who was the most overweight or had stayed up latest (working, not drinking) the previous night. They couldn't fathom my spending a significant chunk of time playing music. These were brilliant people (and unlike me, they knew where they wanted to go, and got there), but is that the only way?

What about the "lightbulb moment?" How many stories have you heard of a piece of music or poetry that pretty much poured out of its writer in a short time? How many times have you created something beautiful and then questioned it because so little effort was involved? The most world-changing creations are often effortless.

The other part, the "environments it behooves us to seek out" part, is encompassed in "The Spoon Theory." Worth a read, if you haven't already, this heart-sourced story shows with unminced words and a memorable metaphor how life happens day to day for someone living with a chronic condition. Good days and bad days and worse; the good days themselves hung about with accommodations and difficulties. Yes, even on a good day we're dealing with stuff. All of us.

Here's the bottom line: I do not do my best work on a bad day. I do not do my best work as a writer/translator/editor/blogger. I do not write good poetry. I do not do my best work with self-care, which makes things worse. I do not do my best work driving my car, getting my list done, or interacting with other people.

There is adversity aplenty just moving from one day to another. The idea that the best work can come out of adversity is tantamount to telling me not to take my meds or advising someone who needs oxygen to leave their tank at home.

No, you guys! Quality of focus, not quantity of slog. Be open to the gift of inspiration to do your best work, and be okay with making your life conditions as comfortable as possible so your stress is reduced and you can be more open to inspiration. When I can allow that, my "conditions" are less in the forefront and I'm more likely to receive the inspiration too.

I'd love to make this a theme, to invite you all to join in banishing the "no pain no gain" mentality and replacing it with something more receptive, more optimistic, and more kind to the soul.

Vintage Photo!

Today’s Prompt:

• Post a vintage photo of yourself, with a caption about the photo and where you were in terms of your health condition.

In this photograph, I am nine years old. I am playing the part of Athena in our grade's production of The Odyssey with the opposite boys' class. Together with Penelope, Athena's the female lead. Penelope comes into her own later in the action, whereas Athena is there doing crucial things right from the start, disguises herself twice, and when not in disguise looks pretty impressive, broom-bristle-and-tinsel helmet and all. Both characters, together with just two or three others, have to talk directly to boys.

A quarter century, and I still remember all my lines! After our theater presentation, we also performed a shortened version under canvas at an arts festival the school's involved with. I vividly remember rehearsing the opening scene for the first time there, on a makeshift stage, in school uniform, the rows of linked chairs sprawled with kids not in that first scene, which meant all but me and two boys. Bad enough that the angle of elevation from chairs to stage was straight up my dress; a huge horsefly landed on my knee and started to walk, inexorably, up, under my dress, up my thigh, leading up... At that age, I was astonishingly, shatteringly innocent of what "up top of the thighs" connoted, but on the emoting level I could very easily tell this was one of the most embarrassing things that could possibly happen in front of the boys. Yes, the critter was big enough to get everyone's attention, and yes, I just stood there and pretended nothing was happening. It only bit me a little bit. Thankfully, one of the teachers rushed up with a rolled-up script and thumped my thigh, knocking it loose, knocking me back into my body, breaking that endless moment.

Yes, part of my stoicism in situations like that was a result of simply having left my body. I was aware that what was happening "on" my body was embarrassing, and that this huge bug could bite, so I just vacated. The fact that, uncharacteristically, I don't remember which teacher rescued me, proves I wasn't there. I didn't care that much about my costume, either, speaking of body. I liked it,but if I thought at all about whether I looked good in it or not, it would only have been to wonder whether I looked thin in it. Yes, even at age nine. If I push myself, I can remember compliments about how I looked, but it was the compliments about my acting that stuck in my head. Intellect was far more important than body already then.

Other things: another part of my stoicism with the horsefly on my leg was literally not knowing how I was allowed to behave. I talked recently about not knowing what I was allowed to "like," and this school was a big part of that paralysis. I didn't know if I was allowed to interrupt the rehearsal to ask for help with the bug. I didn't know if I was allowed to know everyone else's lines, but when I got more manicky I would recite whole scenes just to entertain everyone (I thought it would entertain, I mean). I didn't know if I was allowed to ask for water after hours under those spotlights. I didn't know if I would get in trouble if I talked to the boys. When I did talk to boys and even get friendly with them over the course of rehearsals I was looking over my shoulder against getting in trouble. Everything about acting in a play together with the boys of the opposite class was outside of the norm where rules were clear, and I was already on guard for when I might inadvertently do something against the rules and get in trouble. This, except for those times when I got carried away or flipped out and knocked people over, talked a mile a minute, etc. So many ups and downs of moods, feeling like a drama star one moment and like a worthless waste of space another. So extreme, always!

"It-itis" Redefined HAWMC #18

See also at  http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/18/if-i-coule/

Today's prompts:

• Write about a time that you lashed out at someone close to you because of frustration/fear/anger resulting from your health condition and you wish you could take back. Forgive yourself and let it go.

• On the flip side, write about a time that someone said something to you that they wished they could take back. Did you forgive them? Why or why not?

I was stumped by today's prompt for too long, and so here I am again doing my post late in the day. I have lashed out at or said things I regretted to so many loved ones at one time or another, from calling someone (like a romantic partner) an asshole to telling my mother I wished she'd never borne me (implying heredity of health conditions) to asking people to help me suicide to assuring people I was going to suicide and acting in that direction, causing much dread...to all kinds of manic ragey nonsense I can't even remember in a coherent repeatable sequence and don't care to repeat anyway. On the other hand, I know many people have said things to me and regretted them, from comments about my weight to "snap out of it"-type comments to "this is why you'll never amount to anything and you're bugging my life too"-type comments.

You know what? It happens, both ways, because I've been unconscious enough to allow it in my life, even attract it. What "it"? "It" the negative energy that is fed and nourished and glutted and delighted and greedily gleed by psychically whipping my soul. Every time I'm put down, whether by myself or someone else  "it" gets a combined calorie and endorphin hit equivalent to eating a large and luscious hot fudge sundae made of all natural ingredients, so "it" roars with strength and satiation, and craves more, and pushes for more. Every time I yell and call names and smash things (I haven't done these things of late), I'm slamming myself into the ground  as I do so, and the ground under "its" feet is made firmer by my transfixion in it.

And I let "it" have all this. I let myself be less powerful. I empathize with "its" craving, I feel the roar of satisfaction simultaneously with my own pain (is that the definition of masochism?) I let "it" influence my probably-too-smart and analytical brain toward 

So, I'm sidestepping the prompt because I don't see value in reliving one example of a paradigm pattern. Better to acknowledge "it," the negative energy I'm feeding; the negative energy I'm inviting other people to pick up on in my psychic space. Is this pattern a component of my health conditions? Let's just say, if...when...I can break the habit of giving in to "it," my health and general wellbeing will be improved. No matter whether it's part of the diagnoses or not. 

My MFA mentor last year, who is a phenomenal editor as well as poet and essayist, spoke of "it-itis," a disease from which many writers suffer, whereby their sentences are peppered with the word "it" as a placeholder for everything, concrete and abstract. Becoming more attentive to that (N.B. not "to it") has helped the clarity and beauty of my writing, I believe. But here's another definition of the disease, also predicated on allowing the ubiquity of something poorly defined but ready to colonize.

It's one thing to live on the edge, as I always have...

 

But it's another thing to let myself fade away. I have been feeling like the Cheshire Cat of late, perhaps without the smile. Between many dimensions, realities, localities, time zones, temporalities... I leave for Georgia in just a week.

(And yes, these are pictures from last year. How much has changed? Such a good question. I will put up a more recent pic soon.)

Bonus Post from Yesterday

In case you missed it on the new blog--sorry I didn't cross-post, but I did put up a post non-HAWMC-driven yesterday, as promised.

Today's coming up pronto.

Please see yesterday's:
http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/18/106/

Thanks for coming with me.

Wordless Wednesday (Slog Slog)

Also at http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/17/wordless-wednesday-slog-slog/

Sorry I couldn't make this bigger.

Wordle wasn't working, so this came from  http://worditout.com/word-cloud/

I don't know where the day went, but everything is looking up. I still intend to fulfill the promised words post.

Sending love.

Where is the Lie? HAWMC #16

Am I able to Lie? Or is the denial too deep?

Today’s Prompt:

• Tell us three things that are true about you, your condition, or your Health Activism.  Tell us one lie. Will we be able to tell the difference?

On which side of the screen does it lie?

• I believe great art can also be great health activism.
• I believe the purpose of art is to make the audience feel the artist's pain.
• I am diagnosed with two conditions both of which hold a significant freight of denial.
• I believe the effectiveness of a medication or therapy is more important than whether it proves that I (or whoever) have the disease.

Which one is the lie?

HEADS UP: Tomorrow is Wordless Wednesday. On Monday, I promised a post about my "verklempitude" but have so far failed to deliver, perhaps because rather than verklempt I've been verrueckt! (But wait, that was only yesterday?) So, resanified (does that -ify suffix make the re- prefix redundant?), I undertake to add a wordy, non-HAWMC post to Wordless domani.

Turnarounds, Turning Around, a Negative

READ IT HERE: http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/15/turnarounds-tu…round-negative/

• Today's Prompt:
  Comment! Pick someone else’s blog post and write a comment to them. Write that comment as your post for today and link back to them to let them know you were inspired.

I went trawling for inspiration and found several blogposts that consisted of a comment/testimonial about some other blog, as opposed to a copy-paste of a comment the author had made on someone else's blog, as I had thought was obviously the prompt's intent. There were some other creative (mis)readings too. As an editor and linguist, I have a wry appreciation for ambiguity and the ambivalence it often betrays. When I feel cranky about ambiguity's misinterpretation--see it as obtuse, careless or self-serving, that's not a good sign. As we round the turn-point of these thirty days of posts, I'm out of sorts. My recent boomerang turn-point was eleven timezones of bereavement away--one click back from halfway round the world, one click back from halfway around the month also. 

Around a turn-point? Mirror image. Boomerang. Negative. May I be negative and play against the rules just this once? (Often I play by the rules so imaginatively, I neglect to observe that not playing by the rules might be the most imaginative of all.) I plead--I am the MODEL commenter. I plead--I have commented on thousands of blogs with the devotion and attention of a fan. I plead--I have commented with devotion, attention, and generosity, sometimes daily for months on end, sometimes in nurturing an enduring and treasured friendship; sometimes, to be rudely and persistently ignored (I've learned some things--the latter circumstance hasn't happened for years, and I no longer consider daily commenting on every blog I glance over to be mandatory). I plead--as hard as I find  reaching out and being outgoing "in real life" through air with no optic fibers, I am not challenged to go comment, to write out loud, to reach out.

If I fail to comment today, it's out of respect. Listen, I stink. My head's uncovered, which means it's picked raw, like all my fingertips. I'm cramping and tic'ing like a spasmoid puppet. I'm off my meds for the first time in a year (more?). The total absence of appetite is delightful (although my blood sugar still moves, inconveniently), and the almost total unmooring from linear time is soothing (although time still moves, too). The cramps and sweats and tics and halluc's are not soothing. Furthermore, I am not fit to be around people. I snapped at poor Phil-in-Oregon, although to be fair, this was on the third iteration of him calling, saying hello, and then "whoops, gotta go" literally in the same breath as that initial hello, with an intervening "hey, let's talk now" call that happened to come in right when I was trying to force down some dinner. I probably snapped a bit then, too. My wonderful friend who called this evening, and who said so much without too many words, who demonstrated such gorgeous empathy, thank you. The fact I can still track that empathy should in itself be ample motivation for me to get back on that lithium and ride that rock again stat.

If I do so, perhaps I can one day be the person who makes a phone call or leaves a comment at just the moment of grace for the other person. And if I do so, I have best chance of being ready for my upcoming Georgia trip without mishap. More motivation right there. I have an appointment tomorrow. Another provider I was supposed to contact a few days ago. Give me until Thursday, improvements starting even sooner.

Inspirations (HAWMC #14)

Today's prompt is a no-brainer for me. We're invited to give public thanks for some of our fellow Health Activists and what they have done, perhaps interspersed with some of our favorite posts of the event so far.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to thank Meredith for her blog! And for so much more. I came across Meredith during last year's event, intrigued by a comment she left on another rather wonderful blog (by a graduate of the MFA program I'm in, not participating this year). We got to know each other with miraculous rapidity. In addition to admiring her lucidity, transparency, and eloquence in writing about life--and life with bipolar--I learned and continue to learn from her courage, directness, and tough questions, of herself as much as of others. Her ability to reflect on her own experiences, to show her positive learning as well as the setbacks, is health advocacy of one of the most empowering kinds, especially related to a health condition as widely misunderstood and stigmatized as mood disorders are.  I so admire the levelheadedness--levelspiritedness--with which she represents both medication and non-chemical ways to help us do better. Our brains are full of electricity and chemistry, and there are so many ways, from the clunky to the fractally subtle, that they can be influenced.

Her list of Resources from day 4 of this year's challenge just blows me away for its comprehensive and smart coverage. When things have calmed down (or when I can't sleep again tonight) I can't wait to check out many of these links, and also to try on myself some of the farther-out-of-the-box suggestions.

All that aside, I connected with a friend wonderful beyond imagining, in a year in which friendships have been the air that keep my self from imploding or bursting, the threads that link my limbs to the big hook in the sky.

There's another health blogger by whom I've been very inspired for years, but unfortunately her blog had to be taken down. She's a celiac vegan raw aficionado, so very much from the same corner of the food arena as I am, and I have always been inspired and impressed with her willingness to advocate for herself, her tireless, intelligent research and engagement, and her passion. Bitt, sending you love.

Finally, obvious as this may seem, I'm thankful for the WEGO Health Blog and community for encouraging me to think about the whole concept of health advocacy in creative and useful ways both in April and beyond. It's a concept that twirls around with my literary aims in a mesmerizing way.

A little more on my own verklemptitude (way to mix a Germanic root with a Latin suffix, eh?) in a separate post later.

Today’s Prompts:

• Thank a few of your fellow Health Activists for what they have done.  Call them out by name or twitter handle.  Share your love.
• Pick a few of your favorite #HAWMC posts so far and share them with your readers!

Acrostics, HAWMC 12

See this also at  http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/13/acrostics-hawmc-home-again/ 

Hey, this is super late, isn't it? I've gone from having early posts to having late posts. Because I just got home to Homer this night, and it's weird. I haven't slept in this cabin for well over two months, am going to have to reacclimate to outhouse/hauling water. I'm a little wired and tweaked.

 Write a health acrostic for your condition, hashtag, or username! (acrostic = a poem where every letter of a word serves as the first letter of a word or phrase)

Funny story--in middle school, we had just started playing lacrosse. A few weeks later in English class we did acrostics. The next day, someone who hadn't been paying attention was getting grilled. Among other things, she was demanded to define an acrostic. She said "It's a stick you play on the field with." I can never hear the word acrostic without thinking of that. But what the heck word do I choose as my acrostic word? Which condition? Or which part of my formal scroll of diagnosis?

Alien in this body, alien in this world, I said

No                                                                                                                                                 

Over and over, too much or too many of me, too                                                                   

Rowdy, too much body; I said Alien no body,                                                                       

Evanescent, ever at the point of                                                                                                  

eXit through the liminal cell-gate to become                                                                              

Illuminated, illusory, not limited by physical positioning                                                          

Acting without favor or appetite

Because sometimes I am huge hugening the world and other times                                         

I am suffocated under the world contracting down from outside me                                   

Perhaps one day I'll learn to quit                                                                                         

Opposing pole with pole; stall at                                                                                                 

Luminous liminal cell-gate                                                                                                   

Acting without favor or appetite, all fall stall                                                                         

Ravishing evanescence.

And I'm going to leave it at that because otherwise I'll get up and do something dangerous.

HWAMC #12 Hindsight

Enjoy this post at  http://ulteriorharmony.org/blog/2013/04/12/hawmc-12-hindsight/ ‎

 If you could go back in time and talk to yourself on the day of diagnosis, what would you say?
 What have you learned about being a patient that has surprised you most?        GO!

The response to either of these can be the same, on a certain understanding of "diagnosis."

Here it is: They've got your number, Ela. You might believe it's the wrong number, predicated on their system from which you wish to be a fugitive except in the case of incipient organ failure. You might not want to be reduced to a number. But the same number will keep coming up whenever you encounter "their system." Does that consistency tell you something? And listen up: here's the second part. Some of what they offer up is actually going to be helpful to you.

Yes, "they" "got their hands on me" when I turned myself in with incipient organ failure, couldn't stand up again after I got there, etc IVs in nonexistent veins etc no blood pressure etc ng tube etc... But within a couple days they had diagnostic paperwork for bipolar, and also for borderline, that they wanted me to look at to see if I might confess to one or book myself into the other. I was so mad, I wouldn't even glance at either one. All I wanted was for them to stand me back up on my feet and let me out so I could carry on not-eating, driving dangerously, climbing walls, etc. Three more months of treatment didn't do much to change that, but the realization did eventually dawn that if I wanted to be part of society in any broader or more universal way, I needed to be more than just barely on my feet. Howling/Haoleing in the Hawaiian jungle is fine for a while, but I want to be able to offer more.

So, what would I whisper in the ear of the frightened, angry, sad, very sick younger me in that hospital bed? I'd tell her that not only did these people, these "they," mean well (which she sort of understood already); they actually have some techniques and chemistries that really will help me. That if she'd opened those diagnostics and allowed these people who knew her so little to know her better, they might have offered more appropriate medications rather than blundering around with SSRIs and antipsychotics and making her even more scared of and disbelieving in medications, so that she might have had ways to feel better much sooner in her life. That diagnosis can actually be a relief, and a means to self-knowledge.

But I'd also tell her she's pretty much right about the inefficacy of anorexia treatment. She's not always going to be able to stay out of treatment, and there will be times when she stays out and really should be in. She should confess to herself that as ghastly as treatment centers are, there's a part of her that actually likes the safety and camaraderie of the experience, and she shouldn't beat up on herself for that ambivalence. I'd tell her she needs to decide very consciously how she wants to be about food and body, and should accept that that whole part of life will be tripping her up for ever, just as it always had. She needs to know that when not-eating becomes a full-time job, there's not much left to life and people turn away. She needs to know how to manage so that she's just being tripped up, rather than hovering close to death.

They got your number, a compound number, and it doesn't go away. But they are not evil, and can actually help.

HAWMC and Social Networking

Prompt #11:                                                                                                                                             Write about your favorite social network. Do you love Twitter? Facebook? Pinterest? Why?

Apologies at the beginning--my English  is all tangled up...

I confess I'm grateful for the "push" to contribute to my blog daily, glad of the sense of regular putting out (and output) in this topsy-turvy time--my homeward journey, in which I regain the eleven lost hours and, if I make the two tight connections, get to Anchorage by the middle of Friday, starts this evening--but I also confess this is not one of my favorite prompts. The alternate prompt to the one I've featured required extolling one's favorite iPhone app related to our health condition. Well, I'm sure some helpful stuff will come out of that. And I actually have an iPhone and really appreciate it. However, most of my life I have lived far behind the technological leading edge and know very well what it's like to live in a society that expects you to have a certain technology and predicates everything on that state of entitled possession. So everyone has a cellphone, so suddenly no one can make a precise plan for where to meet. You don't have a cellphone and came all the way from another town, and it's "call when you get there," but everyone has a cellphone, right, so no one bothers to repair the payphones when they're out of order, so then what do you do? Wheedle passers-by for a quick call?

I'm just leery of focusing health activism on something so specific, not available to everyone by any means...and what about apps for other smartphones anyway?

Of course, if we get into branding, we're on the path all the way back to whether I'm an anorexic bipolar or a witch or a saint in the making, since I'm sure there are arguments that our diagnostic terms are brands of their own.

Anyway, I haven't had my iPhone long enough to explore all the wonderland it offers. As for social networks, the only one I really have spent time with is Facebook, so that'll have to be my pick. I like it first of all because I was invited to join (years ago) by a very dear real-life friend who had moved far away, and the core of my large base of friends is composed of dear real-life friends who are far away. That depth of contact/connection makes the experience real, sincere, and personal. The few FB friends with whom I don't have a strong personal connection are either friends of friends or are people from whom I can learn or with whom I might be able to share something.

The more I give Twitter my attention the more I like it. I can learn so much more, and share so much and do so much. I'm relatively new to it. Thanks to the HAWMC last year, I have a Pinterest account, but that's the extent of it. I'm not visual. And ze ma yesh...

Nu yalla chev're. N'daber b'karov...