Chapter 2:I am fine

[rubber-shirt.livejournal.com]

Linda, I just got off the phone with her, runs the bipolar group at Stanford and here in San Jose. For a long time I was diagnosed schizoaffective/BPD... and then schizoaffective/Bipolar... now after something like TWENTY YEARS (literally) I think they have it _right_. I, and the pdoc, think it is now PTSD, DID and schizophrenia.

It took 20 years.

But Linda doesn't know it. And I'm afraid to tell her because I might scare her off. She knows a woman who is DID and before I hung up the phone she compared me to HER, not knowing what she was doing.

So this is the 'normal' that you hear now, that's what SHE calls me, James(38), which is much different than last night. Last night was awful. Sorry, that must have been Phineas, The Suffering come down his wings-a-blazing from the dark sun of Narco. There is Phineas the Suffering, Phineas the Watcher and Phineas the Guardian. The latter was who I encountered in the dessert in 1998. We switched with Phineas the Suffering.9 days. These are also referred to as 'long dark nights of the soul'.

It must have been going to the station that brought him back. I will see if I can avoid doing that in the future. The station (I mean the radio station where I have my show, I make cd's for them and they play them, we're an artist, collectively see http://www.nationalcynical.com that's all our work) the station has a lot of toxic memories for us apparently. I don't seem to be able to go up there without major triggering happening. Much dissociation and abuse happened up there. Drug abuse, verbal abuse, in particular. I think the combination of the two, combined with just being in its physical presence was what set off the others when the offer of a show was made. "Do a Saturday night show--the slot is available". At MIDNIGHT no less. Jim(17) (manic) who so desperately wants to move forward. Well, I knew what was best for the collective, so I let him have his say and have his say and have his say and send about 2 dozen manic crazy emails up there til I'm sure they were SURE we were a complete nutcase.

We are getting along better, see, than we used to, I wouldn't have been able to type like this say a month ago, Jim(17) would have been pissed at me mightily, but he's come to see that I was right, especially after the 9 nights of hell?

It's all about ASSOCIATION. Associating the eight, nine nights of hell we went through, Jim(17), WITH being at the station. That's what it was teaching us. But what if *I* go up there, he asks? It would have to be during the day, at night, esp. after midnight and there's trouble. You know it and I know it. Yeah turn into a pumpkin or worse.

So everything's all right for now. I've got a log going to keep track of things like water, sleep, meds, activities, food and mood and we'll keep that up.

Thank you all who responded yesterday you really helped a lot in the crisis.