I really didn't know what to expect of a therapist recommended to me by my gay nurse fairy... but my elder brother had set me up an appointment with her, and then conveniently not informed me he'd done so until the evening of the day before the appointment. Which left just about zero time to reset one's circadian rhythm, and just a few hours to catch up on one's beauty sleep.

Naturally, I stayed awake nearly all night, tense and stressed-like. Managed to get myself a 1.5 hour power nap at ~05:00 (had to be there by 11:00, and had to catch the first bus in a long transit at 08:00)... took a quick cold shower to better wake up, put a bit of base onto my fugly face, grabbed a bagel, and ran naked through the streets wearing a fedora to catch the bus (which was late).*

*statement may or may not be only partially true. I would never wear a fedora, and it was an english muffin (toasted and buttered).

So, me and the girlfriend (she came with me (^_^)) get to the building about 50 minutes early, through the miracle of transportation being perfectly lined up. Which is great, because the as-of-yet unmentioned coffee was giving me horrible indigestion, and we got to eat "lunch" (which somehow just made it worse, as grease is wont to do). We somehow cross a busy road without taking a ride to the magic kingdom in the sky. Twice, we were very lucky... or was it... God's will? hock:

Girlfriend is all, 'where is this damn joint', because that's what trying to find hidden offices in the hood under blazing texas sun does to people. But by some wonder of the self-evidently supernatural variety (blessed, I'm tellin ya): we discover the office, which looked suspiciously like a hippy hookah den full of gaudy stolen gold, but which smelled like incense and frankenstein. Someone may or may not have died, I heard disembodied screaming... like thousands of imprisoned persons buried alive.



Kind of like that, but with a lot more dirt and a few more adorable earthworms.

Anyhow, I filled out the questionnaire, and my girlfriend was getting a bit suspicious... so she pushed the button to "call the therapist" out, while at the same time gripping her quite illegally carried bazooka of blasting with frightening determination. I was afraid she'd blow her load, as one is wont to do in the base of a hippy mob safehouse. SPROING, went the jack in the box, flinging the coffee table into distant conservativeland's statue of monopoly, and out came the bead-armed guards. Pew pew, went ashton's bazooka-which-was-really-a-laser, and all that remained was "The Therapist". I took her into her lounge for questioning.

So we were like 'yadda', and 'yadda', I decided to try being actually like, mostly open, for a change (but not all the way open, because I like my innards kind of... inside me. I'd say I don't have the guts, but the reality is that I don't want to lose my guts, cuz I'm just so gutsy). She told me to stop beating myself up, because I was bruising my meat in her office.

She was pretty cool... lesbian, middle aged (but totally didn't look it), with a lot of existentialistic background and shit... and very understanding of schizophrenia. Ultimately, she says her rule of 'crazy' is that the insane don't know it, and that I'm really managing it very well, considering I'm looking forward to going back in about a month, and keeping a journal in the meantime. Not of my "life"... but... of my life. It's an interesting thing to... look at when I'm done writing something.

I've got three projects to work on, and being able to actually do something about them is... good. No more putting in a shit ton of work with nothing to show for it, I say. Mel's editing of my base-lines has shown me that I can do this... perhaps not entirely by myself... but what I do is good. If keep putting things off because they're not good enough... then nothing will ever be good enough. Hope it was interesting

See, first person is much better.

Do you have a diagnosed mental illness ?.

(October 24, 2014 at 3:07 am)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: See, first person is much better.

Changing it up is the best. There's a lot at my disposal, it'd be a shame to not use most of it.

(October 24, 2014 at 3:25 am)Alice Wrote:

(October 24, 2014 at 3:07 am)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: See, first person is much better.

Changing it up is the best. There's a lot at my disposal, it'd be a shame to not use most of it.

Yes, but the POV made that story much more enthralling then the last third person story. See third person works when there is a lot point of view characters, or if you want to be super descriptive with the world. Like asoiaf or harry Potter. For the story you had there a first person POV like the hunger games is best.

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Bear in mind I'm partial to first person because it throws the reader right in the driver seat as opposed to the more distant third person.when you use third person I prefer a Isaac Asimov type style that is very clear and concise and does not use much description, that said George martin has a great style too.

(October 24, 2014 at 3:21 am)psychoslice Wrote: Do you have a diagnosed mental illness ?.

Depends on what constitutes 'diagnosis'. Been to plenty of 'therapists', 'shrinks', a preacher, 'counselors'... but most of them as once-offs, where most would recommended Ritalin or some-other-similarly-veined drug that started with an A (for ADD). One non-once-off wrote that I spent entirely too much time in imaginary worlds, but given that schizo is not a title that psychologists want to give to children... it may not have been "diagnosed" (I don't have the file on hand, which is a shame, because it's a good solid laugh).

I tend to distrust 'diagnosis' (self or otherwise), which in my experience are often made with limited knowledge and/or in haste. I'm aware of my experience (excepting rare blackouts), tend to articulate it well, have probably not learned everything about it, and believe that most existing 'diagnosis' are entirely too broad in scope...

But am I mentally ill, regardless of diagnosis? Hard to say... something is bizarre, and sometimes more than a little terrifying... but on the whole? I survive, and function in society... usually without incident. It is not so much an illness as a distraction, and it provides as much pleasure as it does terror... I seek therapy only to aid my control over the reshuffling. Estrogen does a lot for me, in that it helps me to the self confidence to reject and destroy the negatives... perhaps I don't need therapy... but it doesn't do everything.

Whatever the cumulation of it all is... it is severe... but only particularly dangerous if I'm placed into a position where occasionally-rather-convincing external visual/auditory hallucinations can have a significant impact if I chose to ignore them, and they happen to actually be real. Worse if it's an external overwrite, or internal is distracting and overlays the external. A 'spiral' while driving, and I would do my damn best to pull the fuck over. Slowly. Hopefully not hit anyone

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(October 24, 2014 at 3:46 am)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: Yes, but the POV made that story much more enthralling then the last third person story. See third person works when there is a lot point of view characters, or if you want to be super descriptive with the world. Like asoiaf or harry Potter. For the story you had there a first person POV like the hunger games is best.

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Bear in mind I'm partial to first person because it throws the reader right in the driver seat as opposed to the more distant third person.when you use third person I prefer a Isaac Asimov type style that is very clear and concise and does not use much description, that said George martin has a great style too.

Perhaps, I also put a lot more work into this one, as it's a fresher memory, that ultimately had more impact than a "that's nice" good-news sort of announcement. Still, taking it under advisory

First person can also be intensely confusing. I'm intentionally using this to my advantage in one of my projects (hard to understand DID without seeing it through someone else's eyes). I'm not picking anyone else's style of writing; I'm not cognizant of their idiosyncrasies. There's no overarching plot, just a base framework of "at some point mention the reason I am making this thread", and then it's just writing as it comes to me Unless I read it back to myself, and I find that I can do so much more in the same essential space, like rotating puzzle pieces, or a rubik's cube made out of the dragonballs

Thank you Alice for sharing, I myself am schizophrenic, and I wouldn't have it any other way lol;.

(October 24, 2014 at 4:08 am)psychoslice Wrote: Thank you Alice for sharing, I myself am schizophrenic, and I wouldn't have it any other way lol;.

I don't know how people without it can tolerate life... it seems so quiet, so bland... if I have a problem, it's that for all the parts of me that recognize the potential dangers: the rest of me... likes this.

I'm afraid of anti-hallucinatory pills... my creative streak is vital to me, and I value it over suffocating in a box without air that 'isn't there'. I'll suffer through the worst of it, because I really enjoy the best of it... and on my correct amount of hormones: having a good time is by far the norm.

That isn't to say that it's all activity all the time; I can be just as about as normal as the next girl. Kind of

I just love the way you thing Alice , yea its nice.

I love how she thinks, too. Quick as a whip, that one. And I've seen some of her dreams.. Which are so deep, it's hard to find my way out of such beauty.
Which is partly why I admire her ability to grace me with her presence now and again. I think we all have the same ability to take our internal voices and make personalities with them; it's merely a reaction to our environment, only some of us can do it more colorfully than others.

I knew a diagnosed "schitzo" at the last place I lived. I gave the guy a cigarette, while he giggled to himself at something someone in his head had
obviously said about me. I didn't consider him a threat, as most would and do. We are all just people, quibbling over our own internal voices. If schitzophrenia is a disorder, then so is having a god voice in your head. Same diff IMO.

Keep updating, Violetta