I have nothing against blogging, don’t let the title deceive you. It’s just that I’ve been sitting on the idea of trying to publish my writing and perspective for quite a while. It’s difficult, because while I think I have a good deal of quality things to say, as narcissists often do (using that term colloquially not clinically) – I’ve always worried that something bad would come of it. Maybe the cadence of my speaking voice wouldn’t translate quite correctly to the page, or maybe my opinion, one drop of thought in a giant ocean would go unheard and discarded.
I’ve gotten the “oh well you know it could impact your life in the future…if you put all the stuff out there…you know future employers do google.”
And when I asked my younger brother if he’d read a blog if I were to publish one I got an answer of:
“Maybe…but probably not regularly…I’m not a huge blog guy.”
So you know…resounding support.
I guess to give a bigger picture to the prospective reader: if you’re out there…My name is Alice. I’m a twenty two year old woman (right? I’m old enough call myself a woman) who has had, as many have told me, a life with more twists than turns. If the case happens to be that twists are more negative than turns, which I guess I can’t personally determine. Before I launch into my story, if you don’t already know, I use humor as a coping mechanism. I have often disturbed people by blatantly laughing while talking about the most difficult things. I like to tell people to keep in mind that I’m only serious maybe 50 percent of the time, when in fact I am very serious, but pretty much only in my own head.
So back to the original point but maybe as I go through it imagine me talking to you, laughing, apologizing for laughing, returning to talk to you and then laughing again, then maybe assuring you that I am working on the laughing thing quite hard. Please hold on throughout this, I tried to edit but I am quite verbose. This isn’t a sob story, I’m not sobbing, it is a statement of facts and a dialogue.
When I was fourteen years old my mother, Laura, was diagnosed with Anal cancer. Which as a very newly minted teenager was a type of cancer I just generally didn’t feel comfortable talking about. Many people aren’t, it is very rare, yet there are very dedicated people out there raising awareness and money in many ways. At the time, however, in 2008 there wasn’t much of anything. As a fourteen year old girl, I knew very little. I remember crying when I first found out on the kind of scratchy red couch in my grandmother’s “other room” because “this stuff happens to other people…not me.” Well, it happened to me, or more accurately my mother. We, my brother, my father and I watched her slowly deteriorate and become a wisp of a person. She died a year and a half after her diagnosis.
What followed were my formative teenage years. Angst directed every which way, and the idea that I should become something my mother would respect. If you look back far enough in the “photos of me” in my Facebook, you will be able to see that what I thought my mother would respect was a person who was thoroughly obsessed and consciously emulated Hillary Clinton. I immersed myself in that world, gaining an internship working for Obama for America in 2012 and acceptance to the George Washington University, where I headed to study pre-constitutional law.
While I was planning my route towards the US presidency, I had to help my father pick up the pieces of our life and glue them back together in some haphazard way that would hopefully still be strong enough to support us all. My brother was young, and as an eleven year old he didn’t know how to process what just happened. We were all going through our own journeys. My father was torn between work and his responsibility to us, he needed to discover his life without my mother. I was left, for weekends, sometimes weeks to watch my younger brother. I’m not going to say I did an amazing job. Some nights I ate a lean cuisine and he ate five hungry man meals and we hid in our respective rooms. Other nights we talked and some nights we fought. Such is life. Was my life like the lives of my friends who came home to snacks and cooked dinners, and who didn’t have to teach themselves how to put in a tampon? No, but I grew and I learned, and I thought I knew everything. That was my mistake.
My father, a couple years later, came out to us as bisexual and told us that he was currently dating men. We were sitting in a small hotel looking over some cathedral in Florence. It gave me pause, definitely, but the pieces lined up. The fact that he shared a hotel room with his friend Joel, or that he just took a trip to Provincetown all alone one weekend. I didn’t mind. I wanted my dad to find happiness and love again, and I didn’t care with whom. A rainy April day in New York City we went to see War Horse, which didn’t live up to the hype and met my dad’s new partner Raul. He’s an amazing man, and a huge part of my life today.
Rolling forward to George Washington: Raul and my father, then together for quite a while and for the most part engaged, dropped me off. I was for once a “normal” person my age, going to college, two happy parents at home, and a brother. College wasn’t easy for me, I discovered that an entire life in a town as big as a fleck of dust does not prepare you for a school full of new faces. Many new faces. I was constantly in communication with my father and Raul. To illustrate that point, there was even a time that I skyped with them as they prepped for a dinner party. I DID NOT want to be where I was, AT ALL.
So when one Sunday I couldn’t reach my dad, I called Raul frantically. He pushed my worries aside, so I studied for a while, called back and found him panicking. My father was missing. Long story short, because this story is way too long, I returned to my tall house in my tiny town a month after I had left. I stood in my kitchen, feet on the cold tile floor, and listened as Raul told me quietly that my dad had killed himself.
That took a while to process, I’m still not done, and never will be. It’s been four years.
I did my best for a while, dropped out of school to be with my brother, went to parent teacher back to school whatever night and made sure he didn’t play Madden during the week. My dad’s brother and his wife were around helping out or trying to in their own way. The time I spent in my hometown after my dad died, although short, I consider one of the formative experiences of my life.
I started with so much intention, and slowly, almost imperceptibly descended into a deep dark depression. I saw my first therapist, who I still to this day admire. I thought I fell in love, maybe I did. It wasn’t enough to keep me from my first suicidal gesture, a cry for help. It was enough for a stay in an inpatient unit, my first. What followed was almost a year bouncing from crisis units to residential treatment centers. I had self-harm marks up and down my left arm that I feared would never fade. I was “administratively discharged” kicked out of an institution for being too much of a risk. My brother, went to finish high school and live with his appointed legal guardians, two compassionate and adept friends of my parents from law school, and their family.
Finally released, I started my life again, in New York City. Got a new therapist, and stayed with my cousins for a while. With the dream of becoming a writer, I entered into society. It wasn’t soon before I noticed these tiny bugs in my apartment. They were everywhere. Tiny little bugs. I stared at my mattress with a flashlight in the nighttime because they were there too. I had bedbugs, but small ones. All I did was talk about bugs, little bugs, big bugs and where the bugs were coming from. When I went to see my cousins I told them that the bugs were in my clothes and I just brought them with me. It was when I called my therapist and said that they were in my skin that I soon heard the wail of an ambulance and landed in a New York City psych ward.
I was told that I was psychotic and that I needed to take more medicine. When I asked the doctor if I had an illness like schizophrenia he told me that “only time would tell.” Every nineteen year old girl wants to hear that.
What followed were meager attempts at “normal” life. I had a boyfriend. He was a financial adviser who wore suits. Yet my psychosis plagued me. I’ve taken almost every antipsychotic known to man. An expert that insurance didn’t cover told me that I had a high IQ and schizoaffective disorder. At least I could put a name on it. I went back to school – which sprinkled with psychosis and paranoia isn’t easy at all. I had a 45 minute commute and a needy dog and I set myself up for failure.
I found that I really enjoyed alcohol. I loved buying it and drinking it and just not living in my head. I started my sophomore year feeling so confident that I could float. Everyone around me loved me, why wouldn’t they? If I wanted to sleep with someone I would, and I did. My thoughts ran in circles, and I stayed up nights awake and alert at all hours. Yet the psychosis came, and it stopped my barreling train for a second and brought me back into treatment.
When I got there I was told that I was having a manic episode. I was shocked. A kind nurse, who I recognized from my many past visits sat down with me and gave me what she called a Big Book. She told me that I’ll never be alone because alcoholics, like me have support through Alcoholics Anonymous, if they so choose to use it. Depression and mania respectively, wreaked havoc on me, as well as those I cared about. That, after my mind stopped racing and boosting my confidence, was hard to face.
It took me a long time, but I was finally correctly diagnosed in November, with Bipolar disorder, type 1. I’ve been in treatment ever since. I am in treatment now, the where doesn’t matter, but they why does. I’m bursting to get out but still falling apart at the seams. Mania and depression are vastly different, and the “me” that I am in both moods is remarkably opposite. It’s hard to be socially anxious when I can remember other times that I was maybe not socially anxious enough. It’s out of my control. I control my medication compliance, therapy work, and sobriety.
The name of this blog is “I am Alice today.” I’ve learned that my many sides, moods, ideas, and tendencies all make up the person that I am. I’m not just a young adult without parents, or a person struggling with Bipolar disorder, an alcoholic or a writer. I am Alice, and when my cell phone alarm goes off every morning, I inevitably snooze it, but I titled the alarm “I am Alice today.” I want to be reminded from the first minute of the day, that I’m a person and not a label.
This blog is going to consist of my general reflections, memories, funny, happy, and sad, ideas and musings. I am not an authority on anything and don’t purport to be. I know I’m privileged, and I know I have opportunities, especially in terms of mental health treatment, that many don’t. Yet, all I can speak to are my experiences. Situations are different but emotions at least in my experience are universal. I will not use this as a platform to spread my political views, there is so much of that already out there. Feel free to reach out to me, I want to hear your voices and learn what makes you yourself too.
Thanks everyone – welcome to my space.