After a bit of a health breakdown, I'm back up to normalcy again.

First the ears were lavaged with the scary-looking syringe, by the nice folks and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center.  It is so amusing to me that gay culture has advanced to such a degree that I can go to an all-gay hospital and get my earwax/deafness problem addressed.  It's good to be a lesbian in Los Angeles.  And now I am no longer Helen Keller.

Then, of course, in the usual way that things go from better to bad to worse to horrible to awesome to hilariously ridic and back down to broken, I ran out of Ativan for two days and was all sorts of out of sorts.  Luckily I didn't end up in the ER this time, as I avoided espresso shots (multiple and singular) and wikipedia surveillance articles, I had my hands full with sleep lost over auditory hallucinations of circus music (later figured out to be the neighbor's windchimes), mixed with fears of gang shootings.  I pulled myself off the mattress, threw water on my face and went to the psychiatrist, who wrote me extra refills on the anti-anxiety meds, and told me that my fears of walking at night in Echo Park were very real, that gangs were not funny, that I was right to feel that danger did lurk in my neighborhood at night.

And for the first time he asked me about my plans for the future, as if I had a future beyond being a mental patient.  I told him about featherless, and he seemed very surprised and pleased.  He mentioned work or school, neither of which I really feel quite ready for (well, school I can't afford, I'm about to default on my loans already, and work....who would give me a job, if they aren't hiring my more sane and qualified friends)

But productivity.  I told him about the novel I'm working on, and about how I'm thinking of taking a writing workshop to help focus and drive accountability in the text.  Basically to kick myself in the ass to work on this book.

Then I went home and slept, renewed my prescriptions,  slept even more, and finally the Ativan and Topamax and Abilify on my system evened me out and I felt better, normal, functional.

I had realized, earlier that day, lying on the bed next to my sleeping girlfriend. Waiting and wanting my anti-anxiety medication, all the anxious worried came back.  My fears that after, essentially, being out of normal society for three years, not working, not being in school, just focusing on my disorder, taking medication, going to therapy....that I had lost fundamental skills and functioning that I would not be able to gain back.  Sure, I have a lovely and supportive group of friends, I am not totally isolated, and they have helped me keep from becoming an alcoholic recluse.  Katie has been integral to my healing and regaining functioning.  But it just takes the lack, the absence of one or two of these little white pills, and the whole fragile structure falls to pieces.  I feel like it would be irresponsible for me to commit to something like a full-time job, knowing that I could fall apart at any moment, that my stability is so fragile.

But, regaining confidence after being out of the loop so long, it is difficult.  It has been a long, gradual process, for a long time I would never think of going to a bar, or a club, or an art event outside of CalArts.  Now I feel more comfortable doing these things.  The long trajectory from the pit of isolation in post-graduation psychosis in North Hollywood to now, where things are moving up and coming together, it is a journey, and it is not yet over,  I have a long way to go.