Moving: Driving My Way to New Stressors

 

My husband, Tom, and I are moving! We’re not moving very far; we’re going to a place within our same suburb just north of Chicago. We’ve lived in our current apartment for 15 years, so there’s a lot of stuff to sort through. It’s been hard… but it’s also been good because the sorting keeps me busy.

We won’t be living near the el anymore, so I’ll have to drive to places I used to rely on the el to reach, such as therapy. I have been practicing driving a lot, but I’m terrified of driving in the snow, even though I drive a Subaru SUV. (Chicago is notorious for its terrible winters—the whole Midwest is.) Also, I currently live within walking distance from my parents’ house; I actually park my car in their garage. Suffice it to say I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to drive because I will have no choice but to drive once we’ve moved into our new place.

Hmm. I thought this article was going to be about moving, but it’s turning out to be more about driving. I guess the two go hand in hand for me because the whole reason I started driving again after a long hiatus is that I knew we might relocate too far from an el stop to walk there. And that’s what happened.

I want to say here that I adore our new condo. It’s on the first floor, so I don’t have to walk upstairs to it with my knee replacements. And we have a patio! Most importantly, though, we own it, we’re not renting! Also, I have to remind myself that I’ve had a problem with driving for years; the relocation to the condo didn’t trigger this. There are plenty of places I go to now that I can’t reach with the el and it’s been a problem.

What’s especially hard is that driving makes me really anxious, but I can’t take an as-needed tranquilizer for anxiety before I drive. I have thought that it wouldn’t hurt to take half of a milligram a half hour before I drive, but I would feel terrible if something happened. (Of course, I’d feel terrible if something happened anyway.) However, plenty of people have a drink 45 minutes before they drive, and I don’t even drink!

What brought this all to a head was that last week when I drove to therapy, while I was making a left turn on a green light, I almost hit someone who was crossing the street. No one was hurt and I hadn’t taken a tranquilizer beforehand. But I sobbed in my therapist’s office.

I don’t know what to do about this problem with driving. It’s gotten to the point where I dread driving to see my therapist on Monday all weekend. That’s right. All. Weekend. I know I need help, but my therapist and my psychiatric nurse practitioner (NP) aren’t much help at all. For one thing, they’re both against me needing a tranquilizer for anything, let alone driving, even though I have generalized anxiety disorder along with schizoaffective disorder. If you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments. For this article, I’m the one who needs help. I’m falling apart at a time when I am also happy.

Winter Solstice Prayer

As the sun set over the shortest day of the year, beckoning the longest night, I prayed to Mother Mary to let the rays of light of the birth of the Sun shed new light onto struggles I've been dealing with. Amen and Blessed Be.

Holiday Card

 

This is my favorite picture I've taken all year. I took it in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury last spring. This Winter Solstice, don't forget to Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

Schizoaffective Disorder and the Holidays

 

The Christmas when I was 11, I decided it sucked that every Christmas you were practically legally required to be happy. So, I was a Scrooge at age 11! A few years later, it didn’t help my Christmas spirit that my schizoaffective psychotic break happened around the holidays.

In my 20s and 30s, Christmas used to bother me because of all the people who would come over to my parents’ house, where the whole family celebrated Christmas. I felt bad about this. I really wanted to enjoy Christmas. One year after I was married, Tom and I adopted our very own Christmas elf who we named Crumpet after a short story by David Sedaris (Crumpet is pictured above). He’s sitting under the Christmas tree my mom got us last year. But after he arrived, I declared I was in the holidays for the elves! I have a soft spot for mythical creatures like elves, mermaids, and faeries. In my psychotic break during the holiday season of 1998-1999, I even thought the schizoaffective voices I heard were faeries at first.

I love all the people who come over for the holidays—I just don’t like large groups of people. But I didn’t realize how much I loved them until they couldn’t come over because of the year of the COVID pandemic in 2020. I didn’t realize how much I wanted everyone to be together until they weren’t. So, now that COVID-19 is under control, I try hard to appreciate all the family that comes over. I did a pretty good job this past Thanksgiving. I did have to leave before pie (I know, sacrilege!), but Tom and I exchanged presents with our nephew and his wife, which makes her our niece. They aren’t coming in for Christmas so we had to celebrate early. It also helped that the gifts from my niece and nephew are awesome! They got me a book of poetry by Rupi Kaur, and two crystals, one of which I wear all the time in a crocheted lavalier that carries any stone I want. And they also gave us a picture from their recent wedding, which we attended.

It puzzles me that the crowd at Christmas bothers me now, because it didn’t for the first few years after I became ill. But for almost the past two decades, I haven’t been able to stand large groups of people. Tom and I even had to leave our wedding reception early because of the chaos of the crowd. And the pressure of being the bride at my own wedding was overwhelming. But I guess it didn’t matter because we’re still going strong after over 16 years of marriage! I used to love people coming over for Christmas, even for a period after my first psychotic episode. A friend who came over one Christmas said I was “bubbly.” I know my schizoaffective anxiety got a lot worse over the course of my 20s. It is true that any time I’m around a lot of people, I start to feel I have to get away. It’s not just during the holidays. And I don’t think the anniversary of my illness has that big of an effect on how I experience Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. So, it’s not that I don’t like the holidays specifically. And it’s certainly not that I don’t like people. I love my family. I don’t like crowds and now accept that perhaps I never will.

26 Years

 

November 26 is the exact anniversary of my first psychotic episode in 1998 and that led to my diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. The unofficial anniversary is Thanksgiving Day, which occurred on the 26^th of that year.

For some reason, I’ve been terrified this year that I would have a relapse of my psychotic symptoms, such as hearing voices, delusions, and acute mania. My husband, Tom, has assured me that I won’t. I’m writing this before November 26 and planning on publishing on that date.

Tom often asks why I keep track of unhappy events or situations. I keep track of these anniversaries as a way of owning them. My first psychotic episode changed my life forever. It cut me in two. And I was only 19 years old.

The fact that I had a psychotic break was perhaps unavoidable–symptoms were coming on for a while. But the break required more heroic treatment–I started taking a cocktail of medications that made me fat. I’m actually trying to lose weight right now, but my medication, particularly my antipsychotic, makes it an uphill battle. I’ve tried different antipsychotics that don’t cause weight gain, but they didn’t work very well, certainly not as well as the one I’m on now.

I also don’t want to change my medication because I recently stopped hearing voices–after a breakthrough interlude–and I don’t want them to come back. I stopped hearing them when my mood stabilizer was increased, but everything works together.

Other signs that continue to play out from that psychotic break include the fact that I have difficulty driving, difficulty showering (especially washing my hair), difficulty with personal hygiene in general… I could go on and on. I will tell you that I was proud of myself this morning when I brushed my teeth!

So, I was psychotic in 1998 all through the holidays, which are already a very manic time of year for me and many others. I wasn’t violent—I wasn’t even particularly disruptive, besides chain smoking. I was already in treatment for depression. Then the delusions seeped through. 

Sometimes my delusions were funny. Do you remember the paper clip man who used to show up on Word and say things like, “It looks like you’re writing a letter… can I help?” Well, he really freaked me out! I thought he was talking to me specifically!

My first psychotic episode seems like a lifetime ago. I’ve grown up so much. Getting married really made me grow up—and I got married 10 years after the break! I think if I had known when I first became psychotic that I would be married to my wonderful Tom in 10 years, I wouldn’t have been so scared.

To my fellow Tori Amos fans: if you’re wondering whether the title of this piece is inspired by her song “29 Years,” it is!