1. I have emancipated myself completely from any financial or emotional entaglements with my family.  Thus, I will not be ridden by guilt mixed with my father’s own complexes about debt and baby-boomer cognitive dissonance about riding the wave of booms in the 1980s, only to leave their children with no job market, and to find themselves in debt that will be all-consuming once retirement is reached, as there was and end to those booms – everything that comes up must go.  You got it….I will not longer be the scapegoat when I ask for $50.  Besides, what is an adult doing asking for $50?  I will no longer help a 20 year-old young woman, my sister, find her first job.  I will no longer question why she has stepped into the role of  ”the perfect child”.  I fear for her future, as she plans to apply to medical school with no life experience next year.  These things are not my responsiblility. 

So I ran away home.  To Vancouver.  To face my demons, and become the Goddess I was becoming until an unexpected attack left me bruised and bleeding.

2. I am writing from the psych ward – a swanky one, though I will not name the location in Vancouver!  I have found doctors who are willing to help me radically reduce/completely get rid of  my dosage/addiction to Effexor.  I’ve been on 375 mg instead of 450 mg for 2 days now.  I am being fed Epival instead, which is preventing brain zaps quite miraculously.  Up goes the Epival, down goes the Effexor.  If one wishes to get off Epival, there is no “withdrawal syndrome” involved.  The only side-effects of withdrawing from Effexor so far that I have experienced have been fogginess/a feeling of mental “slowness”. and rage when things do not go my way immediately – feelings of wanting to rip things off the walls and run back and forth down the hallway screaming.  I want to throw a temper tantrum, feeling like it would make things better, but knowing full well it would not.  Thus, I sit still.

3. I have schedued Dr. Catherine Allaire, my amazing surgeon, to perform a laparoscopic hysterectomy (despite being 26 years-old ) on May 2nd.  I am taking my body into my own hands.  I do not want to be reliant on painkillers any more than I want to be reliant on psychiatric medications. 

I want to know what it feels like to be normal again.  I will also dye my hair.  It’s kind of a tradition, changing my hair dramatically, everytime I make a dramatic change in my life.  Maybe I’ll turn it into a rainbow!

More soon – my access to a computer is limited, and it’s a PC (I’m pc-illiterate ).  I will answer your long overdue questions/comments ASAP.  The reason I’ve been absent is I’ve been putting my clandestine move back to Vancouver in the works, sometimes literally flying by the seat of my pants.  Remembering when flying used to be exciting.  It has now become a chore.  I think I will decide, or at least create some semblance of an idea, or what I want to do with my life this year.

You have been my support network over the past year, and this is what I tell doctors when they ask, “how about your support network…”, inevitably. 

scars xoxo

First thing I need when I leave the hospital – a room of my own – a bachelor suite!!  My past four sets of roommates (friends and family discluded) had stated that my “issues” are too big for a shared living arrangement.  Well, I feel too big for anyone else myself.  I’m a tiny little thing, barely 100 lbs., but my energy is boundless, and it needs a jar.