Once upon a time there was a disillusioned grad student, screen name: scarsarestories.  Blocked from carrying out a government scholarship funded project on children and psychotropic medications by a right-wing educational institution, she decided to start a blog.  She had never wanted to write for an “academic <cough> elitist <cough> <ahem!> audience” before, anyhow, she wanted her words and opinions to reach a much wider spectrum of people – that of anyone, anywhere, that could easily access her words.  It was a dream come true when I started seeing page views slowly rise from ten per day to one hundred and beyond.  I certainly have not made a killing (or a living !) *lol*  ) as a blogger, though I hope that eventually I can jump off this platform into a career as a writer.  But I’ve made some things that are far more valuable than dollar bills.

I’ve made friends.  I encourage you to “friend me” on facebook to interact, because that is just how I met a couple of Ontario readers who I now consider soul siblings: the fantastic Sarafin, author and illustrator of Asylum Squad, a web comic (soon to be in print!  ), and “Ma Magie”, Richard-Yves, also a wonderful writer, of the lyrical poem that shares its title with this post and countless other gems, some of which you’ll find on his blog and elsewhere on the web.  I do not make friends all that easily, but I’ve made two, and I did not ask for or anticipate them, but they arrived and I knew I must be doing something right.  These two are now good friends, and get to see a lot more of each other than me due to geographical realities <jealous?  me?!    >.

I guess what I’m trying to get out of my trap is that a tiny little community has arisen among these archived writings – two years of my life, expressed whenever I could, really, express myself, and a new brother and a new sister sprung from the annals, and I love them more than many ——.

Rick wrote these beautiful “lyrics”, the sum and fabulous poem is as great as its parts.  The song is the metaphor.  I am reminded of this Bright Eyes tune:

, but it pales in comparison to Rick’s rhymes.  I leave you with, “…The Song That Never Ends”, lyrics by Richard-Yves Sitoski, vocals, etc. by (the awesome, as well) Jake Chegahno, photos added by yours truly. (click for youtube music video).

Here are those fabulous lyrics, and a fabulous poem:

“HERE IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS…

This is for the ones who never learned to wait,

And this is for the ones who formerly were great.

And this is for the ones who just ran out of luck,

And this is for the ones who just don’t give a fuck.

And this is for the gravel you picked out of your wound,

And this is for the decade you spent locked in your room.

And this is for the nipple that burns beneath your tongue,

And this is for the majesty you had when you were young.

And this is for the sparrow singing in the rafters,

And this is for the bomb and the silence that came after.

And this is for the crimes committed by your god,

And this is for the children spoiled by the rod.

And this is for the morning and the promise that you gave her,

And this is for the evening when you knew you would betray her.

And this is for the side effects that are worse than the disease

When the pills you take to kill it bring you to your knees.

And this is for the book that’s full of wisdom till you read it,

And this is for the wolf that’s full of kindness till you feed it.

And this is for my sister who crawled out of the wreckage,

And this is for my brother who never got the message.

And this is for the grownups who like to play with dolls,

And this is for the clerks who liberate the malls.

And this is for the gambler who knows he’ll never win,

And this is for the regiment and all their next of kin.

And this is for your third eye rolling in its socket,

And this is for the soul that fell out of your pocket.

And this is for the sow’s ear you made out of a purse,

And this is for the tricycle, the ambulance, the hearse.

And this is for the bricklayer whose bricks contain no straw,

And this is for the boxer with crystal for a jaw.

And this is for the martyrs whose heads are served on platters,

And this is for the Dormice, the March Hares and the Hatters.

And this is for the radical defeated by tradition,

And this is for the moderate lost in the transition.

And this is for the shackles and the chemical restraints

And all the clothes you soil and all the air you taint.

And this is for the captain who left you on the boat,

And this is for the chill that creeps beneath your coat.

And this is for the angels who’ve never heard of sin

And give away to devils their alabaster skin.

And this is for the vinegar that happened to your wine,

And this is for the tapeworm that happened to your swine.

And this is for the id that rises from the seas,

And this is for the ego that cowers in the trees.

And this is for the cross from which your son descended,

And this is for the mantle and the shroud his mother mended.

And this is for the silt that used to be the harbour,

And this is for the leeches and the razors and the barber.

And this is for the moth that made it through the flame,

And this is for the freedom of abandoning your name.

And this is for the magnet that’s buried in your breast

That draws you to the iron of an imaginary west.

And this is for the lover who rose and walked away

When hearts became a game she got too tired to play.

And this is for the artist who pissed upon her canvas,

And this is for the boss who pissed upon your answers.

And this is for the mother who took to drugs and drink,

And this is for the son who took to wearing pink.

And this is for the women the detectives file in boxes,

And this is for the chickens guarded by the foxes.

And this is for the trees because they grow on money,

And this is for the flies because they die in honey.

And this is for your joy at playing with the heads

Of men who think they own you when they strap you to their beds.

And this is for the drug they slipped into your liquor,

And this is for the spine that was broken by a feather.

And this is for the bandage and the blister and the blood,

And this is for the fight before the flight before the flood.

And this is for your daughter playing in the sewer,

And this is for your mother who died before you knew her.

And this is for moonlight that spills across the floor,

And this is for the luggage that night drops at your door.

And this is for the brine on Adam’s dying lips

The day he fell in Eve and drowned between her hips.

And this is for your body on which you carved a picture,

And this is for the Braille in which you wrote the scripture.

And this is for the song that ends as it began,

Like the face of Ozymandias weathering to sand.

And this is for the song that begins the way it ends,

Like the mortal enemy who used to be your friend.”

Words by Richard-Yves Sitoski, Photographs by scarsarestories

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Other times I forget about it, altogether.

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The reason I am telling this particular value-laden tale is because when I lived it, about a month ago on Easter Sunday 2012, it jumped off the page of my day and slapped me across the face, then handed me a pen.  That “moral of the story” was so glaringly obvious that I knew I had something, and behind a closed door, I laughed out loud for the first time in quite a while when I got home from Shopper’s Drug Mart (Commercial/Broadway Station location, Vancouver, British Columbia) as I reviewed what had just happened in my mind.  Indeed, laughter really is the method by which we manage to survive in this mad world.

Years ago, before I had walked away from many things – graduate school, domestic abuse, and my uterus, to name a few – I wrote a letter to the owner of that very same pharmacy, one Mr. Dan Kooner, after what I believed was an unacceptable situation as a customer and human being.  As I outline in the “Letter of Complaint”, later published on this website, as part of a series of letters of the same genre (they can all be found on the right hand sidebar, under “categories”  ), one of the pharmacists working under him had lashed out at not only me, but my family doctor too, when I brought in a prescription for codeine – a mild painkiller that was keeping me going at the time, warding off some of the excruciating endometriosis-enduced pain that had suddenly become unbearable where it had previously been manageable.

The pharmacist in question had scolded me for bringing in a prescription that was “not written properly”, and said it would cancel out all of my existing prescriptions which, of course, were my psych meds.  At the time, I was still on a whopping 450 mg of Effexor, and a single missed dosage would send me into withdrawals that were agonising in a different way than my pelvic pain, including characteristic “brain zaps”.  The thought of being without the antidote to the zaps, in addition to not having sleep or anxiety medication, in the middle of my struggle to keep up at school in the midst of being ill and getting little sympathy or slack for my condition, made me very uneasy.  I still do not understand why my tears angered the woman behind the counter so much, after I meekly asked if she could call or fax my doctor for a new script and she angrily agreed to the “<BIG SIGH> extra work”.

When she still was not happy with the document she received in response, and I tearfully and rather desperately asked, “Should I bring my prescription to a different pharmacy or something?”, the answer I received was unexpected.

“Yes!  This is the last time you are allowed to fill any prescription here!”

I had not been doctor shopping.  I had not forged prescriptions.  I had not yelled at the staff, cursed, or behaved rudely.  When I wrote a letter to the owner of the business, explaining how presenting a piece of paper written in a language I did not even understand led to this severe punitive action, after frequenting the pharmacy very often, sometimes paying as much as $25 per day for my other prescriptions – the price of convenience, as I would have paid far less in dispensing fees at a smaller pharmacy instead of the Shopper’s franchise, but would not be able to pick my medication up as early as 6 am and as late as midnight, a realized necessity after starting grad school and being awoken by pain in the wee hours of the morning as well as having classes that ran as late as 9:30 pm – I expected an apology.

Instead, Dan Kooner, the owner of this particular Shopper’s pharmacy and store, failed to respond and then banned me from the store outright the next time he saw me and figured out who I was.  Coincidentally, I was again in a weakened position, asking a small favour of the Canada Post workers at the store regarding the order of a transaction due to something made complicated by electronic banking.  Here was the same young woman, being outwardly emotional in public, and asking that the staff at his store treat me the same way that they would like to be treated themselves.  Wasn’t this expectation reflective of something I learned when I was young, called…

The Golden Rule???

Apparently I was fooling myself, and failing to grasp some societal expectations that had long surpassed the “golden rule” in terms of level of importance, namely, keeping one’s feelings – and of course any accompanying tears! – to oneself, and accepting mediocre treatment – never asking a store employee (in case there is any concern, I had put in my time – for five years I had been a store employee as well, and I remembered being happier than happy when I could go beyond what I had been trained to do and use my role to really help someone – I guess my ethic was outdated) to do something for a fellow human being that strayed from the order of the past hundred transactions they had put through.

I was more than upset – I was seriously disillusioned with the state of humanity around me. Like I had so often, and would so often, I felt very alienated from the culture and people that surrounded me in Vancouver.  It seemed that I was one thing that just didn’t belong.  I used a familiar survival tactic (it was not yet time for laughter), and I wrote about what had happened.  I was not shy about using Dan Kooner’s name.  He was a business owner in my neighbourhood, and his actions took place in the public domain - I was not exposing anything about him that he hadn’t been glad to do in front of a sizable audience of customers at his store.  I was not criticizing anything but his professional behaviour.  There are websites dedicated to rating people in other occupations, like doctors (www.ratemds.com) and professors (www.ratemyprofessors.com), but none for pharmacists or business owners.  I was not participating in any kind of “defamation” that folks in other professions, including my own, both as a  scholar and writer, are not subject to all the time.

Obviously, I did not see Mr. Kooner again after he “banned” me from his place of business.  I had no desire for us to cross paths again, and I had learned that the personalized treatment I received at Maggie’s Pharmacy, a much smaller business, not part of a chain, owned by a Hungarian woman, that puts up a solid fight against the Canadian retail giant just across the street, was worth the less convenient hours.  It would be years until a “perfect storm”, of sorts, brought me face to face with Kooner in – where else? – his store.

This past Easter weekend, I had that horrible flu that I caught during my stay at “One West”, the psych ward at Vancouver General Hospital, and I had not been able to keep any food in my body without paying for it with hours of terrible nausea and liquid diarrhea  for two weeks.  The Thursday before two holidays that Maggie gave herself and her staff as days off – Good Friday and Easter Sunday – I felt so ill that I went back to the hospital, this time to the ER, by ambulance.  My methadone clinic had written a prescription for the following week the day before, forgetting about the holiday closures.  Thus, on Thursday morning they called to tell me that they would write a new prescription for me to pick up and bring to a pharmacy that would be open for me to come in on the long weekend, either Safeway or Shopper’s.  In the past I had gotten “carries”, take-home doses of methadone, on long weekends, but this time it was too close to a hospital admission for suicidal behaviour (it is easy to overdose on even a double dose of this potent medication).  I planned in my mind to bring my new script to Safeway, and when I went to the ER and left my dad, at a distance, the job of letting the clinic know I would not be able to come to pick it up, they let him know that they would fax it to Shopper’s.  I had told my dad all about my trouble with the pharmacist and owner there, years ago, but he assumed that the staff would have little memory of what happened so long ago, and certainly would not be so silly as to bring up their past nonsense.

I was less optimistic about the situation, and in the end, more correct.

The very same woman pharmacist gave me my methadone on Friday and Saturday.  She, again, gave me a hard time about the way my prescription was written!  I suppose I was more equipped to deal with her style of interacting with people, and talked with her about what the words written on the prescription were intended to mean until she gave me my methadone.  On Sunday, I expected the annoyances to be finished with.  Instead this tale would come to a climax, and, being a fable, the moral of the story of “scarsarestories vs. Shopper’s Drug Mart Commercial/Broadway” would be revealed.

So, what is it?  What happened that makes it worth my time, rehashing this old, and not so pleasant, business?

When I arrived at the pharmacy counter on Sunday, I saw the woman pharmacist, Ritz, motion to get the attention of someone working in the back, beyond my view of the going’s on as technicians filled vials with pills.  I cannot say I was surprised when Dan Kooner stepped out.  I was still ill, the antibiotics I had been given at the ER had just started to work.  For a moment I dreaded whatever stupid fight was to follow.  Until Kooner opened his mouth.

He held my methadone dose behind the counter, as if to threaten that he would not give it to me if I did not agree with what he said:

“Hey there!  You sure had nothing good to say about me on the net.”

“He-hey,” I laughed slightly, “That was a long time ago…”  I smiled at the man, ready to call a truce.  He did not return my friendly expression.

He put his hands on his hips, “Well, that kind of stuff never goes away, you know. That will still be there in ten, fifteen years!  You know, I have a daughter now?”  He was visibly agitated, “What if she goes on the computer and reads what you wrote?”

His demeanor was not indicative of someone about to apologize for the reason I had written about him at all, namely, making me feel so crappy – discriminated against for being on psychiatric medication, and losing my faith in the people and society around me.  But, he still had the chance to do so, I was standing right in front of him for the first time in years.  He could ask me to clarify what had gotten me so hot and bothered.  He could have a discussion with the young woman that was apparently not worthy of his services.  And if he did take a little interest in my feelings, those of someone who could be his own daughter, now, twenty-some years later, I would have amended the posting that angered him – I would have had no problem saying that perhaps I was too quick to judge, had oversimplified things, or at very least I could have left things on a positive note, saying that people could change.

But that did not happen, when I offered, “Well, I could take down that post…”

This only seemed to get him more worked up.  Still holding back my methadone, essentially threatening that I would experience a lot of physical discomfort if I did not agree with him, he retorted  ”Oh, YOU could, could you?”

I couldn’t help but grin again, “Yes, I could.”

I guess he thought he scared me enough to take down the post.  I guess he did not understand that it was not a threat or scare of someone in a position of power that I was looking for.  Speaking of power, he sure seemed disturbed that I, a lowly consumer of medications for psychiatric illness, pain, and addiction (to pills, at that!  ), had a little bit of power, herself, all of a sudden, power in my words, put in a public place, as public as his business.

He could not say that I had been false in my telling of the treatment I received at his pharmacy.  Only that I “had nothing good to say”.  And I hadn’t.  Nor would I have anything good to say when I wrote about him again.  Could he not see that he was putting the noose around his own neck?

“Well, that would be nice!” he said as he slowly began pouring my methadone into a cup for me to drink.

I smiled all the way home.  I had been thinking about that “golden rule” and how so few people in the world around me, especially as of late, treated others anywhere close to how they would like to be treated, or how they would like their mother or sister or daughter to be treated.  I had walked into a beautiful illustration that afternoon, not what I expected to do when I dragged myself out of bed to Shopper’s, after mustering up the energy for nauseous hours during which I dreaded each step of my relatively short walk to the pharmacy.  It was the first time I thought about writing for months, and the most genuine smile to cross my face in ages.  Although this story conforms to most fables, and tells the tale of someone who violated the “moral”, or value, that is taught through the telling, I was happy for the sake of my experience, and my ability to make people think with my writing, even if I couldn’t always have the effect that I desired.

WOrds are powerful.

Words outlive us.

I am guessing that even more than Dan Kooner wants his daughter to think of him favourably (at least I certainly hope so), he wants his little girl to be treated with respect in the world that she grows up in.  Had I been treated with respect in the first place, his name would never have graced this website – or, like the name of my new pharmacist at Maggie’s, it may have appeared in a positive context.  But, for the purpose of this story, never mind that first experience with Mr. Kooner or other members of the Shopper’s staff.  By the grace of Jesus (and by this I mean to say, a statutory holiday based on the Christian belief in a man named Jesus, and the apparent date of his death, which changes every year, of course, depending on when a certain Sunday in April falls :amazed  ), the health care system, and a nasty bug I caught while staying at a hospital that is part of the same system, Mr. Kooner was given a second chance to treat me with respect, years later.

Instead of having a conversation he did not want to have, and instead of having no conversation at all, Dan Kooner threatened me with a day of feeling really crappy, which would have resulted if he did not give me my methadone, and tried to intimidate me into taking back what I had said about him before, none of which was untrue – he could not argue with me on that.  He could only complain about what I did after I was understandably upset by the treatment I received at his place of business – write.

It is incredibly rare for us to get a chance at an edit in life.

Among other things, and I could name a few, that Sunday Mr. Kooner taught me about what not to do if I am given the chance to show respect in a situation where I failed to do so in the past.  And as I sit here at my aunt’s house, a woman who, like me, has struggled with psychiatry and “mental issues”, and a woman who I am growing very close to now that the two of us crazy gals have managed to give each other a second chance, seeing how silly our conflict over a serious car accident was, I am reminded of one particular definition of “insanity” that I am usually not that fond of.

Today it seems fitting.  That “definition of insanity” is “making the same mistake twice”.

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“HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR MEDS TODAY?”

What the %&@£?  Since when are prank callers asking people about their pharmaceutical regimen?  Likely, I thought, they are not, and this call was made by the type that would leave “trollesque” comments around here – it was the fifth call from the same woman that I had received within twenty-four hours, and during one the previous evening, my question, “Why are you still on my phone line?” (at first I thought it was a wrong number, with the weird list-off of girls’ given names…  ) was answered rather ominously:

“WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?”

Wow.  The caller was not only very intoxicated, unless she always slurs her words that much, but also a creative genius.  What a clever retort!  Ironically, her question has some good answers, which I’ll get to later.  After telling a few friends about the calls, that I found highly amusing, not scary, they convinced me that reporting what had spiraled into harassment to the police was in my best interest.  I haven’t heard from my mystery caller since then, but to answer the former question, I have, indeed, been “taking my meds”.

In fact, I’m on a new pill since exiting the hospital, but there is one “med” that I have not taken for a few weeks now, and that, not stupid questions, is what I’ve been intending to write about for a while (I don’t care what anyone says – stupid questions do exist, very much so!  ).  First and foremost, I’ll share some big news: for the first time in over seven years, I am completely free from Effexor XR.  If you have been reading this blog for some time, you know that for a long time I believed that I was permanently dependent on Effexor – and not to prevent depression, but to stop the physically and psychologically unbearable withdrawal syndrome that many experience upon ceasing to take this medication, especially if – like me – one has either (or both – like me) been taking Effexor for a prolonged period of time, or has been taking a particularly high dosage.  I was on 450 mg, an “experimental dosage”, as all dosages over the recommended – and clinically tested – 375 mg maximum, are.  300 mg was the highest dose I had heard of anyone else taking, and people taking far less complained of an awful and prolonged withdrawal, many on the blog “Brainzaps: A Journal of Effexor Withdrawal“.  My project, “APOCALYPSE EFFEXOR: REDUX“, demonstrated some of the horrors of withdrawing from the drug, when I made myself into my own lab rat and stopped taking the drug cold turkey to demonstrate to those around me, and whomever is interested reading on the web, how dangerous Effexor is.

I was certainly not the only one whining and zapping, and I encourage you to join the near 25,000 folks who have already signed the electronic petition against Effexor if you or someone you know (and now you do!  ) has been affected by this jagged little pill, if there ever was one.  I am, however, temporarily on Prozac (fluoxetine), at its lowest dose (10 mg) as this is a common method of preventing withdrawal symptoms if taken for one month, after Effexor is completely stopped.  It took me slightly longer than a year to get to this point, and I still credit being on an opiate – methadone,which I began taking after my hysterectomy last May, when I found myself addicted to hydromorphone (Dilaudid), the strong painkiller that I’d taken to deal with the pre-surgical pain – with the fact that the withdrawal has not been too challenging physically, though no doctor has shared my opinion.  I did taper down the dosage, about once a month, as well as interchanging doses over the course of weeks – for example, taking a higher dose every other day for the third week of the month, and every third day for the fourth.

There is no doubt that withdrawing from Effexor is complicated and frustrating.  Once I was about half-way through the taper, I began having emotions and feelings – running the whole gamut, and, yes, including the first libidinous feelings I’d had without herbal assistance (speaking of this little helper that really did help me after I found a banner like this on another blog):). My newfound affectations – all essentially reactions to the world around me – not surprisingly, queued some overzealousness that became the source of trouble.  I no longer experienced painful and bothersome “brain zaps” (the feeling of an electrical shock, from head to toes, running through my body, that occurred upon a simple turn of my head or landing of my foot upon taking a new step) when I forgot to take my daily dosage of Effexor, like I had at 450 mg, and even 300 mg. I began forgetting doses, accidentally at first, and eventually purposefully, finding that if I did so, I experienced far more along the emotional spectrum over the course of a day.  In my own words, I felt far more “like myself” than I had in years.  ”Uncontrollable crying”, a withdrawal symptom listed on the official label for the drug, came along with many of these emotions, but I could care less, as long as I could be more of me than I had been in years.

Looking back, now, this was a vast oversimplification, not to mention it was greatly influenced by others that I was spending time with.  I told new friends – people whom in retrospect I had little in common with, and who had more interest in taking advantage of my kindness than in my company – of my years-long struggle with antidepressants and other psychiatric meds.  They shared the opinion of so many people who have never had any personal experience with these powerful drugs: that they were evil personality-mangling substances that the clever avoid.  Obviously, in their words, “[I] should just stop taking them!”  Furthermore, when I thought that I was acting “like me” for the first time in years, I was really making some very lousy judgments and forming false and naïve opinions about friendships.  I was gushy, and I was gushing all over the place.  When I learned that one friend had been referring to me as his “sugar mama” (me?  an income assistance recipient?  ) I was furious.  When I learned that the individual who informed me of this less than flattering title that had been used behind my back was using me as well, which became brazenly clear upon a barrage of text messages I received, begging that I let my bank account be used for some kind of sketchy transfer of funds, with the meagre reward of “up to 10%”, I fell into the same dark place I had found myself last summer, where, living in the city of Vancouver, I felt that everyone I met who took interest in what I had to say was secretly only interested in taking advantage of me in one form or another, usually financially or sexually, if not both.

After one particular week during which I had taken none of my meds, I finally started to feel the physical withdrawal.  My brain was zapping and I felt very confused, not to mention the fact that my bank account was empty after I handed over the funds to the fellow – he promised me he would double my money by investing with a cousin who sold pot – who I would soon find out was laughing at my “generosity” behind my back.

I was also at a personal crossroads, and I was spent – I had survived a random assault over the Christmas holidays in Winnipeg, but I had not dealt with the ramifications of being raped by a stranger because of my skin and hair colour.  I had simply run away, back to Vancouver.  My sister had shunned me while I was visiting my hometown because of (as far as I understand her reasons) her dislike of the way I had behaved during the previous year’s visit, before my hysterectomy, when I was under the influence of high doses of Dilaudid.  This had been almost as painful as being assaulted.  At the same time, I had come to the realization that I had no real interest in attending law school – an alternative to grad school that my dad promoted, and which offered me the opportunity to compete, in my family’s eyes more than those of anyone else, with my sister’s plans to attend medical school after she finishes her undergrad degree.  I was terribly afraid to break the news to my family, that I was once again living “aimlessly”.  So, I didn’t – I told my dad that I was writing the LSAT (law school entrance exam), when I was really in the throes of some serious self-destruction.

It was self-destruction for the purpose of self-destruction, not for fun, though some may have trouble understanding this.  I knew that, delving much deeper into the lifestyle of drug addicts on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside than I had ever planned when I decided to do some “participant observation” style research in the neighbourhood for personal, journalistic and sociological research purposes, that I was putting myself in a great deal of danger, not to mention throwing personal ethics to the wind.  My original goals were definitely accomplished – I gained great insider’s insight into an ignored, marginalized community, and how it survives and functions, but at a great cost – I wasted the money awarded to me for “pain and suffering”, a result of the horrific car accident that drove a wedge between me and my long lost, and finally found, Aunt Ruth – another source of trauma I had been hiding from – and failed to use it to pay off the bills and loans from family and friends that I had promised would be returned, including that for my kitty’s expensive surgery.  I threw away my own dreams of travelling abroad to volunteer in a poorer country, which I hoped to do once I’d gotten that cheque.

I was consciously turning myself into the monster that my sister, blatantly, and the rest of my family, more discreetly, believed I was.  I was truly hell-bent on self-destruction.

When I grew tired of my company – notably, the women who all seemed to believe that accepting rather violent sexual advances from men was not something to complain about for the mere reason that this was the Downtown Eastside (ooooh, I’m sure there is no rougher neighbourhood on the planet!  ) - I had spent a lot of money on drugs, but much more had gone into the hands of individuals who had spent much longer than me in the area, and whose main source of income was ripping off “tourists” like myself.  When I checked myself into a medical detox facility, from which I was quickly sent to the psych ward at Vancouver General Hospital for possessing what seemed like a fabulous idea at the time: my wish to jump off the Lion’s Gate Bridge (yes, the bridge that separates North Vancouver from downtown Vancouver is replete with those horribly tacky lion statues that some folks feel the need to position on their front porches, and this alone would have made such an event incredibly tragic) in the blood soaked jeans that intake staff did not even notice, having tried to attack myself with a piece of glass from a pipe I broke the evening before, I left a “friend”, G., a young homeless man from the drug scene, with my personal effects, including my phone, which he pawned, my keys, which he lost, and my bank card, which I had not planned on letting out of my hands, having made this mistake only a week earlier.

Before giving him the card, with which he could access my bank accounts, I had tried to transfer him a large amount of money using Western Union.  My request was declined.  I was down to the very last of my money, and I was caught in the middle of another “double your money” scheme, plus he “needed” money for groceries and other necessities that went along with housesitting.  Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes hope can be one’s worst enemy.  Deep down I knew he was not going to come through for me, salvaging this last little nest egg, tiny in comparison to what had already come and gone.  It would have been more logical to buy a whole lot of freaking scratch n’ win tickets with the funds.  But I was desperate to believe in someone and something.  When I explained that I was most likely over my limit, it being a Sunday and the bank counting all activities Friday through Sunday as one day, he became irate and paranoid.

“Fuck, you’re difficult!  How come you’re just telling me this now, huh?  You knew this would happen all along!”

“No I didn’t,” I protested, and this was the truth, “I cannot foresee everything that’s going to happen all the time, I just remembered the rule about weekends, and the fact that I’m going in on Sunday [to detox, this being the appointment time I was given a week ago, when I had something worth speaking of left in my account and entered this arrangement with him, my friend, the one who had told me to watch out for all those other bad characters that ripped me off all along].  Why would you think I’m trying to rip you off, after everything I’ve done.  How many envelopes of cash have I given you?  How many?”

He just shook his head.  Going into detox was a death of sorts, as I knew my life after this institutionalization had to change.  The only other option was a life of crime, and hanging out with addicts who were likely to “nod off” in the middle of any conversation, even if you told them you were moving to Africa or that you had terminal cancer.  I did not want to end on a bad note, and I found myself writing down: “savings” and my six digit PIN, the contents of my chequing account having been donated to a complete sociopath who had spent time in prison for permanently disfiguring someone by sticking their head in a deep fryer – a feat that he wore like a badge, and used to manipulate people in his line of work the very same way one uses a university degree on a resumé to get a job – the last time I had gone through exactly these motions.

“It’s not like I’m going to clean you out or anything,” he said in a softer tone, looking downwards.

“I know, I know,” I stammered, nervously.  In that same place where I knew how this story was going to end, I was terrified of all of these people – they all knew one another and could well have all been in cahoots with each other.

He had already nearly told me to take a hike earlier that morning when one of my actual friends, back in Winnipeg, managed to have the Vancouver Police track us down to his cell phone, when he dropped me off in a filthy “hotel room” with hot pink walls that had been written over in black permanent marker, yet not with one poetic phrase.  I lacked a sharpie marker and I was so furious with myself for ending up in this position that I sent some friends a goodbye message on Facebook and broke a glass pipe and spent the wee hours of the morning trying to find an artery, to no avail.  I still lost enough blood that my blood pressure was low for two weeks and I could not stay awake – I nearly drowned in a bowl of soup offered to me before I left detox for the hospital.  None of the staff could figure out why I was so weak, they just assumed I had snuck in some contraband and I was on the nod.  What a wonderful health care system we have here in Canada – I managed to hide the open wounds on my thighs from all nurses and doctors, even in the ER where I slept in the hallway for 24 hours, and where I had to wear a hospital gown.

My hospital stay itself, exactly two weeks long, was very uneventful, albeit one thing – the addition of Seroquel XR to my meds, and the further decrease of Effexor from 75 mg to 37.5 mg, the smallest dose available in pill form.  I came down with the worst case of “gastrointestinitis” (the best diagnosis the entire staff of doctors, nurses, and therapists that worked on the ward could come up with, even though the vomiting and diarrhea did not abate until I took an antibiotic… I think a fellow patient was more accurate when he looked at me and said, “Now you have the superbug!”  ) I’ve ever had a few days into my stay.  As soon as I had kept down one tray of solid food I was released.  I attacked myself with a razor blade promptly after being discharged.  However, I was still incredibly weakened, and this was not working.  By morning I was throwing up again, and I called my dad for the first time in weeks.  My physical illness, whatever it was, did me a favour that way – I had no will to do anything but the hardest thing of all: call the one person I had left in the world that might still care about me, and beg for help.

Another two weeks later my dad arrived in Vancouver to help me pack up the apartment that had once been home.  I had destroyed that feeling long ago, and the place did nothing but make me depressed.  One weekend, long ago now, before the money came, and before a series of men in the business of ripping off women who cannot come back and beat the crap out of them got their dirty hands on it, two “friends” had spent the weekend at my place and had made a mess cooking pancakes that I did not eat.  I was home so infrequently after that, as I went back downtown with the two and my ICBC settlement cheque arrived the following Friday, that my formerly pleasant abode decayed for the following two months to a near unlivable state.  I had opened my big mouth about the money on its way to one of the aforementioned acquaintances, making the foolish assumption that she would uphold some sort of code between women and keep it to herself.

Apartment buildings on the Downtown Eastside – the only buildings in Vancouver that rent suites, or, in most cases, rooms, for $375, the equivalent of the amount that British Columbia income assistance allocates for housing – are very much like dorms at a boarding school or university.  I will elaborate on this when I write specifically about the area in my “Among Hungry Ghosts” series, the title of the series of articles based on this excellent book by physician and author Dr. Gabor Matê, who has worked as a doctor and activist in the neighbourhood for over 30 years and wrote the book, .  For the sake of the current discussion, one parallel facet is that gossip spreads like a virus, and this woman, D., certainly did not keep her promise any more than G. kept his word regarding the safekeeping of my cash and belongings. The man who bragged about the deep fryer incident took advantage of my physical dependence on methadone, and made sure that I was physically well without having to journey back to my own neighbourhood, which seemed like climbing a mountain at the time, only instead of a beautiful summit, I had to face the ruins of my life-not-so-long-ago.  Make no mistake – I take full responsibility for the, to be frank, stupidity of my actions – from the moment I sat down with this fellow, I made a conscious decision to self-destruct.  However, when I think of him, the word evil is the first that comes to mind, and I do not think I have ever before used this word to describe someone, thinking it is dogmatic and trite.  He preyed on women like me, all along pretending to be a confidante and talking trash about other men who do the exact same things that he does to an extreme.

Phew.  That’s enough darkness for me, today.  In the end, I knew that this was not my life, and I was exiting one way or another.  By the grace of my Goddesses and guardian angels, not to mention my dad and my Auntie, down here on Earth, I made it to detox and the hospital before I made it to death; I made it to a bug that was certainly super before I made it to Hep C or HIV; and I found my way to a new home before I found my way to a new hovel.

I ended up surprising myself in many positive ways.  I found the strength to tell everyone -

i cannot be anyone but myself.

And there is only one of me, and she’s not half bad, so I better be her, not someone else’s version of her, whether it be that of a sociopath, or that of my dear father.  I will suffocate any other way.  I will also suffocate if I try to go at it alone, because, if I’ve learned anything, I’ve learned that everybody needs somebody.  What a shame it would have been had I turned my back on my wonderful Aunt, after so many years apart, and after she accepted the idea of having me and my dad, her brother, in her life again.  So right now I have two people in my family and my new home is with my Aunt in British Columbia’s breathtaking interior.  And I only wished to have one, so I am tempted to use the word “blessed”.  The three of us are a force to be reckoned with  My dad is even learning new tricks all the time.

And I have taken my meds, but I am free of Effexor.  Seroquel XR – a low dose of it, but nonetheless – has come as a huge surprise.  It is true, the more I learn the less I know, as I never thought I would say “yes” again to a doctor’s offer to give me a drug classified as an antipsychotic, even if also “approved to treat bipolar disorder and depression”.  Had I not been in such a desperate place – unable to sleep or relax or bathe – and then there was breathing - I would not have given it a chance. And I believe it is helping right now.  I do not believe I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life.

But the rest of my life is not now.  So I’m not thinking about that.  I think about how much I am enjoying my time right now.  I think about music and writing and art.  And I think about the sky.

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Finally, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) in all of its NINE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE glorious pages, is once again available for fast and simple free download under the “Free DSM-IV-TR” tab at the top of the page.  Click here to go directly to the download page.  

My apologies that this bug was left unfixed for so long – though I love to play with  technology and web design, I can be a techie dunce.  Most recently, the octogenarian that my Aunt (and now I, for some indeterminate period of time) live with taught me how to use Skype.  No, I had never used it before!  If we go back a decade, when I was in Grade Twelve, I refused to spend $130 on a graphing calculator that would have shortened hours of homework to minutes based on three factors: 1) I went to a private school, in my case paid for by scholarships and bursaries for low income students (which were in such short order that I probably got most of, if not all bursary funds allocated for my class), but most students’ families paid upwards of $10,000/year in tuition.  For a graphing calculator not to be given to students by the educational institution was making millions of dollars off of them per year was absurd to my little pinko commie mind, 2) I thought that I would learn the theory behind the quadratic functions that this monstrous object (probably ten times the size of an iPhone!  ) would prevent one from learning why lines on a graph appeared as they did based on a certain equation, as you literally did not have to “do the math” if you typed said equation into Texas Instruments’  torture device for high-schoolers, and 3) The thing scared the crap out of me.

This last reason, as well as my automatic description of the calculator as a “torture device”, probably had greater influence upon my righteous action against the calculator, and at other times, other technology.  The prime example would have to be the juxtaposition of my great ethical reasons for not driving a car, and my fear of car accidents after being in a few bad ones, along with the fact that the second and final time I attempted to drive I ended up on someone’s front lawn when trying to master the art of driving around a cul-de-sac.  Dr. Phil would speak of making a pancake as flat as possible and two sides persisting to exist (doesn’t a flatter pancake have two much bigger sides, McGraw?  Never mind…   ); I’ll “talk even straighter”.  I know the latter, less environmentally-conscious/anti-Big Oil reasons play a greater role in my refusal to ever get behind the wheel.

As much as I would like my personal values to have a greater affect on my behaviour than fear and other irrationalities, when it all comes down to dust, I’m no more (wo)man than Orwell’s Winston Smith in 1984, whose fear of rats ends up defeating the values he has regarding his love for Julia or his anti-regime politics.  Are any of us?  On that rather depressing note, I think it’s time for a…

SUPER DUPER FUN 

CHALLENGE!!!

If you have some time on your hands…  try to “diagnose” the inability to use one’s higher mind (the super-ego, responsible for values, ethics, etc.) to conquer one’s baser fears and/or desires (the id), using your free copy of the DSM-IV-TR!  I would love to read your diagnoses in the comments section, and will take them with just as much seriousness as one doled out by any “expert”.  Except for Dr. Phil, that is – I’ll take your advice far more seriously than his on any topic.

Many Cheers,

scars

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I come to this place wearing the chip of the day on my shoulder.  I have moved back to British Columbia’s fairly remote interior, a choice that I feel strong about, but that I still hate, as some irrational part of me feels like I failed at life in Vancouver.  I know that the truth is that I made the very calculated decision that I just did not like the city, as I thought I would when I moved there three summers ago.  During my “hardcore participatory observation project” that involved immersing myself in the lifestyle of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside (DTES)  - I will still, of course, write a series of essays on my experiences “Among Hungry Ghosts” – I learned that there is a climate of legitimized corruption on a societal scale, and a sense of entitlement and lack of appreciation for friendship on a more individual level, that has an awful effect on my affect in that town.

Excuse the generalization.  Many great people live in Vancouver, like many great people live in any city.  I would like to chalk it up to mere bad luck that all the “born and raised” Vancouverites I had the, er, pleasure of knowing, possessed the aforementioned less than likable qualities, the final straw being the “friend” that I had spent two very down and out weeks with, and whom I thought stood up for me albeit knowing others whose blacklists I was already on, doing exactly what he promised not to do – that is, cleaning out my bank account, pawning my brand new phone, and “losing” my keys, while I was sicker than I had ever been in the hospital (I acquired a gastrointestinal superbug while in the psych ward, and spent two weeks on a clear liquid diet).  Not once did he visit, another promise made (apparently [false] promises are the only things that come cheap in the most expensive city in North America).

I will write more about each of these things, so if I have offended at this point, please allow me a little time to elaborate, and perhaps you will see where I’m coming from – perhaps not, but that is the wonderful thing about writing and conversation, isn’t it?  The ability to have an opinion?  During my time on the DTES I found that opinions were a dime a dozen, cheaper yet the more money that was spent on cocaine, but any that strayed from the norm – all based on the very ignorant premise that the DTES is hardcore, and more hardcore than anywhere else on EARTH - were unwelcome.  Catfights often began this way.

Deep breath.  I come to this place, and I find pure joy.

First, in your lovely, lovely comments.  Each time I read that this blog/website has helped another person or produced laughter or provoked thought, my childhood dream of writing words that have an effect on other human beings, is realized.  Second, in the fact that, together, we have come this far.  Despite adversity – at times, in the form of multiple hate-mail type comments per day – I have never deleted a post, and together, I, the writer, and you, the readers, the so-much-more, the people, we have created a community for learning, support, less shame, more smiles, survival, and an alternative to mainstream dialogues on mental health/illness, womanhood, and membership in the human race alike.  I can never thank-you enough, but I will always try.

So, the rainbow-striped elephant in the room…

WHERE HAS SHE BEEN?!?

IS SHE DEAD???

Obviously, despite my strong urges to throw myself off the Lion’s Gate Bridge, the first suicidal ideations/plans I had (and made) in over six years, and despite going over the old scars on my arms with a new razor blade, a kitchen knife, and a piece of broken glass, as well as mimicking Picasso on each of my thighs with the same sharp instruments and the bright red liquid they produced, despite losing so much blood that my blood pressure did not rise over 80/50 or so for two weeks, and that I nearly drowned in a bowl of horrible hospital soup after passing out into it as soon as I sat down by myself in the dining room (now that would have been depressing!!!   ) and, most disturbingly, despite the fact that the intake staff did not notice that my jeans were soaked with blood and my fingers were cut from holding a broken-off Venus blade in between them, I made it through.

Somehow, I did what I had said I would several months earlier – I stopped caring what anyone but me wanted for my future.  And just like that, I became excited about that future again.  Whoulda thought.

I moved away.

I dyed my hair the colour it was meant to be: red as a stop sign. (I truly hate the blue/black…I do it to punish myself.  )

I told my dad that I could not live without his support – that I had no one else, and that no one can live with no one, and that he had to be there whether he liked it or not.  Otherwise, I would die.

And he came.  Together we drove to the tiny city of Trail, BC, where the people are lovely and it almost never rains.  I hope, in however long it takes for me to be able to live alone again – a length I cannot even conceive of right now – to move to Nelson, BC.  Now that is one fabulous city.  I could see myself “settling down” there, which I suppose is what an almost-thirty-year-old does.  Well, we’ll see.

For now, I am residing with my dear Aunt Ruth, whom I did not speak to more than once since Christmas until I arrived here.  I can agree to disagree about responsibility and driving off cliffs.  I hereby promise this will be the final time I refer to the horrific car accident we were in last October as her “driving us off a cliff”.  :lol:  ”This time I have my own room, I have the big box that holds Past Lives Beadery, and I have an Internet connection in my room.  Indeed, a room of my own, and, hell, a $900 disability assistance cheque that will not be eaten – except for $100 – by outrageous Vancouver rent prices.

I feel ready to rebuild my life.  Much was lost, but that just means that what comes next will be the finding.  Yes, here I am, come find me…

scars XO

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Scars XO

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Fellow Vancouverites/visitors to the city, as well as those who have other locally situated “real life dramedy/entertainment”-type anecdotes to share for the sake of self-deprecation and laughter, I invite you to do so in the comments section, as this is the first in what I’m sure will be a lengthy series of short posts, intended to capture short exchanges that would take place nowhere else than here, in East Vancouver.  

While walking home on the drive, smoking a cigarette, the purpose of my outing having been to buy a pack, a very “random” male shouts to me in the darkness:

“Hey!  Trade you some T3s (tylenol #3s, acetaminophen + codeine tablets) for some smokes!”

Having had a bad cough/flu for a week, I long for the days when life was so simple for a second, as i shout back in an unintentionally jaded tone, “Can’t take tylenol, man.”

alas.  good night and good luck.

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My own life has been polluted by thieves of various sorts lately as well – some very real, others mere specters, and elusive ones.  Every time I think I have my thumb on the right page they grab the book from me.  This explains why I have not written anything of substance for some time, but it does not explain why the media has failed to take any interest in a series – dare I, in the hyperbolic tone typical of mainstream media, call it an epidemic? – of burglaries that have taken place at pharmacies in the Greater Vancouver Area suburbs of Burnaby and New Westminster, as well as East Vancouver over the past several days: the first week of March, 2012.

My own small pharmacy has taken the precaution of keeping doors locked, only opening them for us confused, daily clients – the vast majority being fellow methadone patients – who ask ourselves if we forgot about a statutory holiday in our jobless glory, before one of the staff approaches and unlocks the door, and explains why a business is keeping its doors locked during business hours, this alone being newsworthy.  The irony that it is us – the bottom feeders in a city whose notorious “open-air drug market” at Hastings and Main employs most of its citizens in some respect, from those working in the criminal justice and medical industries to the guy at the corner, who stands, arms crossed, repeating “up, down”, “up, down”, almost twenty-four hours per day – are the only ones aware of the news, and, no doubt, the source of many of the pills: dillies, oxys, red rockets, and greys, that one can find at the market, if neither “up” nor “down” appeals – is of that kind of irony just a little too perfect, too perfect for the printed page.  Only Dostoevsky and a handful of others dared go there, and we all know how successful they were in their private lives.  The editors of local and national newspapers declined to comment.  (nor spake zarathustra.)

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“I’ve built my own empire, out of car tire, and kitchen wire, and I’m queen of my own compost heap, and I’m getting used to the smell…”  - Ani DiFranco, “Swan Dive”

No matter how awful – and it has been pretty damn rip-roaring terroristic terrible, a string quartet has been playing “Hotel California” for days that became weeks that became months as the iceberg/iceage-torn ship slowly sinks and there are no lovers to make the tragedy worthy of storytelling, the dishes are sitting in month-old slime in a sink and no matter how many spoons I throw into the mix, they ain’t running away, nor are the knives.

Knives.  The glassy reflection that would be called a glimmer in any other eyes, not his though, it shot straight through, and I was a pathetic insect, a moth perhaps, or no, no wings, a slug, I was a slug curled on the couch helpless at the hands of the man whose eyes created the piercing light of a childhood magnifying glass that could turn a slug to lifelessness and ash if held the way Johnny showed us, yes that was the kind of anti=sparkle that I caught a horrible glimpse of as he so very, very purposefully, removed the second largest knife from the block and laid it on one of the empty pizza boxes.  If the tiny woman on the chesterfield asked why he did that, why, when the kitchen was already strewn with utensils of all kinds and the reason he was in it was not to find food but to begin making order out of the chaos, the aftermath left by others, not even her own goddamn mess, he would take one of the last clean knives from its right place and add it to the ruins, the scene would be repeated yet again.  I-can’t-believe-you-would-say-that-who-do-you-think-I-am-not-all-men-are-your-psychopath-ex-boyfriends-you-really-are-a-piece-of-work.  The knife will always be a reminder of that moment, of the pre-denoument post-climax and the word that hung in the air oh-so stubbornly, beyond wishing away or even pretending away: disfigurement.  Tools and weapons.  Weapons and tools.  Instruments.  Playing.  The opposite of innocence.  The monster under the bed.  The older brother that made future victims out of pig-tailed little girls by the dozen, a survivor for the baker.  The things that aren’t spoken of.

Known, but not spoken of.

Disfigure, intent to.

Sweet Jesus.  Laughably awful, but without the laughter.  Too many dilemmas to keep track anymore, too many bureaucratic catch-22s to bother trying to explain a single bit of it.  Nowhere to start, do not pass go, give $200 to the guy with the knife, jail-hospital-institution a/b/c looming and turning thoughts into black and white stripes.

And then there are the ceaseless phone calls.  Everyone wants money.  Everyone needs to take a look in the mirror.  But no, much, much easier to call her.  She won a small lottery when she almost died in the car wreck, but the money should have gone straight into the hands of others.  Have you ever asked her about what she would like to do?  Reason-excuses.  I know, you would if only you had just a little more time.

Today I finally remove the black hair dye from the medicine cabinet and slather it all over the hair that should have turned deep auburn but just looks washed out, a shade of grey, like everything else does.  Everything.  In my right goddamn place, it’s overdue but that’s how I do, finally black as my outlook, my hopes, dreams, potential, black as the rain and black as the day.  Colour only comes out at night.  And the next one, and the one after the one after the one after that.  Emo, goth, punk, unhappy hippie, hot topic plastic garbage bag wrath.  You better believe it.  

Righteous angst.  Post-teenage, pre-middle-age.  Ask her to grip your hand as hard as she can.  Dare you.  Triple dog dare.

Go big or go home, I’ll supersize my emo, and no, I would not like fries with that, I would goddamn fucking love them.

Think of the light that is particular to Wal-Mart.  And the smell of cheap.  The varieties of fake plastic smell.  The cheapest is the most similar to the garbage that it will inevitably become.   Eight screaming toddlers being dragged by pregnant-again mothers, if the system even pretended to work that would not be okay, dislocated shoulders and knees scraped on pavement-vinyl-pavement.  Get in the stroller and shut your fucking trap before I shut it for you.  You didn’t like it last time I did that, did you?  But you’ll always love mama and you’ll always be ugly in your head, no matter how trailer=trash=beautiful your eyes are, their glimmer, no matter how lovely your hair looks in the bittersweet August morning light the year before you dye it the first time.  It has not been August-streaked since, though there have been many Augusts and each one has changed things.  Permanent.

“And there are trap doors, that you can’t come back from.”

Even the strange girls once dreamed of white weddings.  Big houses.  Charming princes.

<I am not here because I want it or like it or enjoy any bit of it!!!>

But here I am, now.

Why should tomorrow be so different?

And when I come here, to this “place”, my little hovel, my snow-cave, my pillow-fort made of all the words I have and have not said, all the things I want those words to do, for me, but most of all, for you, I am okay.  Even if just for a second. Even if just for a half-second.

The more bizarre the comments get the bigger I grin, and those ones are always sandwiched between flattery that makes my heart glow.  Makes me feel that I have done it, though I want to do much, much more.

here i am fulfilled.  Okay.  emo or not.  Labelled or forgot.  Still inside the only box that i chose.

here i am me.

Once borrowed, twice blue girl.  Neither old, nor new girl.  Far too kind to strangers, far too mean to herself, far too far from her friends, far too close to the edge.  Needs a disaster to feel safe.  Cannot sleep in bed when she is alone.  Plenty of monsters under the bed.  Not sick, not well, as fine as you need her to be but only for you.  Not really fine because it is not really fair and she best get used to the mess and put up a flag because it is way past cleaning, past bedtime, past back from.  Don’t waste the waste.  Whatever you do, don’t waste the waste…

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Whispers and rumours and friends of good friends.  The city of glass lies next to the water, waiting to break.  Which ones are real, paper or plastic?  Talk of an ending, an earthquake, an exit.  Anything but nothing.  Nobody listens but everyone talks.  Fake plastic people drinking five dollar bills, monopoly money through fake plastic straws.  Designer drugs and ,faerie dust sold by the flap.  The questions are answers and the excuses are reasons.  Tomorrow’s losers are yesterday’s heroes.  Everyone living and dying for a fix, still the mess never gets cleaned up.  Fall asleep to the sound of a leaky tap and the never=ending sirens.  That’s right, someone on the train was explaining what the emergency is.  But I cannot remember and it doesn’t matter.  Dream that my face is full of holes.

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When did I get here,

why did I come?

I think it was the Same day that my dad told me that I “need a new life”.  The Words slipped out by accident.  Funny how what’s most accurate is often a fluke.

"Die Pretty (The Writing's On The Wall)" by scarsarestories, January 2011

I decided to put my (limited as they may be, Doctor Heidi Rimke) credentials to work, immersing myself in a Vancouver neighbourhood for my first “street sociology” project, based on participant observation that would never be approved by a University “ethics” (read: lawsuit avoidance) board.  It is probably the most notorious of spaces in the city, and because of the open-air use of crack cocaine and intravenous heroin and cocaine use, as well as unhidden sales of these and almost any drug you can imagine in front of the Carnegie building at the intersection of Main and East Hastings – prescriptions being the most common, but of course second to  ”up, down, and hard” (powder cocaine, heroin, and rock crack cocaine).  While walking through the DTES, down East Hastings Street (a major route that runs through the whole city) surrounding the blocks above and below main, the words are repeated by a good number of the people you pass, mostly men but women as well.  “Up down”  ”Up down” “Hard, Up, Down?” “Up, Down, Hard” “Up Down”.  Takers follow the sellers into doorways or alleys where deals are made, and drugs often consumed immediately.  Though the area is known by the rest of the city as a place inhabited by junkies, it is really, first and foremost, a place where the city’s poor live.  Drugs are secondary to a reality that demands blurring.  This is very difficult for those who have never lived it to understand, but I hope, with this project, I can make a few people think about things differently.

It is the only place in Metro Vancouver where one can find a residence that costs $375, the housing allotment given to income and disability assistance recipients and a cruel joke in a city where my $800 studio apartment is considered to be cheap.  The apartments available are rooms with mattresses and sinks that sometimes work backwards, only from one knob, or not at all.  Anyone who has been homeless, however, knows that this is of little consequence when one’s other choice is the street. Bathrooms are shared by all twenty-two tenants per floor in this building I have been staying in fairly often, as most people I know here just happen to be neighbours, while newer facilities at the same price have private washrooms.  Like so many things down here, where you get in is determined by luck after spending years on a waiting list.  All have free cable and utilities, more than I can say for myself.

I know – I have a nice home.  But I had been spending most nights wandering these streets, searching for something in the streetlamp-light silence of foggy February alleys and strangers that talk, that tell you their story and sometimes their name.  There is a magical hour, when the buses and trains stop running, the only cars that pass are sporadic, either taxis or cops, the sirens that scream throughout Vancouver days stop long enough for relief to wash over us, caught in this space, wishing time would stop ticking just this once and let the peace reign over the noise for more than an hour.  Of course it never does, and up starts the train and first buses, men line up outside the “Union Gospel” complex across the street several  hours before coffee is served, inevitably fights often break out between fellow poor fellows with nothing to do, and there is money to be made with the turn of the day so the “up, down, hard” winds up until the dark hour comes the next night.

I’m seduced by the silence, the hiding in dark, but most by the rawness that residents of the DTES epitomize.  Money comes with so much pretentiousness, even if it’s not much, the dressing up to get groceries, the wicked things women say about one another but never to another’s face, the boiling anger of hipster boys pretending to be calm and grey-haired men just as unimpressed with the police state of the times, the shiny objects that beep and blink status, labels instead of real people speak everywhere else in Vancouver.  I came here in search of something real, and everything on the DTES has a price but the raw frankness is free and necessities are sold cheap.  The line between needs and wants is thin and tricksters will try to trade you one for the other with a missing-teeth grin.  But you can’t trick a trickster.  At least not that often.

The women here fight as hard as the men and if a girl’s got a problem she tells you.  I appreciate this honesty so much, and it’s missing among all other socioeconomic classes and their respective spaces.  If a guy is ripped off or owes money (money is usually the reason for anger, this cuts across classes, it’s the method of dealing with it that changes) the issue is resolved by a fight, followed by slaps on the back, even a hug.  No one laughs or stares at the people that speak “to themselves”, soliloquizing as they walk down the sidewalks, past wheelers, dealers, the chased and the chasers, the buyers, the bought.  The only dishonesty is the passing of make believe drugs, pure baking soda sold in flaps (folded up square papers, a kind of origami, really), and I don’t believe it has ever killed a man – no one fights to the death.  When someone in the community here dies, everyone talks about it for days.

This is the main difference between my hometown of Winnipeg, specifically its downtown core, and the Downtown Eastside: violence involving more than fists here is considered stupid, and people talk about it when someone pulls out a knife.  In Winnipeg people are stabbed to death daily, and nobody speaks.  I don’t care how many times a man tells me “on the DTES someone will kill you for ten dollars”.  This simply is not true.  Anyone that has emigrated here from elsewhere in Canada will agree.  It’s one way to judge whether or not someone’s originally from here.

I suppose I came here because I too am a hungry ghost.  My appetite is insatiable, and I’m a spectre to so many people I once knew, even my own family.  When you talk in a room of people and no one responds you feel like a ghost.  If I try to spend time with friends from late adolescence and early university days I’m treated like trash for being intelligent, for actually having something to say.  Down here, it’s respected.  And a lot of smart people can be found if you look in the right places and keep your head up.

For the sake of comparison and as a point from which to take off, I’m comparing the lives of those I encounter here to how they’re described in this book, by a doctor that has worked here for a long time, but without living here:

Thirty pages into Matés In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts, I am blown away, realizing again a lesson that lately permeates every day – I’m a copy of copied, twice rewritten pages.  Everything I say has already been said and there is nothing special about me or my story.  There is both solace and sadness in finding this out.  I read a line in the book that I had no idea was common, almost identical to something I have been saying since I was a small child, that I am scared of being alone with my thoughts, especially in the insomniac dark when trying to fall asleep:

“At all costs,” Maté states, “drug addicts want to escape spending ‘alone time’ with their minds.”

After reading this, I’m more afraid than ever, so it’s a blessing I am in a place where there is always someone to talk to, and someone who will really listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak – they know because they’ve been there themselves with a head full of thoughts that need voicing else there be risk of damaging oneself, even if they forget what you tell them by the time the birds start chirping, dogs begin barking, and men line-up chattering while waiting for coffee.

Hell, this is the most expensive city in North America – a decade ago the “best” but the sky here falls quickly along with the rain that washes our dirt down the gutter along with the pain – a free cup of coffee is a goddamn miracle.  As long as you can avoid hearing the preacher who tells poor men that their lives would be different if only they chose Jesus over the quietness offered by drugs.  Freedom’s just another word for losing God’s game, important papers that went missing and wanting more than another day that like each passed one, looks exactly the same.

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• A humorous and disturbing look at the latest male pick-up move…ladies, have you been victim to this lewd act that spans generations, and is apparently the new standard advance in the straight dating world?  Hint: Reflecting the laziness, lack of creativity, and misogyny that characterizes the worst of current North American society, it involves a sudden shift from conversation to pulling something out of one’s pants… 
• My first comprehensive “Street Sociology” project… A look at the Vancouver neighbourhood called “Canada’s Poorest Postal Code” or the “Downtown Eastside”, “Mini-Los-Angeles”, et al. that would never pass an ethics board, risk theorists now being the purveyors of “risk society” and all…
• A review of Dr. Gabor Maté’s In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts - did a medical doctor working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside capture the reality of the lives the of folks that live there??  If you want to read along buy it here, new for ten bucks …
• Big, BIG, BIG News :O

For now, enjoy the beginning of a new Practice of Madness soundtrack.

scars XO

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Thank-you for saving my life.

Yes, that means you.  Y.O.U.!

After losing my friend at Pacific Centre, Vancouver’s downtown mall, in its shiny upscale glory, and having had my iPhone (camera/music collection/calculator/school notes/flashlight/teleportation device/et al. ….boy do I miss the days when someone could steal your phone without taking all those other things, or gank a CD without taking your camera!  ) stolen for the fourth or fifth time last weekend, I figured that one of the hundred or more people (I’m starting to doubt that the sheep are human, that they bleed, feel pain, suffer?…  ) sitting in the “lounge” area playing with or lazily holding cell phones I suppose waiting for a call would lend this attractive, well-dressed young woman their phone for less than one minute (though it is a Sunday and calls are free for cell phone owners on weekends) to call him and find out where I could collect him to leave downtown immediately (I’m allergic to yuppies, hipsters, yippies, or whatever they are calling themselves at the moment, and they gather downtown, anywhere near Robson St. (advertised at billboards lining train tracks as “Vancouver’s Runway”; I would post a picture of one if I had the phone that my latest snapshots held), women with war-paint faces and pantyhose for pants, men with eyes so vacant one may wonder if they are “sleep shopping” after an Ambien-nap.  After a few turn-downs that would have been better without the lame excuses – a simple “no” rather than “I’m using it” when I know what an iPhone looks like and you are staring at the home page panicking or using a foreign accent to pretend a local call would cost you hundred dollar bills that might be clever enough to make me smile if it wasn’t the worst fake accent ever – I stood before the entire crowd and stated, “Excuse me.  I have lost my friend.  My cell phone is in the process of being replaced.  Is there someone that would be willing to let me use theirs to make a fast local call?”

The whole pack looked down at once.  No one spoke.  I started screaming the name of my friend.  This seemed to irk folks less.  When I finally found someone willing to help, shockingly, he was not North American!  Too boot, I’ve been a little irked myself lately.  And not because someone politely asked me to lend them something for no longer than ninety seconds while sitting at a mall surrounded by bags of new clothing and an iPod that matches one of the five Hermès silk scarves in the small bag.  I’ve been irked by the horror thawhsurrounds me, the growing number or impoverished Canadians never mind the state of the world, the multi-million dollar condos that rise above the Downtown Eastside and its gated parkade where five people are sleeping on cold concrete hoping the light shining near the gates will deter thieves who would gladly help themselves to the bikes of people who cannot afford beds, well, at least not spaces in which to put them.  I’ve been irked by myself, by my sister, my family, and I went through my list of “friends” and told those who only show their faces when I have money to go climb a tree (but in a much meaner and wordier way).  Since I’m on the topic, I will tell you a story about family, self-concept, and self-harm, which I will link here when it is finished.  For now, let’s head back to the mall, the one I usually shop at if I must since it is right above a train and does not require stepping outside downtown.  (Anyone have a word for “fear of downtown” to add to my list of technical terms for phobias?  Win an item from Past Lives Beadery if you do!  )

…I had given up on humanity, albeit a small group of friends who, like me, are not at all “normal”: we’ve been institutionalized in various sterile buildings holding cages holding people for a good part of our adolescent and/or adult lives, we are known to scream loudly in public knowing it is futile and crying for the show, others say we are hot one minute and cold the next but never nice and lukewarm.  Not beige enough, don’t own a thing from Banana Apparel or American Republic (if you think I just made an “oops” you can navigate away from this page now), have great taste and lovely decor somewhere under the mess that so and so left because no one cleans up after themselves but us and when we do in the houses of others they do not know how to react, have beautiful faces under the black mess left by crying on Lâncome lashes, have coin filled pockets but cannot spare change cuz we’ve got horrible credit and the wrong kind of bills, we leave messages on each other’s machines that would make most people cry “waa, waa, waa” but instead we cackle all the way home, our parents hate us but not as much as our siblings do, professors used to love us but no longer care because we refuse(d) to conform to their values or visions or versions, friends including those we called “best” decided we were not worth the trouble a year or two after high school, strangers tend to take to us because we are actually interested in conversing (just don’t stay too long), bosses shake fingers even those we do not work for…

That leaves us and our cats.  And we’re pretty goddamn lucky, as each other is amazing beyond “beyond words”, and cats are magic, didn’t you know?

Then, as I did last September when I was drowning in the thick mud of depression I had been since July, I opened my control panel for this blog/website, and there you were.

Eleven of you left comments, the most I have ever received in a week by far!  As usual, they are lovelier than love is, happier than fresh flowers, kinder than Santa Claus.  So I thought, before blabbing about whatever is bugging my brain, I should stop and say thank-you, because without your readership, the little community that is slowly coming together around this website, and those of you who take the time out of a way-too-busy day to leave a comment – a special thanks to you, because your words are just as important as mine, and I keep this site up, writing as often as my schedule allows for pro-bono work, for many reasons and “to create conversation about topics people usually do not talk about” is at the top of the list.  I dreamed that someday I would be a writer for the first time about twenty years ago, and though childhood innocence knows little of money, being a writer has just as little to do with a paycheque now as it did then.

Being a writer, to me, means that my words are reaching other human beings and provoking a reaction, relation, in my wildest dreams revelation.

You have made my dream come true.  If I were to die today, and I do not plan to, but if I did, I would die happy because you have made me something I remember wanting to be almost as far back as I can remember.  School did not do that – not when it was high, not when it was graduate.  My family neither.  Nor Santa Claus.

Readers make a writer, and you have made me a damn happy one. 

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So, you know that photo app that I won’t shut up about?  The amazing iPhone app featuring over 20 lenses, 20 films, and 8 flashes, mimicking analog using digital technology was even used by war photographer Damon Winter in Iraq, winning him a prestigious award (view the amazing photos here) Well, the Hipstamatic community also holds contests for amateurs like me!  This post is a shameless request asking you to vote for one of the prints I submitted to the contest “Fashion. Music. Hope.”. The winning print will be featured on a T-Shirt sold at major retailers. To vote click on one of the links below and use facebook to “like” or twitter to “retweet” (or both!  ).  Here they are, “Eagle Ashes” and, for those with some East Van pride, “Die Pretty”. More soon – scars

http://community.hipstamatic.com/submissions/201913

http://community.hipstamatic.com/submissions/201959

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I happened upon a serious vault of print ads, past and more recent, and most are those that only appear in magazines for doctors – journals but they’re full of ads, they always have been.  I saw one from before 1920 on microfilm once and ads equalled (if not outnumbered articles) far before our current hyper capitalist age. Am I supposed to feel better about their presence dominating so-called “academic” – which is supposed to be somewhat objective, no? – journals being filled with ads for products to give the consumer, the newest and therefore most expensive products, obviously they must be better.  Alright, I must not go for the tangent as the ads are, like the Japanese non-DTC ads (they are directed at psychiatrists, strictly) quite different from the DTC ads.  This reminds me of the way both “chemical” and “Brand” names are just made up by teams of psychologists and other “experts” – come on, Abilify…Effexor… the more subtle like rispiridrone…

(and now a rare glimpse at what my psychiatrist is really thinking about me… )

(dare I suggest that if Van Gogh had been on antipsychotics, he wouldn’t have painted anything?…  )

(and one for the docs!    )

“Pfizer Sushi” …

(I vote for more pharmaceutical ads featuring naked chicks)

(Internet Addiction [to be "officialized" in the DSM-V] was around long before the Internet, of course – this is SCIENCE after all…  )

<speechless>

(this is not the set for the sequel to “2001: A Space Oddyssy, but an exhibit on Abilify at a convention for psy-experts)

And now… The ritalin/prescription stimulant (Dextroamphetamine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, et al.  ) files – Highly amusing and appropriately bizzare…

(a hardhat on head and a lasso in hand… I think this fellow has been taking more than his prescribed dosage… or maybe this is normal, and my conception of normal just that off…??  )

(oh that’s why so many long-haul truck drivers take speed!  Is that a coffin in the second small photo from the left?   )

(aw, pills for mommy and baby to share, aren’t they adorable…  )

(or whacked on speed)

Stelazine: Stelazine (Trifluoperazine) is used to treat anxiety or psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

(um, I thought this was a drug to treat schizophrenia… apparently it also cures married men of the annoying obligation to speak with their wives…     )

(but “borderline personality disorder” has nothing to do with schizo…  oooh, I forgot, this is a psych med, and unlike other medications, they can be used to treat almost anything.  Especially antipsychotics… “adding <antipsychotic x, ex/ Abilify> to a cocktail for depression, bipolar disorder” …basically anything listed in the DSM, is very effective.  Effective how?  It turns annoying patients with multiple complaints into speechless, complacent zombies?  Better ask a doctor!  )

(they forgot to mention the drooling bit!  Nothing more relaxing than a good drool…  )

(that is one of the most concise delusional descriptions of the psych ward I have ever heard!  )

(I thought “neurotic” was the opposite of “psychotic”, psychosis being the Hallmark of schizophrenia, which this drug was synthesized to treat… I think it’s time to stop asking questions.  <sigh>  )

(what was that about the decline of culture signalling the demise of a society?  Not that pills aren’t just as remarkable as one of the classic literary works ever produced by humankind, or anything…  )

(am I the only one very, very confused by this ad?  )

(hehehehe “back-ward”, j’ya get it, j’ya get it?  )

(this one is way over my head, too.  I’m not a doctor though…  )

Stop using trifluoperazine and call your doctor at once if you have a serious side effect such as:

• twitching or uncontrollable movements of your eyes, lips, tongue, face, arms, or legs;
• tremor (uncontrolled shaking), drooling, trouble swallowing, problems with balance or walking;
• feeling restless, jittery, or agitated;
• high fever, stiff muscles, confusion, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats, rapid breathing;
• feeling like you might pass out;
• decreased night vision, tunnel vision, watery eyes, increased sensitivity to light;
• seizure (black-out or convulsions);
• nausea and stomach pain, skin rash, and jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes);
• urinating less than usual or not at all;
• pale skin, easy bruising or bleeding, fever, sore throat, flu symptoms;
• joint pain or swelling with fever, swollen glands, muscle aches, chest pain, vomiting, unusual thoughts or behavior, and patchy skin color; or
• slow heart rate, weak pulse, fainting, slow breathing (breathing may stop).

Less serious side effects may include:

• dizziness, drowsiness, anxiety;
• sleep problems (insomnia);
• blurred vision, headache;
• dry mouth, stuffy nose;
• constipation;
• breast swelling or discharge;
• a missed menstrual period;
• weight gain, swelling in your hands or feet;
• mild itching or skin rash; or
• impotence, trouble having an orgasm.

This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur. Tell your doctor about any unusual or bothersome side effect. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

Medications made with you in mind!

(special treats for non-compliant patients – “Cheekers”, “traders”, “Saboteurs”, and the like)

(Who would try to shirk their Thorazine dose?!  )

(Let me guess – Loxapine?  The stuff that made me forget my name, and admit to the Vancouver Police – such that my permanent record is flagged and any complaints I make are treated as “likely just delusions” – that I have schizophrenia, one of the few DSM-IV-TR diagnoses that I haven’t ever been branded with by a doc?  Of course, this statement must be read with great scrutiny…   )

(Toilets: Many a psych ward’s most dangerous fixtures…  )

(mmm…now in “red” and “blue” flavours!  )

Why Take away when You can add on instead?:

Drugs to combat the side-effects, i mean, extra-pyramidal symptoms, of psych meds, such as Parkinson’s, tardive dyskenisia, tics…you know, a harmless little twitch now and then!

(since psychiatric drugs, as we know, take a nice lot of the “human” out of the individual)

(indeed, the ads that only run in medical journals…  )

(Drug-induced Parkinson’s during young adulthood…sounds like a sure cure for depression/anxiety/paranoia/etc. to me!  )

Psychiatry’s oldest and most reliable market population: The Deviant Woman

(Nothing does a woman more good, more quickly than a little speed, er, Ambar [methamphetamine HCl] )

(couples may also benefit from a daily dose of uppers, or two)

(of course, once you’re on speed you need a sedative to maintain sanity, adorableness, antilethargicness, the ability to “cope”, and all the rest)

(Aha!  The solution to our current crisis of the sisterhood: women are not bonding over pills like they did during the suffrage movement and second wave feminism…  )

(what do you know, more pill-popping could also repair our broken families!  )

(not money, but A.D.H.D. is the cause of the majority of marriage failures, didn’t you know?   )

(I’m no narcissistic nut, I’m just undermedicated)

(time for some creative conditions to account for higher prescription rates… 1) “Battered Parent Syndrome”  )

( …2) “menstrual dysfunction”…  )

(because everything a woman does is really for the benefit of a man)

Last but far from least, the market population that may soon rival women in regard to psychiatric drug consumption: the child population  (Fascinating how the syndromes of childhood that we imagine to be recent actually seem to merely redefine behaviours that were problematized in the past!  What an interesting thesis this might make, and one that the social sciences and humanities research council of canada would likely be more than happy to fund, if it weren’t for conservative universities like, say, simon fraser university, blocking such projects.  I digress!  Never fear, Could ever be able to call or consider herself to be an actual sociologist <*cough* Prof h. Rimke *cough*>!  Did you forget to take your meds?  )

(no, this is not a joke…  It’s all part of a brave new childhood that is largely going unexplored by media/researchers)

(hooked on phonics… and “o-lan-za-peen”  … I certainly did not feel like playing soccer, or moving, for that matter, when I took Olanzapine.  Oh well, maybe it works different for kids, I mean, no one really knows, right?  )

(Oh yeah… 3) “MDB” or Minimal Brain Dysfunction)

(hm…this one helped me through grade twelve…guess it does the same for third graders… )

(once upon a time, before political correctness had to bugger everything up…  )

(mmmmm…haldol…  )

(this stuff cures daddy issues)

(because we all know “DIFFERENT” is just another word for “WRONG“)

(“stimulant antidepressant”…   )

(this is the lasso dude, after taking Ritalin for five years, isn’t it?  )

(oh, to be “regular”…   )

(it depresses depression!  man, why don’t they just put this stuff in the water?  )

(I have always liked corners.  What is wrong with corners??  )

(the damn pills even cure a bad hair day)

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As the time has come for some change in my personal and public life, I think the time has come to begin piecing together a new “soundtrack” to accompany my writing on this blog.  I have gotten positive feedback about the tunes I play here, a soundtrack not only for the pieces of writing that come up over the period of a month or a few, but also a soundtrack for a period in my life, and perhaps one in yours, as well!

As I do have pay, monthly, to keep the music playing, and as traffic has increased lately, costs have risen, I am going to do what I usually do when I change the music: provide the last playlist for download – however, I must limit the time during which I make it available, as allowing you wonderful people to download the tunes takes up quite a lot of bandwidth.

(I realize that we are in the middle of a recession/depression, and I enjoy maintaining and writing for this blog so much, that I have financed it on my own so far.  Allow me one second here to beg…now would be an ideal time for you to donate anything you can – $1.00 is just as much appreciated as $20.00 – via Paypal, by clicking on the “donations accepted” icon on the right-hand sidebar.  If I do start receiving donations, I would like to honour the incredibly generous souls who do so, by creating a page featuring the names of donors, as well as sending all those who donate a free gift from my online/Commercial Drive, Vancouver-based handmade jewelry business, Past Lives Beadery.  If you cannot donate right now, please do not feel bad – I am constantly torn as I would love to donate to many causes, the most recent being Wikipedia, but am not yet in a position where I can afford to do so.  I adore all my readers, and donating certainly does not change the way I feel about one subscriber over another.   )

Here is a listing of the tracks, available for download below:

1. Bat For Lashes: “The Wizard”
2. Bjork: “The Modern Things”
3. Bob Dylan: “Ballad of a Thin Man”
4. Bright Eyes: “Poison Oak”
5. Emily Haines: “Pretty Head”
6. Emily Haines: “Our Hell”
7. Feist: “I Feel it All”
8. Faithless: “Addictive”
9. Fiona Apple: “I Know”
10. Laura Marling: Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
11. Leonard Cohen: “Stories of the Street”
12. P.J. Harvey: “The Garden”
13. P.J. Harvey: “The Desperate Kingdom of Love”
14. Radiohead: “Life in a Glass House”
15. Radiohead: “Scatterbrain”
16. Regina Spektor: “Carbon Monoxide”
17. Sneaker Pimps: “Waterbaby”
18. Tori Amos: “Curtain Call”
19. Tori Amos: “Police Me”
20. Wilco: “Hummingbird”
21. Damien Rice: “The Blower’s Daughter”
22. Tori Amos: “Shattering Sea”
23. Ani DiFranco: “Welcome To” (live)
24. Cocorosie: “Angry Sea”
25. Tori Amos: “Me and a Gun”
26. Tegan and Sara: “City Girl”
27. Elsiane: “Paranoia”
28. Scarsarestories: “Airline Safety”
29. Lykke Li: “Time Flies”
30. Metric: “Help I’m Alive” (Acoustic)
31. Regina Spektor: “Daniel Cowman”

Again, for this weekend only, you may download the music you have heard here over the past couple of months for free! 

I will make an exception if you miss out this weekend, and write to me (a comment on this post shall suffice) requesting a download at a later date.  At the same time, I cannot make exceptions for everyone, so try your best to download the tunes this weekend, if you so desire.

The Podcast Player, provided by Cincopa Media Platform, is quite straightforward – you may click “download all” at the top, to download all thirty-one tracks, or you may scroll through the tracks, selecting which songs you wish to download.  Without further ado…here it is:

Bonus: In honour of my lyrics-obsession, I would like to share with you some of my favourite lyrics from the songs on this list.  I would be overjoyed, if you did the same, in a comment reply to this message!!

3. “You have many contacts/Among the lumberjacks/To get you facts/When someone attacks your imagination/But nobody has any respect/Anyway they already expect you/To all give a check/To tax-deductible charity organizations./You’ve been with the professors/And they’ve all liked your looks
/With great lawyers you have /Discussed lepers and crooks/You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books/You’re very well read/It’s well known.”

4.” Then when you turned away/When you slammed the door/When you stole the car/And drove towards Mexico/And you wrote bad checks/Just to fill your arms/I was young enough/I still believed in war”

6. “Our Hell is a good life.”

7. “I don’t know what I did before/But now I know I wanna win the war…Who will be the one to break my heart I’ll be the one to break my heart…The truth lies.”

8. “I’ve got a demon for a wife/She delights in your pretty face and she hates my life/Takes notes on how to provoke past grief/makes my teeth decay with the loss of my self/Belief”

9. “So be it I’m your crowbar/If that’s what I am so far/’Til you get out of this mess”

10. “And I’m cleaning all the crap out of my room/Trying desperately to figure what it is that makes me blue/And I wrote it in a letter to you/And it’s twenty-two pages front and back but it’s too good to be used/I’m out now/It’s too hard/I’m out now/It’s too hard…”

11. “One hand on my suicide/One hand on the road”

12. “And there was trouble/Taking place”

13. “Oh love/You were a sickly child/And how the wind/Knocked you down….There’s another who looked from behind your eyes/I learned from you how to hide”

14. Somewhere I’m not/Scatterbrain/Lightning fuse, powercut, Scatterbrain

16. “I wash the streets from your skin when you come home/I wash the streets from your hair then you leave again.”

17. “Then you ram your hand in your bag for a little friendly/Substance…You climbed/China’s Wall.”

18. “Perhaps the answer/To the question/Lies in the question/Perhaps/You should read my thoughts/Line them up with soldiers”

19. “Remember to remember me/Standing still in your past/Fading fast like a hummingbird”

20. “Life goes easy on me/Most of the time/And so it is/The shorter story/No love no glory/No hero in her scar”

22. “Welcome to/Taking the good stuff down off the shelf/Welcome to/The art of conversation with yourself.”

24. “Yes I wore that slinky red thing/Does that mean, I should spread?”

25. “I cried so hard that you pushed me/Further away/Screamed so loud you called the/Police on me”

28. “And I get weak, I get weary/I miss sleep, I get moody/I’m in thoughts, I write songs/I’m in love, I walk on”

30. “All the survivors singing in the rain/You gave me a life I never chose/Wanna leave but the world won’t let me go/Wanna leave but the world won’t let me go”

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed the stories the past few months have brought.  I am very, very excited about the new stories that will manifest within the next few, and the few after that…

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{Note: I have made this post “sticky”, due to its level of importance as an announcement, both to my readers, and for family and friends that check up on me here at POM.  In other words, this post will appear first on the “index page” (http://www.practiceofmadness.com), though I will continue publishing new articles.  New articles will appear below this post, in chronological order as usual.  So, if you’ve already read this, scroll down to the next post to read my most recent articles.  Cheers!  scars }

I was sitting on my bathroom floor the other night.  A couple of “friends” had left some syringes in my kitchen “junk drawer” about a month ago, and I had taken them out – not for the purpose of injecting drugs, but for the purpose of self-harm.

I was injecting myself with peroxide and bleach, in very small amounts, and digging through my hands and feet with the needles, tracing my veins with little holes, tiny puncture wounds, until I had created a map, and until my hands had swollen up with balloons.

What the #&^% was I doing?!?

It took a break from reality to figure it out, as it often does for this young (and quickly growing older) woman.  What was I doing, back on the bathroom floor that I spent so many high school days sitting on, breathing in noxious chemicals (“crystal meth”  ) ?  As I was dissecting my own body, I ended up dissecting my life, my psyche, and the map on my hands became a map back to myself.

My visit “back home” for Christmas was devastating. I do not know what was more Hurtful and harmful: A Hate Crime, during which this White Woman With Blonde locks was raped by a first nations man three times her size for two hours, or the revelation – upon her departure ten minutes after my arrival at the family home, and her arrival ten minutes before I was due back at the airport for the sole purpose of screaming at me and making me feel, just as she had last year, like a complete “failure at life”.  I would venture to say the latter, as during the sexual attack, I waited for it to be over, and eventually, it did end.  My sister’s decision to pick a few times out of a 20 year-relationship – the few times that i was at my weakest, and did not show her the pure, unconditional love and generosity that has absolutely characterized my relationship with her since she was born – has threatened to tear my life apart. I wait for her to reevaluate our relationship, and I’ve been waiting for over three years now.  Yes, this is what truly derailed me.

So, for lack of a better way of putting it, I was acting out a bit of an “I am whatever you say I am”, bit.  I was responding to my family’s persistent decision to view me as an out of control drug addict (a quick anecdote: after my best friend in Winnipeg, Sam, who has known me since I was fifteen, drove me to the Emergency Room after my attack, I had to fill a $400 prescription, that I will soon be reimbursed for by the B.C. Government, and thus be able to pay my dad back, who “fronted” the money.  I walked into my dad’s house, apparently without being heard, coming “home” after the grueling and rather gruesome experience of a going through a post-rape examination and rape-kit at the ER, and filling this prescription for anti-HIV medication, to find my dad screaming at his wife in the kitchen about how he wanted to know about what this $400 prescription was that “Sam and I were snorting or smoking, or whatever, at his place”…I walked into the kitchen and slammed the bottle of pills down on the table – I had been trying to save my family the stress of having to know about what I had been through the previous night.  And when I told them, there were no “I’m so happy that you are still alives”, no “you poor things”, not even any “you did the right thing by going to the emergency rooms”.  There was only concern about the pricetag of this prescription, that may well prevent me from getting HIV or another horrible virus from the horrible monster that raped me) …so, back to a few nights ago.  I did purchase some drugs, though they all ended up lost or down the toilet – I had no idea what I was doing with these substances, I find them boring now, I was done with them a long, long time ago, but my family’s insistence that my experimentation with drugs almost a decade ago, makes me wonder if I “am, whatever they say I am”.  The needles, instruments of death, are not me either.  And I was not trying to “get high”, I was trying to make this woman, who my sister seems to think is deserving of great pain, feel that pain, to an extreme.  When my hands grew numb and I realized that I could be doing permanent damage that would prevent me from doing the one thing that I truly love doing, indeed, my very life-blood: writing – I knew that I had to stop.

But I had not yet figured out why I had been doing this, or what was to come next.  Luckily, I caught one of my best friends online as I tried making a few phone calls at 1:00 am, proclaiming that I had lost touch with reality and was hurting my body.  Everyone else was sleeping.  Everyone else “has to go to work” (I think small retail chains can suffer a little when saving one of your so-called best friend’s life is the issue at hand, but I also know that I was let go from a job for trying to save someone, so though firm in my opinion, I understand the employee’s dilemma).  I talked out my immediate circumstances with my dear friend, and only then did I come to the epiphany that I was trying to be the despicable person that my family (very falsely) thinks I am, and that I was trying to make the person that my sister, the sister that I raised after my mom died when she was six, and I thirteen, feel the pain that she deserved.  I was being the person, and playing the roles, assigned to me by the people that are supposed to know me better than anyone else in the world, but do not, are incredibly far from knowing me even close to as well as how well my friends know me, because they have never given me the chance to show them who I really am.  For some reason, the labels they have chosen for me provide them with comfort.

It is for this reason, that I am “cutting the cord” for some time.  After my ICBC settlement cheque arrives, and I settle my recent bills with my father, I am going to do some travelling, and I am going to write a book, and I am going to enroll, not in law school*, but in a one-year journalism program, and perhaps a photography program afterwards, as these are my dreams, and law school is someone else’s dream.

*The reason why I had decided to return to the academy to obtain a degree in law, was that I saw it as the only way that I could compete with my very perfect sister, who has done everything that my dad wanted his children to do (live at home until they had earned medical or law degrees – she’s chosen medicine, so I chose what was left).  I thought that if I did this, maybe, just maybe, the father that I love so dearly would, for once, be as proud of me as he is as my sister – more importantly, that he would show me the respect that he shows my sister.  However, on that fateful night (I believe it was Monday, perhaps Tuesday) I realized that I was, once again, choosing a very demanding career in order to please other people.  We all know how well that went last time!!  (if you are not familiar with the story, I suggest you scroll all the way to the bottom of the “Academia is Nuts” gallery that I created a link to in that last statement, and then click on older posts, once again scrolling to the bottom, to get a clear picture of how I discovered that the “academy” and I just do not mix.  Oil and water.  And I, I am blood.  Dragon’s blood, and salty sea water, with a sprinkling of rue and lavender.

Part two: I have decided that it is time for me to write a book.  In preparation to do so, I need to take a trip, all by myself.  I have been wanting to travel to SouthEast Asia for over a decade, and this is my opportunity.  Thus, I am going to ask you, dear readers, a couple of questions. (And of course, I will continue writing for this website, every day or every other day when time allows.  It is the one thing in the world that I am most proud of, prouder of than my thesis, or any number of theses and academic papers I could ever, ever write):

(polls)
 

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Q: what should a twenty seven year old who doesn’t know if she should live or die do to shock her to life?

A(s):

1. What Is a Massive Stroke?

   www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-massive-stroke.htm

   When a stroke is considered to be massive, it can result in paralysis of one side of …. I know him well and he would not want to live if he were a dependent invalid. … My 19 year old daughter suffered a massive right-side ischemic stroke which left … say may have attributed to the shocking occurrence of her having a stroke.
   

2. Amy Winehouse found dead at her London flat after ‘drug overdose …

   www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Amy-Winehouse-dead-London-flat-drug-ov…

   fficial&client=firefox-a#">Block all www.dailymail.co.uk results

   26 Jul 2011 – ‘On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was … A spokesman for the late singer said: ‘Everyone involved with Amy is shocked and devastated. … A section of the road where the singer lived remained cordoned off tonight. … ‘Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road.

3. Yes…Young Women Can Have Heart Attacks! « Power to Change

   powertochange.com/life/youngattack/

   The 40-year-old woman arrived at the emergency room of her local hospital displaying a … When the nurse returned to work the next day, she was shocked to discover that … strikes a young woman, she is likely to suffer debilitating damage or die. …. The doctor will know what to do and armed with that knowledge you’ll be …

4. Marc and Angel Hack Life – Practical Tips for Productive Living

   www.marcandangel.com/

   3 days ago – … they do it? Over the years I’ve studied the lives of numerous successful people. I’ve read their books, watched their interviews, researched them online, etc. … Here are twelve things they do differently that the rest of us can easily emulate. … Growing happens when what you know changes how you live.

5. Why Isn’t Random Hooking Up Scary Anymore? | Women’s Health …

   www.womenshealthmag.com/health/safe-sex

   12 Sep 2011 – “If you’re with multiple people, you can‘t get your heart broken,” she … Because there will always be the next sex session to look forward to, … Being a big fan of Winston Chruchill, I know he did not die of an STD as …. It is sad to me being a 27 year old women that my peers are risking their life long health for …

6. Difference Between Oxycontin and Oxycodone | Difference Between …

   www.differencebetween.net/…/difference-between-oxycontin-and-…

   After having my 6th surgery and hoping its my last, but I do fear of getting old and not … When will the medical profession listen to their patient’s?! I have been taking oxycontin for 9 year’s and i know my body well..every … digestive system not counting the pain I live with every single day of my life. …. July 16, 2011 • 12:27 pm …
   

7. How You Can Tell Your Best Close Friend You Love Them

   kathrynvercillo.hubpages.com › … › From Friendship to Relationship

   You should consider what might happen to your life if your friend decides that he/she doesn’t share your feelings and doesn’t want to be … Just revealing your feelings for your friend to deal with can be shocking and overwhelming to the friend. …. wow good advice for me lol a 13 eyar old gril needs to know this stuff ! ..love it …
   

8. TOP 20 HARRY POTTER PLOT HOLES – best, most, greatest of …

   shareranks.com/2622,TOP-20-HARRY-POTTER-PLOT-HOLES

   So if the Wizarding world know of Voldie downfall for most of the day how … So they left a one year old baby in a blown up, burn up house for 15 to 20 … And, also, “Hagrid doesn’t Travel By Magic” isn’t a plot hole. … You can explain it by saying he happen to be on his way to visit the Potters … Anyone ever hear of ‘shock‘?
   

9. Reasons Why A Husband Does Not Want To Have Sex With His Wife

   www.squidoo.com › … › Relationship Help › Understanding Men

   If a wife does have a weight problem then her husband should try and help her loose …. Not one time in 27 years has she had an orgasim and without that, where is the …. There is no way you can live in a sexless marriage your whole life. … I take that as she doesn’t care either, or she’s hoping I die soon so she can cash in.
   

10. Multiple Personality Disorder – body, process, life, characteristics …

    www.scienceclarified.com › Ma-Mu

    Trauma: An extremely severe emotional shock. …. I have survived all of her usual drive away tactics for six years,but is there any … Feb 27, 2009 @ 12:12 pm … He WILL not take medicine because he is afraid that he will die, and also him … out of control when i tell him what he said he said that he doesn’t know what i am …

I suppose if another young woman happens to perform the same seach, she’ll end up here now.  Hi.  You’re not alone.

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“One day I took off my mask and I noticed my face was missing!” – jaap scheeren

 

I picked up one of those $20.00 art magazines that I would love to subscribe to when I was in Winnipeg – I dearly hope that when I am making enough money that I can do so, I still have time to do what I do with them (after using them as most use magazines): make collage art.  I cut out pieces of other art, sometimes with painstaking detail, and add a few elements of my own, like black paint, saran wrap, a violent RIP, glow-in-the-dark modge podge and fire, to name a few.   I’ve never tended towards calling myself an “artist”, though collage is kind of to fine art what remixes are to music, I think primarily because of my younger sister’s oft professed hatred for artists, or at least “people that call themselves artists“, my Aunt Karen being the prototype for her bias.  But my sister also got me to start wearing bras again for a few weeks, when she came here to visit me almost three years ago, and was able to put an end to that.  Bras hurt though (torture devices, in my opinion, underwire is the equivalent of foot .binding in current North American society.  European women seem to be a little more liberated.  I don’t even own one anymore.  There are undershirts for women…  ).  I digress.  Maybe I’ll take out a DeviantArt account one of these rainy Vancouver winter days that lack school or employment of any traditional kind.

A couple of weeks ago I leafed through the magazine and ripped out quotes and images that I thought might be useful in a new collage project, or at least those that I thought were interesting.  I did not have a theme yet, though.

Today I went through the pieces of paper, and the quote above reminded me of last night’s post.  Faces and masks – in sociology and social psychology these are key concepts: the different selves that we reveal to certain groups or individual others.  We all wear masks to some degree when we’re out in the world – I think this can definitely become pathological, spawning the classic Caulfield “phony”, but that it is also necessary for survival in a society where plenty of others are looking for people to take advantage of (that’s when I put my scary mask on) – and may even wear them at home.  I sure was, during my decade of codependency.

I feel I am becoming much more who I really am, now that I live alone.  Taking my mask off at home has led to some alterations to the mask I don when I leave my apartment.  I’ve become more outgoing, which at first seems like quite a contradiction, but makes sense if socializing is thought of like food that we must have at least once in a while.

I discovered so much about myself that I did not know the first time I lived alone – for a brief two months upon moving here to Vancouver, before I allowed codependency to cast its spell on me one more time, for good measure.

Over the past ten months I picked up where I left off I guess, save for the two months that my dad was here – not that we are “codependent”, but my reason for being adamant about not having any roommate was that I did not want my emotional state to be affected by anyone else, and Goddess knows we all wear masks that we put much effort into making around our parents.  I do not think I’ve learned as much as I did during that one summer, but I figure learning about oneself is like learning about anything – there is a “honeymoon” period at the beginning, during which you feel like you could read about topic “x” forever.  Then midterms arrive.

So, I decided that the topic for my new collage will be that post, and then I realized that it would be another self-portrait.  I started wondering if all my collages have been self-portraits.  If so, how very, very interesting, looking at them in chronological order…

<em>all collage art by scarsarestories<em>

(in the first one you couldn’t see my face – I was hiding under the blankets hitting the snooze button…unless I was the child…in this one I’m peering out from under a blanket!  completely unintentional…

Here

Lies

The

Vast

Empty

Expanse

Of

An

Existence

Without

Art

That

Was

Part

Of

My

Intense

Codependency.

Another

Interesting

Tidbit:

During

This

Time

One

Collage

Was

Made:

The

One

Time

(so far!  )

That

I

Dated

A

Woman

We

Made

A

Huge

Collage

Together!

Sadly,

I

Did

Not

Take

A

Picture,

Thinking

It

Would

Last

Longer.

But,

Alas,

It

Was

Torn

To

Shreds

By

My

Ex-Boyfriend’s

Mother,

Who

Excused

Herself

Saying

“I

Thought

It

Was

Garbage.”

I

Usually

Hang

My

Garbage

On

The

Wall,

Don’t

You?…

The

Woman

Who

Wrote

The

Hilariously

Absurd

Letter

That

Lies

Aside

All

The

Ones

I’ve

Written

In

The

Letters

Of

Complaint

Vault.

Okay.

In

Vancouver

Now, not yet in a codependent mess of a “relationship”…

And, I never realized this, but when I moved in with my final ex-boyfriend, I must have… thrown out my own collage?  Really?  Did he throw it out?  I do not remember.  Huh!

After

We

Broke up, I started making lots of collages, which were unfortunately, after being put together to make one big collage, destroyed, this time by angry former roommates and friends (the fake hippies/neo-cons wearing harem pants, sporting dreads)…

(to show a few of my rather disturbing masks at the time)

This

Year

I’ve been making jewelery and taking lots of pictures and decorating my apartment and experimenting with paint…sometimes in combination with each other:

…so maybe I’m a damn artist.  My sister already hates me, why not?  And she just happens to hate me because of my inability to don a mask when I was with her on a few occasions that have dirtied the rest of the memories she has of “us” (in and around that fateful year, 2005, from what I can discern, at least – my sister never, ever speaks of her feelings, well, unless unleashing rage upon someone), I suppose, the same way it’s hard for my dad and me to remember my mom when she wasn’t sick, it is hard for my sister to remember me before I was …well, her age, with a lot of pills.

All I really know is that I agree with Tori,

“If I die today I’ll be a happy phantom, and I’ll run naked through the streets without my mask on…”

It’s a pain to come off as normal all the time.

Now I’m going to go cut myself out of paper.

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