First Steps

I don’t know what I’m going to do with this yet, exactly, but I’m going to do something. Maybe I’ll just keep track of the steps I plan to take, am taking, and/or have FINALLY taken to figure out my bullshit life and try to make it make some sense. Thanks to one Ms. Carrie Brown, I have to face that dirty 4-letter word: hope. I’ve held on to hope so many times before, and every damn time it gets dashed out of my grasp once again. I have vowed (many times) that hope is dead to me – and yet, Carrie’s presentation at KetoCon raised it to life one again. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

So, anyway, steps.

1. Within an hour of hearing Carrie’s talk, I ordered my 23andMe Health and Ancestry test. The day it arrived I filled the vial with spit as instructed and sent it back immediately. It was delivered back to their lab yesterday, 9/14/17. Now I wait, 5-6 more weeks, most likely, until my DNA analysis is ready.
2. Also yesterday, I called Carrie and we talked. For more than an hour. It was really nice to be able to say real shit without fear of reprimand or misunderstanding on the other side, because the woman has been here. She KNOWS the things. The game, the dance, the merry-go-round. She gets it. And she had suggestions.
3. So, while I wait on the DNA results, I have been invited – no, I have in fact been commanded – to contact Carrie’s naturopath, Dr. Karen Ball, ND. So, I did that yesterday, Thursday. Being that office hours are Tues/Weds/Fri, I am cautiously hoping for a return call today.
4. Also spurred by Carrie’s insistence, I fired off an email to Dr. John Limansky, MD, another of the speakers at KetoCon. I was instructed by Ms. Brown to tell him that a) I am with Ketovangelist, b) Carrie Brown instructed me to contact him, c) that I am plagued with many of the same symptoms that Carrie talked about in her presentation, and d) that I am seeking someone in my area that does the same kind of medicine he practices, and does he have any contacts like that, that he can pass on to me? So I did that yesterday, too, and am awaiting a reply.
5. The final instruction I received from Carrie yesterday was, “just lie a lot.” You see, I am to see my psychiatrist today, and I have two primary goals for this appointment: 1) get a meds “patch” so I can ride out the next few months without killing myself, and 2) don’t get committed. And actually, Carrie’s first suggestion was to cancel the appointment and fire my doctor. Unfortunately, I’m already in very hot water with my Therapist Person and am barely squeaking out of a 5150 hold as it is.  In fact, probably the ONLY reason I’m still “on the outside” is that Therapist Person really wants me to keep this appointment today. I’ve been warned: if I don’t “come clean” with my psychiatrist, Therapist Person will (almost certainly) pull that 5150 rip cord. I have been directed to check in with an update as soon as I finish the appointment.  Now, I, having successfully maintained a No Psych Hospitalizations streak for 10 years now, really want to avoid that. This is going to involve some delicate word games, some fancy dancing around the truth, and some obfuscation. Fortunately I am rather adept at all three. I may have to agree to attend either the Partial Hospitalization or Intensive Outpatient Program at the hospital here in town. And although I don’t really want to waste time with that, either, if it keeps me off the inpatient ward I’ll do it.

So what’s next? For today, first, survive coffee with Catie. I’ve been instructed by Therapist Person to get Catie in this loop, too, but I’m not sure I will. I am just not sure I can muster the necessary energy to deceive one more person right now.  Second, run through the story for my psychiatrist, practicing. Carefully planning the words, expertly choreographing and perfecting the dance. Appointment’s at 9:00. Third, delicately balance a stack of half-truths to pacify Therapist Person, and hope for the outcome I desire. Beyond that, there is no plan yet.

Almost the last words spoken, toward the end of the call with Carrie yesterday, were from her to me: “I am very invested in you staying alive.”  So I guess the next thing after pacifying Therapist Person, is to do exactly that: stay alive for just a little while longer.

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Success! No hospital, not even the outpatient program. Where’s my damn Oscar?!