Van Gogh and I

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. - Vincent Van Gogh 

Walking around the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam I read every placard. While the Dutch painter is now world famous for his very prolific but short career (he completed 900 paintings in the 10 years he painted) there are historians the world over who disagree about the end of his life. It's widely debated whether or not he cut off his own ear, as well as if he died of a self inflicted gunshot wound or he was murdered. 

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh 

Two things are very clear to me: he was incredibly talented and he suffered greatly. You can read (and listen to) letters he wrote to his beloved brother, Theo, at the museum. You can read all the letters he wrote Theo in a book deemed an autobiography, Van Gogh telling the story of his own life, in expressive and vibrant detail. While reading his letters I couldn't help but feel for him. He was such a positive person, trying so hard to live and work in love while dealing with bouts of crippling depression and anxiety. Nearing the end of his life he even checked himself into an asylum. From there he painted Starry Night, Irises, and many other of his most famous works (which, by the way, he considered to be total failures). Reading Van Gogh's words I saw myself mirrored. I am far from as talented a painter, but the desire to love all things and people, to care for others and to express that love and inspire joy, in these traits I saw myself. The vulnerable purity.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent Van Gogh 

And there are other things I see. I am also a sufferer of bouts of incapacitating depression and anxiety. Luckily for me, there are medications available. But on this day at the Van Gogh Museum I felt more kinship with him, as I too was suffering. Let's back up. 

A brief history:

I first discovered what was "wrong with me" was depression at 12 years old after reading about the symptoms. I told my mom, who dismissed it. I felt shame and I never spoke about it again until I was 18 and started seeing a holistic homeopath. I was afraid to take western medication. After a few years and several remedies, I began to have anxiety symptoms on top of my depression. I started having panic attacks in which I would black out. I became so frightened to black out that I stopped driving. At one of the lowest points in my life, at age 21, suffering from both symptoms of depression and anxiety on a daily basis for a period of 9 years, it came to a head and I admitted to myself I could no longer go on dealing with life in this manner. But somewhere deep inside me hope still resided. So I made a decision to try medication. Over a decade later, I have been on every SSRI that exists. This is not an exaggeration. In the last 10 years I have tried to go off my medication twice, once cold turkey, in which case I ended up in a hospital, and the other to taper off when I lost my health insurance. This did not go well either. I am a person who has an illness and I need to take medication in order to be ok. I have accepted this. My depression and anxiety have been deemed to be "extremely resistant" to medication and thusly I have to make sure I do everything right to get myself on a level playing field of feeling ok enough to be a person in the world. The medication I am currently on is one in which I cannot miss a dose. Unlike most SSRIs, this medication has very intense withdrawal effects almost immediately. 

The night I arrived in Belgium, as I got ready for bed at my Airbnb, I realized I'd forgotten my toiletry bag. No deodorant, toothbrush, face wash...and then it hit me that I didn't have my medication. I could barely sleep that night trying to decide what to do. I booked a rideshare car in the morning to go back to Paris just to get it; I'd meet my cousin at our next destination. The guy never showed up. I'd met a Belgian girl in my travel group so I texted her for advice. She told me to try a pharmacy, someone who speaks English, and maybe they'd give me a few pills to tide me over. I found a prescription in my wallet as proof of what I needed and set out, speaking not a word of the local language. Three pharmacists later I was sold a box of my medication. 

Still, because I had missed a dose, I wasn't feeling great when we got on the train a couple days later to Amsterdam. The withdrawals were there. I felt numb and cloudy and exhausted by life. So, while walking through the Van Gogh Museum, reading his words and seeing his brush strokes, I felt connected to him. My heart hurt for the pain he was in, and could do nothing about. And I understood, whether he shot himself or not, his hopeless desire and the tiring trials of living with mental illness. 

I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless. 

- Vincent Van Gogh 

I am grateful there are medications and other practices (like meditation, for me) that can help people - 3.3 million Americans - with these debilitating disorders. I'd like to think that if Van Gogh were alive today he'd be able to get the help he needed and fill his life with love and creativity. 

Life has become very dear to me, and I am very glad that I love. My life and my love are one.

- Vincent Van Gogh 

What hasn't changed much is the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, and for that I will do my part to shed a light in the darkness by writing posts like this and standing up for those who suffer.  I have found this disease to be so lonely, and I want to do what I can to help others who suffer in silence by raising my own voice. Dear reader, you are not broken. You are not alone. I am with you. 

Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil. - Vincent Van Gogh 

Mad Cow Disease, Lead Poisoning, or Severe Anxiety: Thanks, WebMd

Last night I knew I was feeling anxious before I even got into bed. I can tell now, after years, when I won't be able to sleep without a pill. So I took an Ativan and got into bed. I put a movie on, hoping I'd fall asleep watching it and be able to wake up early to start driving for Lyft. They have a $1,000 guarantee if you do 50 rides in a week, restarting every monday while promotion lasts. I need the money to pay my first month's rent when I arrive in Paris.

2 hours later the movie was over and I was an anxious wreck in my bed. I'd never experienced a pill not working. I take them sparingly, only when I anticipate an attack coming on or when I start to have one. It wasn't helping. My body was hurting, feeling tight through every joint and muscle, and I couldn't stop moving. I tried to tap. "I am safe. I am ok. I am safe. I am in my body. I am safe." I repeated as I tapped the anchor spot between my ring finger and pinky knuckles. It wasn't working.

I was so exhausted I began to drift off, uncomfortably, and fall into a nightmare. I woke a few moments later to the sound of my voice screaming at myself to wake up. It's the only way I've figured out how to wake myself from a nightmare.

I began to cry. I couldn't figure out why I was crying, so I tried to go over the events of the day. Everything that happened was sad, especially my niece's face when we talked about my leaving. Somewhere in the wee hours, hot tears stinging my face, I fell back asleep and into another nightmare. There was an intruder in my home. They were getting closer to me, their wild eyes piercing mine. "Wake up!" I yelled, and finally I did. At this point I knew that staying awake was the only way to survive. I felt sick to my stomach and considered going to the bathroom and trying to vomit, but I haven't puked in a decade and I know my body just doesn't work that way.

Starting to sweat, I threw the covers off of me. Derby at the foot of the bed was too close to me, I wanted to be alone and uncovered to deal with this. I started to get goosebumps and shivers though I was still sweating. I drifted in and out, the time I was in nightmares eclipsing the time I was awake. The anxiety carried over into the dreams. It hurts my entire body. The nausea carried over.

In my dreams the world was ending and no one could do anything about it. The sea had been sucked up into the sky, and we were constantly in darkness, the dense blue green of the salty water covering the sun and the moon. We were waiting for it to drop and drown us all. Planes were crashing into buildings. There was nothing to be done. I was alone with a man who, in waking life, I know is not interested in me. And it was the one piece of joy I could feel in a world doomed for destruction.

I woke up at 10:30am to a text message. I was drenched in sweat, my clothes and hair soaked through, shivering cold and wet. Three hours later than I had intended to wake and feeling awful. My tongue was numb and tingling. Is. My tongue is numb and tingling. My fingers are numb and tingling. My head is pounding and I can barely open my eyes except in darkness. The migraine is here.

I start to cry again, hopeless. I checked my barrage of emails and messages realizing I couldn't handle any of it today. I can barely keep my eyes open. I can barely think straight. I go to webmd and put in my plethora of symptoms. I'm not surprised that, among things that I am surely not suffering from, severe anxiety is listed. The numbness, tingling and migraines are new symptoms for me, I usually just get the fear of impending death, loss of breath, terror, and pain in my joints and muscles. I've been suffering from those symptoms intermittently for years. Like when I ran all the way down and across Manhattan one fourth of July without telling anyone I was leaving while suffering a panic attack. If I hit all the possible symptoms do I get a prize? Will I spontaneously combust?

The numbness (especially in my fingers) and the migraine are making it difficult to type this, but I am hoping to get some relief by puking it all out. It's exactly 7 weeks and 1 day from my departure to Paris. I have nowhere to stay, no job lined up, no potential means of income, my Dad is barely talking to me and still forbids me to go, and so much to do here before I leave to set things up to run smoothly for Brunch Club that I am completely overwhelmed and paralyzed. I am unable to do anything in this state. 

I think this particular attack started yesterday when I stopped by the atm to check my balance. I said aloud "No" in the vestibule before walking home and doing all the math in my head. I do not have enough money to stay anywhere when I arrive. What a fucking failure I am, 32 with absolutely no money. How close I am to being homeless myself. Will I sleep at the train station when I get to Paris? The tears are stuffing up my sinuses with snot and adding so much pressure to my head that it feels like it's packed, inch by inch, so heavy I can barely keep it upright on my wavering neck. It feels like I'm trying to balance the world on a toothpick. I just can't do it.

I'm scared, angry and can barely see or think. I'm cold, hot don't know what to do about this attack that's now lasted longer than any I've ever had. I'd call my therapist but she'd tell me to take Ativan, and I did that, remember?