mental

I’ve been thinking about suicide a lot lately. Wait, don’t panic! Not in a real way, but in a Lyme way. There is a difference, and it is significant. Psychiatric problems from Lyme are well-documented and common. After all, there are, quite literally, bugs in your brain, wreaking havoc. So when I say I think about suicide, there is a layer once removed from actual thought of suicide. My recent psych problems dovetailed with an article I recently read about a family who has five sons suffering from Lyme. One took his own life. He was twenty-four. https://www.lymedisease.org/touched-by-lyme-when-the-perfect-storm-is-too-much-to-bear/

For me, the jags of crying, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are  unwanted  surges in an unwell brain. The trick is to hold on and wait until the storm subsides. You might ask how I know this to be true. I’m not sure why. It could be a product of age and a lifetime of introspection. If I were much younger, or not used to examining my thoughts, I might think this was a real crisis. I’m not saying I haven’t felt depression and anxiety as true emotions. I have. The nature of Lyme neurological problems gives these feelings a different flavor.

When the surge subsides, it is though it never happened. There is no residual fallout, nor is there guilt, or lingering thoughts, another reason I know they’re not real. The inflammation Lyme causes acts as an electrical probe that homes in on the parts of my brain where emotion lives. It is more annoying than anything. A thought will pop up, unwanted and unconnected to much of anything (unless I’ve been on Twitter reading about the GOP and Trump), and lodge itself in the forefront of my brain for a few hours or a few days. I will cry at nothing. I might watch a cheesy movie, or watch videos like people reuniting with their dogs to help release the tears. It is a physical, not emotional reaction when Lyme is the cause, and I feel relief after crying. The depression/anxiety part is exceptionally frustrating. In the past, pre-Lyme, I sometimes got mildly depressed, and very, very occasionally experienced anxiety (like before my graduate school lecture, duh) but never in an irrational way. If you suffer from either of these regularly, wow. You have my deepest sympathies. My anxieties drift into obsessions, like buying lottery tickets or never leaving the kitchen dirty overnight. They don’t make sense, but it’s easy enough to pick up tickets or clean up.

I have never, not once in my life, thought seriously about suicide. I would go so far as to say I didn’t understand why anyone would want to take their life, until one cold February day two years ago when I was extremely sick, and had been for over a year. I realized I could easily reach a point where I wouldn’t want to go on if I knew I would never feel better than I did that day. This newer phase of neurological problems is more abstract, less direct and real. I’m not explaining myself well here. All I can say is that the flashes come and go quickly, and they don’t touch me deep inside. I’ve moved from being upset about them to being intrigued. What is happening in my Lyme brain? I’d love to have an MRI while I’m in the grip of what I call my Lyme neuroses/psychoses.

This is NOT a cry for help or a ‘poor me’ moment. It is an attempt to explain one of the more bizarre Lyme disease symptoms. I’m not embarrassed to talk about this the way I would be if I didn’t have Lyme (and that’s a whole other topic, why most of us would rather talk about our sex lives or money than admit to suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression). It’s one of the dozens of strange things that Lyme does to my body, like my aching teeth and liver today. I didn’t recognize what was happening at first. Once I did, he imagery that came to my mind is from an old Star Trek movie, the one where Khan puts a worm in Chekhov’s ear. https://youtu.be/3i42Smtbmeg

Each reaction in my body becomes something I deal with. My coping skills have moved into gold-medal territory by now, honed by injuries, endometriosis, surgeries, and now Lyme. As for these particular symptoms? Marijuana blunts them, housework makes them bearable, and sleep removes them entirely. I cook, or watch stupid TV, or rage against Trump and the GOP on Twitter. I drag myself to work and forget about Lyme for a short while. I go out with friends if I can, and listen to their lives. I walk the dogs. I write obsessively and badly. One day I’ll wake up and my brain will have regained its’ equilibrium and clarity and I’ll get back to fully living for a while until the next cycle comes. Then I will go back to my mad coping skills until the storm passes once again.

Share

RomComs

I can always tell when I’m feeling better. First sign is a manic frenzy to get my life “back on track”. I play catch-up and start to think about the future. That instantly brings on depression, anxiety and panic, so I try to balance it out by watching romcoms. I like romantic comedies. A LOT. The smarter and funnier the better, but I’ll settle for a cheesy Hallmark Channel movie, too.

I’ve yet to see one where the chronically ill hero finds the love of their life. That’s a plot that could go wrong in so many ways. Meeting another chronically ill partner? Oh, great, two sick people shlubbing along together, finding happiness in spite of barely living. Or one person “saves” the other, making life worth living. Yechhh. Or maybe the sick one keeps their illness a secret, but when it finally comes out, the healthy one finds they love the person no matter what. Right. That’s a totally true story, happens all the time.

The problem with all these scenarios is the chronic illness. Like a third wheel, it’s there, along for the ride whether you want it or not. I don’t know what the dynamics are for stable couples when one finds out they have a chronic illness. I’m sure it’s the same as everything else: some partners bail, others rise to the occasion, but most probably grope along blindly, trying to figure out what to do as problems arise. I don’t have that right now. I have Katie and Dad, of course, but they are family, so far from a romantic partner that it’s no comparison.

Well-meaning people in my life worry that I’m not happy being single. Well, I’m not always happy, but that doesn’t have anything to do with not having a relationship. Maybe they can’t imagine being alone in their own lives, so they project their own fears of being alone onto single people, . In many ways, most ways, in fact, I’m much happier alone. For some people this is simply impossible to understand, especially people who know that I love men and flirting. It’s true, though. How much of this is due to Lyme and how much is due to personal evolution is difficult to discern.

Romcoms often bring up lots of emotions for me after the ‘high’ from the always happy ending, most of them cynical. I mean, at the heart of every romcom, regardless of how the writers frame the story, lies the fantasy that there is true love for everyone. That’s not true, it’s never been true. Is it a modern promise that can’t help but make most of us disappointed? Or is the modern standard so high that romcoms have to exist to keep the fantasy alive? Or maybe they exist in the same territory that fairy tales and romance novels; they satisfy our yearnings to be loved.

That’s the thing people pity single people for, isn’t it? “I just want you to be happy” is code for “I want someone to love you”.  “I don’t want you to be alone” really means “I want someone to want to be with you”. It doesn’t matter how fulfilled your life is in every other area, the message is  loud and clear: you can’t be satisfied until you have that person. In the most primitive terms, it’s biology at work, making sure we procreate and continue having little humans to populate the earth. I’m certainly long past that stage. I’m in the stage where I’m supposed to be enjoying my grandkids (I’m not sure I care about that, either. Katie has never wanted kids), and romantic love is a comforting memory or a real stroke of luck.

I think I like romcoms because they always have happy endings. They often start with one or both protagonists going through the worst time of their lives, followed by the soul-cleansing moral journey of discovering what is important in life, and finishing with the satisfying message that if you make the right choices and get your karma straight, you’ll be rewarded with true love. Just writing it down makes me realize how ridiculous the whole premise is. And yet I still come back for more.

The pay-off is catharsis, a feel good moment that cost me nothing. Since my Lyme disease isn’t going anywhere soon, I need an escape that doesn’t involve alcohol, physical exertion, money, brain power, or too much effort. I tend to go through phases of feeling like I want someone, but not so badly that I’m willing to, as they say in romcom vernacular, “put myself out there”. In truth, I don’t have the time or energy to put into anybody else but myself and I am a-ok with that.

Share