7/23/23

I am driving myself from Los Angeles to Fort Collins -- ALONE. It's been fine so far. Whenever I feel fine, though, I have this ironclad optimistic sense that I will feel fine forever, and when I have another one of my spirals it takes me completely by surprise. This morning, in a hotel room in Beaver, Utah, I was reflecting on how it's going to be important for me to keep doing the things I do in crisis mode to make me feel better. Keep getting enough sleep. Keep stretching and exercising. Keep free writing or blogging. Keep working on my projects everyday to keep me grounded and distracted in something outside myself. The work to stay well is kind of a drag, even when it's nice. But yeah... I'm going to go back into the dark places a lot. So I can't just assume I'm free and clear and drop all the things that seem to help. 

The other night, like I talked about in my last post, was a bad spiral. At one point, I was crying and lying in bed with Joe. I had felt a little better, but I could feel my mood crashing again. That feeling of the bottom dropping out invading my chest and the lightheadedness in my um, head. I spasmed and grabbed onto Joe. (The spasming sometimes happens, like an electric shock has run through my body.) I was on my way down. Joe said it was okay. I could hug him as hard as I wanted, that he was going to lay there and I could do whatever I wanted to him. I hugged him tightly. And then I thought about kneeing him in the balls. Would that help, kneeing him in the balls? I had never kneed anybody in the balls before. I asked him about it, "What about kneeing you in the balls?' The thought of it was cheering me up. It made me laugh. It was actively pulling me right out of my downward spiral - the slapstick, the forbidden. I forget what he said about it. I kneed him in the balls.