Stressed, Uncomfortable, Nervous...

I don't want advice about this stuff or for anyone to tell me what to do (I feel like I've had enough of that lately and it stresses me out), although I don't mind comments. I'm not looking for any one to feel sorry for me either. I'm just putting this out here because it happened Wednesday evening and I feel like expressing it to an extent.

As some people know (and some people don't), I have occasional seizures, as a side effect of another health issue I had about 15 years ago. Hard to believe my stroke happened that long ago now, but then again, not really, because time flies faster and faster.

I'm not going to get into an elaborate amount of detail abut my seizures and related factors, but I will say I can usually tell less than a minute before one is about to happen, so I can at least sit down on the floor.

But then afterwards, I don't know exactly what happened (I mean I know I had a seizure but I don't remember the part right after that involves getting up off the floor, walking into a different room and so on). This time I think I was even more confused than the last few times. I was confused about what time it was and how long ago the seizure happened (although that's usually the case). I had trouble finding my phone (it was just on my bed which is where I often keep it). I had trouble figuring out how to use my phone, how to find the contact info on my phone, what to press to make a phone call (later I saw that I had sent Darryl two little random emojis on facebook messaging which might have been me trying to use my phone but being confused). So I felt more confused (and for a longer time) than I usually do after a seizure. I feel like it took me at least 20 minutes to figure out how to use the phone.

I had been upset, stressed and sad on Tuesday. I then felt somewhat better on Wednesday, but still sad. Even though I've been in menopause for about a year or two now, it felt somewhat similar to a variation on PMS, which I haven't had in quite a while.

Then shortly before the damned seizure happened, it suddenly got substantially worse. I started to feel guilty about my FB Wall Posts/personal blog post from Tuesday, my heart started racing a bit, I felt very unnaturally negative and off-filter and as if I was on the brink of a panic attack. I couldn't make it go away and it was getting worse. It was very uncomfortable (mentally more so than physically). I thought about lying down because I didn't know what else to do. First I was going to pee, but then while on the toilet, the sensation I have right before a seizure came over me. I quickly wiped, flushed, moved into my computer room, sat down where I usually sit down there and had the very uncomfortable out-of-control sensation as if my neck is suddenly twisting itself to one side (the right side) and in my mind, I'm randomly sitting on my computer chair (even though I'm actually sitting on the floor) and seeing some random cartoon-ish images. I remember seeing a cartoon chicken.

Next thing I know, I'm in my bedroom, looking for my phone, and after finding it, having trouble figuring out anything about it for quiet a while. I was confused with words, which happens for a while after one of my seizures. I finally managed to call my mom about a minute before midnight (I know she stays up late). But then after we got off the phone, I ended up calling her back again, because I then felt a sore lump on the right back of my head, saw two red marks on the left side of my neck (probably/hopefully just scratches?), and saw that I had bit the inside bottom of my lip. I am not sure how any of those things happened, especially the lump on the back of my head, because last I knew, I was sitting on the floor. Maybe I somehow bumped my head into a door or a wall after I got up. The lump on the back of my head and the scratches on the left side of my neck make me uncomfortable and nervous since I'm not sure exactly what caused them. It sucks not knowing how something happened. It causes me to think a bit about my damned stroke.

The seizure itself also makes me feel uncomfortable and nervous because it's only been a tiny bit more than a month since the last one I had. The last one was October 7, three days after I got my latest Covid vaccine. Normally I don't have seizures anymore near that close together. For a while, I was only having one or two a year. Not one in October and another one in November. Maybe this has something to do with the latest Covid vaccine, because I remember feeling low energy, down and oddly out of it for several days after I got that (more mentally out of it than physically out of it, which I'd not experienced to that extent after one of my previous vaccines). I'm repeating myself again here, but it's bothersome because I don't think I've ever had only about a month before the last seizure. I certainly don't want my seizures to start getting worse or more frequent.

I suppose it could have something to do with hormones or stress. Despite trying not to mentally overreact too much about the election, (not that I'm ignoring it, but I didn't want to escalate my stress into some sort of toxicity) perhaps the disturbing fact that Trump won kicked in more about a week later, plus which some stressful seizure pill oriented paperwork I've been trying to deal with that has to do with health insurance suddenly telling me I might not be eligible for the pills I've been taking for years being largely covered by insurance, so I might have to switch to different generics and deal with different side effects and that's very upsetting to me, because I remember what some of my previous pills side effects were like.

Anyway, apparently it's just been one of those bothersome weeks and hopefully I feel better tomorrow. And hopefully everyone else who is overly stressed out or upset feels better too (but without ignoring real issues).

HELLO! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? DO YOU HEAR ME?

I know how my own brain works and how it feels. Sometimes I feel like certain people seem to think or act as if I'm less intelligent than I used to be or less intelligent than I actually am. I'm certainly not a genius, but I'm certainly not unintelligent. I have some word issues. I am not great at quickly and easily explaining some things. In some ways I'm different than I used to be, but doesn't that apply to most of us in different ways? I have some memory issues. I'm a rather slow reader and need to concentrate harder than I used to in order to initially process something and then not too long after that, I might forget certain things again. But just because my reading is slower and my processing takes longer and I have more memory issues than I used to, that doesn't mean that I don't understand things when I concentrate on reading them.

It also doesn't mean that I need someone else to repeatedly explain things to me as though I don't understand or to repeatedly talk over me or to tell me what to do as though I'll make the wrong choice if they don't or to indicate that I'm less than I used to be. Just because things take me longer and require more substantial effort and repeated concentration, that doesn't mean my brain is a broken down mess.

It means my brain is different.

My brain is still my own. Not worse. Not less than. Different.

In addition to the above (or perhaps somewhat interconnected with the above), I am feeling rather sad (and like I'm not getting enough accomplished in a timely manner, whatever that even means). I guess that's just the kind of day (month? year?) it is.

Somewhat related to my own slow process, on the plus side, one really positive thing about slow reading/processing is that I'm used to that and enjoy it (sometimes) because of poetry. Poetry has always been a preferred form of reading and writing for me and poetry is a form of writing that I have often chosen to read (and re-read) slowly in order to process (and interpret and interpret again in different ways) because that's how poetry works for me.  

Along those lines, I will say one thing that is causing me to feel a bit sad is this meme I've seen quite a few of my poetry friends sharing on social media that shows a burning world on fire and then underneath that image of a burning world, a silly comedic "poet" asking, "Do you need any poems?"

Quite a few people are commenting that they don't know whether to laugh or cry and I feel that way too, but it mostly makes me feel upset and like crying and like maybe nothing is very important; not even the things we really like and are strongly drawn to.

I think a lot of us poetry/art people already know that poetry is not hugely important to the mainstream. But regardless of that, I still think it is a very worthwhile and meaningful form of expression and connection and sharing. Even if it's relatively little on a larger scale, I don't think that makes it meaningless or silly. I think it is meaningful and important to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons.

A Very Sad Loss

Very saddened and upset to find out that Vertigo Xi'an Xavier has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. This is awful, terrible, and totally unfair.

Vertigo was a genuinely unique, truly one-of-a-kind, supportive, open-minded, oddly-amusing, creative, hard-working poetry creature who performed, wrote, Slamministrated, edited and published (he started his small press, The Poet's Haven, way back in 1997!).

He was a weirdo and he was super-duper nice. I never heard him trash or attack anyone else (which seems to be a rare trait to come by these days), except for via Super Villian Politics ("We oppose everything that has been doing the world harm and will force the world back on to the path of forward progress... whether it wants us to or not.").

He invited me and my teeny tiny press to poetry readings and events when I was relatively new to the area and felt like I hardly had any friends and he helped get me involved with poetry stuff around my new location.

At the end of April, he bought my recent poetry chapbook, "DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS" at a little coffee shop book fair that both of our presses had tables at - and then just this past May, his press published my most recent poetry chapbook, "Another Set Of Ripped-Out Bloody Pigtails".

He always had tons of new creative projects in the works and it is extremely upsetting that he is suddenly gone way too soon.

He will be missed by many members of the poetry community and he will be missed by my Blood Pudding Press and by me.

Vertigo and Juliet