The Return To Innocence

Since I am still in shock, I feel like I'm moving through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief completely out of order. I've accepted that Rose is dead and I am deeply depressed. While I held her waiting for Adam, I knew she was dying and I was already angry and bargaining. When the vet said she was critical, I accepted and realized she was probably going to die. When she coded and they couldn't revive her, I accepted and understood, then went right on to bargaining again, blaming myself and how I just kept waiting. It became anger, wondering how the fuck a five-year old cat with a clean bill of health could suddenly present with congestive heart failure and die so quickly. I became angry that we hadn't figured it might be genetic. I became depressed that I couldn't have known. I still blamed myself for not finding a way to take her to the clinic sooner.
When we held her body, I went through acceptance and depression again, followed by deep gratefulness that at least she waited until Adam came home, that Adam got to hold her, that she knew how much we loved her. Depression again. Acceptance.
No denial. Slight isolation.
I updated Facebook right there in the clinic's comfort room, since in this age of instant communication it was much faster than a sobbing phone chain. We finished holding Rose and signed the private cremation form. We walked to the car. My best friend Beca called and all I could hear was her screams, and I cried. She and her husband James came over with food: Whole rotisserie chickens that I ripped into because I hadn't eaten all day. Alcohol because it helped dull the pain. Being a doctor, she commanded that I keep taking Klonopin, as well as baclofen, two to three times a day just to keep my mind and body from shattering.
I realized how desperately I needed them there, and she knew it, and late that night she brought me to bed, fed me my drugs, and climbed into bed with me. Adam was downstairs on the couch with James.
I clung to my plushie ginger tabby Haiku all night. Beca and James left early this morning, and Adam came up to sleep with me. I woke up and instinctively reached behind my head to the soft pillow where Rose would be sprawled out, and I made a soft whimper of intense pain, because she wasn't there.
And Jupiter has been meowing, softly. Meowing and meowing. I don't know how much he understands yet. Luna has been so quiet, but always there, always ready for a hug. It's only been a day. I've only shed a few tears. The real grieving hasn't begun.
People are gently discussing taking me across the street to the new shelter on Solstice or after Christmas, to let me adopt a cat. Others have suggested waiting a few months. I cannot wait. Because I don't believe in waiting for too long. My heart cannot take it. I cannot spent months mourning and empty when a pet dies, otherwise I may lose my mind. See... After Tuesday died in November 2006, I spent four agonizing months with a growing, burning, echoing hole inside me, until I begged Adam to take me to the old shelter on Rothgeb just to look, just to see... and that was where Luna stole my heart and filled my soul. And one year later, my other best friend Charlotte begged us to come see her former coworker's new litter of five female gingers, and Adam picked up one, looked into those wide bright sunny eyes, and announced she was coming home. And Rose took our hearts and ran.
I never expected the baby of the family to be the first to die.
I think we will always be a three-cat house now.
I want and do not want isolation. I don't want platitudes. I am completely fine with "I'm so sorry for your loss" - as "sorry" is shorthand for "sorrowful" and it helps me to know that others feel the loss and mourn with me. But I am depressed. And I don't know what to say.
We have been getting so many phone calls and messages.
She was only five years old. I guess it was genetic. She was so young.

Now, her soul resides in the gold-cream clay sculpture Adam had made in her likeness months ago. Adam absorbed her energy, stored it, released it, and made sure she would stay with us.









The house of Rose's soul.
Oh sweet Bast, please love Rose and care for her. Give her sweet cuddles and nuzzles and kisses. And give her as many treats as she wants.
With Adam Paul, the sculptor.

I am starting to officially read "World War Z" by Max Brooks. I don't know if I can. I'm not joking. I may need Klonopin. I'll have to skim and speed-read.
I know people don't really understand super irrational phobias like this. I know fear is a basic and intangible biological, evolutionary reaction, that it can keep you moving, that it can help survival. But irrational fears are... I mean... you know. They hurt. They damage. They are inexplicable. No amount of "Oh, get over it" can soothe irrational fear.
But I'm only at Tel Aviv and I'm shaking. I know how the book progresses, I know what happens, I know about Yonkers... through wikis and reviews and recaps and summaries. But I don't know if I can sit down and actually read the whole thing as it is.
My mind is so odd in that way.
I suppose this is a high praise and testament to Max Brooks's talent. But this is one of my absolute violent fears printed on paper and bound between covers. If I can make it to the end of the book - fuck, if I can make it through Yonkers - maybe I will be okay.
I just need to remember that any nightmares about living corpses stalking me are just dreams. To quote a beloved and wise friend: "being afraid of anything is bullshit... fear cannot hurt or touch you - put it in a box and stuff it the fuck under the bed." It is a powerful kind of truth.
It doesn't work in some situations. However, in my own case, it is the truth. To "be afraid" is to react. Everyone has a fear, multiple fears. But not everyone is afraid. Fear serves a very important purpose in evolution and biology. But fear is not the creature coming to hurt you. Fear is the response. Not necessarily bullshit. But not always needed, either. Fear can be worked with. Fear can be stared down. Fear can be danced with. Fear can be used. Fear can be weaponized. Fear can be altered and manipulated. Fear can be conquered.
Unfortunately, when I am smack in the middle of fear, I forget that.
I have been afraid of stories before. My imagination is active beyond reason. One of my recurring nightmares features a rotting, moving, gasping human corpse crawling onto my bed, reaching out, and stroking my face. This is why the television series "The Walking Dead" is essentially the stuff of my nightmares, and if I stumble across a GIF or macro of one of its zombies, I freeze in terror before scrolling past or closing the window; the fact that it is only makeup and corn syrup and costuming means nothing at all.
Therefore, BREATHING.

My cats.
My wonderful, amazing, hilarious, magical cats.
No matter what the worst of humanity does, my cats are there to love me. When the best of humanity rises up to help the wounded and devastated, my cats are there to love me.

Animals are awesome.

I said a lot of things on Facebook.
I no longer want to burn humanity to the ground. Nor do I want to find some gateway to another dimension. We humans really are more loving than we are cruel.
Things will be all right.
We shall continue.

I am calm now.
I am listening to soothing music. I am watching amusing comedy. I have been medicated because Fucking Ow My Everything.

The world will be here no matter what. And I will love and be loved. That works.

Damn it, I really must learn to stop being afraid for no real reason, to not be afraid in general just because some tiny things may or may not be upsetting in the future.

I think I hate the future. I think I hate not knowing the future. I think I hate that the future can never be known, because the future is always changing, never set in stone, always moving too fluidly to grasp completely.

I have to concentrate on now, and myself, before I suffer more panic attacks and more seizures and drive myself completely insane.
Time for bed now, since I am finally tired.

Also, physical therapy was wonderful, if only temporarily wonderful.

I am writing this revealing post because my Psychic Quantum Consciousness smacked me with Get Well (apply directly to the forehead) and I am finally feeling human. Ish?

My nap refreshed me slightly. So did pain drugs and herbs.
Then I decided to paint my nails twice over: first with Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Polish in Divine Wine and then with Revlon Top Speed Polish in Dress Code.
The Nailgrowth formula will help my nails grow stronger (biotin, peptides, chondroitin, keratin, silk powder). The Top Speed formula will help my nails stay healthy (minerals, gemstone powders, vitamins, silk powder, keratin).
My nails are shimmery metallic dark violet, with shimmery golden dark red bleeding through beneath. I was surprised by the beauty of Dress Code, which is much more purple than Decadent (indigo violet) and more shimmery. Revlon is really good with nail colors. The fascinating thing is how the dark red and dark violet shades are merging as the polishes finish drying. (I am also pretty sure "Dress Code" may also be named "Violet" as the Revlon site does not have a polish color called Dress Code in the Top Speed line, but the shade Violet looks exactly like Dress Code.)
http://www.drugstore.com/sally-hansen-nailgrowth-miracle-nail-color-divine-wine/qxp348841?catid=196092
http://www.drugstore.com/revlon-top-speed-fast-dry-nail-enamel-violet-670/qxp331984?catid=183598
I had also applied makeup this afternoon, since brightening concealer used as foundation and dark red lipgloss made me look a little less ill and exhausted. I felt like an alien, but a pretty alien.

Beautiful colors do help take my mind of how terrible I am feeling.
Eventually I will stop feeling terrible and start feeling, um, in less pain? and now I am finally, finally starting to climb out of this bizarre depressive episode that has been like a rabbit hole lined with steel thorns.
Combined with one of the most severe fibromyalgia attacks in recent months or even years plus attacks from the various sydromes associated with spastic ataxic cerebral palsy, the depression shattered me for quite a while. I am deeply grateful that it began lifting just as I desperately wanted to lie on my psychic battlefield in a deep pool of my own psychic blood, too tired and too drained to keep fighting, willing to let my pain monsters grab me and take me like a trophy to wherever they live when not hunting. I didn't feel alarmed enough to call my doctors, I just felt desperate to sleep for a day straight until I felt human again. I honestly don't know what it's like to feel so darkly depressed, but I would probably admit I was getting fairly close.

All I can say is that I really am feeling better, covered in sunlight and moonlight with healing powers, since I am a witch and a pagan after all. And I can thank every friend I have for helping me, whether they knew it or not. And I can also thank my Higher Brain and my Subconscious combined, which I like to call the Psychic Quantum Consciousness, because quantum brains are cool.

See this entry for various explanations and stuff: http://brightrosefox.livejournal.com/1570608.html

Sigh.
So, that was either a very weird complex partial seizure or a rare psychic experience. Or both. Regardless, I'm off to take some medicine and rest my brain. I think I used too many spears.

I do not remember much. What little I can recall involved synesthesia turned up to eleven when I closed my eyes, hyperactive shapes and sounds rushing into my brain, and a deep sense of expansion far beyond anything I could describe - like being in a craft flying toward outer space itself; a sense of G-forces pressing me down until I spiraled into darkness and then saw nothing but brilliant dots of light and sensed nothing but trillions of unexplainable entities, everywhere, all at once. There was so much heat and cold simultaneously, blackness and ice and fire without air, crushing me into a bare essence of a sentient being. It was as though I were coming apart atom by atom. I was screaming without sound. When it stopped, I couldn't hear, see, feel, or speak for a minute or two. When I managed to open my eyes, I was lying twisted against the back of the couch, gasping heavily, sweat pouring down my face. I truly do not know what happened. I am struggling to hold on to even a tiny bit of that memory, but it is fading even as I write this. I'm sorry.

The transcript for the Futurama episode "Godfellas."
Bender's conversation with the God Galaxy is the main reason why this is one of my favorite episodes. It is also part of why, ten years ago, I declared myself a pantheistic polytheistic polyagnostic eclectic pagan witch who observes humanistic paganism and spiritual humanism. It is also part of why I am convinced that magic and physics go together like limes and coconuts.
http://www.futurama-madhouse.net/scripts/3acv20.shtml

FYI, this particular postictal state (after seizure state) has me somewhat energetic and verbose as well as mildly hypergraphic, despite the migraine and burning muscles and spastic limbs and aching nerves. I am going to try and direct that energy into writing chapters and stories now. Questions are welcome.

I also wanted to add a photo. I have gotten into a habit of photographing my face after certain seizures, to document the physical aftereffects even if I am the only one who sees them. I have a few friends in the medical industry who might understand why I do this. One such friend mentioned that in this picture, my usual spastic imbalance due to cerebral palsy is not there, meaning that the seizure wore me out so badly that my facial muscles went fully lax and exhausted, with no spastic hemiplegia on the left side. My normal is gone right now, turned into everyone else's normal. It does make me sad, because now I don't look like myself; I look alien. My face doesn't look imbalanced or shifted or compensated. That seizure obviously took it out of me, because I am also fatigued and lethargic beyond description.
But this is very good to know, so I can keep an eye out for future seizure effects.

One of my greatest fears, potentially possibly ready to spring to life as law:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/mississippi-personhood-birth-control-abortion
I don't understand this. There is no sensible logic here. Someone please explain why the fuck this would be a good idea. Without using the words "god" or "religion" or "morality" or the phrase "it's a life". And if nobody can explain it without one or more of those words, do they understand how damaging and dangerous it could get? Look, I understand personal moral views and shit. But this? NO. Just... omigods NO. I can't even. I can't. I don't care if you are "pro-life" or "anti-choice" or whatever the hell the kids are calling it these days. Go ahead and say that abortion is murder. Whatever. You do NOT have the right to tell a person how to use their own body. You do NOT put a potential possible existence on a higher pedestal than the actual real existence of a person, especially when that person has to go through nine or more months of grueling, painful, agonizing, damaging physical and mental changes especially when they don't fucking want it. I am so fucking sick of the phrase "Well, if you don't want the baby, just give it up for adoption." People who use that phrase seem to be unaware of how intense those nine months are. I'm tokophobic and the mere concept of being pregnant makes me shake and spasm. Will I want a child in the future at some point? Maybe. I don't know. I don't want one now. But I sure as hell don't want a pregnancy. Ever. I have made up my mind about that. The fact that Mississippi politicians are willing to vote to make sure that fertile women might be seen as less important than a fertilized egg makes me feel very ill. No uterus should be "property" of a government.
You know what, I am emotional and ranting, so I'll shut up.
I can't right now. No. I am hoping desperately that this does not pass in November.
My soapbox has broken, so I will leave now. If you want to comment and defend this bill, go ahead. But seriously, if you use any sort of moral, ethical, or religious reasoning to tell me why a fucking fertilized egg should be called a person, I will merely smile like a deranged Cheshire Cat.

One of my greatest fears, potentially possibly ready to spring to life as law:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/mississippi-personhood-birth-control-abortion
I don't understand this. There is no sensible logic here. Someone please explain why the fuck this would be a good idea. Without using the words "god" or "religion" or "morality" or the phrase "it's a life". And if nobody can explain it without one or more of those words, do they understand how damaging and dangerous it could get? Look, I understand personal moral views and shit. But this? NO. Just... omigods NO. I can't even. I can't. I don't care if you are "pro-life" or "anti-choice" or whatever the hell the kids are calling it these days. Go ahead and say that abortion is murder. Whatever. You do NOT have the right to tell a person how to use their own body. You do NOT put a potential possible existence on a higher pedestal than the actual real existence of a person, especially when that person has to go through nine or more months of grueling, painful, agonizing, damaging physical and mental changes especially when they don't fucking want it. I am so fucking sick of the phrase "Well, if you don't want the baby, just give it up for adoption." People who use that phrase seem to be unaware of how intense those nine months are. I'm tokophobic and the mere concept of being pregnant makes me shake and spasm. Will I want a child in the future at some point? Maybe. I don't know. I don't want one now. But I sure as hell don't want a pregnancy. Ever. I have made up my mind about that. The fact that Mississippi politicians are willing to vote to make sure that fertile women might be seen as less important than a fertilized egg makes me feel very ill. No uterus should be "property" of a government.
You know what, I am emotional and ranting, so I'll shut up.
I can't right now. No. I am hoping desperately that this does not pass in November.
My soapbox has broken, so I will leave now. If you want to comment and defend this bill, go ahead. But seriously, if you use any sort of moral, ethical, or religious reasoning to tell me why a fucking fertilized egg should be called a person, I will merely smile like a deranged Cheshire Cat.

Insomnia and nightmares. Serves me right for reading scary ghost stories while in the house alone. Slept with lights on, fitfully, drugged with valerian and passionflower, until I remembered how extremely psychically warded Adam had made our house. Nothing can get past the oak tree, not malevolent spirits nor benevolent spirits. I knew this, I tried to remember this. Silly imagination was silly, I said. Luna slept on or against my legs all night, purring.

I do very, very badly with irrational fear. One frightening tale or film and I huddle against my headboard for hours when I should be sleeping, waiting for Something that grins a skeletal grin to creep onto my bed and touch my face with a decaying hand. Can't watch trailers or previews for horror films, particularly Japanese horror or remade Americanized Japanese horror. Can't read horrifying ghost stories that read in the second person. Not without dealing with a screaming, shivering, shell-shocked inner child. I should have left that webpage after the first few stories, really, but morbid curiosity is morbid. Particularly when I must sleep completely alone.

I'll go for a quick walk, to clear my head. Need to take the bus to the CVS, to refill a prescription. Seeing people will calm me.

Tomorrow calls for snow showers. Sigh.

Insomnia and nightmares. Serves me right for reading scary ghost stories while in the house alone. Slept with lights on, fitfully, drugged with valerian and passionflower, until I remembered how extremely psychically warded Adam had made our house. Nothing can get past the oak tree, not malevolent spirits nor benevolent spirits. I knew this, I tried to remember this. Silly imagination was silly, I said. Luna slept on or against my legs all night, purring.

I do very, very badly with irrational fear. One frightening tale or film and I huddle against my headboard for hours when I should be sleeping, waiting for Something that grins a skeletal grin to creep onto my bed and touch my face with a decaying hand. Can't watch trailers or previews for horror films, particularly Japanese horror or remade Americanized Japanese horror. Can't read horrifying ghost stories that read in the second person. Not without dealing with a screaming, shivering, shell-shocked inner child. I should have left that webpage after the first few stories, really, but morbid curiosity is morbid. Particularly when I must sleep completely alone.

I'll go for a quick walk, to clear my head. Need to take the bus to the CVS, to refill a prescription. Seeing people will calm me.

Tomorrow calls for snow showers. Sigh.