Iva Rogers has headed out the exit door leading to the street where her car is parked. She is now on her way to Klamath Falls to go shopping. Which now leaves Jan, Shaneen’s cousin and I finishing our lunches. And to be honest thinking back I do not recall if Shaneen’s cousin was eating or not. I do remember her having a bunch of papers laid out on a table next to the wall that is adjacent to the Honker Family Resource Center FRC office windows. She was putting them together to be stapled and then from what I understand or remember to be passed out as some kind of survey they are wanting to do.
Well, Jan and I finished eating our last bits of food on our plates and took them over to the sink to be washed later. At this point in time, I do not recall what happened to Joanne or where she went. I don’t remember if she left and went home or was out in the office area of the FRC. Jan returned to the table where she was working on the puzzle before we were called to lunch. I went and sat where I was sitting when I was eating my lunch. Then, right after I sat down I noticed I was having a hard time swallowing my last bite of food for some reason. It wasn’t going down.
I have had this happen before and it usually takes a few minutes and it goes down. Not this time. It was not going down. So I thought, I still had my chocolate milk to drink. Not thinking at the time. I figured I could drink it and see if I could wash it down then. That didn’t seem to work at all. It just made things worse.
What it did do is come back up. I had to rush from the table where I was sitting to the sink to toss it up. I was thinking to myself “this is ridiculous it should go down by now.” But it wasn’t. I began discussing my situation out loud in front of Jan and Shaneens’s cousin who was working there that day. She was becoming concerned too. She had not said a whole lot just yet. But she was listening to my complaints as I was reasoning things out loud in front of her. Discussing and trying to figure out my options at the time. I didn't know what to do yet.
In fact, we began discussing the topic of mental health and how I am a Manic Depressive Bi-polar individual. I mentioned I always like the sign on the wall that says:
“Know me as a person, not for my mental illness.” It goes something like that and I don’t recall at the moment who the author is to that saying. I just always like seeing it on the wall. The only thing I don’t like is the word mental illness. There has to be something after all these years’ words found that are not so negative. And for some reason when something happens or goes wrong in society and people find out the person was mentally ill and a Manic Depressive Bi-polar, they begin to assume all Manic Depressive Bi-polar people are the same, and we are not. Tony Ross's opinion of me is as follows with his characterization of me, "I am not dangerous, but just a pain in the ass." His words, not mine.
I was explaining to Shaneens cousin what it is like to be Manic Depressive Bi-polar. It’s like a car that its gas tank is on empty. That is the beginning of depression. Depression is the stage where the gas tank is being filled up again from the last trip or as they are sometimes called, “episodes’.
What happens next as the tank is being filled with fluid is a waiting game. Then after a period of time has passed of being in the state of depression. The engine starts up and a little sputter at first and out of time. The timing is off from the firing of the spark plugs and then the engine starts to warm up a little bit. Then all of sudden varoom and the fluid in the gas tank or fumes are igniting the pistons and they are firing now on all four, six or eight-cylinders. And off we go to the next adventure or as they say, “episode”. That’s is until we run out of gas or fuel when the gas tank is empty once again. It just depends on how full the tank is now and how long it has been between episodes from the last state of depression to the next Manic Episode.
That is what I was trying to explain to Shaneens cousin. (Shaneen’s cousin who I still cannot remember her name for the life of me. I should have written it down, but I didn’t.)Where I was discussing out loud, mind you, again of my options and what it is like to be Manic Depressive Bi-polar, all at the same time. That’s when I found out during our conversation that she was Shaneens' cousin. That, I could remember.
Well, since it seems this food particle was not going down. I had to start to think about my options. Do I walk over to the clinic, call 911 or ask someone to take me to the ER in Klamath Falls? Or hopefully, in the next few minutes, it will go down and that will be the end of it. Before I leave.
Comments
Post a Comment