Hello and good day there! It's about time that someone, anyone, step up to the plate and tell the (non-)Real World who, and perhaps more importantaly, WHAT we are! I apparently need to get off my ever-increasing ass and do something about this situation! So while it may be true that according to phone records and internet timestamps, we've only been asleep for say, 3 hours, and during that 3 hours let's say that I took some Seroquel and every one of us knows how much that frightens K, and that technically she should still be sleeping due to it's sedating qualities...i.e. This shit usually knocks us on our face and we sleep for at least 12 hours, so therefore WTF am I doing awake this damn early?!? Sigh. Things just can't seem to go as planned these days...
We're only a few entries (unless it's changed since I woke up; not saying it hasn't--) into this New Blog, and I've said this to someone before, perhaps you, that I'm dissatisfied with the look and feel of it. I am looking at this and reading this and this just WILL NOT DO at all! This blog seems rushed and NOT put-together-right and our OCD simply will NOT stand by and let this go on any further! It should be perfect. It should be entertaining, and interesting, and maybe even a bit controversial as well, since K so enjoys that feeling of risk-taking, and after having read this so-called Blog, we have decided that K is NOT up to the task and someone else positively MUST take over the reins for awhile. And that someone appears to be me today.
Who the hell am I? you may be asking yourselves, and I will be happy to answer that question. We are K, not to be confused with The Kellie, (who is fabulous but rarely comes around anymore from what we can tell), we are the conglomeration of all the things and people and ideas and whatnot which belong to K but which she currently cannot express because K suffers from "mild"(?!) Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder and perhaps even Dissociative Identity Disorder (we were just making strides in that area when our therapist dropped us; damn the luck!) even though she thinks (HAHA) that she's currently OK, she truly is very seriously depressed and/or mentally ill and just unable to talk about it. For a number of reasons which shall become (at least somewhat) clear by the end of this post. Hmm. I wonder how long this post will be?? (cue dramatic music, then cut sharply, and zoom in to the center) We shall see, Oh yes, we shall see indeed.
The story starts as many stories do, only ours doesn't necessarily start at the beginning...rather, it starts somewhere in the middle and then jumps back and forth from past to future, never really lingering long enough in the NOW to have a "normal" life, whatever that may be. In our mind, "normal life" means literally "the life that most normal people lead" and it entails a job and a spouse and some kids and probably a dog and a mortgage and plans for some sort of future in which the star of the show has grandchildren and memories of a long and fulfilling life, with the usual ups and downs along the way but which ultimately has a happy ending. The "...and they lived happily ever after" part of the movie. But NO, not us, not now, not EVER, that's just not the hand that was dealt us in life, and we must face the facts. K is still (after all these years) in denial, and probably always will be. It's just in her nature to be negative, only she considers this "realistic" and gets pissy if someone calls her a pessimist for she very clearly is a realist. But I'm jumping ahead again. Damn. I forget sometimes that this is NEW, that you don't know us, that you are NOT my doctor or my therapist or my partner or even my friend yet, and that some explaining needs to be done. How could anyone possibly jump into the middle of this madness and be able to successfully navigate their way through these troubled waters? Not even I can do that, and at the moment, I am the captain of the damn boat! ("Ship" I hear Daddy whisper in my ear "A boat fits on a ship, a ship cannot fit on a boat!") K's father was in the Navy and loved all things ship-related. So let's dive right in, shall we say, and start swimming. I'll be nearby with a life preserver for you in case of sharks or piranha or whatnot. You will be safe, I (cannot) promise. Just keep swimming.
We are known collectively as K, and we were first diagnosed with a "mental disorder" and given a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder (although at the time it was called "Manic-Depressive Disorder"; I suppose this dates me EEK!) when we were 16. Now granted, just because this is when the illness was brought to the attention of us and (some of) our family, it does NOT mean this is when we first got sick. No, we've been hearing voices and/or having hallucinations since roughly the age of 4. For as long as we can remember, in other words. It just didn't really become a problem for us until I was a teenager. Actually, K had no idea that anything was wrong with her at all, because this way was the ONLY way she'd ever known. She assumed everyone else also had a sports broadcaster in their reality, commentating on their "game" of life. Throughout her childhood, she heard people refer to "that little voice inside your head", so she thought it was perfectly normal to have someone in your ear telling you to do things. The fact that she had more than one voice didn't make her ill, it just made her special, and so we lived with these voices and were not afraid at that time. They were nice to her back then, perhaps because she was innocent. The visual hallucinations were her "imaginary friends" that a lot of children have. K's secret is that she never outgrew them as other children do. (They are no longer my imaginary "friends" however; more like enemies)
Now we come to the childhood trauma which every therapist seems to think mental illness comes from, although I'm not sure mine was all that traumatic for me until I began seeing a certain therapist in my mid-20's, which seems a long time ago now, (but how would I know? I have no concept of time. And K has issues with her age-she doesn't believe she's as old as she is-but that is definitely another tale for another time) and she told us that I was displaying all the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse. (Yes, I do exhibit the classic signs. I'm not going to list them here; you can easily find out for yourself online what exactly those signs/symptoms are) Now we've tried to revert back to our childhood and remember who exactly did what and when...Yes, it happened. Yes, it was a family member. Two actually (but NOT our beloved parents!) But in the end we only succeeded in making ourselves feel more uncomfortable than ever in our own skin and brought about feelings of guilt, as though she had done something to deserve it and it was her own fault that she got molested. No, K was unable to handle that reality and therefore she dissociated and created her own reality and we can't really remember those super-traumatic things anymore. K isn't allowed to think about that stuff. It's best we not go down that path again, I assure you. It's a slippery slope and we always fall and it takes literally years for us to get back up again. So we will NOT be talking about the molestation OR the rape(s). Another time, another place. Maybe.
Jump ahead now, and K is a teenager, and puberty kicks in and the hormones start to take over and this starts to compete with the Mental Illness (which of course is going untreated at this time) and what happens is she becomes a suicidal mess and gets sent away to the loony bin for what seemed years but which we now know was only 3 months. And in those 3 months, K's parents did all they could to hide K's illness from the rest of the family; they were ashamed that something like this could happen to them and they thought they'd be judged, and let's face it folks, there IS a stigma, and back then it was much worse even than it is today. We certainly never had famous actors going on national television and announcing they were Bipolar or Bulimic or anything like that; it was something we didn't talk about, something to be ashamed of and embarrassed by, something that happens to other families, not ours. So K's sister, her very own sister, was never even told that K had been hospitalized for attempting to commit suicide (the wrist slashing we can't remember-it was too traumatic; we just have the scars and nightmares now) not once but several times, using different methods, which we obsessed about and which we were constantly in our head planning out for K's future. She intended to be dead by age 25 anyway.
That's the end of the draft. As I've stated earlier, we're not sure which one of us wrote that. But it seems important to share it with someone, anyone, and that someone turned out to be you.
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