Documenting my journey through the mental health system

May 13, Wednesday, was my last show and despite my limited practice for Part of that World, I did so much better than I was anticipating! I could feel it while it was happening.

Marry A’botumn, our show host (I love that drag name) had an important announcement for us too. Instead of just the second Wednesday of every month, shows will now be the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month! I can’t believe it; this really ups the ante. I can prepare the music, though it’s rapid-fire turnaround. I can prepare the costuming. The makeup.

How will I get the time off work from the VA? All those Wednesdays (I looked ahead till August) are all on the Wednesday I work at the VA only every other week. The luck is terrible, I wish it was the other Wednesdays, then I could just quit Sacred Heart and be done with it. That would be my sign. But I can’t quit the VA.

I’m going to try to get them all off by requesting a permanent schedule change. No more work on Wednesdays. I’ve seen odd schedules be accommodated before. But if it’s denied, what then? My only recourse is trying to actually get them all covered with my hours of leave. That’s easy too, I have the leave, it just seems like something they wouldn’t do. I have a lot of anxiety about it. On one hand, something good is going down, regarding something I never thought I’d be able to do again (drag). On the other, even if they approve the leave, I’m using it faster than I can make it. My only hope is a permanent schedule change.

There is a lot more coming up. I’m expected to sing at Pride, June 12th. Pride is in less than a month. That falls on a Friday, when I’d be at SH, so I requested that night off. I am having to use a lot of time off lately!

Dr P, from the mental hospital, would he be proud? Would he see me as a success story? Those are the dumb things I think, it was so hard being there, and I still drive by it every night I work at SH, it is right there in my way, and I have to drive past it. And memories come back and sometimes I have terrible flashbacks of my time in that green suit and remembering what it felt like to actively be trying to kill myself. And I think goddamn, what happened between now and then to change so much? I am by no means sold on life, but I don’t want to die right now. I’m still the cynical pessimist I always was and always will be but I’m somehow alive. Dr P was my doctor in the mental hospital; he made me get back on my meds and some new ones besides. Meds I still take as dutifully as I can. Last week I missed a couple days and I felt it. It was bad. Dr P made me get into IOP after release from the mental hospital and I spent the next three months in intensive therapy, three times a week. I think it was worth it, I learned a lot, I wrote a lot and found some new ways to cope.

Coping is why I got back into singing. I was good at it, and I got a rush from it, and it helped me want to live. I don’t always want to live, you know.

Drag is a good vehicle for singing. Reminded me of some of the old days, before mental illness took away so much. Maybe I would have continued in drag if I hadn’t been so fucking depressed all the time.

Both things together have become really important coping skills, coping mechanisms, whatever you want to call them. A reason to fucking live.