I had been building up to this.<\/p>\n
i get this sense from people, and its not my paranoia (b\/c others have confirmed it) that they think I am healthy, and or I am getting away with something. having my cake and eating it too. being on sick leave, but still being productive. <\/p>\n
of course the whole effort to continue working as if i am normal is a classic defense mechanism. “if i can keep working, i will know i am okay.” or “if people keep seeing me release things, i won’t look weak or sick.”<\/p>\n
it is so demoralizing to have that backfire so badly, as it seems to be right now. it is awful to have to prove how sick i am to someone. And of course, its impossible. Totally impossible. But there I was, on the phone, trying to explain every facet of how much pain and anxiety and discomfort and nausea I am in. I had to describe my mouth lesions, and the pain of eating. I had to explain that the lesions and joint pain from Reiter’s syndrome is the same pain that full-blown AIDS patients get. I had to rehearse the whole thing on the phone today. I had to prove my pain. <\/p>\n
Part of the problem is that I am perceived as being productive, and therefore healthy. But my productivity is completely derived from my crew. All I do is make a few decisions here and there, stumble around scratching my legs, forget to take my drugs, and generally tire myself out and then go home exhausted. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is, its not me, its my crew. And *then* the conversation turns into jealousy and\/or resentment that I have assistants.<\/p>\n
O had a major intervention with me tonight. I had been realizing that I had a problem for a few weeks, but I had no idea what to do about it. I have such a hard time saying no. We worked through a lot of tactics and strategies.<\/p>\n
I am writing to say I am scaling back. Drastically. I only have 12 more weeks. 8 1\/2 until I go to portland to finish up the treatment.<\/p>\n
I put an autoresponder on my email. If you write me, you will get it.<\/p>\n
I am only going in to the studio one day a week, at most.<\/p>\n
I am not going to start anything new. Nothing. And I am going to finish things that are more than 75% done. <\/p>\n
I am going to stop releasing or publishing anything, as people seem to equate me releasing new work with me being healthy.<\/p>\n
I am going to focus my energy on riding my bicycle, reading at the library, and meditating.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
This is *so* hard to do. Partly write this here so you all understand what I am going through, and also so you know why i may not respond to email, and also to help support me and keep me in check. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had been building up to this. i get this sense from people, and its not my paranoia (b\/c others have confirmed it) that they think I am healthy, and or I am getting away with something. having my cake and eating it too. being on sick leave, but still being productive. of course the … Continue reading I had a major freak out today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,32,21,27,64,66,22],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metanarrative","tag-anxiety","tag-decisions","tag-denial","tag-friends","tag-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel","tag-reiters-syndrome","tag-telling-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}