There is only so much mileage you can get off of being intuitive in disturbing ways.

Also, with my heightened sense of smell, unless you take a conscientious shower(thankfully, Don, Amy, Manfred, Jack, & Gine all have a touch of OCD) Right Before you come over, you smell like a goat to me. 

Though those who love me have said please don't, I insist on telling potential clients I have schizophrenia, because I think they have a right to know.  Even in the medical community this leaves some thinking more of me(sociopath), & some thinking less of me(IQ of a tater tot), in all the wrong ways.  But then, many non-schizophrenics have had to deal with condescending intellectual inferiors in the workplace too...so never mind.  I'm still a schizophrenic, just not their conception of one.  And, often, not my conception of one either. 

Last week I spent a few nights with Don, his daughter Amy, Manfred & Jack(Amy called them: Guess which boyfriend isn't the ex nights ;o) parsing through the last 6 months of everything.

Medication & credible, competent therapy(I truly had an abysmal first therapist) keeps schizophrenia on a leash about 80% of the time.  But still, at best I view it as a bomb at rest.  I very much realize that we all have our leashes & we all have our bombs.  You come to a level of acceptance, but it is at times a weary, flat acceptance that has burned down to a dull ache.

Too many thin wires over too many long drops.  Too many people who say I told you so when in actuality their lips were moving but they told you nothing.  Then once again you start to see the subtle(or not so subtle) signs of emerging mental health problems.  You(ok, I) think awww f--k, I've done this before & before that & before that, but it never gets any easier. 

Except that each time the floor stops being on fire, it has become much easier, taken collectively, in the past 6 months.  The pain & pressure & hauntings have names now.  They are on reset & replay so you've heard the song in its entirety 1000 times...& it just isn't as much of a siren any longer.  Working knowledge.  Discipline & endurance.  Meds & therapy.  People who love me fully & consistently. 

I do, an increasing percentage of the time, open myself up to the warm accessibility of those who refused to stop loving the whole of me these past several years.  Needs & doubts & thoughts of burdening still twist, but not as often or as harshly.  I can't get my house back(yet), & I don't want the money back(I'm resourceful about earning more), but I can love & work & swim ~even dance(thanks Peter & Kat. i forgot i could kick that high) & breathe & run. 

I'm able to do all of the things necessary to not become one of those people who cannot succeed in the world~ so they take their frustrations out on those who can.  (you find a lot of them around election time)

This isn't the life I had expected to have, but in truth, I was a touch too much of a hyper-efficient  windup doll before.  Intermittent psychosis is not a gift, but I'll be damned if somewhere in all this I didn't learn to relax a little more....& let the people who love me, help me.  Not all the time, not most of the time, but slowly, much more often than I had realized.