Oh my goodness… so, so much has happened recently that I feel completely overwhelmed in sitting (or, rather, laying) down to tell you about it! But I have a new image to share with you and I really wanted to post it and maybe give you guys a little gloss-over update at least, so I’m just going for it. If I let myself think about it any longer, I’ll just get frozen with intimidation over how much I’d like to cover!
First news: health is poor. I mean, yes, you all know my health is pretty much always poor, but it’s been even more so lately. I feel like it’s been slowly sliding downhill over the past… year? year and a half? two years? But the last six-to-nine months have been extra bad. I think I’ve told some of you at least about the “hot flashes” I’ve been getting. It’s actually quite a lot more complicated than calling them “hot flashes” implies, but I don’t know a better name to get the general idea across with, so we’re going to call them “hot flashes.” What it really is, is my body suddenly seems unable to regulate its temperature properly, which sends me into sudden, drenching sweats, often while I’m shivering with cold at the same time. Very similar to the sort of sweats you get with a fever, but it only lasts a few hours, it comes and goes quite randomly, I have absolutely no other fever symptoms and it seems to ONLY happen in the morning (because that’s when my day is busiest, I have the most appointments scheduled, etc, so it can be the most obnoxious). This sounds like something that’s just annoying, which it is, but it’s quite a bit worse than that. It makes me weak and lightheaded, it’s not something I can simply push through by will alone; I might have to cancel appointments or send Geoff to the grocery store on his own. We both utterly detest grocery shopping, but I’m much too weak to do it on my own anymore, and if I at least go with Geoff, it’s company for a task no one enjoys, so I always feel bad if I have to make him do it by himself.
These were getting so bad and disruptive for a while that I saw my GP about it. He tested my thyroid and a couple of other things in my blood, examined me, decided it wasn’t anything menopause-related (which, yes, would be QUITE young to start having them, but stranger things have happened), said it sounded hormonal and sent me on my way. I saw my neurologist, he said it wasn’t anything neurological and I should probably see an endocrinologist; a doctor who specializes in looking at your hormones. I also happened to see my pain specialist during this time just for my every-three-months-check-in, and mentioned it to him, and he agreed it sounded hormonal, but was outside his expertise. So I did some research, found an endocrinologist nearby who got good reviews online and made an appointment.
The first bad sign was that the endo’s office doesn’t accept credit cards of any kind, only cash or checks, which they had not mentioned in ANY of the conversations I had with them when I set my appointment up. Not only is that just absurdly behind the times, but I, like most people this day and age, very, very rarely carry either cash or a checkbook on me. Before going to this doctor, I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote a check. Thankfully, I happened to have shoved my checkbook in the bottom of my purse anyway, but I had a mini panic attack in the waiting room wondering how I was going to pay these people.
Eventually I found it though and went into my appointment, which was mostly going over my medical history with the doctor and explaining what the problem I was seeing him for was. Obviously, my medical history is much more like something George RR Martin would write about than a quick-read paperback, but the doctor interrupted me quite a lot as I tried to tell him details which were important and extremely pertinent to the hot flashes I was seeing him for. Obviously, I did not care for that, but it is a very common problem with doctors. If I wrote off every doctor who interrupted me while I was explaining things, I wouldn’t have any doctors left to see. Anyway, he ALSO agreed it sounded hormonal and said we’d run a bunch of blood tests to see what was going on. We’d be repeating everything my GP had already run because, the endo said, his tests were more thorough. Ok, fine. Six vials of fasted blood later, they were sent to the lab, Geoff bought me breakfast and I waited a week’s time until I could get my results from the doctor.
In this appointment (paid for with the check book which I’d triple-checked was still in my purse after the stress of the first visit), the doctor went over each page of the bloodwork results with me, explaining what was tested and how every single thing came back normal. My blood was normal, thus, I was “perfectly healthy!” and did not need to see him any more expect for in another six months to recheck my blood and make sure it was still all normal and I was healthy.
Obviously, I am not healthy. Even if you discount my mountain of other ME-related issues, the fact that I was presenting with extremely hormonal-sounding problems should indicate that something is amiss. This doctor had absolutely no interest in finding out what this life-interrupting issue was though. The impression he gave me was that he thought I was an overly worried, mildly hypochondriac girl getting her pigtails in a twist over nothing and that showing me that my bloodwork said there was nothing wrong would make the problem go away, because it was probably something I’d dredged up on my own through pure will. But the most offensive part of all… he did not check one single motherfucking hormone. Not ONE. On a case where three other doctors all had said the issue sounded hormonal, I told him I was concerned it was hormonal, he didn’t bother to check anything.
I’ve since been told by other people who have to see endos regularly that you usually have to specifically ask them to check your hormones, if that’s something you want. WHY??? You don’t have to do this with ANY OTHER medical specialty. I don’t have to tell my neurologist to check my brain, I haven’t had to tell my gynecologist to examine my lady parts. How is this something that is not only allowed, but is COMMON in this one niche???
At the time he was going over the bloodwork with me in the room, I was trying to control being wildly disappointed over having yet another problem come back testing as “normal” and being shunted off again, again being treated as if I was making this all up, again being patronizingly patted and being told to not worry my pretty little head about it. Look, I’m sorry that my disease isn’t something they teach a lot about in medical school, I really am. I’m sorry that most doctors feel threatened when confronted with something they can’t simply write a prescription for and it’s solved. I’m sorry that it makes them feel insecure, as if they don’t know what they’re doing because I don’t have an easy fix. I am far, far sorrier about that than any doctor who’s treated me like a hot potato could ever be. But I do not go around to doctors’ offices for fun to mock them for their lack of knowledge. I go in with an open mind every time, despite years of consistent disappointment, hoping that, just maybe, this will be the time when I get an answer. Not even THE answer, just a part of it. But to not test any hormones for a presenting issue that, to every lay-person and doctor I’ve spoken to, sounds extremely hormonal is inexcusable. I spent a lot of money in copays, I spent six vials of blood my body could have used, I spent a lot of time gearing up for appointments and recovering from them, I spent incredibly precious energy getting to my appointments, getting tests done, and sobbing after my last appointment as my hopes were again dashed and I realized it had all been wasted. The absolute least the doctor could have done was run the tests I wanted done but didn’t know that I had to ask for specifically by name, because that’s how endocrinologists are.
Each time I have one of these horrible experiences with medical professionals, it makes it so, so much harder to even fathom trying again. Why should I if most of them are going to just call me crazy and kick me out of their offices as quickly as possible? And of course I know that I have to keep trying because giving up isn’t an option, but for fuck’s sake, can’t they at least try and meet me in the middle somewhere?
After that edifying experience, I couldn’t even bear the thought of looking for another endo and starting the process over again, even knowing now that you have to ask for your hormones to be tested. The wound was just too raw. What I did have was an appointment set up with Celestine Grace, my very favorite medium, who’s helped me a lot in the time we’ve been working together. I asked her what would help my body and she told me to take rose hip supplements, which I knew are very high in vitamin C. They’re cheap and easily available from Amazon, so I got a bottle and started taking them. And you know what? Within a couple weeks, my hot flashes had gone down considerably. They still popped up now and then, but the difference was huge. I ran out of them and it took a few days before I could get my replacement bottle in, and while I was off them, my hot flashes spiked again. I’m back on them now and they’re going back down, but it might take a couple weeks, like it did the first time.
I am so, so grateful to Celestine for that bit of advice and for helping to turn around a very bad situation (and also all the other help and advice she’s given me over the year or so we’ve known each other) but it’s so incredibly ironic to me that four conventional doctors couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, but my medium did. It goes to show the strength of her talent while underscoring how little conventional Western medicine has to offer me. Thank you, Celestine, I can’t tell you how much those rose hips have helped me!
The whole thing got me thinking that I may just need a whole different approach to my health, so I began to look into different specialists and alternative treatments. I mean, that’s something I’m continually on the lookout for, but I was searching with a new urgency this time. Giving vitamin C intravenously has been a growing trend… since my body had responded well to the rose hips, maybe it would like a more concentrated dose even more! I have found a naturopath who is nearby, returned my phone call herself to discuss if we would be a good fit for each other and offers IV vitamin C along with a ton of other therapies I’ve been interested in but haven’t been pushed far enough to try yet, since most are expensive and not covered by insurance. I have an appointment with that doctor next Monday morning, which will just be a consultation between one to two hours where we just go over my history, what changes I’d like to see and what treatments might be good for me. They also test hormones. 🙂 As hard as it is for me to allow myself to be hopeful that maybe this time it will work, I can feel hope trying to quietly creep in. I’ll let you guys know how that appointment goes.
As my body has gotten more and more painful and uncomfortable to inhabit, I’ve been turning to my own form of spirituality for strength and comfort. It works for me. It helps significantly, so much so that Geoff has noticed its effect. It’s a bit too much to get into it all now, but it’s based in meditation and finding my own path up the mountain toward god/source. A lot of it might sound like new age woo-woo, but I stick with what works, and this does. My variety of spirit guides have been a big part of keeping me from utterly falling apart as things have gotten more and more difficult all around… just thinking about them makes me feel more peaceful.
I frequently mourn the health I once had, the life I once had, everything ME has taken away from me. I mourn for those who I wish I could have gotten to know in this life and not just in the next. I still mourn the loss of our previous home with our incredible neighbors, even though this place is finally feeling more like home and we have great new neighbors here. Mourning is a universal human experience; I’m sure every one of you can think of things you mourn.
My new city has a lovely, tiny, serene, old little cemetery within what would be walking distance for most people from my home. I wanted to shoot there when I had the excellent Teri Wyble over (quite a while ago now, I’m terribly behind on editing). I didn’t know exactly why I wanted to shoot there, or what I was trying to say at the time. This sometimes happens. I’ve learned by now to just go with it, that its reason will become clear to me later. That was the case with this image. I asked Teri to imagine this was the grave of someone she loved and missed horribly; someone whose loss she still mourned. I don’t know if she was tapping into a loss in her own life or if she’s just very good at imagining, but she portrayed exactly what I wanted:
Loss. An inability to move on from the blow of death.
But I didn’t want it to be completely bleak. The birds swooping in to comfort her speaks to me of the healing that comes after we let ourselves grieve. Yes, you have to pass through the darkness first, but there is eventually light. Sometimes it comes to you on feathered wings when you least expect it.
Whether the viewer has recently experienced this themselves or not, it’s such a common part of just being human, I wanted to create this. Not to wallow in the mud of despair, but to remind myself that the heaviness will someday lift. The pain will ease. The grief will lessen. Maybe even, a treatment will eventually work.
Thank you so very much, Teri, for your beautiful, emotive modeling! You are a wonderful human being and model. 🙂
Enjoy, my friends! If this speaks to you, I’d love to hear what it brings up if you’d like to share that in the comments!
Mythic Pictures 
Creating Rapeseed’s Harvest
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This was one of those self portraits that I just HAD to shoot RIGHT THEN or I was going to explode. It’s actually been a pretty rough couple of months; I’m fighting my way out of another bout of depression that came on for seemingly no reason. This does happen periodically, so I tried to just give it time and let it pass, it always will eventually… but it’s been clinging like it hasn’t in a long, long time.
As depression progresses, it gets worse, not just additionally, but exponentially. You can very quickly move from, “Ok, I don’t like this, but I’ll get through it soon,” to “Oh my god, this is going to be the rest of my life, I will never feel joy again ever; what’s even the point of living??” in shockingly short time.
For me, one of the best tools I have against depression and slowly losing my will to live is creating art, especially art that expresses how I’m feeling at the time. It’s incredibly cathartic. Working on this self portrait has been a huge help in keeping me sane lately, but the pessimistic side of me wonders if I’ll just be left right where I was before I started it, once I’m totally finished creating it. I suppose that even if it does, I’ll at least still have a new image in my roster. It hasn’t helped my depression to know that it’s been so long since I released any new images (there are far too many reasons to get into right now, but it’s been incredibly difficult to find and make time for art lately).
I was thinking about what I would say to accompany this image, which (probably obviously, belongs to both my DreamWorld and Eternal Storms series) and pondering how to explain what long-term clinical depression feels like to those who haven’t experienced it. It’s not the same as just being sad or upset, it’s a stain on your soul which you can’t ever blot out. Out, out, damn spot. A stain which not only looks ugly, but spreads like a cancer and does you actual harm, emotionally, physically and mentally.
Depression, especially when it gets really bad, feels like your brain is beating and gang-raping your soul every day while the rest of the world goes about their business, either not noticing, or at best stopping to take cell phone videos of your torment, but offering no help. And much like the unjustified stigma and shame victims of abuse feel, people who have trouble with depression and who don’t feel excited about being alive are often subject to the same kinds of judgements. We must enjoy wallowing in our own emotional filth, or else we’d just get up, dust ourselves off and go be happy, right? Or, ok, maybe it’s really a chemical imbalance thing; so just take an anti-depressant and let’s all get on with our lives, all right? And she was wearing a short skirt, so she was asking for it.
I wish it worked like that; I wish it was that easy. I can’t recall how many medications I’ve tried, not to mention the far, far greater number of alternative healing treatments, supplements, and anything else I could think of. Some help more than others, but so far nothing has completely cured me.
For anyone wondering, no, I do not believe this bout of depression is really related to the ME. The ME has been about the same as it has been since my injections kicked in, so there haven’t been any recent changes on that front. It definitely doesn’t help anything, but I don’t believe it’s the cause.
Depression lays a gray film over your life. Everything appears bleak and hopeless. There’s no point to trying, no point to doing anything. And there’s also the honest, nothing-to-do-with-depression frustration of having to be your own guinea pig as you try different treatments, often with horrible, horrible side effects, which may or may not stop after you discontinue the medication. It’s been recommended that I add a psychiatrist to my team of doctors (I have a wonderful therapist, but she’s a psychologist, so she can’t prescribe medication) which I’m not looking forward to. My depressive mind doesn’t want to go through the bother of more appointments, more co-pays, more explaining my symptoms and feeling judged, more trying new medications will probably make everything worse before it even might get better. My rational mind says I should try it anyway, but I’m not looking forward to it.
So, back to talking about this image. I chose the title even knowing it might ruffle some feathers, because I honestly don’t feel like there’s a better way to explain it to those who have been fortunate enough to never be so depressed that they feel they can’t go on another day. It is your mind raping your soul, verbally abusing you, telling you you’re worthless, a horrible person, undeserving of love or bothering another person by asking them for help. It’s a prison only you can see and feel; a prison you both hate and are afraid to leave, because it’s all you’ve known for so long. (My first memories of what was clearly depression are from my early teens, but I wonder if the terrible anxiety and nightmares I endured since I was a very young child were a precursor to this. The first time I gave serious thought to killing myself, I was 17.) A strange Stockholm-like syndrome can develop where you long to escape, but are afraid to. However, I hope it’s clear that I am in no way trying to take anything away from the trauma victims of the “regular” kind of rape suffer from. Though our hells overlap in some ways, they are not identical.
I liked the idea of using “rapeseed” in the title, not only because it catches the ear, but because I feel it works on a metaphoric level. Rapeseed is a plant which grows beautiful yellow flowers; it belongs to the mustard family from what I’ve read (and apparently the name has to do with the Latin word for root vegetables and nothing to with an act of violence). Kirsty Mitchel shot part of her Wonderland series in front of a breathtaking field of rapeseed flowers. It is also, apparently, what canola oil is made from (or at least used to be? I’m finding mixed info), around which there is some controversy if it’s truly safe for human and animal consumption. The word at once touches on horrible, horrible acts of violence and abuse, potential danger but still has immense beauty to offer the world.
In this image, I imagined a beautiful, unicorn-like creature, someone that would look completely pure and innocent, someone who looked like that would never have had a single bad day. And I just poured my emotions into the shoot, letting them all out. I’ve already said it was cathartic, but I can’t stress just how much it was. I felt lighter that day than I did in a long time. Even editing it was therapeutic. Some images seem to fight you the whole way, kicking and screaming, into what you want them to be; this one felt like it was actively working with me to help me achieve my goal. It’s one of the most gratifying feelings when art flows like that.
I have been studied makeup application a lot recently (mostly for upcoming images) and this was one of my first times being able to test just a little bit of my new knowledge out. That was fun, although tiring. But I’m pretty pleased with my first attempt at being a makeup artist! I had to search high and low for some cosmetic-grade silver glitter of the right size and color to make the glitter-tears; you really wouldn’t think it would have been so difficult, but it was! I eventually found some on either eBay or Etsy; I’ve bought some from both and now I don’t remember where this particular one came from. I already had the silver wig, so I just grayed up my eyebrows to match it better. I used Nyx’s Jumbo Pencil in Milk for the entire eye/cheekbone area along with a nice matte white eyeshadow from BH Cosmetics pallet, along with two shades of lavender and a darker purple in my crease and as blush. I contoured with another Nyx product, an eyeshadow in Taupe which is perfect for my pale skin (even paler here, so I used a very light hand). I highlighted cheekbones, lids and inner corners with Deviant Cosmetics Ghost Violet, which is just about my new favorite thing ever. It has the most gorgeous flash of purple when the light hits it, and Deviant Cosmetics has four or five colors in their Ghost line; I recommend them all! (If you’ve been eyeing the Kat Von D Alchemist Palette but don’t have the money, go see Deviant Cosmetics. Their colors are brighter, more vivid, they carry one more color than comes in KVD’s pallet, and it’s WAY less expensive! And since it’s mineral makeup, there are no weird or harmful ingredients to worry about.)
After I did my makeup and looked utterly insane in person, I set my camera up and a couple lights. I actually really hate setting up lights, so I always try and make it as minimal as possible. Luckily, this shot didn’t call for anything fancy, so I got away with only two. I taped some white, mesh fabric to the inside of my front door, and it gave me a lovely, neutral whiteish backdrop that wouldn’t distract from the main subject. I was nearly done shooting when I remembered I’d intended to wear my unicorn horn circlet from Firefly Path! I quickly shot a few more images with it on, tipping my head at different angels and planning on adding it on to the final image in post, which I did. (This is not the exact circlet that I have, my horn is silver and the crystals are lavender, but this seems to be the only one in her shop at the moment.)
Unicorns represent a lot of things to me, but innocence and purity are two big ones. If a human is sad, well, that’s… sad, but normal. If a unicorn is sad, it’s tragic. That there could be anything their magic couldn’t overcome underscores the power of whatever is causing them pain. To me at least, that emphasized the magnitude of the power depression can hold over you. The working title for this image as I tinkered on it was Sad Unicorn, because that was all I could think of when I needed to save the file for the first time. It still feels appropriate in a way.
I added the trees and birds on the background, as if perhaps the unicorn girl is longing for her forest home. I specifically chose to add crows, both because they’re one of my favorite birds (did you know they actually make and use tools and are incredibly smart?) and because Native American legends say they escort one’s soul into the afterlife. That felt very fitting giving the subject of the image. She seems like she’s in an alien land, somewhere she doesn’t truly belong, which is how I’ve felt about my time on earth just about every single day since I was born. I knew this was not my true home. My true home is where my soul resided before it decided, for whatever insane reason, to incarnate into this life. In a meditation, months ago now, I actually visited what I consider to be my true home and I sobbed and sobbed, because I was so glad to be back, even for a moment, and also because I knew I couldn’t stay. That place, that timeless, unchanging Home, is where this ethereal creature belongs too.
Now that I’ve gone on for probably far too long, I’ll finally show you the image. I felt it was very important to explain my reason for the title I gave it to give people a way in to understand it. And for anyone concerned about me, thank you, but I’ll be ok. I’ve been through worse. And I didn’t even have photography back then. I have an excellent support system, which I didn’t have nearly as much of before, including my really incredible therapist. All that said, let’s get on to the first image I’m releasing this year!
Lastly, I don’t enjoy talking about my mental health (or lack thereof) to strangers on the internet, no matter what impression this post gave you. I speak candidly and openly about it because we NEED to end the stigma around it. And the only way for that to happen is for those of us who struggle with it to speak about our experiences. A lot. In detail. Repeatedly. I do think things will change eventually, but it will take a lot of voices speaking honestly, blatantly, about it. My voice is only one drop in the ocean of voices, but to quote Cloud Atlas, what is the ocean but a multitude of drops?
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