1. My Survival Tupperware - Tecnu, Dawn Soap and Endless Pairs of Black Leggings

This week I discuss the return of my night terrors, what will hopefully be my final rebrand of this newsletter + a solidarity essay about my life a decade ago lost to the madness of OCD and psychosis.

The night terrors have returned. They’ve actually been back for a few weeks now. I just didn’t want to believe it — or think they were going last. Most of all, I didn't want to write this reality down — to put pen to paper and make it a truth as certain as ink.

A dear friend and mentor — the woman who will become my book and writing coach when I am well enough — said it best:

When it comes to books, we must write from scars, not open wounds. That is where true meaning, beauty and wisdom lie. Be patient with those wounds, my love. They will be scars one day soon.

She is right and she couldn’t be more correct in terms of memoir writing, especially about mental illness. So — just like that — with the return of open wounds – the archaeological dig of my 27 tupperwares is on pause for my mind has other plans.  More than that, my mind has other beasts for me to tame and know and learn to live with right now before I willingly add more to the battlefield.

I wish I could say I was okay with this but I hate it – yes I hate it so very much. I am exhausted by these daily fights — these nightly battles — these beasts I just want caged — or slain on my behalf. But that is not my life. My life is learning to slay them myself – it’s learning to tame them until the ferocious tigers transform into peaceful kittens full of stories snoozling on my lap.

So here I am — back to where my nights are sweat soaked, a daily sheet change is advisable and my body defecates without warning. And that is shitty — pun oh so intended — and also okay. 

So this week, I pivot yet again to accommodate my mind on fire and the endless, unpredictable fight that is a life with serious mental illness and I introduce a format that is ACTUALLY sustainable. One that admits in its entirety that I live with serious mental illness and I cannot control this hell and heartbreak into an orderly newsletter like most people.  But don’t think that chaos - that truth of being is going to stop me from writing one. Yes, you can bet your bottom booty, I am going to show up anyway.

Once a week, I will share a few solidarity stories from this incredible community and write an essay about something in my life. And that — that will be enough. Yes, that will be enough.

Because just like Waffle, 

Just like this beast of a disorder that won’t leave me be,

I am still here.

With you.

And that –  even in a world that says otherwise –

That is everything.

Sending love, best girl snugs, and a dork dance,

K Speer

My Survival Tupperware

The mold had taken to the walls. And not just one - the infestation had become plural. It had moved from the wall above the sink where it was born in a pile of binge-induced dishes, to the wall beside it. It was growing. It was taking over.

The printer paper path that weaved across the kitchen tile and then moved along the living room wall and up the stairs to my bedroom no longer offered the safety it used to. I’d built the path over the past few weeks — one fresh piece at a time, one step at a time, one moment of safety from the contamination that was taking over the house and my mind like the plague.

But —  the paper path was near a wall and if the mold was growing — if the mold was moving from wall to wall — there was no safety in the path of crisp printer paper like there once was. There was no safety left at all.

Standing in the doorway, brand new dish gloves on both my hands and a new package of printer paper ready to be opened, I surveyed the scene. I watched as the mold began to move — whether in actuality or hallucination as the remnants of safety disappeared into complete contamination — into a deathly phobia that only resided within my mind. But it didn’t matter that it was only in my mind. It was wholly real to me. And with that, the walls began to close in.

First, I defecated myself. Then, my view shed bended and blurred. And then, then there wasn’t enough oxygen. Where did it go? I need it. And as much as I wanted to run, to scream, to flee, to do anything, I couldn't. I was stuck — in a world without safety – in a world contaminated and in a mere instant, I was gone.

~

I woke hours later, frigid, in the parking lot outside Books-A-Million. McDonalds shrapnel — countless containers of 20 piece chicken McNuggets — and seven sets of dish gloves turned inside out blanketed the truck. I tried to start the car but was met with nothing.

Out of gas — again.

Fuck.

It had happened before. I didn’t quite get it — how I always ended up here – how I lost time. The time between panic and presence never added up but I seemingly always left the truck on to stay warm in the frigid Vermont winter and I also always seemingly ran out of gas.

I grabbed a new pair of dish gloves from my survival Tupperware behind me. I adorned them — my battle armor – and jumped out of the truck. I was met with naked legs, no underwear, and bare feet in frozen vomit.

I had shit myself — again. 

and I had binged until I purged again too.

Fuck.

Balancing on tip toes outside the border of my frozen purge, I reached back into the car — into my survival Tupperware — a 16 gallon savior chock full of brand new dish gloves, Dawn soap bottles, Tecnu extreme tubes, paper towels, trash bags, and back up clothing. I grabbed one of the sealed black legging packages that I had bought in bulk last year at Walmart. Balancing it on the front seat, I then set up my ‘shower,’ naked to the world and entirely unaware that I was in public and possibly being recorded on a security tape somewhere. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting clean. 

Nothing mattered except getting clean.

Bare feet on frozen pavement, new trash bag open to the starry sky, I slathered blue dawn dish soap all over my legs and privates. I scrubbed until I bubbled. Then it was time for Tecnu where I scrubbed until I bled. One bottle of Dawn. One tube of Tecnu. One package of paper towels. One pair of gloves that at the end and only at the end, I turned inside out and laid upon the growing pile of trash. It was a science to me. It was a protocol of survival that was as true as my DNA.

After my legs, it was time for my hands. Each body part got its own shower so it was on to the next bottle of Dawn and next tube of Tecnu on my hands and hands alone. At the end of it all, legs clean — hands clean — I opened a brand new black legging pair and adorned them. Careful not to contaminate my fresh leggings and new clean reality, I put on a fresh pair of kitchen gloves and sealed the trash bag before throwing it in the back of my truck. Removing the gloves and placing them inside out in the back of the truck as well, I adorned my final armor — my final pair of clean kitchen gloves.

Ritual complete, I breathed with ease for the first time in minutes, maybe even hours or maybe even days. I was finally clean.

I. was finally. clean.

Now, I was ready. It was time to figure out how to start the truck. I poked around the cab for shoes. Where had they gone? To my dismay, I found none, so with bare feet that no longer tingled still on frozen pavement and the gas can I always kept in the bed of my truck, I stole off into the night.

~

The night sky danced as I hopped from foot to foot. I tried not to look around knowing that if I did, the hallucinations would find me. My OCD was enough to fight that night and I knew I couldn’t take a demonic manifestation of my body killing itself or another without losing time again. I had to hurry. They would catch up with me soon enough as they aways did.

Hellbent to get my frozen feet into heat as quickly as I could to avoid frostbite, I began to cross the six lane road ahead of me without checking for traffic. BJ’s Gas, a little down the road stood illuminated against the velvet black sky as a stray car slammed on its brakes and a middle aged man jumped out.

‘Have you gone fucking mad?? And where are your shoes you crazy little girl?!?”

Stunned, I said nothing. And then, there it was – the non-me me – the demon of a hallucination that had been chasing me for years. It had caught up to me like it always did. Standing there, the non-me me with bobbed hair and rolled sweatpants brandished a gun and raised it to this unknown man's head.

It’s not real, Kate. It’s not fucking real.

But I knew it didn’t matter if it was real or not. It was just like the OCD. It was real to me and that meant my time in reality was limited, a full psychotic break was coming and the only way not to lose time, die like all my friends had and hurt someone was to admit myself to the hospital. 

Head bent, tears welling in my eyes,

“You’re right. I am mad. I am madness on fire. I’m so sorry.”

His eyes turned immediately kind. His whole demeanor softened. 

“Oh honey, can I help?”

I shook my head as the tears began to fall. I wanted help. I needed help. But his car was dirty. He was dirty. Everything was dirty and I couldn’t ask him to take a dawn dish soap and Tecnu bath before giving me a ride. It was too much to ask – too much to admit – too much to even grapple with. So, instead, I ran off down the road towards the gas station.  I knew – no one could help me but me and I needed gas to get myself to the emergency department if there was any chance I was going to make it out of this night alive.