Permission Slip Class 6.Doc: Fill & Download for Free

MuahhaHahahaahaha.Some questions I answer by sharing the numbers and stats, removed from my bottomless opinions. This isn't one of them. Please ignore this response if you are not in for an impassioned spit-ridden homily for the next hour. But first, the words “"you”, “me” , “them”, and “us” can be interchanged in any of my soliloquys. I'm not a priest.Let me share what I know about he opioid machine. When your severed limb or grinding slipped disk makes time stand still, pain killers are merciful gifts from God and pharma. But the epidemic of hillbilly heroin is a joint venture between the health insurance industry and those bearing these gifts. In the 80s and 90s, when patients were being kicked off hospitals beds before their surgery stitches healed to save insurance companies money, many opioids were taken off controlled tapered IVs and packaged for home like doggie bags. We not only became a take-out food culture, we now had drive thru surgery and take home heroin. Soon, the convenience made everybody happy and thus became the norm.The “control” in controlled substance means that the dosage, strength, purity and refill value would allow Rx heroin to be dispensed legally to the middle class who could pay for the highs with prescription cards instead of street dispensers who would slit your throats if you didn't have your copay. Housewives, lawyers, doctors, professors, and their kids distanced themselves from the junkies. And with no track marks or spoons, you could even throw down a few in an opera house lobby with your Couveé. And if you had those annoying constipating side effects, another copay would get you an rx to fix opioid-related constipation, which apparently is a different indication than the kind that grandma gets. “Hillbilly” heroin was a reference to the white users of legal opioids, but also a misnomer to smokescreen its true class demographics. Hillbillies didn't need to keep up appearances. If their heroin wasn't broke, why fix it?The wave came when it was time to stop and the streets took over when the rx ran out. Many went to resort rehabs or clinics, but many also went to heroin, winding up with the junkies they used to look at in disgust. Docs themselves couldn't handle the volume, and altruism came in the form of buprenorphine aka suboxone (subutex/naloxone).The machine was now selling both the disease and the cure. But subs were more potent. It had a half life 6–10 times as long as Oxys. 8 mg of daily subs could out-marathon 120 mgs daily of Oxys. The paradox of treating one addiction with another kept the machine going. For anyone who’s ever tried to get off subs, I say no more.Most folks who started oxys didn't know what withdraw was until they first ran out. They trusted the amber plastic bottles in following as prescribed. They've heard OF addiction and withdraw. We saw Sid and Nancy. But like those born blind who can't define colors, they had no freakin idea.Folks have a way of getting around loopholes. When subs came out, addicts realized they could get high on the oxys and then take the subs when withdraw set in (with a bit of lag). This was like being an alcoholic who could now be weekend drinkers. The machine was pissed. So the machine plugged up the loophole and addicts had to go to special docs that didn't accept insurance for this malady, and wait for it… take drug tests. Oxy users were also on a national list distributed monthly via Rx records to all docs, a list that slid thru the exceptions door of HIPAA, which the government enacted to protect the privacy of patients.Now, as I always ended my diatribes with the caveats for all those exceptions to my overhauls, there are responsible opioid users who justifiably NEED them and the abusers ruin it for the legitimate in pain. But in statistics, the outliers are just that.In my views on marajuana, I always said that the lowest common denominators ruin it for the ones who use it responsibly. But oxy is not pot. In fact, its anti-pot. The physical addition is so great that those who started taking it for their severed limbs and grinding disks now prayed to trade the original pain for the withdraw. And in the tradition of religious judgement of scourges like leprocy, lung cancer and AIDS, the oxy addicts were now deemed by the public as the new heathens punished by God for their own weakness and sin. And the one who preached the loudest fire and brimstone on the evils of drugs, just happened to get caught using his Mexican housekeeper to illegally get RX's. Yes, the same Mexicans that his constituency and fans blamed the drug wars on.As in all conspiracies of the universe, it's not an intentional offense action, but the slacking of the defense and the permission to let be. There was no meeting in the basement of companies blue printing all this. Most of it rode the wave of ignorant altruism in trying to keep plugging up the dike as floodwaters kept opening new holes. But it also sure’s hell wasn't being stopped when they saw it first coming, especially when there was revenue involved.You can't blame the germs for setting in the infection but if you do nothing to kill them off, it's your own body that perishes. A-men. Go in peace.

Here’s a cut and paste of one of my answers from a Dec post:Just an update: The DOJ sued several opioid manufacturers. This is just one who settled for $35 million. A drop in the bucket for millions of lives ruined.Mallinckrodt to settle oxycodone diversion case for $35M with Justice Department———————————Dec 38, 2016 post copyMuahhaHahahaahaha.Some questions I answer by sharing the numbers and stats, removed from my bottomless opinions. This isn't one of them. Please ignore this response if you are not in for an impassioned spit-ridden homily for the next hour. But first, the words “"you”, “me” , “them”, and “us” can be interchanged in any of my soliloquys. I'm not a priest.Let me share what I know about he opioid machine. When your severed limb or grinding slipped disk makes time stand still, pain killers are merciful gifts from God and pharma. But the epidemic of hillbilly heroin is a joint venture between the health insurance industry and those bearing these gifts. In the 80s and 90s, when patients were being kicked off hospitals beds before their surgery stitches healed to save insurance companies money, many opioids were taken off controlled tapered IVs and packaged for home like doggie bags. We not only became a take-out food culture, we now had drive thru surgery and take home heroin. Soon, the convenience made everybody happy and thus became the norm.The “control” in controlled substance means that the dosage, strength, purity and refill value would allow Rx heroin to be dispensed legally to the middle class who could pay for the highs with prescription cards instead of street dispensers who would slit your throats if you didn't have your copay. Housewives, lawyers, doctors, professors, and their kids distanced themselves from the junkies. And with no track marks or spoons, you could even throw down a few in an opera house lobby with your Couveé. And if you had those annoying constipating side effects, another copay would get you an rx to fix opioid-related constipation, which apparently is a different indication than the kind that grandma gets. “Hillbilly” heroin was a reference to the white users of legal opioids, but also a misnomer to smokescreen its true class demographics. Hillbillies didn't need to keep up appearances. If their heroin wasn't broke, why fix it?The wave came when it was time to stop and the streets took over when the rx ran out. Many went to resort rehabs or clinics, but many also went to heroin, winding up with the junkies they used to look at in disgust. Docs themselves couldn't handle the volume, and altruism came in the form of buprenorphine aka suboxone (subutex/naloxone).The machine was now selling both the disease and the cure. But subs were more potent. It had a half life 6–10 times as long as Oxys. 8 mg of daily subs could out-marathon 120 mgs daily of Oxys. The paradox of treating one addiction with another kept the machine going. For anyone who’s ever tried to get off subs, I say no more.Most folks who started oxys didn't know what withdraw was until they first ran out. They trusted the amber plastic bottles in following as prescribed. They've heard OF addiction and withdraw. We saw Sid and Nancy. But like those born blind who can't define colors, they had no freakin idea.Folks have a way of getting around loopholes. When subs came out, addicts realized they could get high on the oxys and then take the subs when withdraw set in (with a bit of lag). This was like being an alcoholic who could now be weekend drinkers. The machine was pissed. So the machine plugged up the loophole and addicts had to go to special docs that didn't accept insurance for this malady, and wait for it… take drug tests. Oxy users were also on a national list distributed monthly via Rx records to all docs, a list that slid thru the exceptions door of HIPAA, which the government enacted to protect the privacy of patients.Now, as I always ended my diatribes with the caveats for all those exceptions to my overhauls, there are responsible opioid users who justifiably NEED them and the abusers ruin it for the legitimate in pain. But in statistics, the outliers are just that.In my views on marajuana, I always said that the lowest common denominators ruin it for the ones who use it responsibly. But oxy is not pot. In fact, its anti-pot. The physical addition is so great that those who started taking it for their severed limbs and grinding disks now prayed to trade the original pain for the withdraw. And in the tradition of religious judgement of scourges like leprocy, lung cancer and AIDS, the oxy addicts were now deemed by the public as the new heathens punished by God for their own weakness and sin. And the one who preached the loudest fire and brimstone on the evils of drugs, just happened to get caught using his Mexican housekeeper to illegally get RX's. Yes, the same Mexicans that his constituency and fans blamed the drug wars on.As in all conspiracies of the universe, it's not an intentional offense action, but the slacking of the defense and the permission to let be. There was no meeting in the basement of companies blue printing all this. Most of it rode the wave of ignorant altruism in trying to keep plugging up the dike as floodwaters kept opening new holes. But it also sure’s hell wasn't being stopped when they saw it first coming, especially when there was revenue involved.You can't blame the germs for setting in the infection but if you do nothing to kill them off, it's your own body that perishes. A-men. Go in peace.

I was in and out of mental hospitals trying to learn and manage my illness for the first ten years. Older, repeat patients told me to do everything I could to prevent coming back.I think the process is really about finding and knowing your own truth and that is what we all search for. However, these truths don't mean as much if we have to keep re-learning them.Sometimes, you go to the mental hospital to be reminded of and feel your truths. It can feel so good to be in a safe environment, away from your stressors, around like-minded individuals who are living their own truths and feeling emotions that have been denied for so long.Feeling and not building up emotions like shame, failure, anger etc. on the outside is hard because we have access to all our coping mechanisms, such as alcohol, spending, sex, food, drugs, etc. which can provide escape but not healing or growth.Going to the mental institution breaks you from these and lets the emotions pore out. After you release them, you finally realize reality is not that bad and get better.The cycle continues until you learn to really manage your stress, take breaks from your stressors, use healthier coping mechanisms, embrace the variety of tools that can change brain chemistry and release emotion more effectively.Going to the mental institution can become an addiction like everything else, but the drugs they use like Haldol, can really damage the brain. Over time, your symptoms worsen, become more frequent, you do not respond or recover as quickly. There is a price and your health suffers.You need to try to limit these extremes to protect brain functioning. They don't like you to know how frequent or long-term exposure to anti-psychotics harms the brain. But if you are out-of-control or not functioning in reality, they do not have many options. Everyone knows the sentence: you would be a danger to others or yourself.I think the point is if you have been a danger, you could be again. Be diligent. Don't give up, on yourself or someone who is mentally ill. We all have some form of mental illness, to some degree, or at some time. There will always be someone who makes you feel normal or more normal than them. But we all have something we can contribute and can tame our own demons. There are success stories and you can be one of them.Stay out of the hospital, stay healthy, remove yourself from toxic people, even if they are family, try everything the doctors suggest, see if and which meds work for you. You can use the more dangerous ones as responsible as you can. I use an antipsychotic as needed for times of high stress but I am aware of the damage I am causing my body. Another drug my psych doc perscribes works great for me but is going to cause kidney failure eventually. But I know this and have accepted it. My mind is much better on it, and so I know what the price is. I have learned my disease, how and why my symptoms increase and how to de escalate them.These are my truths from someone who has mental illness to you.I am diagnosed clinically with shizoaffective disorder. My grandfather was shizophrenic. I manage well with an average of 6 year periods of symptom free existance around a week or 2 period of psychosis.My symptoms in those either 1 to 16 days of delusions go from bipolar symptoms to dissociative disorder before becoming full-blown schizophrenic symptoms unless I intervene. There is a genetic component, and biology that has some things you can not control and some you can. I have learned many techniques from locking myself in a room, to intense workouts and then falling asleep in showers, to any activity that allows for creativity to popping one tranquilizer or a doc-approved amount of 8 at a time, to checking myself into a hospital, or asking a friend to come take care of me for a day or two at home.Sometimes, I have just decided to stop thinking delusionally and can “snap myself out of it.” Sometimes it was a matter of will power to curb delusional thought and sometimes I am so far out of touch that I had to be forcefully restrained or removed from society. The thing is for me, 2 weeks every six years is pretty manageable. But I also know others who don't fair as well.The key for myself is that I have set up a good support system and I try to love myself as best I can. I can report that I am happy and productive and have an overall good life. I feel successful, am thought of as successful by society and that all my dreams are coming or have come true.My mental condition has not limited me, though it has challenged me. On a positive note, it has often even provided me with some divergent thinking that has been essential to who I am.As I have aged, I have come to believe that I have a dysfunctional brain, but there are some advantages at times from the disfunction. I can act very well in a high-stress environment for a limited time. I can think calmly and quickly and can analyze more information at a faster rate when stressed. I also can be more sensitive to subtle factors in reading the environment and from other people. I have had many experiences of accurate premonition and can connect on a unconscious level to people I focus on and many can attest to this. I am often able to see solutions that others can't and connections others don't.Also, I have some pretty strong academic abilities, scoring over 100% in advanced academic college classes, such as anatomy/physiology, etc. and broke my college’s record for most amount of classes taken during a semester. I had to get special permission and scored all A's. Also, people are often impressed by my creative achievements.I tell you this, to let you know that there are gifted, well-rounded individuals who also have this disease and work diligently on daily emotional processing, thought monitoring and disease management, but most others DO NOT KNOW of their illness. This effort can also become so practiced that for the majority of your life, you can devote your time and energy to pursue a “normal life.” For me, I have been able to have a life with children, a successful marriage, career and stability for 98% of my days.This is despite having completely abnormal mental functioning. On what some would say a “metaphysical” level, I am able to allow my body to be controlled by other forces. This feels like a supernatural force that can take over your body. I also have a different experience with time. I am able to jump ahead consciously to periods of time in the future and have no memory of getting to these next moments, if desired. These last two behaviors are ones I do not do any longer for obvious reasons of self-harm.While it can be argued I am not really doing this but only thinking I am doing this, the fact remains, that I can feel this. Meaning, I can FEEL an autopilot switch turned on and the autopilot is way better than I am. I can do this at anytime even when symptom free but it takes more mental effort to stop than start. I have learned to FEEL and cultivate the experience of choice during these experiences. This means that I have some power that I can exercise when my senses start changing. Over time, I have learned to strengthen this ability to start or stop symptoms and is mostly started when I became open to the possibility.Belief in the power of your mind is just one small part and especially in the beginning I needed lots of professional help and support from family in order to really provide stability to my brain chemistry.Another mental concept is consciousness and how we interpret time. I can feel the experience of simply becoming conscious at a different moment, meaning I can turn off my brain, but still get myself to another point in life. This is like functioning with witnessing the autopilot or choosing to completely hand my life over and not even witness it until I decide to “turn on again.”It is kind of like your life is a tape and you just say, stop, fast forward, stop and then play again.I tell you this to understand the appeal of the delusional mind, the appeal of psychosis and how it can become an addiction of sorts to not feel, or cope. The more you embrace non-reality, the more you stay in it and the harder it gets to come back to the real.For example, there have been times in my past where I just no longer wished to experience what I was experiencing. Maybe I was going thru something where I felt my safety threatened or maybe I just didnt want to experience boredom.When stressed, I have had visual hallucinations that changed my life for the better because they gave me the strength to do what was best. Seeing a glimpse of what could be the future and knowing with absolute certainty it is a truth is extremely motivating. I have also been able to hear in auditory hallucinations, words from loved ones or felt feelings from them that helped me know the truth.Even to this day, if I really want to open myself up to others, I can concentrate in the dark and hear their input on my life, what they are thinking, especially with regards to me and how they are feeling. These are auditory hallucinations, because for me, I really hear their voice.I try not to do this because it can open yourself up to too much of their emotions. Besides being more self-conscious and insecure, you can become consumed with fear, paranoia, worst-case scenerios. Emotions are not just the good ones, such as peace and love and navigating the gamut is no joke. But, even with my boundaries up, if their pain is strong enough, I will feel it, and this has helped me understand why they do what they do the next day or later.Additionally, the pull to “broaden your senses" where at times when I didn't know what the right thing to do was and decided to sink into my auto guidance and just follow the wonderful things it did. It was great at the time because I did some amazing things and could just skip some rougher times.From a survival standpoint, one could see the advantage. Stuck in prison, better to go insane. I, personally, have lived in padded rooms, confined in restraints, lived without a window for what I believed could be forever. I have woken up on concrete, with no clothes (safety risk) with only a drain to stare at for hours upon hours.Sadly, staring at drains, or waking up to the view of a drain as I have either passed out, fallen asleep or finally woken up to reality on a cold concrete or tile floor has become something familiar to me. And instead of sparking fear can spark comfort as it means I am alive and in a safe place I can recover. The only worrisome issue is how bad of shape my physical body is in and what permament damage I have to the body and mind I actually really love.Of course, this is just one of the extremely serious risks of delusional thought that are too numerous to even list. There were times, in the heat of psychosis that people thought I was trying to kill myself when in my mind I thought I was elevating my existance to another level. Death, naturally, is a legitimate concern as the flame burns quick with often devastating consequences. Many schizoaffectives over history have died from just complete exhaustion, of pushing themselves too hard during moments of delusion or mania. Some have been the greatest inventors, and charismatic leaders of their time.You can really push yourself to the extreme with some extraordinary results and awareness and more commonly some devastating impacts to loved ones, jobs, or worse, society.Here is a mild example. Once, while psychotic in a mental hospital, I really wanted to understand the emotional effects of food on a most basic level. In order to start at the beginning of how my body and mind truly felt and were effected by different food I survived first on air, then water, then days on 3 of those tiny Half and Half little tubs, before adding slowly, a little jam packet to feel the effects of sugar vs. dairy.You get the picture, until I finally graduated to real pieces of substance in forms of protein, starch, and essential vitamins. You can see how eye-opening this experience could be and also how dangerous. And also how some might think you have an eating disorder when really you normally love food and always maintain a healthy weight and muscle mass.Less mild examples of being able to push your body include escaping handcuffs, a straitjacket, needing four police officers to restrain me, and breaking thru hospital locked doors.When psychotic, I have learned so much about my abilities and personality. I love singing, dancing, tedious activities, design, nearly all sports, and have a huge need for physical exertion. I have learned this from what I do in mental hospitals. I have cleaned every inch of floor in a wing on my hands and knees with a sock and spit. I have “rock climbed” up windows. I have made an entire outfit, including shoes, out of toilet paper. I have made a sculptural painting on a mirror out of peanut paper. I have learned exactly how tight I like to be restrained with the right amount of pain, without leaving marks on my body. I have realized how nice it can feel to be really tightly but not too painfully restrained because you can fight and fight, as long and hard as you want without hurting anyone. Except yourself. And sometimes you just want to fight yourself because you are so angry and have only you to blame.I have since learned there are more productive ways to do things similar, but outside of the hospital.Learning to live in the now, in a shared reality, feeling the pain of life is definitely a process. Ultimately, I think we all just want to connect. For me, discipline, healthy choices, including healthy thought, and emotional stability all conflict with mental illness.It is a life-long ilness, but so can any addiction, as it becomes a pattern of the mind and body. But it can be retrained, accomodations can be made, and accepted.We all have our limitations and dysfunction. It is what it is. I love my mind and would not change it. I try to keep it functioning every day as best I can. Stress, diet, poor choices, too much adrenaline, repetitive thoughts, worrying, inconsistant sleep schedule, unsafe environments, unresolved trama, lack of support system, toxic relationships, hallucinogens and hormonal changes all accaserbate the illness.Finally, if you really want to find out what it like to have my disorder, I wrote my account of what happens when I experience stress. For shizoaffectives, stress often causes psychotic episodes or breaks from reality. This is where the mind begins to fall apart.Let me tell you about it, how it happens and what it feels like. This is one of the primary parts to this diagnosis. And this is a mild experience.Once, I had my husband just drive me around in my van, never really stopping, because I felt stressed just being out in the world. So, I just had him take time off and drive back and forth between different locations to help clear my mind.Just feeling the car moving and being in its protective little bubble, with him, was relaxing enough. What really helped me feel better was when he went on the freeway and I could feel the speed of the car under me. I felt safe, like I was being taken far away from my troubles by someone I love.Truthfully, though I just needed to feel like I was going far away from my location of stress, I also wanted to get away from the sounds that come with staying in one location. And specifically, I wanted to take a break from the emotional energies of residential areas. This was because I was having specific problems associated with houses.I will try to explain this better in a way that is more understandable. You know when you are in an apartment and you can feel energies of those living around you? I mean you know the sound of the voices even though you can’t really make out what they are saying? You sense emotions in sound through the walls or in the common hallway, even if the sound is heard only for a second.This is kind of what I am talking about, except on a VERY small and completely normal level. But when you are a stressed schizophrenic, it is a whole different story and it is anything but normal.That's because for the average person, these things are very subtle. They are simply part of your environment that sometimes you pick up on and sometimes you don’t, often depending on your own emotional state. Now for a schizophrenic, or SCHIZOAFFECTIVE who is experiencing their schizophrenic symptoms, their stressed emotional state heightens all their senses. Imagine having a dial of emotional awareness and you crank that sucker up.All this talk doesn’t mean that much though, so it is better for me to just describe a day for a very STRESSED schizoaffective and I hope that will help you understand the benefits of stress, the downsides, and how you can use it to harness your most powerful self.That is why I will describe the 24 hours leading up to my husband driving me around. I will explain how the best part of stress is that it allows you to do some great stuff.But I will let you be the judge of that.If the following story is too hard for you to read, please stop. I warn you. I write very descriptively and I will not spare you the intensity of my experience. Just know, it is much harder to experience this in real life than to read about it.So here is what I did all in a day. Basically, I had a conversation with my mom, my landlord, a biker gang, a construction worker called the police, and talked to two neighbors. It doesn’t sound too stressful right? Tell me about it.It began with my mom. While visiting her house, I notice her neighbor’s house has all these strange, beat up cars in front of it. This is an expensive neighborhood, so it is completely out of place. I ask her about it and she says, her neighbor foreclosed on his house. It is coming up for auction soon, but he says his keys were stolen from a worker he has. So thats why there are all these strangers living in it now.I question the news. I tell her that her neighbor is pretty shady. “You can't believe anything he says,” I say.I go into the backyard and look into their backyard. When I finally see someone, I wave them over. I ask her who she is, why she is there and where my neighbor is. She immediately acts weird. She doesn't answer my questions. She keeps telling me “Don't worry about the noise. We are just celebrating. My grandma is dying and we are just so happy we get to take care of her in such a nice house.”“But what about my neighbor?” I say. “Where is he?”Finally, she stops talking about all the loud praying and chanting noises I may hear and stops pleading her case for me not to worry about noises at night. I did not even ask her a question like this.Finally, she tells me they rented this home for 6 months.By now, somehow the neighborhood has all come to their back yards to chime in. “That's not true!” I hear. “Thats a lie."I look at her and tell her there is an auction date online in 2 weeks. She said “That's not true. They have six months.”I respond, “Well. You won't mind if I call the police to clear things up. I mean he could be dead for all I know.”Honestly, he was a shady kind of guy. It wasn't impossible. Everytime I talked to him, it felt like I was coated in lies afterward.So I go inside to call an officer over and my worst case scenario brain is hoping he isn't tied up inside or something. Not very likely, but nothing seems right about any of this.In the meantime, my undiagnosed bipolar mother stars freaking out. She starts rushing thru all the previous events that she didn’t feel the need to tell me earlier. Now things are finally starting to make sense.I begin to see terror grow in her eyes. I guess the other neighbor on the other side has been super stressed. He is a lawyer but he won't do anything because he has a disabled and vulnerable wife inside his house. Everyone hears these “loud noises” at night, at all hours, and they can't figure out if its a party or cult or what.Ugh.So, I start dialing the police and when my mom sees what I am doing she starts screaming out things like she fears retaliation and other such craziness. I look at her like she has gone insane and continue on with the call.Whatever.The officer comes and he is super nice. I tell him, “Look. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where my neighbor is. There are all these people I have never seen at the house next door. I tried talking to someone and she says she can live there for six months. But online is says it's going up for auction in 2 weeks. I don't know. It could be my neighbor scammed these people or he could be in trouble.”I end with. “Honestly. I just don’t know. He is pretty shady.”By this point my mom has locked herself in her room and is brewing up a full-blown emotional frenzy. I try not to listen to her as I hear HER call 911 about how “her daughter is about to start some confrontation with her neighbors and she fears for her safety” and all this other stuff.I block her out, because at the moment, I am too concerned for the officer who is thankfully a super muscled out, huge, black dude that I immediately feel like I want to protect somehow. He takes one look at the seven or eight super junky, kinda tricked out cars all parked halfhazzardly around a nearly million dollar home and frowns.I ask, “Maybe I should go with you?” and then realize no, it is probably best if I wait by the cars.So I watch him go up and ring the doorbell and the women comes to the door. You can’t see anyone else inside, though I know there are lots of men inside because I could hear them or feel them, I don't know which, when I was in the backyard.After a few minutes the officer comes back and starts taking down numbers from each car's license plates. He goes back to his vehicle. I am trying to figure out if is he is calling for backup or just running plates and by this time, I get this feeling like everyone in the neighborhood is listening. It is WAY too quiet.After about 6-10 minutes or so the women is rushing back out with a paper. One piece of just regular computer paper. The cop is reading it, he hands it to me. I look at it. It has my neighbor’s correct name. It is typed, and not handwritten and it says it he agreed to rent until a date two weeks from now. I yell out for the whole neighborhood to hear, “It says you are supposed to be out in weeks!”The cop says more quietly but firmly, “You need to be out in two weeks."The women starts screaming, “How can you start looking at our vehicles. This is discrimination!” And the cop says, “No, how would you feel if a bunch of people you didn't know came into your neighborhood and you didn't know what was going on.” As we both were walking back nextdoor, trying to get away from the fury this woman was starting to build.”As we come back, my mom comes rushing out, asking what's going on and the officer explains calmly to her that they will be there for two weeks and will be out by the auction date.He looks at me and says, “It’s good it went that way.” and I say, “Yeah, either that or it's the best scam EVER.”Our eyes lock as I see us both processing how easy it would be to just look up homes online going for auction and typing up a rental agreement note with your victim’s name on it.“Do you think so?” he asks me.“I don't know.” I respond seriously. “But they will be out in 2 weeks.After he left, my mom was still freaked out. I told her she could come stay with me. She was still mad but I exclaimed, “Mom. I have made you as safe as I can make you! We have all their license plate information.”“Oh.” She stops her ranting. “He ran their plates?”“Yes,” I say with an eye roll in exasperation at how difficult she made the situation.Well, that was the first hours of my day. It only gets more stressful.To take a breather from my story. Stress allows you to stay calm. It is great to use if you need to protect something or someone. It gives you courage. To fight for loved ones, a stranger. To protect your home, your neighborhood, your county, your world. It can collectively band you with others, give you common purpose, and help you complete a mission. It helps you think, increases reaction time, assess more information. It allows you to hone your senses to a very powerful point.But that point can only be used for so long. Still, it's amazing how far the body can go, all the way to the breaking point.My breaking point was still a ways off, though my stress would only keep escalating.To continue…As soon as I made it home. Literally, I get out of my car and my landlord rushes up to me.She has put up “No trespassing” signs on the duplex diagonal from me. Our backyards have half a divider separating them.“I don't want you to worry,” she begins.OMG. She has the same terror look as my mother! I look at her with horror, but she is picking up steam.She continues. “But the unit across from you. I don't know who is living there. I have no idea who they are. They are not supposed to be there. I put up signs.” She keeps going, unloading all this info on me about how she keeps trying to get them, they only come at night, the sheriff won’t come for so many days. Finally, she gets to her main point.“If you see them. Please, please call me. I will rush here and get them out!”You have got to be kidding me. I have a young son living a few steps away and you have no record of who is living there, I am thinking.Omg. And here I told my mom to come here!“Fine.” I tell her.“Thank You, thank You.” She is croveling now. “I am sooo sorry I had to tell you. There is only one other thing.”My jaw dropped. Really. Another.He is on the other apartment, on the back side,” she speeds out.I stop her there, with eyes widening. But the pause is broad as she continues to explain that there is just one other guy that is not supposed to be there. That is living there when he is not supposed to.Well, fast forward a little, I then find myself yelling at a girl in her early twenties, a girl who came later out of that unit and passed outside my back yard. I called my landlord on the phone and shoved it over to the girl's face and screamed, “You talk to Carol right now. She says she can't get ahold of you for months, and she is on the phone right now!”The girl talked to Carol and gave the phone back to me and Carol says, “She is going to get her father to help her pack her things and they will be out by tonight.”Whatever. I am now super pissed off. I feel used by both of these two weak, terrified women who can't hold themselves together or so I am thinking at the time.I am so mad.I leave my home to go get some food and I see a guy I have seen at the library before. He is younger, in his twenties, and has a construction hat and back pack. But he has a bedroll too. I figure he is homeless, but he is trying so hard to look put together. He clearly is working. He is trying so hard to stay in the right places that are open and not draw attention.I start to feel guilt. I feel bad. I thought about all the people I interacted with today who were desperate for a place to live in. And here was someone with no place at all.I looked again and I saw a young man who reminded me of my husband. Someone trying to be independent, trying to do the right thing. Suffering but knowing every day he was working towards something. Those type of guys need a break every once in a while.I went and picked up pizza and a 2 liter. On my way back, I pulled up to him and motioned him to the window. “Hi” I said. “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but do you have a place to stay tonight?”His eyes lit up. I saw a spark of hope. “No,” he said.“Well, I don't have a place you can stay, but if you want I will let you sleep in this van tonight,” I said. He immediately told me he thought he was going to have to camp in the woods tonight and was so happy he didn't have to and how he was here for a job and would be going back tomorrow.I told him the arrangement would only be for tonight and that he would be fine as long as he stayed in the van. You cannot see inside the windows and the seats were already folded into the compartments so it was flat and open for laying down.“But,” I warned. “You have to be VERY careful of the neighbors.”At this moment, I saw or felt paranoia. It was in him, and it reminded me of myself.I quickly continued. “It will be fine as long as you just stay in all night and quickly slip out in the morning. Everyone is on high alert right now with strangers being in the neighborhood and how safe they are in their homes, especially at night.”He said he understood and wouldn't even turn his phone light on. When I gave him a few slices of pizza and poured some soda in a to-go cup I had, he looked at me like a I had just given him $1,000.It broke my heart.That night, I can't sleep. Or I can but I am an emotional wreck. I have a stranger in my van and I am trying to process everything I've seen.Somehow, I end up going for a walk at 3am. I just rememert thinking I needed to get out. I needed to just wander around and as I wandered i could unwind my brain. I try to just let my body go where it needs to go. I practically close my eyes and walk. It doesn’t even matter if I use my eyes because not only is it pitch black outside, but I have my little toy poodle to act as a guide.I just let her lead me. She knows this neighborhood so well. She knows our regular routes. She is a scout, a patrol dog. She walks me and looks for danger. She patrols and protects the neighborhood. She makes me feel unified in our mission. She makes me feel I have a purpose in this stressful time.I completely zone out.I am so stressed that I don’t even notice I am walking with my eyes barely even open. Thinking back on it now, I might have even been like sleep walking in a way. I couldn’t sense, I could only feel. I could feel the need to wander and get lost. I remember getting to the point where I didn't even know where I was and was okay with that. I just kept walking in the dark, and it felt nice to just wander around in the dark.Then something got my attention. In the far off distance, some lights began to appear. The light was like a pull. I felt myself needing to go there. I needed to see this compulsion out.As i got closer and the lights grew bigger I sensed a lot of people. I heard little noises that grew more focused as I neared. It sounded like people trying to scuttle around in the dark. The nearer I got the more the event started to take shape. It was a party. And the people sounded like me. Someone said something like “I can never sleep at night.” And people were laughing and joking. And they sounded like they were having so much fun. The lights were getting bigger And I could start to see more. It was a fire. In a big metal barrel.Now I was starting to wake up and process what I was seeing. Yes, I finally knew where I was. I was at the abandoned house.During daylight, I had seen some old RVs and campers in the back. But I never saw people. Now I realize people must be living in them. I had seen a couple of motorcyles parked there once. And you always heard bikes roaring occasionally thru town. This must be where the local biker gang came to party.I listened. I felt. I was still feeling a little in a daze but i could feel a pull. Like a moth to a flame, I kept going forward. I heard voices that made me feel happy. It was so nice to feel happy. I wanted to rush in and embrace it and roll around in it. I wanted to feel abandon, where you had no care in the world.It was like finding water when you've be wandering around in a desert. It was a mentally ill person oasis. It felt like I was where I belonged.It would be so nice to be invited to a party like that. Maybe I could get invited, I thought. Maybe I could get an invite for me and my husband to come another night. He used to have a bike. He would love it if they were good people.Good people. That was the point. I needed to see if they were good.I heard some sexual talk and that's when I remembered. This abandoned house was across the street from a park. My son plays with a boy who lives next to the park. His house was directly across the street. Horror flashed across my brain. It's summer. The windows are all down. The boy and his brothers might hear this. I had a little bit more purpose now.I would get to the bottom of this. I approached the house and headed for the fire. I approached the guy who looked and acted like he was the bouncer of this “club.” He had presence, confidence and an aura of providing protection. If he liked me, everyone else would.“It sounds like you guys are having a party. I heard you and could see you from a mile away,” I smirked. Take that; there are kids in this neighborhood.I continued. “I came to check out what kind of people you are and whether this party is a party my husband would approve of.”“Oh yeah?” he said with a tone of approval that I knew meant he liked what had just walked to his door.“Yeah, is this the type of party a girl like me would feel safe in?” I asked.He quickly responded. “I tell you what, if you stick with me I will personally make sure …I…take care of you and make sure everyone will leave you alone. How does that sound?”“Not very appropriate considering I just told you I have a husband.” I countered quick.At this point, two of the sidekicks came running up to flank his sides.Before they could assess the situation a pit bull charged in from behind. My 8-pound dog lunged and the dog 10x her size, melted away to the background.“Who is this?” I heard. One was a lengthy smart guy who liked to talk fast and the other was like a Chris farley type, soft but probably used to taking a lot of jokes at his expense.I didn't like either but the one in the middle still had potential. I could see him still possibly being the type of guy my husband might like.But I focused on the mission.“Is this time and place normal for your parties?” I asked. Sweet but with steel. You have to step up when it's 3 on one.The fast guy then starts talking fast. I don't even really listen because it sounds like he's trying to sell me a car.“Because it kinda seems like you might be terrorizing the neighborhood. I am just concerned about what's APPROPRIATE you know. It’s a family neighborhood. Lots of kids around.”I pointed to the park behind me.At this point, it got weird.Confusion. “There's no park there,” said Middle, short for guy in the middle.It was pitch black to me but yes, I remembered the park right across the street from the abandoned house.“Right there.” I point again.“No.”“What! Wait. Are you sure?” I said starting to sound confused. Maybe I had gotten turned around in my quest to just get lost.This is when Middle slowly came closer. “Are you lost?” He said like he was talking to a suddenly innocent child instead of a woman he wanted to take care of a few moments ago.“Oh my god. Are you sleepwalking?” said Quick.“Here, let us help You!” They all we were coming towards me.Sensing danger I forced myself to open my eyes. They were shut. Oh my God, I didn't even know they were closed. I am so messed up right now, when I am seeing and not even seeing.I needed to get home fast.No!” I shouted and started backing away.“I'm fine! I just wanted to know the time and place for your parties.” I spat out as I turned on my heel, and gave them my backview.“Every Friday and Saturday night at ten!” I hear.“Thank you for the invite!” I respond.I tried not to run. I wanted to excude confidence to guarantee my escape.“I love how they walk,” Farley says.I exaggrate the movement even more and then once I had the required distance I felt I could out run someone, I ran as hard as I could.By the next morning, it was 24 hours since my stressful day started. I told my husband I let some guy sleep in the van. He ran out and checked. But he was already politely gone. I told him about my confrontation with the local biker gang and tried to plead my case that I was just so hung up on protecting the neighborhood and feeling so much fear from everyone locked in their homes at night.Seriously. The fear was just too much and I needed to get away. I needed to go where I felt the safest. Where was that? And then I remembered my paranoid friend and knew.And so I went and fell asleep in the van.Aftermath:I had always been worried about that abandoned house. After my night visitation, the gang moved on and i never saw bikes there again. In its place was a bunch of police tape stringing the entrance off.My husband had us moved out of this city in a week as we were month-to-month. He thought the city was too difficult for my sensitivities. The owner of our duplex sent the loveliest note saying what beautiful tenants we were. I kept it.