Well that was, umm, interesting…

I was nearing the end of my grocery excursion when I looked at my phone and gave an inward sigh of relief. I had 25 minutes left until my OnDemand vehicle arrived and I only had three items left to pick up and all of them were in the same aisle. Then a message popped up on the screen saying, “We needed to move your ride to a different vehicle. Your new vehicle is MINUTES away: White Toyota Camry, pick up at [not particularly needed]”. Suddenly “me being ahead” was “me being so far behind”. This store is notoriously awful with their number of open tills and amount of people in line and I no longer had that amount of time. I tossed the last item into the cart and hurried to the front.

I usually have to get dragged kicking and screaming to the self serve machine (might be a small amount of hyperbole). An employee could come to me and say, “There’s twenty people in this line and there’s an empty self serve machine available” and my response would be, “That’s okay, I’ve got a book”. My anxiety does not mesh well with UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGAGE AREA. But I what could I do? There were two open tills and both had long lines so I wheeled my cart to the last self serve machine available. The machine behaved and didn’t make a peep through the whole exchange and, soon I was heading to the exit… where there was an OnDemand vehicle outside the doors. As I watched, it cruised over toward the entrance and out of my line of vision. The first bag felt like it had been filled with cement while the second was a smidge lighter (why did I buy that many cans?). The last bag was clipped to the cart and was quietly obstreperous. It did not want to leave. By the time I walked out the door with all three bags the vehicle was turning out of the parking lot. I watched as it drove away then called OnDemand.

Now here’s the fun bit. OnDemand is a service that recommends you reserve your ride the day before. I called at the grocery store once and was told there was a ride available in five hours. Did I still have a ride available in 15 minutes or did I have to re-book and hope for the best. The answer would be… after I got off hold.

I reached the bus stop and looked around at the wet ground. Was it too wet for my fabric bags? There was a grocery cart but it was equally wet and had a potato in the baby seat. Why a potato?

“Excuse me?”

I turned around to see a young, average looking man watching me from about a metre away.

“I was wondering something,” he said as he walked toward me. “Could I buy your socks?”

My socks???

“I’ll pay you $20”

For my $1 Dollarama socks? “Sure, that’s fine,” I replied. That was when he noticed my phone.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know you were on the phone.”

You have no idea how long it took me to get two relatively normal feet (I’m ignoring the baby toes)

I assured him I was on hold and he handed me a twenty before walking to a nearby low wall that doubles as a bench. I sat there with my bags in front of me, phone to my ear, while pulling my feet out of my boots and taking off my socks. Then he wanted to take pictures of my feet. Uhh, I guess. They’re pretty ugly. So he pulled my left foot onto his lap and started taking pictures. That was when dispatch answered. He’s assuring me that the message had been for another person and my ride would be there soon. Meanwhile I’ve got a complete stranger kissing the sole of my foot… and talking baby talk to it???

I tugged my foot away and put my boots on. “My ride will be here shortly”, I informed him.

“Can we do this three times a week?” he asked hopefully.

Oh hell no!

I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “I’d run out of socks pretty quickly.”

“I’ll pay you $500 every five days.”

Wait what??? “I can buy more socks”.

He took my phone number and walked away just as my ride pulled in. It was a challenge to get my feet and the bags into the rear footwell and the seat belt clasp kept hiding on me. Meanwhile my my phone was blowing up with messages. I finally checked my phone and he’s asking where I was and if I was ignoring the phone or had vanished. Yeah buddy, I’m a vampire. I turned into mist.

“I’m still here,” I texted back. Damn, there’s needy and then there’s this.

I was thinking about parameters regarding meeting up to exchange socks and money, albeit between his nearly incessant texts. I know that first of all, there was no way he was getting near my apartment. We could meet outside the convenience store and I could just hand him the bag of socks. This also would stop him from whispering sweet nothings to my feet. And, second, I refused to believe any millennial could afford to pay $2000 every month for some dirty socks. Talk about a horrible reason to skip out on your half of the rent!

Then he texted me again.

“We need to set some boundaries,” I informed him, knowing that we really meant I. I don’t think he has any boundaries. “I am very introverted plus I’m also asexual and on the aromantic spectrum. I can’t handle anywhere near this many texts or romantic stuff.”

He apologized then immediately sent me, not one, but two dick pics. I mean seriously? I get that he’s proud of the thing but nearly half the population has one; it’s not share worthy.

“This aro-ace is out of here,” I texted then went through the menus to find the delete option. The last reply I saw from him was a bewildered, “What does that mean?” I’m not Google, he can find it on his own.

It was all around a weird encounter but I got a twenty out of it so there’s that.

It was Bell Let’s Talk Day…

*I started this on Wednesday but my brain made the Windows shut-down sound so I had to finish it on Thursday*

…or, for those of us who are mentally ill, it was Wednesday. We don’t need to recognize a day, we’re aware of our mental health (or lack thereof) every day of the year. We’re in it waist deep, breathing (whether it’s four squared or 7-4-8), using our five senses as a distraction, or discussing which would be better – CBT or DBT.

Bell created this day to improve awareness of mental illness and to provide information to those who need it, although I’m sure the chance to shore up their horribly bad reputation went through their heads a time or two.

The first time I remember experiencing mental illness was sometime in my teens when I begged permission to build an open box from 2x4s in order to grow grass. I needed that tangible bit of proof that spring really would arrive, that I wasn’t going to live my life in constant desolation. I was met with baffled confusion because, of course spring would come, spring always comes. And, besides, grass wouldn’t grow in the basement. So I muddled through, not knowing that what I was experiencing was depression.

I used to love to go to the mall. I’d browse in The It Store. I went there so often and, yet, I don’t think I ever bought a damn thing. It was all novelty items and gag gifts and it grew increasingly more risque the deeper you went into the store. And, since this was pre-Chapters, I would check out the book stores as well. Most of the mall is one level but it turns to two at the south end (thanks to a hill). There were huge open spaces on the top floor, in the centre of the hallway, I’m assuming to let light flow through. They were fenced off with a clear railing. At some time in my teens I’d be blithely walking along the hallway and a thought would suddenly pop out of nowhere, “JUMP OVER THE RAILING!!!” I began to walk right against the store fronts, often brushing against the windows because I was that close to the stores. A few years later another thought came along. I’d be waiting at the bus stop when my brain would suddenly scream, “FALL ONTO THE ROAD!!!” I was so scared I’d do just that, I absolutely always made sure to stand a body length away from the road, just to be safe. These are called “intrusive thoughts” and they’re pretty common. I don’t know why, sometimes our brains are assholes. Here’s a very small video that helps to explain them although she’s a hell of a lot happier about them than anyone I’ve ever met.

And, over the years I gathered more symptoms, from sobbing at every session with my college therapist to several attempts at trying antidepressants. Eventually, the symptoms grew like an avalanche, gaining more and more symptoms until it became life threatening, to me not to anyone else. And now, here I am, with a good sized list of mental illnesses/neurodiverse diagnoses (and a hefty blister pack of meds). My life has settled into a quiet routine. I have chair exercises three times a week and a bevy of zoom groups and classes. They help to keep the depression down to a dull roar. I have a psychiatrist, a therapist, and an entire care team keeping an eye on me. And a cat who loves to snuggle with me for an afternoon nap.

I know I pretty much never clock as “normal” and these days I don’t even try. When I’m wearing makeup I get glittered up enough to be mistaken for a disco ball (note, this has never happened). I’m friendly to everyone and people do like me. It’s just… when Colin was little I used to joke that he wasn’t just marching to his own beat, he was off following a different band. I’m pretty sure I’m playing the xylophone and marching along right beside him. And, yes, our diagnoses are pretty much the same.

Over the years I’ve had people minimize what I’m going through. I’ve been told I’m on a lower level of the Ontario Disability Support Program than people who are physically disabled. There’s no bottom tier, you’re either disabled or you’re not. And I’ve been given the side eye because I went to Canada’s Wonderland for the day, along with Colin.

What they didn’t understand is we went there with PFLAG so there was a single bus ride there and back. They provided us with enough snacks to constitute breakfast plus a meal ticket for dinner, all we needed was to find lunch. We picked up our disability passes so we didn’t have to stand in line. In fact, the staff had no idea what to do with the passes so let us immediately board the next ride. They even let us sit in the front for every single roller coaster. I scouted out a relatively comfortable and quiet spot to nap on one of the small lawns and proceeded to lie down for an hour. It was blazing hot that day and I ended up having a Canada goose (aka Canadian Cobra Chicken) join me. She was so hot she was panting, I could empathize. Eventually we caught the bus and went home where I proceeded to recuperate for several days. I told this story to my therapist and she commented that the comment came from a lack of knowledge. The person didn’t realize how much time and effort I spent planning for the trip and planning at the park. They didn’t know how much energy it took from me. They simply saw pictures of Colin and I smiling and figured my trip was like everyone else.

There is so much misinformation about mental illness and a lot of it is flippant. I dropped a cupcake I was craving so now I’m depressed. No, you’re sad. If you feel the same (or worse) level of sadness for over two weeks then you might be depressed. And you’re not OCD if you wipe crumbs of your counter, that is in no way obsessive compulsive disorder and inviting someone with OCD to your messy house is unlikely to get it clean. A person with OCD has a compulsion (or compulsions) and an obsessive need to complete that compulsion. It could be they need to check their stove three times before they leave, even if they hadn’t used it. Or test the door knob to make sure it’s locked five times. Or washing all the dirt and germs off their hands except they always feel dirty and now their hands are bleeding. Psycho doesn’t mean someone’s running amok with a meat cleaver, no matter what the movie industry claims. The person is in a state of psychosis, which means their version of reality and actual reality are kissing cousins. They’re not any more likely to harm someone, in fact they’re more likely to be harmed. And just because you dislike someone doesn’t mean they’re a narcissist.

When you misuse words and minimize mental illnesses, it’s easy to see those illnesses as less than they really are, and to assume someone is faking, or not nearly as disabled as the “real disabled people”. You don’t see the real challenges people face. This impacts people at work, at school, in relationships, and more. Bell Let’s Talk Day is only one day. Are you ready to listen and support for the other 364?