Last night was kind of bad for me. We've talked before about doing a Liz-o-meter on this site, where I could indicate how crappy and/or happy I feel. Today I'd be pretty low down on the meter.

I've been trying to make a video about my experience with ECT. Yesterday, after a full weekend at the Bloomsburg Fair—where I saw an excellent Elvis impersonator and two very cute little piggies—I sat in our motel room (pictured) and talked for 20 minutes about the experience. As I was talking I noticed I was feeling a little weird and dislocated, so I was relieved when the very kind motel owner knocked on the door to give me some cookies.

Later I watched the video again, this time with Vince, and I could tell from our interaction that it was a mistake. Oddly enough, though I'm trying to package the experience in some accessible way, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it's not something I want to relive. I mean, I'm still going to do it because I said I would and because it's important to me to make a particular point, but if I were just going to do things that would conduce to my mental health, I'd ditch it.

The funny thing about PTSD syptoms is the way they sneak up on you when you least expect it. Watching a video of myself talking about being on a psych ward and then getting ECT, I could feel myself slipping away into a dissociative haze, which hasn't dissipated entirely today. By telling the story, I started to get confused. Where am I now? Am I still that person? Am I in danger of becoming that person? Rational threads of conversation and thought got progressively harder until I couldn't wait for Vince to get out of the room so I could stop the chaos in my head from closing in.

In moments like those, my impulse is to cut myself with a knife, which achieves two purposes: It brings me back into my body and the present by causing pain; and it displaces the pain in my head, transferring mental suffering into physical irritation. I didn't do it; I hardly ever do. But I desire it in the same way I desire a cigarette even after years of not smoking. I get a fierce longing that seems to encompass my lungs.

In a strange way, a crisis we had with one of our animals brought me back to reality. She got herself stuck behind a bookshelf, but she was so quiet that we thought she was dead. I cried for her for a little while, remembering her antic behavior, then heard a vague thumping from the other side of the room. I was pretty convinced, given my mental state, that it was a hallucination, but I couldn't take any chances. I spent the next couple hours removing all the books from the bookshelf. When I saw her head peek out, I was immensely relieved. Little Rosemary. Our hamster-type baby. I was so glad to see her, I forgot all about the impulse to self-mutilate (a term I hate, but it is descriptive, I guess).

At 4:30 a.m., after sleeping for a couple hours, I woke up with an asthma attack, which I'm guessing was brought on by stress. Such attacks panic me, but again, are almost welcome compared to mental suffering. By the time I got out of bed this morning, I was refreshed, and the gruesome anguish of last night continues to fade.

It's just another example of one of the most important lessons people with mental illness must remember: It will get better. At some point. It's worth it to wait it out.

[Here's a still from a video I won't be posting. You can tell I'm kind of vacant.]