Out of Sane Falling out of Life

By Janie Belaire

Why do they call it insane? Out of sane is better. Losing all of that sanity that is supposed to get you through life. Instead I found myself falling out of life. Twists and turns, fourteen surgeries causing chronic pain, leaving me permanently disabled with complete loss of independence. Two soul stealing marriages. All of it, shrapnel, leading to deterioration into a world of pain, alcohol, drugs, and pills. Walking hand in hand with mental illness. The hate. The anger. The sadness for what used to be. Th is is my story. It is filled with
tears, desperation, love, discontent, humor, disappointment and loss. However, I hope this helps others out there not to fall out of life as I did and if they already have, or are heading that way, may they possibly find some solace in not being completely alone while curled up in a ball.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503516748

Janie Belaire

Janie Belaire is married to the love of her life. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with two crazy, antic-filled cats: Jack Bauer, a twenty-four-toed Hemingway, and Boudreaux, a sassy ginger and tiny thing. Spanish moss, thousand-year heritage oak trees, their lush garden and koi pond, nature, rain, the animals abound in Northern Florida, “her” horses, and dear family try to keep her “in sane.” She could not live without any of this. “I want to love first and live incidentally.” —Zelda Sayre (Fitzgerald), 1919

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Janie Belaire.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2014920440

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-5035-1672-4

       Softcover       978-1-5035-1673-1

       eBook       978-1-5035-1674-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Cover Design by Janie Belaire

Photography by Janie Belaire

All artwork by junkeoverlord

Rev. date: 09/11/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

ARTWORK: COMRADES

Comrades

PART I

Hindsight

Life Altering

ARTWORK: REALIZING

Realizing

You Very Rarely Ever Get What You Want

The Fat Lady

Brevity

Premonition

End of an Era

PART II

ARTWORK: BOTTLES

Divorce

Bring It On

Crossed

Terrorism

Tourist

Stare

Silent Musing

Brothel

Head Full

Smashed

Stepford Life

Brick Wall

1, 2, 3, Say Cheese

Starving

Eight Years Since

Cutter

Locked

Dead Ringer

The Final Hour

PART III

ARTWORK: SARCASM

Anger

Sadness

Pain

Pills, Alcohol, and Other Drugs

My Broken Body

Oblivious on Lake Hutchinson

The Reckoning

ARTWORK: CORRODED

Sleepless

Football Season Is Over

Going and Coming

Recipes

Moderation

Deflated

Wet Dreams

Lost

Contemplation

Lost Days

Circus

Cocoon

Hurry Up and Wait

Kindergarten

WWFD?

The Great Abyss

Snap

Kiss It

God-Fearing

A Bad Habit

Scarlet Haystacks

Sticks and Stones

All Apologies

Breakdown

Electricity Lost

Occupations

Speaking French

Darts

Immortality Lost

Jigsaw

Message in a Bottle

Driving

A Conversation

Free Range

Five Hundred Sins

Perfect Mess

Terrorism

Abacus

Perfect Vision

Cannibalism

Fitted Sheets

Garden of Heathens

Metronome

My Preconceived Hero

PART IV

ARTWORK: WALKING

Salvation?

My Potential Savior

The Music in My Head

Myself Roofied

Packed Mind

Pretty Bed

Frazzled

The Good One

Broken Bones and Bottles

Burning Kettle

Humans versus Demons

Lost in Translation

Life Dreams

Russian Roulette

Bird Hunting

Mother’s Milk

Breaking Ground

Swaying

Judgment Day

In Passing

Gift Wrapped

Downfall

Angels and Demons

Tallahassee

Movement

ARTWORK: SCATTERING

Aftereffects

Corral Love

The Looking Glass

Ferris Wheel

Cats and Husband

Definition

Reader’s Digest Epilogue

APPENDIX

Additional Poetry by Sophie Gail

Memories

Over the Landscape

Seasons of Love

Self-Worth

Trouble with Math

Introverted Girl

Blessings

Acknowledgments

For Sailor

What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon

Are you in or out of sane?

From Lyrics by Brent Babb

Dead Hot Workshop

Early to Mid-1990s

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I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist; a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.

—Zelda Fitzgerald, 1930s

Comrades

I don’t know why they call it insane. To me, that clearly means that you have your sanity intact. I prefer out of sane. I heard this phrase, years ago, in the lyrics of a song a good friend of mine wrote, and I was hooked. I have thought about it ever since. What it means to me. What it means, period. When you have lost all that sanity that is supposed to get you through life. To me, that is what it really is. This is my story. My story of slowly becoming out of sane. Starting in on this roller coaster of a journey, I will really be looking back into a cracked and shattered crystal ball that was beginning to show fault lines when I was a child. A crystal ball that really was a snow globe. With the snowflakes of my life disappearing before my eyes or melting on the tips of my fingers. Because things are never what you want them to be. Because you think you have a crystal ball in your hands with plans that will never be altered. Because what was seen inside was just one picture of one time in one life that one wanted to hold forever. By the time this sentence was written, this sentence you are now reading, you could no longer see whatever it was inside. Because it was completely shattered. Falling out of my hands. Shards of glass cutting them. Cutting me. Whatever it was that was me. It was gone. I was gone.

I was finally officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, predominantly depressive, at the age of thirty-seven, which reared its ugly head during my last three years in Arizona. I start with this bit of knowledge blatantly because that is what started it all. Even before I was diagnosed officially. So I left that beloved home of twenty-four years to move to Florida, where my parents were. I went kicking and screaming, but my options had run out, as you will realize when reading this tale of self-destruction and pain. This began when I was thirty-five years old, after a nasty divorce, my second, realizing I couldn’t continue the job I loved and taking a month of mental leave never to return. Then the ultimate change in my life, a horrific accident shattering my leg and later injuring my back and redamaging my leg after five years of rehabilitation and finally being able to wear a shoe. All of which will cause me chronic pain from the nerve damage in my leg, causing me to become permanently and completely disabled as the fall spoiled my leg to the point of no return. And the injury to my back, I had no idea what was to happen with that. At the time.

At forty years old. After twelve surgeries and a myriad of hospital and doctor visit—fun. Needles in my back, nerve blockers to try to stop the pain. Too many to count. Contracting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, from an infection after my second surgery while still in Arizona. This will follow my life as well causing constant monitoring of any open wounds (scratches etc.) My second bone surgery was to reconstruct my leg leftover from a quite pompous emergency orthopedic surgeon. Always there as another internal reminder. It was too close to nerves, never to be removed. Left with a leg that was an inch and one-half shorter than the other. These first two surgeries, never even imagining there would be ten more within the next five years, led to a lowered immune system. And eventually, after my eighth surgery, it led to contracting Clostridium difficile, more commonly known in doctor jargon as C. diff, which is a story in itself. This bacterial infection landed me in the hospital for twenty-three days, three of them in ICU on stroke alert. Obviously this little bastard of an infection is even more brutal than MRSA. Makes it look like a walk in the park. Doesn’t help the ole sanity intact defense. Time froze, and my life became broken at thirty-five years old, and now, at forty-two, seven years later, I am still scuffling around, trying to pick up the pieces. I don’t know if I can. There are too many, and my eyes seem to be, too often, muddled with tears.

It happened in one step. The beginning of my injuries. The physical ones at least. One step. One step on uneven ground in a parking lot. Me, dressed to the nines in a little black number and boasting my beloved red cha-cha heels, which now hold court in my closet as a morbid reminder. I was on my way to drown my sorrows for the night in whatever bottle or drug or sex I could find. Oh, and