Movement

content/movement/008.md

@@ -3,4 +3,42 @@ date: 2019-09-16
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-Tardive dyskinesia
+Only five months after I figured out just what akathisia was, the disorder evolved into something more dramatic. Where as the tic, whether or not it was iatrogenic, affected mostly my neck and only rarely my wrists, this new form of drug-induced movement disorder affected most of my upper body, alternating between chorea and dystonia; between a fluid, graceful swimming of limbs to a tense, rigid posture.
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+<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_01QBDC3QkU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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+It was infuriating and humiliating --- and before you interrupt, no, I will not talk about kink.
+
+> You know me so well.
+
+I suppose I do.
+
+To be unable to hold still is one thing. Jerking my head to the side once every few seconds with the tic was embarrassing enough. I often worried that I'd be mistaken for some sort of junkie, hopped up on something or another. I even had my doctor write a letter that I could bring with me when I traveled.
+
+> But you were still functional.
+
+Yes. I could still work. I could still drive and walk and pick things up and eat.
+
+> Now you couldn't. Now your hand would jerk back from picking things up or hitting the keys. Now you would walk with a hitch in your stride as a spasm rolled along your side. Now you wouldn't feel safe behind the wheel.
+
+I just shut myself in my house for a while. I left twice. Once to see a friend for some company, and once to go to therapy. I stood in the lobby while my therapist had a small chat with a coworker, struggling to keep still with my hands buried in my pockets, and broke down crying once we made it to the room.
+
+She had a solution --- or a set of solutions --- that we could try. One medication to start with, one fallback medication, and a vitamin regimen. Picking them up at the pharmacy on the way home was another source of tears, as the pharmacist, reading off the screen, said, "This is for twitching? Involuntary movements?" and I nodded, more a jitter than an intentional motion, as my hands wandered off along strange hyperbolae, unable to speak for the tears.
+
+> And then, Thanksgiving.
+
+Yes. Thanksgiving, and my dad visiting.
+
+> He had seen the tic before, at least.
+
+Well, yes, but as mentioned, these movements carried along a whole new set of connotations with them. Suddenly I was unable to have a basic conversation without the pauses that come with those moments of fixed posture that form part of dystonia. Suddenly I was unable to get a bite to eat without engaging in my geste antagoniste, resting my chin on the back of my hand with my wrist twisted around unnaturally.
+
+> Suddenly you were painfully, visibly vulnerable in front of him.
+
+Yes.
+
+And at a restaurant. A dinner that probably cost him eight hundred dollars for the four of us.
+
+> At one point, he asked you what was wrong and you tried not to cry as you mumbled, "I'm just having a hard time holding still."
+
+No one mentioned it, after that.

content/movement/009.md

@@ -3,4 +3,32 @@ date: 2019-09-16
 weight: 9
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-Stillness and stress
+> And now you're still again.
+
+Sometimes. One of the treatments worked, though I'm not sure which. One of them caused vertigo and nausea, and I'm not sure which. But even after I stopped, I'm usually still.
+
+> Is that not enough?
+
+It's certainly better. The stress of driving will bring out the dance-like turn of my arm. An interview a few weeks ago went poorly after the twitching and twirling got bad enough to prevent me from focusing on the problem at hand. A distressing scene in a movie will leave me paralyzed and rigid in my seat, posture unnatural and unnerving.
+
+Judith reassured me that it looked like I was stretching, that it was less distressing than the tic.
+
+> You still apologized. You apologized to all of your partners the first time they saw it, and countless times after.
+
+Yes. I explained and explained, hoping they'd forgive you.
+
+> For what? For being less than perfect?
+
+For being vulnerable. Even after so long away from my dad and Jay, it's ingrained in me that vulnerability is a personal failing. Or perhaps it's more general: perhaps vulnerability is worth apologizing for for some hereditary reason. Perhaps I'm apologizing to my ancestors, to the human race, for being less than they hoped for.
+
+> How very human of you.
+
+My therapist apologized to me on one stressy day when I was pretty twitchy. She said she felt bad for having caused this. I rushed to reassure her that, no, it probably wasn't her fault, that I'd been on the antipsychotics for a while before ever meeting her. That the tic started back in 2012.
+
+> You apologized for the fact that she felt the need to apologize.
+
+Well, yes.
+
+> It's not your fault either, you know.
+
+On an intellectual level, sure. On some deeper level, obviously not.

content/news/2019-09-16-moving.md

@@ -3,11 +3,11 @@ date: 2019-09-16
 title: Moving
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-If I could find just the correct movement, angles in all the right places, each curve as fluid as could be, and just *make* it, perhaps I could hold still.
+If I could find just the correct movement, joints in all the right places, each curving arc of my hands as fluid as could be, and just *make* it, perhaps I could hold still.
 
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-> In a frictionless vacuum, it'd be at least theoretically possible.
+> In a frictionless vacuum, perhaps, but you don't live in one.
 
 There must be some equation to define it. Some mathematical perfection.