RealMental

From Heather O.

Some days I wake up and the sun is shining. As soon as my feet touch the floor, I know it’s going to be a great day. I have a bowl of cereal, enjoy the morning sun shining through the front windows and smile to myself. Happy. Content. Comfortable.

I haven’t had a day like that but maybe once or twice in my life.

Most days, the bear gets me.

I go to bed, curl up on rumbled sheets and stare at the blackness for hours, willing myself to sleep. I cry until my insides ache and finally fall asleep two hours before the children come to wake me up for breakfast. I stumble out of bed, rest my head on the half-painted bathroom wall and try to psyche myself into getting through the day. I wash bowls and fix cereal with bleary eyes, pour the milk with shaking hands and fall into my chair to stare at the wall. I put a movie on for the kids and put my forehead on the desk.

I wish I could shut my mind up for just a few moments but I never can and the walls are closing in again.

Rent is due in 3 days, no money coming in despite my best attempts at sales and marketing, power due, phone due, need groceries, $7 to my name, thinking about spending it on a pizza for the kids for lunch but I know I can’t go into the pizza place without having a panic attack, need to go buy bobbin thread so I can sew, hyperventilating thinking about going in to buy thread, kids want to go to the park and I can’t, what if there are lots of kids there and I lose one of mine in the crowd and can’t find them or some kid’s parent wants to talk to me, just a casual “hi how are you?” that I cannot handle.

Think about Andy, about Chris, about Colin, about Mama and how I have no idea where we’re even going to live if I can’t come up with the rent but I don’t want to live with Mama again and she doesn’t want us there either, know they love me but can’t cope with “where are you going, when will you be back, how much gas have you used, aren’t you due for an oil change, how many pairs of shoes have you made today, how’s the job hunt going, are you taking your medicine”, think I suck as a parent but when everyone can hear every thing I say it makes it ring twice as loud in my head, can’t give up the last shreds of independence that are mine.

I need to get a job, third shift, leave the kids with Mama all night and try to sleep in the mornings after I bring them home while they rot their brains watching TV all day, how can I get a job when I can’t even say the word “job” without shaking, going to throw up during the interview, if I can even get to the interview, terrified just thinking about going to a job and dealing with people I don’t know who don’t know me, what will they think of me, will they think I’m crazy. Am I crazy?

Turn on the sewing machine but can’t sew without thread, can’t buy thread without driving to the store, can’t drive to the store until the kids are dressed and presentable because if they go in the store with unbrushed hair then everyone will know I’m falling apart and they probably already noticed that I can’t breathe and my hands are shaking so bad that I just dropped the thread on the counter, what an idiot, how could I be so stupid, those people all wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.

Have to get orders finished but can’t concentrate, don’t care, not many left anyway since no one wants what I’ve got so I can put these off another day or three, packages stacked here that need to go out but have to wait until after 5 to go into the post office to weigh them so no one is there and don’t have to see or talk to anyone, back home to print postage out, drive back to the post office to drop them off in the privacy of my own car with the music on loud, loud enough that I can drown out the nagging voices in the back of my head for just a little while. Loser. Fat girl.

My kids think I’m okay and for them I am. They are all that I have and I summon every ounce of sanity I have to take them places and let them live a happy life. They hug me and tell me they love me and they are the only ones I believe. They aren’t old enough to hate me for my inadequacies yet. Give them time, give them time.

3 weeks until my appointment at mental health and god knows what they are going to think of me. It’s their job and they see lots of crazies so maybe I’m really quite normal, who knows? Haven’t talked to anyone who isn’t related to me in weeks, lost my only friend because I couldn’t shut up, nothing but online friends left and they’ve got to be sick of hearing me by now, supposed to hold it together online because otherwise my business could be damaged but really not much left there to damage so might as well fall apart everywhere.

I walk around every day and my family thinks I’m doing so much better, holding it together so well, oh she’s on the upward swing. Lie. Bullshit. Inside my head I’m screaming weeping hurting dying and maybe if I could cut the pain out it wouldn’t hurt so bad but I don’t think anything will help.

Can’t believe I’m going to post this on the internet where everyone can see it but maybe I’ve not been honest enough because I’m so afraid of what my mother-brother-in-law will think and maybe they just don’t matter and will think badly of me no matter how good I try to be and how much I tried to care and how much I loved Andy so what difference does it make what they think. Never tried to be my friend, never gave one bit of caring or understanding. Money isn’t love, isn’t caring, isn’t understanding, doesn’t make a house a home, doesn’t make someone love you who just doesn’t even though that would be nice. Never believed me and still won’t when I say that I did want to be a part of their family, I wanted them to think of me like a daughter, wanted them to care about me. Doesn’t matter now, doesn’t matter at all. Your son is free of me, free to wash his own dishes and play computer games all day if he wants and yell at my kids on his only day with them and be glad to be rid of my abrasive insanity that only wanted us to be happy and love each other. Wasted years.

Doesn’t do any good to love because who wants to kiss a crazy girl, give me vodka but don’t come by to talk to me even when I plead, let me bare my soul and then walk away, ignore me for years, treat me like the laundry-girl but now even less than that, not worthy for your affection, who is, who wants it, do you treat everyone like this or just the crazy girls who bug the shit out of you.

“For as long as our love shall endure” was the vow, not enduring, never had a chance, escape clause built in from the beginning, “I don’t love you” to absolve from the responsibility of a marriage, stand back and watch me crash and burn.

And it’s better this way, better this way.

Originally posted here.

(Written June 27, 2006)

From Andrew

I had nightmares every night as far back as I can remember. I didn’t sleep through the night until I was 8. When I was younger, it was about monsters, and giants, and being separated from my family. When I went through middle school, it was all about my body, being raped, being abused. In highschool, they were all about my mother, her dying, her disowning me, her finding out my most secret secrets.

All this anxiety at night didn’t seem to fade much during the day. My mind was constantly running, “what if they see me”, “what if I look stupid”, “why are they laughing? are they laughing at me?”.

When I came to college, it started to wane. I’d only have nightmares every couple of weeks, and the rest of the time was dreamless as far as my waking mind was aware. My anxiety didn’t wane much, but it did start to. And now, as a sophomore, I rarely have nightmares at all.

My anxiety is getting worse, however, and they’re starting to come back. More and more I’m seeing images of shadowmen laughing, or stealing my family, and as much as DreamMe wants to fight, and as I much as I tell it to, it just curls in the corner and cries.

They feed into each other I think.

From Carla

I felt like I went through today with glass eyes, barely participating in anything. I even laid down on my futon and slept there in my clothes for two hours without moving. Clouds came by but never got around to raining, and I went on my bicycle down the street only for a few minutes. I’m not sure how comfortable I am talking like this but I think I’m feeling like this – listless, walled-in spectator – because of my anti-anxiety medication. I take it so rarely now that I forget what it feels like. Granted, I was able to function, lead, laugh and coach instead of being a quivering mass of nerves like last week. But at what cost does this functionality bring. It isn’t that I don’t feel like me, its that I don’t feel like I’m here. I’m not sure I feel like writing either, but I’m doing it just the same. I think you can tell that my brain isn’t working the same way. The imagery is missing, my sentences are shorter. Everything comes out so literally. I am fortunate not to need these meds often, because I feel I would never be able to get through the rest of my life if I did.

I took this off of my blog, because of some negative feedback.  I figure realmental.org is more comfortable with my crazy.

Still around.  Posts percolating but not all suitable for a blog that as of yet, has not been found by my parents.  My poor niece is not telling anyone as far as I know and I actually feel awful laying the smack down when I have always known that at any moment someone really tenacious(and technically savvy AND related to me) could find me.  I am trying to find a new domain name that fits what feels like a big change.  I just had a nice time with my mom and told her that on Friday, I found myself so depressed, so profoundly sad and hopeless that I just broke down and sobbed. In my car at first and then made it home to cry to hard I threw up and peed my pants!  Goodbye readers who don’t like to much information!

Of course my mom asked why.  Lots and nothing.  I am mentally ill.  I hate saying those words, but it is true.  I see a psychiatrist regularly and for the rest of my life medication will be tweaked and fiddled with and I will likely have lots of ups and hopefully only a handful of major downs.  So, know I don’t know why on Friday, some horribly song on the radio seemed to trigger a drying episode.  That is whole mystery of depression, bi-polar, these things we suffer from, there is no cure and often no sense to it.  Sure, THINGS happen and we, OK I do not react the way people who don’t suffer from major depression react, but often there is it.  On my radio.  I feel out of control.  Like my car will swerve into oncoming traffic, literally and metaphorically.  I feel like I don’t have control over my own mind, my own heart.  My poor heart that is abuse by both me and my illness.  I am not an innocent party here.  I still let things hurt my heart that I shouldn’t give power to.  Things I should LET THE FUCK GO OF ALREADY.  I feel way too old to not have learned the lessons of self protection.  Forgiving myself.  I cling.  That girl in grade 7 send a note to some other girl that i found saying i was annoying and i can see the handwriting and remember how i felt like it was last week.  LET IT GO.  It is like my heart has this gigantic database of things that hurt and I can conjure them up at anytime.  World’s most reliable software! !  I can search by any parameters – age, hurt by;name, gender, date, what shoes I was wearing, where the hurt took place (that one in grade 10 in the cafeteria was a son of a bitch), the overalls with polka dots were perfect for 1985 though.  <a href=”http://lauriewrites.typepad.com/weblog/”>Laurie</a>, my friend, made friendlier by sxsw, told me twice, briefly, stop giving that power.  Laurie, is smart and wicked in a good way, a great writer, beautiful, wonderful, and you want to be her friend.  She listened to all manner of my blathering while we were in Austin and feel grateful for that.  I wish she could live on mu pocket, not as angel (not that she is’;t one), but as a compass.  I don’t know my emotional direction for shit right now.

Ultimately I know I need to find my own way right?.  The medication will always be there, but surely I can learn right?  I can hard wire some things in my heart to protect it from others.  From myself.  First job ion order for me is where the hell is magnetic north? At least for me.

Jen

From Adams Street

When I was about 11, I went to a party at my aunt and uncle’s house with my dad and his wife. Most of my cousins were there. A couple of days beforehand I had sprouted a lovely pimple right in the middle of my forehead. I put a band aid over it before I went to the party and tried to pass it off as a cut. My cousins weren’t buying it. Most were older than I was and knew what a band aid on the face meant. Zit! They weren’t horribly cruel, just mildly cruel in the way kids can be. And I was alone among siblings and very anxious and nervous. I remember wanting to be anywhere on earth but there.

In the twilight, some of my cousins sought me out and told me a horrible thing. They said that my Uncle Bob had told everyone that I wasn’t the daughter of my parents. I was really the daughter of my much older sister. “That’s why you all had to go to Missouri. So Debbie could have you. They’re just pretending that she’s your sister.”

The noise of the grown-up party filtered out through the windows in a happy din, but it didn’t feel warm to me. It felt like a wall, and I didn’t want to be on either side of it.

Did I run to my father and demand the truth? Did I protest to my cousins that Uncle Bob was a liar?

I did not.

I filed this nugget of information away, where it nagged at me for 20 years.

Eventually I came to believe it was bullshit. Eventually I came to believe that it didn’t matter if it were true.

But it affected me profoundly throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. I never felt like I fit in. I felt like the whole operation was a house of cards that could come down at any minute. I believed that no one told the truth, especially my parents.

My Uncle Bob died on Friday. I’m sorry that my father is in pain over his loss. But, really, he was kind of a shit.

Originally published here.

Tonight, as I walked in and sat down in the last available wooden chair I began to feel the creepy crawly anxiety creeping it’s way up my legs, into my stomach, and back down again.

What about this place makes me so uncomfortable?

The chair I sit in is hard and slanted, almost like it’s trying to push me out of it’s lap. I look around to see if perhaps I should just sit on the floor.

I remember the last time I was there, I was in a comfortable yet slightly broken recliner.

It’s not my seat, maybe it’s the guy sitting next to me shaking so much I fear he’ll come apart before our eyes in the crowded room where people are sharing their experience, fear, and hopes.

I look around and feel unsettled, again with the sliding feeling as if I’m being pulled gravitationally down to the floor. I look at the floor for a nice spot, and notice it’s dirty and dusty. Why would that matter to me? It’s not like I’m wearing nice slacks. My yoga pants and a fleece jacket were the best I was able to put together. Even before I arrived, I was uncomfortable about going, not knowing until I was there. In the slanted wooden chair.

I push the chair back, I cross my legs. Shortly after, I uncross them and cross the other way. No, it still isn’t working. Surely people can detect my anxiety. Perhaps they understand all too well that this chair, the last open one is not a welcoming chair but a menacing evil ride that has no intentions of being an actual chair.

What happened at the time the wood was chopped down? Could the tree have resented being chopped away, and then striped, sanded, and painted into something a person would use only to put their fat butt into? I can’t blame the chair, I’d rather be standing tall in the woods myself. Not piled into this cramped room with dirty floors listening to the inner thoughts of injured people.

Focus on the topic, focus on why I am there. Focus on why this room makes me uncomfortable. Focus on that. The people? The set up? The chairs? Maybe I could re-arrange the room some time before any of the others showed up? Put a little feng shui on it, make it more inviting and comfortable.

I would definitely vacuum the floors and wipe away the dust. and put out a diffuser to help create a peaceful smell. Diffusers are safer than the candles that burn, or incense. Lest a person forget and leave them burning, burning the place to the ground. That would be bad.

It’s my turn to speak, I have nothing coherent to say so I pass.

Everyone speaks and there is still time left. Before I realize what is happening words are coming from my mouth. Nothing makes any sense. I wrap it up, knowing that I’ve managed to speak words that are of no value.

The last person begins to share.

I finally realize what the problem is with the room. It’s not the people, the dirty floor or the dust.

The room resembles a room from my childhood. The one located at a church that the older men would get together in and watch the latest “game” on television. The room was lined with recliners but much bigger than the room I was currently in.

One day, I happened to have walked into that room taking a break from the church chorus. A man waved me over and greeted me. My back to the wall, hidden from anyone else. He puts his hand into my shorts from the back so that no one could see.

I stand there frozen, unable to move and not understanding what I’d done to allow this to happen. Panic, anxiety, fear and anger are swirling around in my six year old head. Why is he touching my privates and how did I end up in that room? Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to walk into this TV room? I have no idea who any of these men are and this one, acted as if he knew me.

As a predator, he did know me. He saw my sadness, the stamp on my forehead. He knew that I was one that wouldn’t tell. They always know.

Thirty three years later, it still makes me uncomfortable even in a room with others that would understand.

My only hope that the man in the recliner is resting peacefully, twelve feet under in a wooden box his remains being ravaged by worms and insects.

This was me last week.  I am really struggling here.  As I have said before, I am not sure people know what to say to me anymore.  Either the people I see day-to-day or my regular blog readers.  So I am re-posting  something from last week, with some changes.  I hope no one minds.

Love,

JenB

———–>

I can’t answer in one word.  Let us try a few:  cautious, scared, worried, i can wear a size 14 jeans from the gap.  I am actually getting anxious writing this post.  I have been avoiding writing this post.  I have been avoiding: seeing the doctor, getting my blood work done, checking my sugar levels, eating as prescribed, working out as much as I should be, doing anything right really.  I have been: eating sweets, not eating enough protein, sleeping a lot, changing my (going off of Effexor) psychiatric medications, hemming my workout pants so I don’t trip on them.

I have been doing good thing in fits and starts.  Protein shake here, no white carbs there, seeing my trainer twice a week, but not doing even remotely enough cardio.  We b ought the Wii fit, for fun mostly, I thought it would energize me to do more serious workouts at the gym and some yoga at the very least.  I had no idea the Wii fit <strong>WEIGHS</strong> YOU.  I have not weighed myself or been weighed since March when I saw the orthopedic surgeon about my knee.  Then it became scarier and scarier and one day I would be convinced I had lost a few pounds over the past month and then I would be certain I was almost back to my heaviest (impossible according to what size of clothing I am wearing).  It is now become my great white whale, which is funny really, i mean you know FUNNY.  Whale = fat, okay, I am over explaining a lame joke.

I am worried this is it, I will either stay where I am, or I will slowly gain it back and be what I was before.  Which I cannot even define other than “fatter”.

I was always worried that when the goals of the weight loss surgery started turning into how I looked and buying new clothes and having people say I look good or I have lost weight or GOOD FOR YOU! We were afraid you were going to be the fat one forever.  I am plateauing or gaining, or fuck if I know, right?  My mom and dad “how is the weight loss thing, you know surgery and diabetes and everything going”.  I am defensive.  “What do you mean?  Do I look fat?  Does it look like I have gained weight?  WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?” Articulating everything in my own head that I wish they wouldn’t ask me about ever. That I wish I could just update people without having to answer to anyone or ever talk about it really.  I want to be the person who got to a reasonable weight after 11-12 month, stay at that weight and then be able to advise and muse about how it was to be so heavy and so reasonable and ok with my weight now.

So many obstacles in my way.  The hugest one is me, lots of parts of me.  The eating disorder, always lurking. Someone, (doctors, books, dietitians, my MIND, the interwebs, the world, THE MAN) is telling me what I should be eating, I almost automatically say FUCK YOU, I will have this donut, bowl of chips, ice cream bar.  Bingeing is decidedly smaller amount, but bingeing when you stomach is wee and you know you shouldn’t but you WANT to HAVE to, is still bingeing.  It is still a fuck you to the rules.  I am 13, 14, 18, 25, all over again.  I had a similar reaction when I found out I was diabetic.  Rebellion via diet.  I am so cool.  I wish I could just pierce my nose, or bungee jump.  Instead I retreat inside myself and eat in secret, hiding it from everyone, pretty much successfully, all the time.  Am I self sabotaging, my therapist asks?  I don’t know.  I am afraid of finally losing the weight?  Maybe, I don’t know.  Is it a control issues?  Fuck yes, I can control what I eat and I can’t control what I eat or don’t eat all a the same time.  I am the mobius strip of food control. Yes, I feel expectations from family and friends.  I do not feel understood because I do not understand myself.

I feel like this will be another thing I will not complete, I will fail at.  I have trouble starting things and even more trouble completing them.  I don’t think I know how to be successful, at anything.

I know the small steps my therapist, husband, friend, tell me I should start at.  Get my blood work done, make sure I am not anemic or my blood sugars aren’t totally fucked, or my liver enzymes are elevated or other things that could go wrong.  Step two would be to actually make a doctor’s appointment, well, the doctor would call mewith my lab results, I feel sure there would be something to discuss there.  Once I go to the doctor, they will weigh me.  Weigh me.  Weigh me.  My worth a 3 digit number.  My success, my progress, who I have been since having the surgery will be those numbers on the scale.  I want to talk myself out of that melodramatic bullshit, it sounds so juvenile, so junior school, so first true love breakup story.

I am so scared I have already fucked this up to a place where I cannot return.  So scared.  Terrified.  My bed is so less scary. My sleep, my books, my solitude.