RealMental

My therapist has learned that sometimes if I’m having a hard time getting something out, I’ll disguise it with a bunch of small stuff that doesn’t make any sense, the words just leaving my mouth like a bunch of clowns leaving a clown car.

He’s gotten good at throwing in a “STOP RIGHT THERE”.

I don’t like that I do it, I’d much rather cut to the chase and say what needs to be said.

Towards the end of my last appointment I told him that I needed to get my affairs in order, and getting a job was at the top of the list.  I told him part of the reason I hadn’t gotten one was because I’ve been sad and lazy.

So he did the STOP RIGHT THERE, and said “those words you just spoke were authentic”.

“That I’ve been sad and lazy?” I replied, my head turned sideways like a dog, with the confused look.

See, I like to think that I am an authentic person all the time.  I had to toss that one around for a bit, quietly in my own head.

Typically when he points something out like this, it’s something I am already vaguely aware of.  But this, this being authentic was what I already thought I was.

Slowly, one of the layers in my head pulled back showing me what it was hiding behind the curtain.

Ohhhhhhh…..  I think I comprehend that now.

What I saw is that sometimes I am doing auto pilot, saying the things I know sound like the right answers.  Auto Pilot.  The dominoes started toppling over revealing nuggets of myself that I’d scooted off to the side for future reference.

FUCK.  That’s a pretty huge key to a lot of other stuff that I need to sort out.

I guess you could say that I’ve been “contained” for a few years now.  Meaning, things are shitty.  I know they are shitty, but I know they’ll pass because everything eventually passes right?

It isn’t that I was conscientiously trying to withhold information from myself, rather I think it was a way of protecting myself from something.  Or protecting someone else from my “something”.

Suffice to say, I’ve been turning this around in my head for the past week trying to get a firm grasp in order to deal with it properly.

Overcompensating for a truth I’ve been trying to avoid.  A truth that will shake some things up in a way that I don’t want to be shook up.  I don’t want to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.

Uterus contracting, feels like it will fall out.

With each contraction a sad reminder that even more eggs are escaping, never to be developed into another human.

Heart sad, heart broken, had to put my best friend to sleep.

He served me well, watched over me and bit the ones that needed to be bitten.

Machines are breaking, money needed to fix, money not available.

Life goes on, churning each day running to the next.

People smiling to cover their sickness, people laughing when they should be crying.

Pretending to be something they aren’t, rotting corpses behind their smiles.

I need a break, a break from it all to remember who i was before i fell.

Fell a long way, deep down into the hole of what I thought was the “right things to do” drain.  i knew better, yes I did.

Roads less traveled are not for the weary, the weak or the frail.  I chose this road.  Knowing, it would throw me out of my glass house.

Windows are broken, blood spattered on the walls, water damage from the tears, backing up in the pipes and threatening an explosion of epic damages.

Life is what this is.

Life.

Mental illness is what I have; seen as a disability, maybe it’s just the way some of us are.   The way squirrels are nervous.

Some choose not to be here, some choose to leave early, some walk with me shadowed by their own distractions of their own path.

Grateful to feel, grateful to live, grateful for the opportunity.

All that appears to be “in the way”; simply the scenic route.

Lessons to be learned, beauty to be admired, love to be tasted.

Above all, I must remember.

This.

This, is a life NOT wasted and there are no magic answers.

I said, “I don’t want to hurt this person, I’ve spend a lot of time trying to deflect their pain”.

“But aren’t you hurting yourself in the process”, he asked.

I said, “In way, yes.  But…”

His response, “But what?  Isn’t that how it was as a child?  You put others before you, you weren’t important.  You were made to be responsible for other peoples emotional well being and that’s never the job of a child.”

“Oh” I thought aloud.  Back to that.  It always goes back to the origin doesn’t it.

If I take care of them, they will at some point take care of me.  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?  No.  That’s how we think it’s supposed to work but it never comes out that way. Not for me anyway.  Maybe someone, somewhere (besides Hollywood movies) it’s worked like that.  Never for me, yet I keep trying to complete that cycle and I lose myself in the process over and over again.

The source of that thinking, if I can protect the others, take their beatings for them, take the blame, take the spotlight and make it all my fault, I can control it and, somehow make it better.

No one comes out and asks me to do this, it’s one of those wordless agreements that we all make.  It’s an entire script, in my head, set on auto pilot.

My therapist suggested (about a year ago) that I needed to have a conversation about that wordless agreement, to tell the other person that I could no longer hold that position.  I was losing myself in the process and it wasn’t their fault, but I needed to resign from that job.

Sometimes, I think other people don’t mind that we lose ourselves as long as we serve as a prop for them.  (Again, auto pilot behavior.)

Once you’ve established that type of “agreement” it’s hard to move away from it.  It takes time, more conversations, discipline.  I have discipline to change my behavior, or I’m pretty sure I do.  It can be done even if it is like trying to turn a commercial ocean liner.

Funny how it is that I forget this small detail, that I push myself to the side in order to make things better for another person.  Not because I’m a martyr, I have ulterior motives (see above “If I take care of them…”).

All this collected crap manifests itself in many ways.  Much like plant roots, seeking the water and nutrients it needs to survive all the while hidden underneath the ground never seen by the casual observer.

Until something starts to wilt or die, then the journey begins again to find the source.  In order to make it right.

When do you know it’s time to go?  Does the end have a sign posted to let you know it’s the end?  Tell me what the end looks like, tell me in your words what the end feels like.

You replay it in your mind, what you think will happen.  You warn the others, hoping they’ll prepare.  If they don’t prepare, you can’t be held responsible for them not preparing can you?

False starts of the end impede progress, you are too busy thinking “this is it” so you walk around looking at the sky.  The birds can see it faster than you, so maybe if you climb up in that tree you can see it too.

You look to the clouds for a sign, hoping you’ll see a formation or at least a diagram telling you to get out while you still can.

Hope whispers in your ear, it tells you that maybe just maybe it’ll work.  This time.  This time, things will really change.

This time, the person will see the impending doom of a black cloud that’s been over your head for longer than you can remember.

Hope tells you to wait.  Wait, wait, and wait some fucking more for the thing that’s going to really get through to the one it needs to get through too.

But it doesn’t.  It’s time to make good on all your threats, you didn’t sign up for this, you didn’t sign up for this class, this session, this fucking workshop.

Bastards, all of them.

Just pick up your toys and go, start fresh, begin again.  Do it better this time, make it clearer this time.

Go on down to Slab City, join the others looking for freedom.

How many people stop in their tracks some days and wonder just how in the hell they got to the particular point in their lives that they got to.

I’ve been doing this for a long time now.  I retrace my steps, I inventory the steps I took that led me to where I am right now and wonder what will come of it all.

One of my closest friends recently told me, that while speaking to another person close to me, she told this person at that point, “she’s the most unhappy that I’ve ever known her to be”.   I’m the she in that sentence.  That was over five years ago.  I asked her why didn’t she tell me then but she was uncertain.

I started crying when she told me this, knowing deep down that I was unhappy, and that I’ve been unhappy for a long time.  I’ve been doing the “make the best of it and maybe it’ll get better”!  I had some obstacles to overcome, some stuff that needed to be worked out and really hard life stuff that came in constant waves for a few years.

Life sure can take you full speed ahead down twisting roads and you have no time to catch your breath, much less your mind.  With each new battle, I would pray for the serenity I needed in order to climb the next hill.

I did what was in front of me to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I persevered.  I stayed the course, I kept it together.  Silently questioning what it was that I had to learn from these calamities.  Why me God?  WHY ME?

Much as I despise that question (because it’s screams of a character flaw I do not wish to emulate) I would ask anyway.  Ultimately trusting that I was where I was supposed to be and sometimes the life you want and think you should have is not the life you get.  Acceptance is what they call that I believe.

At what point should you stop convincing yourself that this is how it is supposed to be?  At what point do you realize that being unhappy isn’t what you want out of life?

An answer to this riddle has eluded me for a few years now and I’m not even sure what course to take in order to change it.  In fact, I’ve only just begun to speak of it’s truth, I’ve only just begun to realize that I have to change my course.

This scares me, despite my experience and knowledge that changing courses brings about blessings and clears away the things that no longer serve me, opening me up for a new adventure.

Painful, uncomfortable, sad, and hopeless are a few of the friends that will join me in the change, even though I know their counterparts of love, joy, serenity, hope and freedom are waiting on the other side for me with cookies and tea.

Swimming in and out of clear thinking, feeling as if i am sinking.

I do not want to fully go to the place where the surroundings are dark, cold, and wet with sadness.

I must find the way out of this tricky terrain of blinding emotions, I must get in MOTION.

Hark!

I will move out of this place, I won’t stay.

Perhaps it is necessary for me in order to move on to the next chapter.

YES!

It’s time.

To move onward, to push forward.

To get the fuck back up.

I can and I will, my will is strong.

Falling, slipping, skinning my knees is to be expected but not enough of a reason to keep me down.

Look for me I’m still there, wave as I walk past.

I woke up one morning a few weeks ago, and felt pain on each of my fingers.  I realized that I’d managed to mutilate every fucking one of them the night before.

This is a consequence of emotional pain, I am not present despite the fact that I am physically there.  If you told me that someone else did it while I was sleeping I would be more inclined to believe that.

The trouble with self harm is that sometimes it’s over before you realize what you’ve done.  Looking down at my fingers, all fucking ten of them, I was ashamed of myself for letting it happen.  No reason to be alarmed, mine coping mechanism just happens to be visible.  Many are not.

I wondered how I could go out in public with band aids on all ten of my fingers.

Portions of the shame I feel stems from the fact that I know better.  And by knowing better, I should be able to DO better.  Right?

I know why I do it, I know that it doesn’t solve anything.  I know that I do it to escape feeling emotional pain.  It is a defense mechanism set in place by my brain when my emotions are overwhelmed.  Like a safety on a gun.

This situation I’ve been processing is like a hurricane; it brings things from other places in my psyche, all triggering my latent mental illness and wounds of yore.

There is no cure (that I am aware of) to rid myself of the feelings that I have to feel, and the time that has to pass.   I have hope that I’ll get there when I get there.

Meanwhile, try not to notice the band aids on my fingers because I’m trying hard to pretend they aren’t there too.