RealMental

By guest writer Laurie

So. I’ve been in a good mood for months. Months. Happy shiny months of months.

I went to BlogHer. I came home. I started writing again. I went to the beach, for a fabulous week. I came home. People like me in a good mood. I like me in a good mood.

And then I crashed. It kind of started at the end of vacation, the weird way I get when things are just a little off, the frequency starts humming just a little too loud and nothing helps. I’m owning it here because I don’t know what else to do with it anymore, honestly, but also because I figure if I can go back to making this a daily practice when nothing else is happening with any consistency, at least that’s something.

And what I do when this happens is I isolate. I go back to my literal and figurative basement. I do not want to talk about it. I want to sit and not talk. I don’t want to tell anyone what really goes on in here, because really? It’s not interesting and it’s not engaging and time is limited for even interesting and engaging things.

Maybe not writing about things keeps them buried. Maybe that was the purpose of keeping myself on lockdown for a year. Or it’s like a conference hangover, you know, you’re surrounded by all of this positive reinforcement and “you can do it”, it’s all Amway and Mary Kay but it’s not, it’s the epically cooler versions of those. And you start to think – I’m doing it again, writing in the “you” speak when really I mean me, I hate when I do that – I start to think of all the things I want and need and maybe should do to bring some order to these proceedings.

I knew things were building up. Old patterns started repeating (Addicts to any kind of behavior or substance will likely recognize this statement.) When I start listening to August and Everything After on repeat and the “I should never have left Ohio” mental tape starts playing I know I’m screwed, which, as true as it may be, and lord knows I have so much love in my heart for Dayton, it’s not useful thinking because it didn’t happen, and I needed to get out of that place when I did because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have left and I’d be divorced with 2.5 children and driving around Centerville drinking wine out of a sippy cup, no question. (But property values? Could totally own my own house to be drunk in.) August 9 was my tenth anniversary back in Maryland. Maybe I can blame it on that.

Everything started triggering tears again, and I hadn’t been doing that shit for MONTHS. It’s not like I set out to do it on purpose, it just happens and I get so ANGRY when I feel it happening again, because it just doesn’t seem fair that it happens when I’m just cruising along minding my own business and trying to do good things and really when I’m in that place I am super. Even I can cop to that at this point. In any event I’m the opposite of sitting there going, “Oh, thanks, this has been great, could I please have a MOTHERFUCKING MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL END OF SUMMER SALE???? THANKS DUDE! GOT IT COVERED THANKS.”And as always happens, something stupid triggered it.

Saturday I went to see Julie and Julia, which I didn’t really hate although I thought I would, and it plunged me into a ridiculous horrible pit of depression because I don’t have my own kitchen (I’m not kidding. This is huge right now for some reason. It’s like I want to make pot roast every night or start a cupcake of the week club. I. Am. Insane.) This is also no one’s fault but mine. These are life choices writ large. And also my blog sucks and no one loves me as much as that little man loved Julia Child even though she talked like that all damn day and I didn’t come up with the idea to cook 365 days of recipes that I stole from someone in order to get a book and then a movie deal and everything just sucks it sucks it sucks, are you going to eat that meatball? No? Thanks. And perhaps more wine?

I had an embarrassing episode immediately following the movie based on the confluence of these factors and my entire weekend tanked, miserably. See how fast that happens? I am a phenom with the overanalysis and the crazy.

Speaking of wine and meatballs, I’ve also been off the regular exercise routine that had been going so well and really went down the drain between BlogHer and the beach, because you know what? I was TIRED. I did a few crazy long walks on the beach which probably helped keep me stable for the amount of beer I drank while I was there and I think I may have needed a break from the almost daily literal beating I was taking at the gym. It’s just so easy to spiral out of control if I let it go even for a little while. Even a week is too long. It also turns out that workouts are essential to my mental wellbeing, and without them, I end up here again, where I do not want to be. And it’s really easy to go down in a hole about this particular issue, especially when once I’ve broken the workout cycle it’s SO hard to get back in the groove. All the head games start again and these games are complex and difficult to win.

ISSUES, I have issues. I’m trying honesty around here. It may or may not be working.

And yet. And yet. I am trying. I’m thinking of the lists of things to be thankful for, which makes me stabby more than it helps sometimes, because I kind of like my gratitude to be natural and not forced, but maybe I need to get over myself where that’s concerned too. I am trying to be forgiving and understand why people intrude upon your personal physical and psychic space with weird comments and invasive behavior, why they won’t pick up on social cues to behave just a little bit differently, please stay behind the yellow line until your number is called, that sort of thing. I am trying not to say mean things to my students. I am trying not to purposefully seek out things that will upset me.

I haven’t been very much fun to be around for the past two weeks, and I don’t like it either. Knowing that action cures anxiety, I have assignments for myself, the life management shit I hate, and I’m trying very hard to take an action every day. I know what to do, the ass-kicking I need to give myself to avoid the bad places. The long-term goal list needs to be revisited. And as for the short-term, I’m going to try to go back to kickboxing, because if there’s anything I need right now it’s aggressive physical activity. Listening to a lot of pissed off screamy music is helping too. And I need to communicate even when I don’t feel like it with people I know are good influences, because at times like this I’m editing myself before I open my mouth or type a word and that’s part of the problem.

And it turns out that due to the muscle deterioration that quickly occurs when one stops working out in a concentrated fashion for almost a month, I’ve lost two more pounds. So you know, there’s that.

Previously posted here.

About three months ago I made a decision to stop contact with a few of my family members.  Some very key members of my family that have helped to guide me, shape me, and make me want to cease contact with them at some point in my life.

I did not just wake up one day and decide, “gee, this is a good day to stop talking to some people”.  It was more of a culmination of items over a period of years that brought me to the decision.  I’d considered over the years.  Not something that I’ve ever done before, never thought I would ever be able to.

It feels weird to me.

Now that I’ve gone and done it.

Stopped communication with a few of my family members.

At first, I could not believe how good I felt not being tethered to the legacy of unhealthy behavior that I’d convinced myself for all too long, that was “just how we are”.

Since the official “event”, I’ve happily reported to my therapist that I feel really good.  REALLY GOOD.  And, very free.

A very important thing to remember is that this is something I did for myself.  Not to punish anyone else, not because they are bad and evil.  It’s a road that I simply had to travel down in order to achieve some separation I so badly needed.

My history has been one of carrying other people’s anxiety.  No one asked me to do this, it’s just how I’m made.  Having spent many years going in the wrong direction for other people, I am learning how to go in my own direction.

This is something I’ve learned recently, by taking this action.  I can be influenced easily by others if I trust them.  This isn’t unusual –  it’s a common human behavior –  to be influenced by those we love and trust.  The key is to not forget who we are, and what our own story is.

Over the past few years I’ve had some almost insurmountable obstacles in my life, emotional pain that brought me to my knees and made me question everything that I thought I knew.

I could easily write about the huge injustices that have been “done” to me over the years, how unfairly I’ve been treated.  Sure, I could do that.  But what would it prove?  What would it solve?  What good could come of it?  Not any good, that’s how much.  I know this because I did spend too much time lamenting in that batch of unhealthy.

I suppose that was a necessary part of the process, until I realized that it wasn’t improving my quality of life in any way after my initial screams.

What IS important is how I process the events that happen in my own life.  What is important is what I DO with the events.  What is important is that I take responsibility for myself and my part in said events.

I love my family, I miss them.  I miss the good stuff, I miss the fact that they know me better sometimes than I know myself.  I hope they understand this, I hope they understand my need for solitude in order to find my way through this chapter.

I’m learning a lot, I’m gaining insight that previously eluded me, getting closer to the center, closer to knowing more.

About myself.

“It ought to make us all feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we talk about, when we talk about love.”          –Raymond Carter

The crazier I got—or perhaps, the longer I was crazy—the less boundaries I had.  Goodbye kisses on the forehead migrated down until a boy, not my fiancé, said goodbye on my lips.  Boys—other ones—snaked arms around my waist, across my chest.  On the same outside swing, I alternately cuddled, shotgunned marijuana, was felt up.

This used to be my fucked-up notion of intimacy.  When my synapses crossed and misfired and exploded, I thought that these things [they all felt like electricity] were what intimacy was all about.

I was being used.  I was using them.

I ought to have felt ashamed.  I do feel ashamed, now—a deep intense shame that spreads through my skin.

Flash-forward three years, now or almost.  I’ve traded in boys who push hair out of my face for boys who push me up staircases.  I’ve never hugged my friend Joe.  Despite two years of him being my best friend in medical school, we’ve never hugged.

All those things I thought I knew about intimacy, all those secrets I thought the world was whispering to me about love: I had no idea what I was talking about when I talked about love.  But when I stopped equating physicality with intimacy, my ideas about love expanded.

I discovered that: sometimes “I love you” sounds a lot more like “If I had ping-pong paddle hands, I would beat the shit out of you.”  Sometimes, someone wraps their arms around you to pick you up, and you flail against them and kick their shins, but they don’t let go—a metaphor, one I pick up because I’ve had too many people let go when I flailed.  Given the choice between singing the words, “Me and you, and you and me—no matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be” in four-part synchrony and a goodbye kiss on the forehead, I will chose the former every single time.

A few months ago, I called Joe on the phone after arguing with Joey, my boyfriend.  I was upset, so upset I reverted back to my “crazy” way of dealing with things:  I had been driving over bridges, crying and screaming the words to Everclear’s “You Make Me Feel Like A Whore” until I was hoarse and no less hysterical.  I felt raw and vulnerable.  I texted to ask if I could come over for a minute—it was test week and I knew he was still up.

After I had calmed down, I apologized profusely for interrupting his late evening.  “It doesn’t matter, don’t apologize,” he said over and over, but I kept saying I was sorry.  He switched on me:

“There were times when I could have left,” he reminded me, “but I didn’t.”  The implication was that he had known what he was getting into, with this friendship.  That he had signed up for hysterical phone calls, for the sound of my sobs resonating out of his staircase, for me showing up at midnight with tears soaked into my face.

“There will be more times,” I said.  More times he could leave, more times he has to deal with me leaking out of my head.

“Probably.”

“And will you leave then?”

“I don’t think so.”

He talked me down, told me that Joey was handling his feelings in a good way, that he’d been smart.  He put a mug of water in the microwave.  He pulled it out and I watched him [like I always do] slip a few pieces of ice into it so I could drink it immediately.  He searched his boxes of tea, pulled out one and prepared it for me to drink.  “Go home, and go to bed,” he said, “this will help you sleep.”

I watch the two of us, sometimes, and I am reminded how little I knew about the love of friendship before.  Knowing him has made me a better person, a better friend to others and a better girlfriend to Joey.  When Joe turns his hand slightly to receive my car keys, when he reads my mind, when we remember the same obscure SNL reference or fight to see who can get out one of “our” quotes first, when we sing duets in his car—I can think of nothing more intimate.  I know now that I know what I talk about when I talk about love.

Depression, originally uploaded by Eddi 07.

Sometimes i lose myself in depression. Depression is no illness- it is Persephones call home and a special reminder that something new is coming.

So, take your time, have a cup of coffee, relax… whatever you need! ;)

Sitting still and feeling my feelings has become almost impossible. I have the urge to run, run, run and do, do, do and it doesn’t really matter what or where as long as I’m not there or maybe not me. But, of course, I’ll be there, wherever I go and I will always be me, as fucked up as that can be.

I think about when I was diagnosed with Bi-polar and wonder if that is me or not. Some of the symptoms fit some of the time and there are many bizarre things I’ve done over the years that could be slotted into that diagnosis, but I don’t know. The meds made me a zombie and I cried a lot. I was once diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and I have lots of things that could slot in there, as well. But because I’m DID, I could be all those things or none of those things. I think I’m tired of diagnoses and searching for answers and trying new medications and the whole basket of things that come with being mentally ill. The labeling – I’m tired of the labeling.

So, I try and sit here, and feel. I try to identify what I’m feeling and to what extent. And that means I have to label everything going on inside me. It’s hard and not fun. It’s not the same kind of introspective afternoon where you get to think about your future and all the possibilities that are out there. No, it’s more like cleaning out the junk drawer and finding dimes and push-pins and keys you have no idea what they go to. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when I love cleaning and organizing. But this internal stuff is HARD and I have to do it so OFTEN. It’s the only way to short-circuit the harmful cycles that come with not paying attention. When I’m no longer making choices, and instead I wander and react purely on my environment.

If I don’t do the work? I end up 3 states away and wonder why I’m there. I forget I’m married to a wonderful man. I go out and buy $700 worth of stuff we don’t need. I drink too much. I don’t eat. I fantasize about self-harming and prepare to do it. I sleep for an entire week straight. I obsess on everything I’ve ever done, ever, that wasn’t ok. I plan and plan and plan for every disaster that could happen. Ever. Anywhere. I dissociate without meaning to and don’t pay attention when I’m ‘not out.’ That one in particular leads to paying the car payment twice in one month when we can’t afford it because of the really large sums of money we sent in the mail to the IRS. I keep a headache going for days and abuse my liver with high doses of acetaminophen for weeks on end. I compulsively begin to straighten everything into sections. I draw lines with my fingers all day, copying words people say or shapes I see or images I have stuck in my head from childhood. I can’t follow a conversation with someone I care about and hurt their feelings with what looks like disinterest. And I get depressed to a level where ways to kill myself pop into my head with no notice. Jumping and dancing around what I feel.

Sit, Leah. Sit.

My leg is touching the door and I can feel the vibrations of the music through my knee cap. I’m not thinking. I’m just feeling the bass line and mouthing the words. My mouth opens and closes with the words but no sound comes out. I don’t think I know this song. If I was the passenger in the car to the left, I would think I was singing. But if I was the passenger in the car to the left, I wouldn’t be me. I would be him. I think about this for awhile, forgetting to mouth along to the song, my jaw slightly slack.

What if I was him? That guy to the left? I wouldn’t be me. Or I would be both. I would have his feelings. Or they would be the same as the ones I have now, just his. Or they would be different. And I would look over and see me and wonder about the lady driving in the big black van and hope she had at least one other person in the car to make that beast worth while. And I would know that she wasn’t really singing because I didn’t really sing, either. Orange would be slightly different, but how, I couldn’t say. I would like the air slightly warmer in the cab of the car while driving, but my wife would want it cooler and I’d wear gloves to keep my hands warm, even in the summer. I’d hate the birds that shit on the car under the palm tree. I’d love orange suckers and I’d do ceramics on the weekend as a hobby to calm my nerves. Or are they my nerves. Or mine. I don’t know.

My shoe is near the speaker and I can feel the vibrations of the music climbing up my leg. I turn the bass up and look up to notice the sign that says the name of street I know, but isn’t on my route home. I’m confused for a moment and then I realize I passed my exit about twenty minutes back.

I wonder where I’m going.

I’m driving as if I don’t care that I’m not headed in the right direction. I just passed an exit where I could have turned around. And another one. And another. I’m not changing lanes to get to the right. I’m just going forward at a steady 73 miles per hour. Maybe I don’t care. But I don’t know where I’m going.

I’m out of water. My mouth is dry. I have a headache. I get off the freeway and get back on, heading west.

My hands are on the steering wheel and the vibrations are coursing through my fingers and into my wrists. The music is too loud and I turn it down. Then off. The car on my right is driving right in my blind spot. When I speed up, he speeds up. When I slow down, He slows down. I punch the gas and hit over 80, moving away from the irritation. The road is bumpy on this stretch and the van bobs up and down violently for a few seconds. The Santa Annas are blowing hard against the windshield and I can hear the whistle it makes as it leaks through the seams around the doors. It’s high pitched and screaming. All it would take is my not handling the wind very well. Just a tiny mistake going around the right bend of the hills. The tire would hit a pothole and explode. The van would flip over and over, jumping over the guardrail and into the middle of oncoming traffic. I could even take off my seat belt first. I look at myself in the rear view mirror. And then I look away. My foot comes off the gas pedal a little and I slow down to 68 and hit cruise control.

The wind whistling through the doors grows deeper and less insistent. It sounds more like a hum and less like a shriek. I take a few slow breaths and turn the music back on, but softly. I click forward through the songs until I find something mellow.

I’m close to home now. And I think I’m glad. The thoughts and feelings I’ve been avoiding come rushing at me. I’m a horrible person. I’m so unworthy of love. The world would be a better place without me. My kids deserve a better mom. Joe would have a better life without me. I imagine saying that out loud to Joe and I can hear his voice in my head. I would say, ‘I’m too broken. It’s never going to get better. How many times can I say I’m sorry before I get on your nerves? Once a day? Twice? I should just leave.’ and he would say, ‘Only say sorry if you commit a sin of commission or omission against me. You haven’t. You don’t need to be sorry. Your existence is not a sin. I love you. I hope you don’t leave. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ And then I’m crying but I don’t know if it’s happening now or yesterday when he said it for real.

The car is stopped and parked in front of the house. I’m home. Home. The thrumming I feel isn’t music. It’s my thoughts and I’m trying to get them under control before I walk in the house. I’m numbing out my mind, creating a buffer around my body and settling in the center where it’s calm and one tiny bit of what I hope is reality comforts me as I gather my things and head up the walkway.

Your existence is not a sin. I love you.

Originally published here.

From Bloggymommer

Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Lonely. Angry. Anxious. Abandoned. Burdened. Anxious. Disappointed. Anxious. Stressed. In a hurry. Anxious. Unable to sleep. Anxious. Tired. Dragging. Anxious. Worthless. Anxious. Regretful. Anxious. Listless. Wistful. Anxious.

Today, the meds are working, and I am less anxious. A reprieve. It doesn’t happen often. But, when I’m less anxious, I’m left to deal with the other things rattling around in my head.

Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Lonely. Angry. Anxious. Abandoned. Burdened. Anxious. Disappointed. Anxious. Stressed. In a hurry. Anxious. Unable to sleep. Anxious. Tired. Dragging. Anxious. Worthless. Anxious. Regretful. Anxious. Listless. Wistful. Anxious.

I should be celebrating. For the first time in twenty years, I have meds that help. Today I’m not anxious. Lonely. Angry. Abandoned. Burdened. Disappointed. Stressed. In a hurry. Unable to sleep. Tired. Dragging. Worthless. Regretful. Listless. Wistful. But not anxious.

I can sit still! Now that I can sit still: I can, I should… what should I do first?

I’m almost bored. The anxiety has waned, and now I have nothing to do, nothing to think about. Well, not nothing: Lonely. Angry. Abandoned. Burdened. Disappointed. Stressed. In a hurry. Unable to sleep. Tired. Dragging. Worthless. Regretful.

One foot in front of the other. One thing at a time. One. I can’t remember the last time there was a singular thought in my head. I can’t remember this sense of focus. The house is clean. The work is done. There’s nothing on the calendar until next week. What did I focus on, the last time that I had focus? I can’t contain this need to plan something, anything: a trip, a date, a movie premiere, a trip home.

Quiet. Birds chirping, and a bus passing on the street. There’s nothing good on T.V. I need something to do with my hands. I thought I got over this loneliness. I thought I worked through this anger. I feel raw and defenseless. A ten-year-old kid all over again.

I can’t remember the last time I lived a day without that pattern. Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. Keep Busy. Think of something to worry about. Anxious. Anxious. Anxious. It’s bizarre, but at least I knew what to do with my day. Is it strange to miss that?

It’s a beautiful day outside. The chores are done. The list is checked off. There’s nothing to finish up. I’m dressed. I can’t think of what to do or where to go. Now what?