RealMental

By StormyBluez

today was bad-

feel Alone-

my tears feel like acid

I want a gun NOW

I’m lame

my body’s lame

Heart’s _BLACK_

Mind’s sick

Soul – saturated in gasoline (waiting)

I want a vile of poison NOW

To sleep forever

Dream of what I could love

escape this wallow of pity

Strike me with lightning NOW

I’m just not made up to survive.

Spectacle to burn and fall.

By CP

I am listening to The Cult and some other Post Punk Era bullshit music. I love this shit. I can wallow in it’s inane banality all night long if allowed. It brings back some amazing memories for me.

It brings back the mania that I love so much.

I remember being 18 years old and going out to Club Spanky or to Spize and dancing my fucking ass off while shoving mountains of cocaine up my Jewish nose. I was all over Long Island back then, running around to “New Wave” clubs with my half shaven blue hair and my Madonna rubber bracelets. I wore fishnets and combat boots back then. Everything I owned was black. My nails and my lipstick were black. I wasn’t “goth” or anything like that. I was a kid that was desperate to find where she fit in. I loved the post punk era music like The Cure, The Cult, New Order, the Smiths, The Ramones, etc. I wanted to emulate those bands and pay homage to them through my manner of attire. I wrote poetry, deep poetry as I always have, but didn’t share them with anyone. I kept all of that for myself, lest I become a “poser” and be known as someone who was chronically depressed and on the verge of suicide. I wasn’t. I was extremely happy being miserable, taking chances, doing spontaneous things that were definite no no’s for college kids like me.

And there lies the difference. College kid. In school, you would never know about the other life I was leading. Designer jeans, trendy blouses, high heels, pink nail polish and my hair in a ponytail so you couldn’t tell that it was shaved on one side. Yes, the blue streak still showed, but it was the 80’s and no one questioned colorful hair.

It was around this time I think I realized something was wrong with me.

All kids go through phases. I know that. I respect that about youth. I know most of them experiment with drugs, alcohol, sex and that sort of shit. I took everything to the extreme. I was entirely too promiscuous. I slept with more men back then than most women do in a lifetime. Actually, probably more than 10 women have in a lifetime. It wasn’t the sex, it was the control. I said when. I said where. I said how. I said why. And it was never “normal” sex. It always involved some sort of knife play, asphyxiation or blood letting. This is why it pleased me so much to live amongst the night creatures at the punk clubs. I scared the shit out of most of the men I had been with. Eventually it circulated that if you were into insane practices during sex, I was the person to see. I cut myself during sex to watch myself bleed. If the man or woman I was with joined me in doing this, I was all the more thrilled.

During the day, I was chaste, pristine and untouched. I listened to Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson because it was the thing to do. It was what the “normal” kids did. I listened to Great White and Poison too, lest the rockers I hung out with thought I wasn’t cool either. I hated every second of it. It was lies, all lies and that is what my life amounts to. I kept this charade up for years, even after the birth of my first child. Mommy by day, vampire by night. The two lives never met. Never. My daughter didn’t know of my antics and my psychos never knew I had a daughter. I did mescaline, quaaludes, acid…everything but smoke pot, because somehow, I associated smoking weed with being a loser.

Can you imagine? Like I had room to judge someone else.

There were days/nights when I felt too mentally exhausted to keep up with this dual lifestyle and I started to fray at the edges. Eventually, the two worlds did collide and I realized what I had been all along.

I was bipolar, living my mania and my depression in two completely separate and individual lifestyles. My psychiatrist agrees that it is a passive form of schizophrenia. I hear things. I hallucinate sometimes, but I am forever hearing things that aren’t there. Sometimes, they are in the form of whispers. They tell me what to do and I do them. The logic is fallible of course, but to me, it always made sense. Do what the whispers say and no one gets hurt…

at least not right away.

I never felt as happy as I did when I was cutting myself, abusing myself or allowing others to abuse me. It made me feel alive. Even years later, when I was in a relationship that was drowned in domestic violence, there was a certain safety factor there. Everytime he beat me, everytime I saw blood flow from some orifice, I was okay. I was alive and when I didn’t die, I was invincible…a very bad frame of mind for the manic depressive. No one is invincible, but don’t expect me to have believed that.

I think, in a lot of ways, I still live my life this way…the black and the white. Even my blogs are very different. One blog is all white, pretty, shiny and full of silly thoughts and amiable rants. It’s extremely public. The other? Dark, dreary, private and I could give two shits less about what anyone who reads this one thinks of me. On the other one, I do care…because I want the world to see the changes I have made in myself.

Have I changed? I don’t know.

I know a part of me still yearns to break free of the Mommy/Wife/Nurse life. It’s not that I don’t love my family. I do, probably moreso than most. I love being a nurse. I love my children with every fiber of my being and I couldn’t breathe without my husband. But, there are times when I just want to walk away from it all because I feel like I don’t belong. I don’t fit in. I am not ordinary. I am extraordinary and I know this. I am a walking contradiction and it breaks my heart that I can’t be completely content like other people are. I try to count my blessings like a good girl should, but I can’t see them sometimes. I know this makes me sound like an ingrate. I resemble that remark. There are people in the world that would kill for my life.

And still, there is the side of me that needs to bleed.

I hurt myself all the time, just to make sure that I am still in existance. I don’t take a razor to my arms anymore. I don’t gash myself with knives any longer. What I do, I do passively. I rip the cuticles from my nails in one swift move, knowing it is going to hurt like crazy and bleed. I leave my hair dye on a little too long so my scalp burns. I take showers in water that would make other people blister. I make myself sick, physically…like a sick form of Münchhausen Syndrome. I will do things that make me suffer because it is the only way I can feel. I hurt myself emotionally too, setting myself up for disappointment over and over again. I betray myself constantly. I set myself up to be fired from jobs I love because I don’t feel worthy of keeping them. I keep very high expectations of people and then, knowing full well they couldn’t possibly measure up to them…I allow it to disappoint and discourage me. It gives me a reason to be angry at someone…

someone other than myself.

If you met me on the street, you wouldn’t have a clue about this girl. Not one iota. You would think I am the most well adjusted human being on the planet. I am funny. I have a great sense of humor and sense of self when put in all sorts of situations. I am full of grandiosity. I am humble and nice. I am polite and respectful of others.

And I am suppressing the beast inside.

As I get older, it gets a little easier, but not much. The medications have helped a lot. I don’t feel as angry all the time. I don’t want to hurt myself too much anymore…but I still have moments, like this one, right now where I wish I didn’t have to answer to anyone. I wish I could cut myself or someone else. My husband, my beautiful and perfect husband doesn’t understand this part of me. He accepts it, but he doesn’t understand it. It’s not part of who he is. He suffers in a different way…a more logical and realistic way. He will throw himself into his work or do a chore that helps him to let off some steam. Sometimes, he will smoke a joint to relax. Whatever works for you. Me? I’d rather engage in painful activities. I want to have sex often, hard and brutally. My husband slaps me on my ass when we fuck. I enjoy that, but if he knew how hard I wished he would hit me, I think it would sicken him. I told him once to grab me around the neck when he is behind me. He will, but only for a moment or so before letting go. The man is not capable of hurting me, not physically or emotionally. That’s probably a good thing, because I tend to do that all on my own.

“You shut your mouth
how can you say,
I go about things the wrong way.
I am human and I need to be loved,
just like everybody else does.”

There is salvation in being alone sometimes. I have the house to myself tonight. I want to take some valium, percocet or vicodin, have a drink or two and then come back and re-read this article. I will dare myself not to erase it. Just another form of hurting myself without cutting into my forearms or my thighs. I need the pain of knowing that I wrote all this down and someone will be disgusted or disappointed by what I have to say. But, I will wake up in the morning, throw on my dress attire for work, pick up my child from school and make dinner at night. No one will be the wiser. It will keep me the perfectly pristine housewife and mother that way and the PTA will never know my dirty little secrets.

I wish my husband was home. I miss who I am when he is around.

Originally posted here.

by StormyBluez

Since I haven’ t ate a meal in a week, my dad took me to eat the other day. He bought me a beer at a Mexican restaurant and a steak. We usually just sit in comfortable quietness and joke sarcastically a few times. But, I was feeling quite lonesome and numb that afternoon. If he hadn’t come along I probably would have gouged in the bathtub and cryed all day, so I was glad he saved me from an episode.

I attempted to indulge in a conversation & asked ” Ta, you ever want to go back to Mexico someday?” He shook his head told me ” Why would I want to go back there, nothing there but a bunch of thieves and poor people you can’t help.- gypsies!” my dads was born in Mexico – “Family did nothing but steal from your grandfather …” My heart turned BLACK … My Grandfather … I couldn’t hear my father anymore I just kept looking at his eyelashes thinking I could never break his heart and let him know what kind of bastard my Gramps was. Then our steaks came.

Not only the Ancient Poison dart to the heart, but 3 Mexicans were gawking at me from behind my fathers back, I couldn’t eat. I went to the bathroom.

I’ve always done my best thinking- crying- writing- dieing in there, I had a flash of me in shorts, me in a 80s dress as a little girl, to close to that old fuck. No one noticed, I was just a child 5 or 6. A Mouse with a mouse hole.

I remember when my Grandfather was dieing NO ONE came to see him in the convalescent hospital. No one but my dad and me. I was 18, think I went jUST to see the suffering in his eyes, never consulted him. Just watched.
I remember being left alone with him once, (my dad had to sign something) I wanted to pull the life support- rip the IVs- strangle him with a pillow, OD him, or just burn him with a cigarette, anything. This frail old man Knew I came to Watch him die and I Smiled about it. I acknowledge that I am still so angry. I need help.

Its 5:37 AM its weird I can smell his disgusting stench.
My mother knows about my abuser. I begged her not to tell my father.
I’ve never held that time of my life at fault for my dark habits,
so much more is at fault.
Although my recent episodes tell me maybe I need to go back to the start, Ive always avoided it. I’m exhausted of being here in this place of gloom and doom.

My eyes feel a flame, I should at least sleep since I don’t eat.
I tried ReAL HArD today not hate myself so, but it creeps, it seeps deeply at night but now its morning.

By Karen Rani

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music …

~ Regina Spektor, Fidelity

I can honestly say I love Daren and the kids fully. With everyone else, including myself, I do have one foot on the ground.

That is about to change.

I’ve been abusing myself for years ~ a silent string of insults in my head and sometimes coming out of my mouth:

“God, I’m so fat.”

“If I had self-discipline, I could be better at controlling the food one way or another.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“I can’t have that, I’ll only gain more weight.”

“I can’t participate in ____, I’m too fat.”

“What are you doing in the kitchen AGAIN, you dumbass.”

“I’m such a lazy ass.”

None of these things are actually true, I know, but some of us are our own worst enemies. Would you call your friends any of those things? I hope not.

Furthermore, my oldest picked up this crappy attitude towards himself and began calling himself names that didn’t fit him either.

This morning before I went to the gym to meet with my trainer, I had this whole different post planned for the Stop the Abuse campaign I wrote about last night.

As my trainer showed me new moves with free weights, made me do squats for the first time in my life (you might recall I was asked to squat once before and how well that went),and introduced me to new machines, I said some things that she finally called me on.

I called myself a fatass, made jokes about my klutziness and although I didn’t complain about the work I was doing to improve myself, I was being very negative about ME.

My trainer told me that while I was doing all this work, I was being too hard on myself and that I needed to stop talking like that, to be more positive. She was really sweet about it, but stopped me in my tracks. She said that even by joking about ourselves that way, it’s negative. Pairing that with the fact that I constantly joke about whatever pains me, I think she is right.

You see, I went through a self shit-kicking in the last year that stemmed from a huge surge of emotions coming to surface after suppressing those very emotions for years. In short, I went a little nutty. I lost friends, I pissed off family. Hell, I pissed off strangers and readers! I felt very alone. And now? I feel pretty stupid about sharing it all with the internet.

Live and learn, I suppose. I won’t delete it ~ it’s part of my growth over the last year and I’m proud I made it through all of that.

For those who weren’t here for that, basically I was drinking a lot, starving myself, acting out, and being a hot mess in terms of my emotional topography on a daily basis. It was everything short of shaving my head. It’s all here on this site somewhere if you care to dig.

This self-abuse was so destructive, that I nearly wound up in the psych ward. My doctor wanted to put me away ~ called me bi-polar ~ wanted me on Lithium. That alone was scary enough to at least warrant a huge step: opening up to Daren about everything I’ve never shared with anyone. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and yet best possible thing I could have done.

While I’m still healing, and have come a long way since what we can call Karen Rani’s Nervous Breakdown of 2007, up until a few weeks ago, when I hired the trainer and decided to do things right for my body, I was still drinking. Every. Single. Night.

I love wine. Wine makes me tingle and numb and never makes me sick, like vodka does now. Funny thing about that Vodkarella, she hates vodka now…what will she do about her site name? Ideas?

The Self Abuse Train has stopped. It’s sitting on the tracks, always there to chug up again, but this time I’m tossing the keys in the river and walking away.

I’m walking towards daily fitness, towards the advice of my trainer, who says 5 small meals a day and lots of water, towards only drinking on the weekends, if at all, towards moderation, self control and positive thinking and speaking (and writing).

I want to love myself fully. There are some difficult habits to break, like this self-depreciating inner voice, but I’m giving it my best shot. I have a lot of personal goals, like getting fit enough to run a marathon by next spring, and learn to skate well enough to play hockey next winter, but this one goal is most definitely the most important for a lot of us, I think.

Ironically enough, tomorrow (September 27th) marks one full year of not smoking. What a way to celebrate!

So while I applaud those of you who are already at this point in your lives, and I’m anxious to join you, I suspect I’m not alone in this journey and hope that those who know they need to, will Stop the Abuse: of themselves.

xo

Also posted here.

we’ve just moved to a new city, my boyfriend and i that is and i’m at home tonight on my own because i got my period and i dont feel like socialising with new people on the first day of bleeding from the vagina each month (these same people invited us out last month too… they must think i hate them). at least, thats the most obvious “disease you can see” answer to why i’m at home alone on a saturday night. the other reasons, well they’re the ones you cant see. they are despression, anxiety, insomnia and suicidal thoughts.

i’m really really struggling with myself at the moment. i know i’m in a downward spiral and that its possible i will get worse before i get better but i dont know how much worse or how long or if “getting better” will mean getting medication. i’m totally horrified that i could need full medical treatment for this but i’ve given friends that same advice and its worked wonders for them. i dont know why i’m so against it. maybe i do just like feeling like this. but i dont.

tonight before my boyfriend left to go to drinks with people (i cant call them friends. i dont know them. are they his friends. i dont know. could they be my friends. i dont have friends. i have some people that have always been my friends but i suck at making new ones and i suck even more at keeping in touch with the ones i have.) he hugged me and tickled me. i dont know why. i’m not ticklish but sometimes when he does it i giggle because it does kinda tickles and its fun. but tonight i cried. i started sobbing. sobbing and laughing. then more sobbing. big fat tears that i couldnt stop. this happens more often than i care to admit. i cry. i cry a lot.

when i go see my acupuncturist she asks me a lot of questions about my body and how i feel. then she asks me about my mind, my emotions, my general wellbeing. and i tell her. i tell her how many days i felt good. how many days i felt crap. i dont tell her about the days that i think about stepping in front of a bus. or the ones where i wish i didnt have to get off the tram. that if i just sit there all day instead the day will pass and i can either go home or just keep going somewhere else. i dont know where else. i dont know if the acupuncture will help. i know that seeing someone every week no matter what its for will. an appointment to keep. something i cant cancel.

a few weeks ago i told my boyfriend that i used to cut myself, the soles of my feet, hidden. i think we were looking at post secrets?? it was a passing comment, we didnt discuss it. i dont think i’ve told anyone before. i stopped doing it about 7 years ago. i used to keep a blade beside the bed. i would cut and cut and cut, slicing layers of skin off till they started to bleed. or until just before they would bleed but it would still hurt. when i was 22/23 we moved, i threw away the blade and everytime another one would be purchased by someone in the house i’d throw it away. i couldnt have them in my house. i still cant.

it was last year that i started thinking about busses and trains… stepping in front of them more specifically. waiting on the platform, toes at the yellow line. at the back carriage end of the platform, where the trains are still going reasonably fast. on platforms where trains dont stop, they just speed past. busses on corners, at lights when they’re turning, coming up the hill, keeping speed up to make it around without getting the red light. here… i dont get the train and the trams go slowly enough that i dont think the same about them. but i still see a bus once in a while and remind myself to step back, not forward.

i’ve started not sleeping again. at first i put it down to my boyfriend keeping me awake but its not that. i can sleep beside him even at his loudest. i just dont. i lay there. i make a fuss when we go to bed, play stupid games, beg him to have sex, anything so we stay up that little bit longer. then i lay there. i get up sometimes and play xbox or read. sometimes i go have another shower. i try and stay off the internet because i know that makes it worse. i can sit here all night and wait till the sun to come up then i’ll go to bed. thats what i used to do. back when 2 hours sleep was all i got each night. i’m trying for 6 hours at the moment. i’m getting 5. on the weekends i get 12. sometimes 14. then a nap. i could spend all weekend asleep and i’d still be tired on monday morning.

i didnt leave the house today. i didnt speak to anyone other than my boyfriend. i havent spoken to anyone since tuesday, maybe wednesday. i dont answer my phone, i dont even look at it, its on silent now. i havent gotten phone credit so i’m not listening to voicemail. i leave the house 15 minutes before work and i’m back here 15 minutes after. i sometimes think of coming home for lunch but instead i go to a cafe thats so busy no one sees anyone else and there are big tables that i can sit alone with the paper and my headphones in.

i think i will leave the house tomorrow. for a little while at least. and i will talk to people. i will seem normal. i will interact. i will function. i will be thankful that my boyfriend knows me and what is going on inside my head much of the time. that he loves me. that my close friends will do all they can. but i know i need to do something. that this cant go on. i need to get help. i need to sort this out. to find ways to make it stop because whatever i’ve been doing for the last 30 years… its not working as well anymore. the cracks are starting to show. plates are falling, i cant keep on spinning these sticks on my own.

Originally written May. 20th, 2007 at 12:42 AM

I’ve decided that my 30th birthday present to myself is going to be a tattoo. To some, it seems like an odd choice because I waited until I’m 30 to do it – not in my early 20s when everyone else was getting them done (though, technically, I’m getting it two days before my birthday. That way, I can say that I did it back in my ‘wild and crazy’ 20s. Not like I was wild and crazy in my 20s, but it’s a good thing to say, I think.)

I’ve just been feeling the urge to mark this occasion – to mark myself to commemorate all that I’ve been through in the past 30 years. The urge is very strong. I guess you can’t help but look back on the past when you hit a milestone such as this.

I once went to a therapist during a stressful time in my life. She asked for my life story and I gave it to her. At the end, she looked at me with wide eyes and said, “You have how many degrees and you work where??”

Apparently, people who have lived through the kind of childhood and adolescence that I did don’t usually make it to where I have in life. They end up with drug problems; they end up on the streets. They don’t get university degrees and good jobs.

“You’re the resilient child,” she said. “They write textbooks about people like you.”

Of course, you can’t live through that kind of a life and end up entirely unscathed. All my scars are on the inside.

I remember when I was 14 and everything that happened in my childhood started sinking in. I suddenly had labels for all that had happened: sexual abuse, physical abuse, alcoholism, dysfunctional family. The pain at that was so intense that I didn’t know what to do with it. I was this peppy overachiever on the outside but no one knew what was going on inside. I remember wanting to cut myself so that I could feel some pain on the outside to distract myself from the pain on the inside. I remember doing just that – scarring up my wrists just so that I could feel something and know that the pain was real.

But this marking – this 30-year-old urge to mark is different. I want something that I can look down on and say, “I made it. And I’m going to keep making it.”

Republished from Saviabella, September 2005.

I was driving home tonight, about 15 minutes ago actually, and it occurred to me that I can’t remember not adding an imaginary caveat to the question; “how are you doing?”. When good friends ask how I am, I usually say “pretty good” or even the daring “okay”, but in my head I am adding things. Like I am ok, but last night I thought about how good it would feel to not exist, or I am fine, but I secretly scratch the back of my legs until they bleed. Sometimes I feel propelled to tell the truth, but I feel that such circumstances are not a time for honesty. I think that most people who suffer from some sort of mental illness get very good at faking normal or ok, or even funny! and nice! and chatty! I guess I should say, that I am pretty good at appearing to be a high functioning, dare I saw somewhat awesome, person.

I wanted to post a quick history here on RealMental, since that is the first-ish thing I want to know about people.

p.s. HUGE shout out to LeahPeah for wrangling this and involving me.

I am 37 now, so the where and when and hows might occasionally be fuzzy, but for now, this is how I got here.

I started with a diagnosed panic disorder at 18, while in university. I had suffered from it since I was 13, not being able to sleep away from home, not being able to go out to do social activities after dark, only watching tv shows that were set somewhere sunny. Seriously. I spent 4 months at an outpatient at the university hospital, 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Turned out to be very interesting, but not so effective. Ultimately proper medication helped. I ended up going more than halfway across the country to finish school. Not without bumps, but so so so much better. I often felt depressed, but figured those feelings were just me, part of me, who I was. Not good enough, thin enough, smart enough.

I was off of my medication (Nardil, total old skool med), for a few years before I went back on for more general anxiety with panic attacks. Wee! I ended up going back on during a very stressful time in my life, first serious (but good) relationship, I had just met my biological mom (i am adopted), and I was getting married in a year or so, and lets face it, my brain is buggered, so it was time to go back on. My general physician was taking care of my meds, but she ultimately sent me to a psychiatrist to help. I went back on the Nardil and felt better. She also gave me ativan (for emergencies) and a few sleeping pills if I remember. Read more »