Letting Go

Sometimes you will say or do things in your life that, for whatever reason, you consider to be the right thing to say or do.  And then later down the road, you realize how very wrong you were.  There are several things you can do at this point. You can accept blame instead of making excuses.  You can ask for forgiveness.  You can try your best to change in every way possible into someone wiser and more aware of reality so that you never make those same mistakes again.  You can live and learn and try to grow from it, instead of collapsing under the consequences. You will find people along the way that love you, that stand by you, that understand, or at least try to.  You will also lose a lot of people in your life, because no matter how sorry you are, you can't undo your past, and they will never let you forget it. This part will hurt more than you can imagine, but you have to remember: their judgment of you says more about their character than it does about yours.  

The point is, time does not stop for your broken heart. You can't move backward, and you can't stay still.  You have to move forward.  Otherwise, you aren't living.  You are just dying in slow motion. 

I have been dying in slow motion for eight years. I have even tried to speed up the process a few times.  But I am still breathing.  Still hurting, still dying, but my heart is still beating and I still have a few brain cells left.  And I realize I can't keep doing this to myself.  I can't keep hovering over things done, things said, things that can never, ever be repaired.  I have to move on.  I don't know how to do this.  Therapists have not been able to tell me how to do this.  Friends haven't. Enemies haven't.  No one can tell me how to do this.  I have to learn it on my own.  But I think, finally, I am ready to do that.  Because I can't live like this anymore.  I can't keep telling people I am sorry when they will never care enough to listen.  I can't keep wishing I was dead just for fear that I will have to remember how to live.  To live after such an awful loss, where do you begin?  This isn't a jigsaw puzzle that can be pieced back together.  

I think the first step is to realize what I still have and what I have gained.  To spin around in the could-have-beens, should-have-beens, is to relive the same hell over and over and over again. Up until this point I felt too guilty to let go.  I felt like I deserved to never get over this, to never move forward.  As if holding myself prisoner would somehow prove to the ones I hurt how much I loved them, how much I want the best for them.  Instead, it has consumed me to such a point that no one wants to be around me, including my children. I continue to hurt them by not moving on, by lingering in the pain and being unable to reach out to them because I am so bogged down in the mire of memory.  This has to stop before I sever what little relationship I still have with them.   

I have always been a forgiving person.  There have been a few people who have significantly damaged me in my lifetime, but I let go.  I moved on.  I didn't hold a grudge or dwell on hatred for them.  Why haven't I shown myself the same grace?  So this is me, right now, forgiving myself.  And I can't lie and say there is a huge rush of relief in it.  Perhaps it is not a thorough forgiveness.  But it is a start.  And if I can choose to forgive myself a little more each day, maybe one day soon I can feel the motion of living again.  Everyone I love deserves for me to try.  

I Can't Stop the Cynic in Me

I walk a very thin line of trying to keep up with world news enough to not be completely ignorant and in the dark about important stuff, but not enough to let it wreak havoc on my mental health. Right now, it is all harmful to me. I know ignoring it and pretending life is wonderful for all is ridiculous, and impossible. But it is just as impossible to make sense of anything anymore. Everyone has their own opinion about everything; facts are an ancient art form that have been so muddled and scraped over by false interpretations and political agendas that the fragments of truth don't even form half the picture. So, what do we do with these table scraps? I don't know. I honestly don't know. Some say pray, and I'm all for the positivity of prayer, but it doesn't seem to be quite enough. Because prayer requires action, not just some pretty words and a coin in the bucket. Prayer is the easy part. You don't even have to believe in a god to pray. But to make any difference at all, what can we do, and for what purpose? And who can say that purpose is even the right one? After all, there are so many sides, so many beliefs and opinions. Everyone is fighting for something different. And we are all losing.

Reasons to Live

Sometimes I write something to help others and it ends up helping me :) 

I am still here.  Still alive.  I really didn't think I would be a couple of days ago.  I had it all planned out. I am not going to discuss those plans on here, but suffice it to say I thought it was a brilliant plan.  In hindsight, it wasn't. And I am glad I did not go through with it.  I can't say that I am less depressed or even remotely "well", but I am a little stronger than I was.  I can fight this a little longer.  Maybe forever.  Maybe I am much, much more resilient than I think.  

I came across a beautiful post just a few minutes ago and I encourage you all to read it.  If you are feeling the way I am it will make you cry your eyes out, but it will make you want to live as well. 

One of the sweetest people I know emailed me today to ask if I was okay.  Someone I went to high school checked on me as well.  My fiance told me that he knows that I am used to having to go through these times alone but I don't have to anymore because he will help me through it any way he can.  My toddler gave me a hug and kiss.  It's these small things that are so monumental to me.  I am not alone.  I thought I was, but I'm not. 

I can't make depression buy a plane ticket and ride off to a foreign land where it will crash and burn and never return.  I can't always clear out the demonic voices I hear or avoid seeing the Shadow Men or faceless beings wearing blue jeans or any of the other out of place but so, so real hallucinations that I encounter on a minute by minute basis during psychosis.  I can't pretend this isn't a part of me, but I have to remember that it is not all of me.  I am still that good person that people used to know.  I am not all monster.  When I feel suicidal it is because I want to kill that monster that I think has consumed everything I once was.  But I am always hiding in there somewhere, like a scared little girl, and I want to protect her, not harm her.  She's been through enough.  And she has three amazing kids and an understanding boyfriend and friends who care about her whether she realizes it all the time or not.  

So, I am still here.  And I don't plan on changing that.  

Apology

That last post was stupid.  I'm sorry.  I debated deleting it, but then I thought: why should I hide how I really feel?  Isn't that what stigma feeds off of?  Whatever the case, I am still as depressed as I was when I wrote it, but not quite as suicidal now.  I didn't go into grave detail but I did open up to my fiance tonight about what I'm going through, and despite my fears that he would be mad or exasperated, he was very comforting.  That really helped a lot.  I am going to try to get some sleep soon, which is what I have been craving all day.  But I have had really bad insomnia the past few nights despite being so exhausted all day, so that doesn't really promise anything.  Sigh.  Life goes on.  Until it doesn't. 

Google Has Temporarily Saved My Life

Looking at the statistics for this blog, I think I am pretty safe to write what I am about to write.  While I have a few readers (mainly from Russia, France, and India) it doesn't look like anyone who knows me in real life reads anymore.  So I am going to be honest.  I am thinking about killing myself. 

No, this is not a cry for help.  I am not seeking attention. I'm not trying to be "emo" or "selfish" or "stupid".  I am just telling the truth.  

I Googled "how to make suicide look like an accident" earlier today and didn't find anything noteworthy as far as ways to die.  What I did find was a lot of people trying to talk others out of going through with it...for all the wrong reasons.  I'm sorry, maybe you mean well, but telling someone they are being selfish does not change their minds.  If anything, it just drives home the fact that we aren't fit to live anymore; when we can't see past the pain anymore, when we've gotten to the point where we feel like our death would be easier on our families than our living, then being called selfish is perhaps the sharpest knife you can stab in our hearts.  Thank you for killing us quicker.  How thoughtful of you.  

Beyond that, though, I found something valuable today.  I found people who understand what this feels like.  I didn't talk to any of them (some of them are probably dead by now), but the words they wrote on various spots on the internet, the exact places my Google search led me today, reached out and grabbed hold of my trembling hand.  And suddenly I didn't feel so alone in this battle of how, of when, of why.  

I have plenty of people in my life to tell me why I should stick around. Well, I say plenty, but I really only have a handful.  Some of them would be angry with me.  Some would be devastated.  Some (like my children, and god this hurts the worst) may even blame themselves.  They might never recover.  I really don't have anyone I go to and tell that I feel like I am going to kill myself.  There are a few who I tell after the feeling passes, but I withdraw into a cold hard shell in the meantime.  I don't want to tell anyone my plans; they might try to change them.  Or, for the few friends I have who wrestle with the same demons, I am always afraid my candid talk of suicide might trigger the same feelings in themselves.  And telling a doctor or therapist?  That's a surefire way to end up in the state hospital.  If I had the option of somewhere lovely like Laurelwood where they actual do try to help, then I would drop everything and run to the place.  But being caged like an animal in the state run hospital where they don't even send in someone to talk to me except maybe one time with a doctor who appears drunk and hopeless? And with the patients who throw chairs and accuse me of stealing their room even though it is the one I was assigned? No, thank you.

The depression has been rough lately.  My last post on here (right after the fake-optimistic one of YAY I'M GOING TO FINISH MY BOOK AND NOTHING IS GOING TO STOP ME) hinted at a little of that depression I suppose, but it runs much deeper than that.  My paranoia is back.  The kind where I feel like everyone hates me, including my fiance. Everything I say gets on his nerves and I'm holding him back in life and I can't even keep our living quarters clean or consistently cook food for us...yada yada.  And to my daughters, I am just a complication.  They have a good life with their dad and stepmom and stepbrothers.  Every picture I see of them having a good time both comforts me and kills me.  Because I am not in those pictures, and I am barely in their lives.  Because I have no money and no driver's license and no guarantee at the few social functions I have the courage to attend that I won't embarrass them to death with one of my stupid panic attacks.  And my son.  When I am a good mom I am a freaking good mom, but when I'm not I am aloof, impatient, rageful, terrifying.  Of all the people I know who have a mother with bipolar disorder, none of them have ever said anything good about their childhood.  None of them.  Instead, I hear the horrible dysfunction they had to endure, and on a good day I can kid myself and think I will never produce that type of atmosphere for my dear children.  But then the rage comes.  I'm not talking about a little snap of the tongue.  I mean full-blown rage.  Screaming, throwing things, locking myself in another room so I don't kill someone rage. So, yes, I am a complication in my kids' lives, dead or alive.  While I am the only one available to watch our son each day, I figure if I died then my fiance would probably move in with his mom and then there would be plenty of people to share in a good, nurturing childhood for him.  The good things that could come from my death are abundant in my eyes.  Would they outweigh the grief?  I don't know.  I hold all the possibilities in my hands and try not to drop any of them, because to tip the scale will certainly seal my fate one way or another.  

I had decided I wanted to get the house clean before I did anything drastic.  So that no one would call me a slob when I was gone.  But just sweeping the living room floor I screamed at my son for getting in the way and then I just sank down to the pile of dust and sobbed.  I thought of waking my fiance, so he could save me from myself, but I know he needs the sleep.  I logged onto Facebook to see if there was a friend I could confide in (because I can't talk on the phone and certainly not in person) but the first thing I saw was a picture of my two beautiful girls posing with their stepmom.  And they looked so happy, like nothing was missing.  I deactivated my Facebook account, and now here I am.  Still weighing the odds, but the scale is more unbalanced.  I am unbalanced.  And I'm tired.  I'm tired of crying all day.  I'm tired of my thoughts.  I'm tired of my actions.  I'm tired of my past, my present, my future.  I'm just tired. 

So This is Christmas...

One of the worst things about the holiday season is being bombarded by all the "give me, give me, give me" in the world.  All day long I read or hear people complaining about not having enough, about how "poor" they are, and yet most of them have significantly more than I do.  But I'm not the one complaining about it, so that makes me feel pretty rich inside. 

But secretly, yes, I am depressed about not having much financially speaking.  I don't like not knowing if we will be able to buy our kids anything for Christmas, and I don't like feeling too prideful to ask for help (after all, there are many families that need it more than we do).  I don't like not being able to work; I feel like all the financial hardship is my fault.  While I am thankful that my daughters will have a good Christmas spread under the tree via their dad and stepmom, I am ashamed that I can't do the same for them. I am thankful that my son is still too young to really care, but I worry whether our finances will improve before he gets older.  I sure hope so.  Not just for silly things like Christmas presents, but for everything. I'd like for us to have a home of our own and enough food to eat.  But yeah, gifts would be nice too.  

I miss my Daddy.  I miss my Nana.  They were always the ones who made Christmas the most special.  Now my mom and I don't even bother to put up a tree.  It's just too painful. 

I miss the magic of Christmas that my childhood was filled with.  I miss the days when Christians enjoyed the "true meaning" of Christmas without spending so much time worrying about some phantom war on "their" holiday. I'm not really sure why spending a month (or longer) running up credit cards and getting irritable with store clerks is acceptable Christ-like behavior, but saying "Happy Holidays" is such a downright travesty.  

I don't mean to come across as a Scrooge or Grinch or any other "anti-Christmas" character, but I am finding it harder than ever to fight the cynicism this year.  And truly, I just needed to get all of this off my chest.  I've been holding in the resentment and worry and grief for fear that people would just think I'm being a whiny little bitch.  But sometimes it's okay to vent.  It clears up some space in the head so that more positive thoughts can flow through.  I know things could be much worse for us; I guess I just get annoyed when I see others take for granted things that a lot of less fortunate ones would be grateful for.  That's why I try to keep quiet about how I'm feeling this month.  I don't want to be one of those ungrateful people.  But sometimes, I guess it's okay to admit that life is not exactly a bowl full of cherries all the time.  

2014 - The Year I Finally Finish Something

Note to self: stock up on pens

It's funny how you think you can shed off a piece of yourself like a coat and throw it in the corner, assuming you will never need it again.  But even if it gets lost under the pile, deteriorates from age and non-use and seems like a bit of a waste of space, it still belongs to you.  That's how it is with dreams.  It may seem a little too ratty to bother with, or it may appear gaudy and overpriced, but it's still your dream.  You're not going to get rid of it by ignoring it.  

I am a terrible writer.  It's true.  I read excerpts from my favorite books and I actually cry, both from the beauty of the author's words and the stark realization that I will never, ever come close to that.  Then I read a terrible book and think, hey, why am I not writing?  I can at least do this well, eh?  But it's time to stop comparing.  I will always come up lacking in my own sense.  This is no longer the excuse I want to use for not trying.  I have to redefine my version of failure, because only what I am doing (which is nothing) is true failure.  Spending a lot of time and effort on a book that may never be seen by anyone outside my close friends and family - that's not failure.  

I have a weird way of keeping my books.  I hide sections of them in different spots...and I usually can't remember where half of them are.  I do it partly for shame of my work and slightly for the fear that some idiot may actually steal what I've written and try to pass it off as their own. I'm possessive like that. More than that, however, I have to protect my books from myself. I vividly recall destroying one of my nearly finished books a few years ago- I burned it up with a cigarette lighter in a pot on the stove - and I never know when the mood to kill (aka self-hatred) will strike again. Whatever the case, I have a lot of parts to books; an arm here, a torso there, and I am going to use the rest of this year to find what I have to at least one of the books I have written.  And then, 2014 is dedicated to NOT burning it up with a cigarette lighter in a pot on the stove. I'm going to actually finish it. That's all I wish to guarantee for now.  I can't promise an excellent piece of literature, and I can't even promise I will still want to live after I finish it, but I do need that completion on my record.  I crave it and I don't really like myself without it. I'm really sick of the words "rough draft". 

While I realize "well done is better than well said" I figured I owed an explanation in advance in case I suddenly drop off the planet aka Facebook, Blogger, etc.  I am estimating that I will give myself a little break every other weekend to revisit my dear internet addiction, but only briefly.  So this isn't really goodbye for next year, but it's kind of close.  

"What's wrong?"  No one asks this, but they imply it.  And I feel compelled to answer by not answering.  It's the only way I can truly fit in all the words, to not say them at all.  I stare off until the colors of what I'm looking at grow tired and as heavy as my fake smile.  

What's wrong?  I don't know.  Everything.  Nothing.  Everything.  

Quote of the Day

“Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory." -John Steinbeck

Delegating

I am going to do something I don't normally do.  When my fiance wakes up I am going to ask him to help me out.  Mainly, to do some laundry and wash some dishes.  It's not that he is unwilling to help me.  It's just that he usually doesn't unless I ask.  And I never ask. 

It's a guilt thing.  I feel like I should take care of all the domestic stuff since he works outside the home and goes to school.  His plate is full.  So I try to take care of all the cleaning and cooking and most of the childrearing.  I like these traditional roles.  It works for us.  Most of the time. 

But right now, I don't even want to look at my surroundings.  I shudder at the thought of someone knocking on the door because I would be so embarrassed to have them see how messy the house is.  I was already falling behind on chores due to holiday depression (more on that in a later post...maybe), but I have been sick with a nasty spell of bronchitis for the past several days so now that little-behind-on-chores has turned into an all-out pigsty. Something about being unable to sit upright for longer than five minutes without fainting all while a toddler has full awareness that his mother can't run after him and prevent his messy curiosities makes a home look a bit terrifying.  Normally I would just let it go until I feel better all while hating myself for being such a failure at housewifedom, but I can't take it any more.  At least the dishes need to be washed. And we are running out of clean clothes to wear.  The kitchen floor really needs a good sweeping, but I probably won't mention that to him.  Because, you know, I would feel guilty.