Thursday, April 22, 2010

House That Built Me - Miranda Lambert

Yeah, I know this is a country one, but there's something on youtube about it also having been recorded by pop chick Kelly Clarkson, so suck it up. It's a beautiful song and one that I think many of us can relate to.

I first heard this song on the first trip I made to help get my Grandma's house ready for sale. Of course, it made me bawl my eyes out and it still does. From the time my gram died, I didn't want to give up the house. Still don't, but now I see why it's necessary and I'll tow the party line on this one. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to think about other people living in that house or to know that soon I'll never be able to go back to that "home" again. And, despite that fact that I've lived many places, none but my grandparents' house was ever really home to me. Hell, it was even where I retreated to after the home invasion and attempted burglary of the first place I lived "on my own." It was the one place I knew I"d feel safe at a time when I couldn't bear to close my eyes to sleep after dark.

So here's the song. I hope it makes you into a blubbering idiot just like it does me. :P

House that Built Me



(skip to about 1:20 on the video to get to song)

I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From "Better Homes and Garden" magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama's dream.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.


You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sacrifing at the Altar of Mental Health

Possibly TMI (too much information) about personal sexual matters. Read with caution.

This probably won't be your typical post, with a real point to it. Mostly just venting because I don't know what else to do. I fear that if I don't DO something, I'll just curl up in a ball and shut down. I don't want to shut down. But I don't really know what to do to help. And there really isn't an immediate crisis that needs tending to, more an internal personal crisis. So just bear with me as I vent. If you have constructive criticism or helpful advice, feel free to give it to me. If not, no worries, thanks for at least bearing witness to my cry to heaven.

I had a fiction teacher who told us that melodrama ended in a perfect bind where someone had to die for it to be resolved, where all the choices left to the protagonist were horrible ones, usually being suicide or murder. I guess I'm being overly melodramatic by comparing that to my situation, but I do feel like I'm in a double bind.

The lithium has saved my life and put me on an even keel. I cannot imagine going of this medication because I honestly don't want to return to being so imbalanced, to having to constantly right against manic suicidality, or the lovely hospital stays. BUT it has changed my personality and habits in ways that I do not like and can't see myself living with long-term. This is especially true in the case of my sex drive, sexual interests, and sexual response. So in addition to my ability to think quickly and in depth, which I've talked about before, I'm also sacrificing my sex life on the altar of 'mental health.'

My psychiatrist asked me to think of these changes in my mood, behavior, thought process, etc, as bringing me closer to normal, as showing me how un-normal my thinking was previously, before the lithium, so I might appreciate this new way of thinking. Sigh. That was before all the sex stuff really kicked me in the teeth. Without going into too much detail about the circumstances, TyRoy and I decided to indulge in some even-less-mainstream sexual adventures. Part of it was that we just never really took advantage of having each other this time, of having a crazy freaky sex partner who would be up for sexual adventures with other people and TyRoy will be transfered by his job in the next 6 months. For me, there was another part- I just hadn't been as interested in sex since I had started taking the lithium. I wasn't looking for outside sex partners, like on Craigslist or other personal's sites. I haven't been having solo flights, despite a pretty new 'jackrabbit'-type vibe. While TyRoy had known for about a year that I hadn't been as horny, I don't think he really realized the fully extent of the change in me, mostly because I don't often turn him down and I thoroughly enjoy it when we do have sex. Honestly, I think I was trying to deny the whole situation. But the adventure we sought out this past weekend meant I had to face it. Or...well, face it only to run away like a giant coward, while my issues chased after me, refusing to be ignored.

I don't like this person that I feel I've become now. I don't like this woman. When I was much younger, I recognized that I might not be the unattainable heartbreaking lady who existed in so many pop songs, but I could at least be that lover who pulled you into bed with passion and fire and a VERY open-mind. I wanted to try almost everything sexual. I've known for a long time that I many kinky interests. After finding Savage Love, I realized that I always wanted to try to be GGG (good, giving, and game) and that I wanted to try to create a continiously loving and sexual relationship with any and every long term partner. But this me doesn't have the same interest in actually having sex. I do think about sex all the time. I like learning about it still. It doesn't turn me off. But actually having sex, even with my hot stud of a not-boyfriend, is more like eating dinner at 6pm when you aren't exactly hungry. You do it because it's that time. It tastes great. And you feel much better after you're done, so you do it. But I don't want sex to be like that. I still want to seek out new sexual experiences. I mean, what is an open-mind about all these sexual things if you can't use it to actually DO something?

I also fear for my next sexual relationship. I don't think the sexual relationship with TyRoy has necessarily suffered but that is because he prefers initiating sex, so it's not as if alot has changed. But not all people are like that. Also, fairly, most men and women want their partner to initiate sex at least part of the time. They don't want to feel like they are always pushing themselves on their partner. They want to feel like their partner also wants them enough to get the action started. Goddess help me if I get with a person who is used to their partner being their aggressor. They'll be waiting forever and we'll never have sex.

Fuck, I just feel like things, possibilities just keep getting taken away from me. I'm in all these no-win situations. I know in my heart I'll almost always make the right decision, do the less selfish thing, but a little part of me doesn't want to. I want to run away. Every time I think about that, think about sharing that sentence with someone else, especially whenever I'd think about texting it to MP, I'd realize how 'teenager' that sounded. But maybe part of me is stuck back there. And I lack all the hallmarks of adulthood - degrees, career, children, ownership. But I do have that restlessness still. There are many times that I just wish I could start over, as if a new place and new life would erase history and mental illness. Well, life is longer than we think. Maybe I'll get to try it out yet.

My mom seems to think the lithium is some kind of miracle in my life. Maybe it is. But I still don't have a job and I still disappear into sleep for 12-48 hours at a time every week or two. I asked TyRoy, point blank, if he prefered how I was before the lithium or how I am now with the lack of sexual adventure. After only a few seconds of thought, he answered that he prefered me now, lacking in sexual adventure, but no longer prone to show up at his house at 10 pm after I'd been threatening suicide all night. I do see his point. But there's always a "BUT..." for me.

Is it wrong that I wonder how it might have been decades, centuries ago, before psychiatric drugs? I guess I'm thinking of the romanticized lives of artists, though, while they may have lived 'romantic' lives, they often lived lives of poverty, just like everyone else of their day who suffered from a mental illness and was unable to work and/or self-medicated with alcohol.

I don't think I've gotten any further in my thinking but at least I did something and now I'm closer to tired. Thanks for listening.