Untitled, 7/18/14

I should have known it was a lie. Not an intentional lie, but a lie nonetheless.  I thought I'd always have them, that they would be there to help me. I made myself believe that. And that we were gonna have this messy little life but that it would be together. That my crazy was gonna be just fine with them and that the dynamic was the best one for us. Now I feel so alone and my crazy is too much and the dynamic is too much. Im trying to find a place all on my own when the only place that I might be able to afford with the job that I'm just praying I get is one in their building! Jesus FML! And I didn't do anything super psycho. I had myself convinced that as long as I didn't do something psycho, I would be fine. They wouldn't leave or not want me. I can't believe I forgot the first rule. Even before House's Rule ("Everyone lies") is my rule- Everyone leaves. I don't know why I thought it would be any different here. Stupid girl.

Two country songs and a Barenaked Ladies Ballad? Must be a breakup

How we feel when we want to end a relationship but we don't want to hurt the other person:
Bad Goodbye- Clint Black (feat. Wynona)
http://youtu.be/XLA8sUvCLeU

I've been bound to leave you,
We've known that for awhile
I'm sure it's something I can't do
If I can't leave you with a smile
I don't know how far I'll have to go
'Til I'm sure those eyes won't cry
And in my mind I've left enough to know
that I can't leave you with
A bad good bye

Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one
Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.

I'm still bound to leave you,
I surely don't know how
My heart won't let me put you through
What my mind says should happen now.

I don't know where we'll go from here,
there may be no way to fly
And the cloud I'm in just makes it
all too clear that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye.

Goodbye, easier said than done
Goodbye, there's no good when you're the one
Whose goodbye you swore would never come
And in my goodbye you're finding none.

How can we be so far between
Where we are and one more try
And any way I look,
I've only seen that I can't leave you
With a bad goodbye...

How it feels to know that someone has been putting off breaking up with you:

Break Your Heart- Barenaked Ladies
http://youtu.be/11AnXGIwXa4
The bravest thing I've ever done
Was to run away and hide
But not this time, not this time
And the weakest thing I've ever done
Was to stay right by your side
Just like this time, and every time
I couldn't tell you I was happy when you were gone
So I lied and said that I missed you when we were apart
I couldn't tell you, so I had to lead you on
But I didn't mean to break your

And if I always seem distracted
Like my minds somewhere else
That's because it's true, yes it's true
it's this stupid pride that makes me feel
Like I have to follow through
Even half-assedly, loving you
Why must I always speak in terms of cowardice?
When I guess I should have just come out and told you right from the start
Why must I always tell you all I want is this?
I guess 'cause I didn't want to break your heart

And you said
Whatcha think that I was gonna do,
Curl up and die just because of you?
I'm not that weak, you know
What'd you think that I was gonna do,
Try to make you love me as much as I love you?
How could you be so low?
You arrogant man,
What do you think that I am?
My heart will be fine
Just stop wasting my time

And now I'm over you, I'll be OK,
and that I've got what I want,
and that's rid of you
Bye
And it's not 'cause I'll be missing you
That makes me fall apart
It's just that I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
No I didn't mean to break
Your heart

And how it feels when you're still standing there afterwards:
What Makes You Stay- Deana Carter
http://youtu.be/PgB0Iuui3w4
Look at me
I'm in a place
I never thought I'd be

Don't have the strength
To fight anymore
Or a reason not to leave

So tell me why I still keep holding on
To something I just cannot see

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

I'm not afraid
Of living alone
I was alone before he came

I've been in love
Many times before
But this time's not the same

I've always been the first to say goodbye
Now it's the last thing I can do

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look at him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

When it goes this deep
And feels this strong
I can't convince myself
That this love is wrong

What makes you stay
When your world falls apart
What makes you try one more time
When it's not in your heart
At the end of your rope
When you can't find any hope
You still look a him and say
I just can't walk away
Tell me what makes you stay

On Being a Shitty Friend

I am a shitty friend. I try not to ask too much from the people that I give too little to, to make up for this fact.

It is not that I don't know how to be a good friend. It is that I don't have enough space in my head or energy in my body to give it to more than a few people at any given time. This means that, for the most part, I choose to give my time and energy to those I'm closest to and, selfishly, who give the most back to me, which usually means the people I'm romantically involved with. Even when I'm doing really well and I have more open time, I seem to only manage to see anyone about once a month. When I'm not doing well... well, you can just forget seeing me. Oh, and I don't go to parties or group gatherings. The few exceptions are when I'm going for or with people that I'm romantically involved with.

I am not always there for the people I care about when I should be, or when they ask me to. Sometimes I don't know how to be. Sometimes I don't have the energy to be. Sometimes I'm sure it seems like I'm selfish. Sometimes I am.

Sometimes I get a brief window in which I have the time and energy and head space to do what I think makes me be a good friend. But sometimes you end up doing what makes them think you are a shitty friend, even shittier than before.

I hope you are not too mad at me, or that with time you might stop being mad at me and see that I was trying to do what I thought was best. While I can't say I know exactly what you are going through, I have felt hopeless and had a friend stop me from doing the only things that would actually take all hope away. Hell, I've had the same friend do it on multiple occasions. I know what it feels like to think that the world is better off without you or that you are better off without the world and not care what it is like without you. But I've also been at the funerals of two people who committed suicide, seen firsthand the toll that it took on one of those people I am a shitty friend to. There have been times that that thought was a large part of what kept me not doing the same. Even if your family is horrible, there is someone in your life who doesn't deserve that. When speaking philosophically, I don't feel like anyone should get to tell a person that they must continue living an intolerable life. When it is a terminal physical disease, I'm the first to argue for their right to end their life with as much dignity as possible, at the moment of their chosing. But mental illnesses are not so clear cut and, especially when it comes to someone I know, I have a much more difficult time giving up the hope that their life can be better. Though maybe that is because if I do that, then I can start letting myself give up hope that my life can be better. And without that hope, I am lost.

So today I'll be a shitty friend.

"All the things I wish I'd asked"

Well I finally read through them. It only took me 3 years to the day after your death, several months of them in my possession,  sitting accusingly on my dresser or in the bottom of a bag.

I read them laying in my bed in my new home, still naked with dripping hair after a late afternoon bath, since I was too depressed this morning to get up with enough time for a shower. I laughed and cried to myself, alone as I always seem to end up on these difficult days. I know its not planned but he always seems to be asleep or not feeling well or both on these days that are so super hard for me amd I end up crying alone. 

I am not sure what I was expecting when I read them. Maybe I thought they'd be full of the minutiae of every day life, and there is a little of that. Maybe I thought there'd be poetry, and there is quite a bit of that too. I think I was selfishly hoping for more about myself,  though what there is touched my heart and made me laugh. Well, one thing made me say "fuck you" but you were probably right. I think what I didn't expect was to read about the darkness. I wish now more than ever that I had talked more to you about my own struggles with depression.  I guess in my alternate history you would have confided in ne about your own and we both would have recognized that maybe it was as much a problem in our head as with our brains, another little fluke of genetic inheritance.  I knew you'd had some issues, seen therapists and been on a med here or there, but nothing serious. And I guess when you view our medical (psychiatric) and employment histories side by side, yeah, whatever issues you might have faced seem much less severe than mine. But when I read your words, the darkness & depression,  occasional mentions of suicide, and your up & down moods, energy levels, and spending habits... wow, brother.

But our journals are where we are free to say anything, our worst and deepest and darkest. Hell, for those who think I overshare here, you'd really be shocked at what's in my journals. Realistic me suspects that you never would have told me a quarter of how similar our struggles were, even if I'd told you everything.

But I'm thankful to have these and I will honestly fight tooth and nail to keep them, not give them to any other family members,  if that's what I have to do, even if those people are mentioned more often. Fuck them. These are mine.  They both confirm things I already knew and have opened up to me parts of you I never would have seen before. I really enjoyed getting to see you come out, even as I wept with how painful it was. It gave me a new appreciation for your two longterm partners and the relationships you shared with each of them. It makes me feel kess alone in how scared I am about doing this whole grown up thing, feel solidarity in our struggles over housework with our partners, and shows me that some battles with ourselves, with drinking & smoking & weight, over purpose & identity & belonging, we will fight our whole lives.

I wish there was more.  Both that you had written more then and that you were still writing now. I miss you so much.

"Show Me How To Fight For Now"

Weekend with Moneypenny & his new gf, taking my cats to live with him.  Visited with friends of my uncle's,  ppl I grew up with.  Cried on the way back to Moneypenny's house from the suburb I grew up in, knowing it would never be home again.  I can't even drive by gram 's old house.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it, this brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here it's 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.

But going back only tells me part of the story.  An important part but still only part. The part that is who I was and where I come from.  The part that with each mile under my wheels I'm getting farther and farther away from as I get closer to who I will be, to who I am becoming.  In many ways the person I thought I would be someday, the person I couldn't figure out why I wasn't yet when I was in my 20's. I didn't know then that what I needed was more pain, real pain not just suffering. And time. And hard work. So much more hard work. Hard work that I have to remind myself to do everyday if I can ever hope to get what I want. Well, all that and a little bit of luck.  

I also never knew that the pain would change the color of whatever joy would come. Or that all that "being an adult" that I always wanted would be so hard.  You know it's funny how freedom can make us feel contained when the muscles in our legs aren't used to all the walkin'.

But this weekend, spending time with my bestfriend and his new girl and having an amazing time, feeling that joy for him, for them, something I'm sure neither of us thought I'd ever be able to do as his ex, and thinking about Ginger and the Professor and how lucky I was to have them and how I wanted to work harder on being a better partner brought so much joy to me as I was driving home, when I heard this:

'Cause with your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul
I can tell you there's no place we couldn't go
Just put your hand on the glass, I'm here trying to pull you through
You just gotta be strong

'Cause I don't wanna lose you now
I'm looking right at the other half of me
The vacancy that sat in my heart
Is a space that now you're home
Show me how to fight for now
And I'll tell you, baby, it was easy
Coming back here to you once I figured it out
You were right here all along

It's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me
I couldn't get any bigger
With anyone else beside of me
And now it's clear as this promise
That we're making two reflections into one
'Cause it's like you're my mirror
My mirror staring back at me, staring back at me.

I just want to hold on to that joy and hope to reflect it back to the people I love.



"House that built me" Miranda Lambert
"Waste" Foster the People
"Mirror" Justin Timberlake

Unresolved Grief

I've been thinking about and talking about the last blog post, about how getting what I want doesn't feel how I thought it would feel like it would. When talking to my therapist, she asked me what I thought it would feel like. I guess 12 year old and 14 year old me thought it would fix everything. But, of course, it doesn't. Like I told The Professor, there's still this hole. Don't get me wrong, I'm way to old to really think that finding love would do that, but there's still that part of me...Sigh. Even though this makes me feel amazing, I feel like I should feel better, like I have felt better during the honeymoon phase of previous relationships.

I heard this song driving home from work last week and it grabbed me right away, made me cry before I could ever even pinpoint why I was crying. (Yes, I heard it on country radio but I think it would be just as comfortable on Alice or one of those stations. Go ahead and listen to it.)

I put that record on. 
Girl you know what song
and I let it play again and again
you're in every line
takes me back in time....

 I hadn't heard it since so I found it on youtube and listened to it just now. Even as the tears dropped, I thought, "Why the fuck am I crying to a break-up song? I feel completely resolved about my past relationships. There isn't a single ex that I feel like this about or that I'd leave what I have now for what I might have with them. What is this about?"

And it hits me. It's about him. About them. About the ones I've really lost. That it'll never feel like it used to because all those times where before. I tell other people that sometimes you never really get over it, sometimes it never gets better, but that you just adjust to what is now your new normal. And I firmly believe that, but sometimes it hurts like hell when it slaps you in the face again. Two and a half years on and it still seems to color everything.

Last week, in my CNA class, the teacher was giving us definitions of terms for the chapter and one of the terms was unresolved grief, grief that a person doesn't get through within a normal amount of time. I wanted to get up and ask what a normal amount of time is and basically just throw a fucking fit. Yeah, obviously, no issues there. We also learned complicated grief, which is grief that is complicated by some other mental health condition or substance abuse problem. Yeah, don't know anything about that either.

Last year, I read this blog post, which I can't find right now, about trigger warnings (completely unrelated to grief) with a quote that really stuck with me: "It's untenable to go through life an open wound."  I do believe that this is true. Sometimes my life feels pretty untenable. What I actually feel like I'm living is more like this quote from Being Human: "People love that cliche, time heals all wounds. But live long enough and you'll realize that most cliches are true. It's amazing what even the smallest passage of time can accomplish, the cuts it can close, the imperfections it can smooth over. But in the end, it comes down to the size of the wound, doesn't it? If the wound is deep enough , there might be no way to keep it from festering, even if you have all the time in the world." For right now, I'm gonna go back to my song....

I like to believe 
That you're just like me
Trying to figure out how a good thing goes bad

I don't know 
And I can't let it go
Yeah it's about to drive me mad

What are you listening to
Is it a cover band in some college town bar
Where it's na-na-na's and air guitars
And is it something to get you through
Just a sad song playing on the radio station
Tears still fall and hearts still breakin'
Cause you're hanging on
Or is it a love song about someone new
What are you listening to

Is it a feel good song gets you driving too fast
The one that gets you moving on pass to pass
Or the kind you can’t help singing along 
Singing woh-oh-oh-oh-woh

Is it headphones on on a downtown train
Or a window seat on an outbound plane
Is it LA sunny and Memphis blue
I wish I knew I wish I knew

Remodeling

People love that cliche, time heals all wounds. But live long enough and you'll realize that most cliches are true. It's amazing what even the smallest passage of time can accomplish, the cuts it can close, the imperfections it can smooth over. But in the end, it comes down to the size of the wound, doesn't it? If the wound is deep enough , there might be no way to keep it from festering, even if you have all the time in the world. -Being Human, US

The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. -A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway



Several times, he's said that he's broken. On good days, he says he feels like he may be healing, or that he may only be bent, not broken. When I ask him how or why he thinks this, what it is that he finds wrong with himself now, I never really know what to do with his answers. What he describes sounds rather normal for the people I've known in my life, nothing too extreme, especially considering what he's been through in the last year or so. Some of the things, like not really being able to tell when someone is being genuine or when they are actually trying to get something out of you, are how I feel all the time. Hell, they're how I feel about him sometimes. This is not to say that I don't support him being whoever or however he wants to be. I wholeheartedly do. It's just very far from my lived reality and that of most people I know. It also makes me wonder if we would be suited to each other, long-term, if what he thinks of as broken is what I consider normal.

And while I understand how it might feel like being broken for someone in his position, with his life experience, that terminology really gets under my skin. Just like "broken home" or "broken family." While talking to my therapist a few weeks ago, I put the word in air quotes and she insisted "But we are from broken homes." (She's a child of divorce too.) I didn't have words to express how and why I thought she was wrong, why calling my family broken made me angry, but I did and still do.

So I've been thinking quite a bit about being broken the last few days. As is usually the case, I couldn't think of a good response in the moment, but I am trying to develop one now. Maybe he is right that those things he describes are broken-ness and that my therapist is right about me being from a broken home. For the sake of the rest of this post, let's just assume that they are. It's not the kind of broken that occurs when a plate slips through your fingers and shatters on the floor, where no amount of gluing will restore it to it's previous usefulness again. It feels more like a broken bone, where your body can heal it naturally, with time and proper care, though how close it functions to it's previous state will also depend on how well it is re-set.

I looked up bone fractures on Wikipedia. If I'm reading it right, first, you get a blood clot between the fragments, then new blood vessels grow around the clot. The blood vessels bring the collagen which stiffens and becomes the bone matrix. Then a process called remodeling replaces the initial bone matrix with more mature bone. It usually takes about 18 months but is 80% of normal within 3 months in most adults. I can almost picture the blood then collagen then bone filling up the small space of the fracture, making what was a gap now whole again.

So, yes, I've been broken in many places, many times. I will be again. But when my family "broke" under the strain of a cheating and abusive spouse, my grandparents, my uncle, and, a little while later, my step-dad wove the broken places back together. I would not trade the closeness we shared as an extended family for a unbroken nuclear family. The rest of the broken-ness, well, sometimes you don't expect anything to every bridge that gap, to ever bind the pieces back together. Sometimes it doesn't for years and years. And then one day you realize that you can use that arm or leg again, just like a normal person, That years after a traumatizing robbery, you can walk alone to your car or down the street, without your heart racing. That after months of forcing yourself to hang out with friends, you find that you like doing it, that you miss seeing those people when you don't get the chance to for awhile. (Ok, so that comes and goes. The remodeling may have made the bone as strong, but the bone was never really a people person.) That two years after your last big loss, you can sometimes talk about it without even tearing up. Maybe you also find that the bones didn't heal exactly how they used to be, but that you are alright with that. Maybe you even like it better that way, because it reminds you that you'll never be the person you started out as, for better and for worse, though hopefully more for the better than for the worse.

Then again, I've also done some breaking on purpose. Tattoos, piercings, and scars are not how our bodies were originally, but I'm happy with them. In fact, I want more. I don't date how people are supposed to and I disclose too much too soon to everyone. There are a bunch of other things that society at large says that a healthy person doesn't do, but that I do openly and gladly. So I guess I also accepted a long time ago that I am broken, at least by most standards out there. Many times, I heal. I can bring those broken pieces back together and I find the remodeling to be sorta amazing. The rest of the times, I just develop new strategies for dealing with things while broken. Even if that means I'm too broken for most people, once they aren't broken anymore.

Gary Allan- Pieces

I've been broken, torn and scattered
I've loved holy, I've loved sin
I was rolling on the wind
It didn't matter

I was so sure of who I didn't want to be
Every smile and every fear
Every laugh and every tear
It was all mine, it was all me

Chorus:
Pieces of my heart
Pieces of my soul
Pieces that I'm gonna be
I don't even know
I gave a lot to lovers
Gave a lot to friends
Everything I took from them
Made me who I am
Pieces

We've all been lied to
We've all been liars
Nothing's perfect in this world
Everybody's been burned by the fire
Guess I'm learning
That what breaks you, makes you grow
But I'm not hiding where I've been
Gonna let the light shine in
What I don't need
Gonna let that, let that, let that go

Chorus:
Pieces of my heart
Pieces of my soul
Pieces that I'm gonna be
I don't even know
I gave a lot to lovers
Gave a lot to friends
Everything I took from them
Made me who I am
Pieces

Pieces, the good and the bad
Pieces, the happy and sad
Pieces, the wrong and the right
Pieces, that's my, that's my, that's my life

Chorus:
Pieces of my heart
Pieces of my soul
Pieces that I'm gonna be
I don't even know
I gave a lot to lovers
Gave a lot to friends
Everything I took from them
Made me who I am
Pieces

2 years gone

you'd think you'd remember the exact time, remember what you were wearing, remember how things smelled

but you don't

or at least i don't

i know that two years ago today he started having trouble breathing and everyone came to his bedside at the hospice

i know that he couldn't really see very clearly and he said that someone must have on perfume, they smelled too strongly. he said it was me and told me to go back to the shower to wash it off.

i know that someone, don't remember who, came to the large bathroom with the shower that was for family members and told me to come back quick.

i know i don't feel like i got to say good-bye, though i was there all the time those last months

i know that how he died sounded just like how my grandfather, his father, died. i know that his death didn't take as long as my grandfather's, though it some ways i guess it took almost four years

i don't know what time it was but i know it was over before this time two years ago

i know at the time it felt like it took forever but looking back it feels like it took no time at all

it's two years on and sometimes i don't know how we're all still standing. at first i thought i'd never stop crying then i thought i'd never be able to talk about him without crying now sometimes i don't even cry when i feel like i should. i'm sure there will be a time when i don't remember this anniversary and i'm sure that he'll be just fine with that, even if i'm not.

i feel like i've changed so much in the time since then, though it might not be easy to tell from the outside. i wish i could tell him how much this has changed me, i think for the better, given me the job i do now, pushed me to really work on myself and stick with the dbt, though if there's something after this, i'm sure he already knows. i with i could tell him that i'd give it all back to have him back, not that it's a choice we get to make though.

i wish i wish i wish i wish so many things

but what i know right now is that i have to wrap this up and stop crying so i can go to work and that after work i'm going to break into that 6 pack i bought and drink to him

So My Therapist Says, Vol. 4, Very Special "Thank You" Edition

As you might know from the last post, a young woman that I met last year in hospital killed herself the Saturday before last. When I talked to my therapist the day after I wrote the post, we talked a good deal about suicide and about how other people, often people who have never had mental health issues much less ever felt suicidal, feel obligated to offer their opinions about suicide. (And, oh man, did that problem with people's opinions about suicide not get better after the events of this weekend.) We talked about how I feel that it's not my place to say that someone must suffer for the sake of others, even if that suffering is psychological. Yes, I am pro-choice, even to the point of being pro-abortion if that is the woman's choice. I am pro-euthanasia, pro-assisted suicide. I'm thankful for the time that I got with grandfather and with my uncle, but I would like to think that I would have abided by their wishes if they wanted less medical intervention or decided to end their life rather than suffer, especially once they knew they were going to die. On the other hand, as I said in the last post, I am eternally grateful my attempts were not successful. My therapist offered some of her opinions as well, including that she understands that some people might be suffering so much that they feel that is their only choice. As a therapist, she feels it's her duty to never say that a person is beyond treatment. In fact, many of us BPD people have been told that we are beyond treatment before we find DBT. She talked about having the conversation with suicidal people or self-harming people where they push back against her assertions that they shouldn't do it, that they assert that it's their life and they have a right to do what they want with it, even if it's a negative thing. She said that she can't say that they don't have that right, just that everyone's life is worth trying to make it worth living in as skillful of a way as possible.

As for everyone expressing their opinions, particularly those who say things like "How could s/he do this to his/her family/friends/loved ones?" or that suicide is cowardly or whatever other bullshit people say, she gave me a great comeback,"You just say to them,'I'm glad that you are fortunate enough to have never felt like that, but we can't know how this person was feeling. Let's just mourn for the loss and the loss of the family." Then she shared something extremely personal experience with suicide and dealing with those kinds of opinions. She told me that very few people there knew about this. But obviously she felt both that I could benefit from what she shared and that she could trust me enough to tell me.

And I wanted to write this post to express how grateful I am that she told me. Overall, I'm always thankful just to have a caring therapist who is always available, but I'm thankful that I have her as my therapist as well. This, however, was such a special experience. Many mental health professionals don't share anything about their own personal lives. Some don't even have pictures of their loved ones on their desk or any personal touches in their office. I really like that the people at the place where I receive therapy feel that sharing some personal info and experiences creates more of a connection with their clients as well as allows them to use their own lives to draw examples from. Even so, my therapist didn't have to do what she did. She didn't have to show an open-mindedness about how suicidal and self-injuring people feel. She didn't have to trust that I would not twist it. And she definitely didn't have to tell me the specifics of her own experiences. She didn't have to trust me with her personal knowledge. But I am so grateful that she did.

I realize that it must be a really hard job to do. There are so many fine lines to walk, especially when it comes to discussing suicide with someone you know has had multiple suicide attempts in their past. For example, on the one hand, you don't want to discourage our bodily autonomy, a feeling that this body we live in is ours. Many people getting treatment where I do, at the level that I am, have felt like we were forced into taking medications or forced into a "voluntary" hospitalization. We have hostility towards medical professionals who tell us that we have to do, or not do, something, so you're not going to help our therapeutic relationship by telling us that we can't do what we want with our body. I think this probably goes doubly for those of us with BPD. Another thing that BPD people deal with more often than the general population is trauma and abuse. When you've experienced a traumatic event or lived in an abusive situation, you start to internalize that your body is not your own, that it exists to serve others' prerogatives. Many of us disassociate from our bodies, our feelings, or both so we don't have to deal with this problem. The last thing we need is another person, specifically the person who is supposed to be helping us heal, telling us that our body is for someone else.

On the other hand, you're not going to tell us that self-harm or suicide is ok. You're the person trying to find the best way to get us to stop doing that shit. Even if I'm in a place where I'm not self-harming, haven't thought of self-harming or suicide for quite a while, you don't want to leave me with an idea that I might later use to rationalize self-harm or suicide. You do want us to leave continuing to feel that those are not positive, helpful coping mechanisms. You want us to feel like our bodies and our selves should not be hurt, that we have value and worth.

So I wanted to give a very public "thank you" to my amazing therapist. I'm so grateful for all your help and for this specifically.

Where I'm The Doctor & you're Amy, get it?

When your best hopes and desires are scattered to the winds

I want to write. I've had a post on alcohol rattling around in my head for two weeks and another about leaving my hometown for a week. But all I can think about is you.

You as Lisbeth, girl with the Dragon Tattoo

You were found dead on Saturday, of an apparent suicide. The "life celebration" is Thursday. Your Facebook page is full of people talking about how much they loved you and how much they'll miss you.

I didn't actually know you very well. About this time last year, I attempted suicide. Like most people in that situation, I absolutely did not want to be hospitalized afterwards. And there you were. This cute little baby-dyke ball of love and energy and acceptance and welcome. And all at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl. You made me smile, just to look at you, so young and fresh and pretty. You got me to play that stupid Settlers of Catan game. You and the big guy were spots of promise at a really desperate time, when I felt like I'd fucked up the couple months of therapy that I'd been working on, felt like I'd always just end up back in the same place. Afterwards, you created a secret FB page for those of us who were in the hospital at the same time. The group even met for a few dinners, though I was only there for one. I have ended up becoming real friends with another member of the group. Though ze's moved several hours away, I still see zir whenever ze comes back to visit other friends.

Our dinners stopped when you went into an intensive in-patient program in the Large Midwestern City. You stayed there after the program was over. Through the summer, I'd see pics of you at famous locations all around the city, particularly the baseball stadium. You seemed happy. Then again, you always seemed happy, which must not have been the case, considering how we met.

But I hoped that all of us were doing better. Through FB I knew that another person had dealt with medication abuse issues and was back on zir feet. The person that I'd become friends with has found a job ze loves and likes the new city ze is living in. Though it took me until August, and two failed jobs, I finally found a job that I think I can stick with, that I really find rewarding. I finally feel like the skills from therapy are becoming second nature, not "ok, what skill should I use here?" I'm really feeling good.

I'd seen that you'd been back in the hospital a few weeks ago but you said that you were fine, no worries. But sometimes the toughest part is when we get out of the hospital. And holidays. And fall/winter.

I don't presume to tell people that they should stick it out, no matter how much they are suffering, because life is sacred, because it might get better, because of their family and loved ones. I don't know their pain and only they can say if it is bearable. I've read that 10% of major depressive disorder is treatment resistant. I have no idea what the stats are on bipolar, mood disorders, or schizophrenia. Even when medication works to treat the mental disorder, the side effects can make it difficult to continue. These are diseases. Like diabetes. Sometimes you just take some meds and are more mindful of things in your life. Sometimes they take whole parts of you.

Last June, you turned 20 days after I turned 30. Time doesn't always bring wisdom though it does bring experience. It might not have changed your mind, but I wish I could have told you a few things before you were gone. I would have told you that you might not be able to change who you are, but you can find ways to manage bad behavior. I wish I could have told you that life is both longer and shorter than you could ever imagine. It is long enough not to spend it miserable. It is long enough that you'll get more chances than you'd think. It is long enough to find and lose love over and over and over. That it feels neverending when you're watching someone go, but like the time with them went in the blink of an eye once they're gone. That hard times come and hard times go, hard times come and hard times go...just to come again. That they do go. That so much of this will pass, yes the good, but also the bad.

But I'm sure people had told you all those things before. You decided to do this. It's not my place to say you didn't do the best thing for you. Even if I did, it wouldn't change anything. So I'll put these thoughts out there, with hopes that you'll hear them and hopes that they might help someone else. Maybe me on a day when I really need them. And I'll mourn, for my loss, for your family's loss, for your friends' and lovers' loss, that half the world don't even know what they could have had. Whatever comes after this, I hope you find peace or at least reprieve.

"The other day I saw a car like you used to drive..."

Yesterday, getting into my car, it smelled like it always used to when it was her car. That is to say, it smelled like a perfume of cigarette smoke. Not lingering smoke, like someone had just smoked in the car, but like how everything in a smoker's house smells, if they'd been gone a couple of days, the way that scent seems to have seeped into every bit of fabric. I always leave my car windows rolled down while I'm at work, so it's a bit cooler when I get into the car and there must have been some combination of the temperature and the rain the sky was threatening that unlocked the last little bits of that fragrance. My grandma refusing to be forgotten. As if I ever could.

Today, as I pulled out of the drive at work, there was a Mazda 626, the car of my client's friend. He'd had one of those. Actually, one summer, he had one and his (now ex-)wife (or was she his girlfriend then? I can't remember) each had one. One of the 626s was yellow and we managed to "lose" it in the parking lot after a concert. Turns out we parked much farther away than we remembered. I made it all the way onto the highway before I started crying and even then it was only a few tears. That must be some kind of record.

I do not know how to communicate how this feels, not even to myself. I only know how it does feel. I know that when I start to think "Will this ever get better?" I can look back at how I felt when the losses occurred and know that it does not feel that same way anymore, though it is difficult for me to label the difference as "better." It is not as intense, not as overwhelming, not as painful, not as likely to lead me to disassociate from my feelings, more manageable. So I guess most people would say that it is better, but just because something is brighter than black does not necessarily mean it is light.

I thought that I would heal, that all these breaks were clean. A painful reset, a good bit of time in a cast, but then I'd be almost as good as new, except for some pain when a storm rolled through. And with my grandparents, I am. I miss them, but it feels... like it was what should be. I thought by now that I would be more at peace with more with my uncle's death, that I would be more healed. "People love that cliche: time heals all wounds. But live long enough and you realize that most cliches are true. It's amazing what even the smallest passages of time can accomplish, the cuts it can close, the imperfections it can smooth over. But in the end, it comes down to the size of the wound, doesn't it? If the wound is deep enough, there might be no way to keep it from festering, even if you have all the time in the world." I no longer feel like I walk through life an open wound, raw nerves constantly exposed, but I don't think that the pieces will ever fit back together or that the wound will ever truly heal.

And it is hard when you feel like the people around you just wish you would get over it already. Don't get me wrong, I know that some of them wish that I was "over it" because they don't want me to be in pain, though I'm sure some of them feel that they are "over it" and I should be too, while still others are just tired of hearing about it. How do you tell them that you'll never be "over it" without them taking that to mean that you'll always be the same brand of basketcase that you were at the funeral or are at memorials and death-anniversaries? And how do you tell them that everyday you are more accepting of, even alright with, the fact that you'll never be "over it," that you'll never be who you were, that there will always be something missing because the person who is gone is missing? "Who can say if I have been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

I think that I should be sad, that this should be painful. Pain and sadness are natural responses to hurt and loss. I think that feeling those emotions tells us how much we hurt, that what we lost meant something to us. I don't think that anyone should go through life pain and sadness free. Now, suffering is the thing we're supposed to be working to reduce. I'm not sure that the people who know me think I'm doing the best job at that either, but, meh, it's a work in progress. The point is that I don't feel like it shouldn't be painful to be without those I love, that I shouldn't be a bit sad when I remember them. Like when I see a Mazda 626.

They say "The 1st Year Is the Hardest"

Saturday will be the one year anniversary of your death. I'll go back to your home to celebrate your life with a bonfire and free flowing alcohol with your partner, your neighbors, and a few other select people you loved. Of course, without you to unite everyone and quash bad blood, not everyone I wish could be there will be. You were amazing at bringing people together, making families and friendships where there might not have even been acquaintanceships. Even within our own family, your level-headedness and ability to empathize with even the most different person kept us together. When I wanted to be a sullen, anti-social teenager, you never stopped shepparding me back into the fold.

More often than not, my family strife came from my step-father and I's inability to effectively communicate. But your knowledge of all of the players in the situation, your ability to find just the right way to tell me how to get my head out of my ass, and your spot-on advice on what would work best for me to fix what I'd done wrong while, if possible, getting what I wanted... well, it saved me. Saved us.

Selfishly, all I can think of is how much I need you now for this. Before you passed, my lack of paid employment had a reason. I was taking care of you. Then, I got some slack to grieve. But Mom went back to work right away. Even after 3 months and a grieving support group, I couldn't run a simple errand without crying. The months of therapy since have mostly helped contain that, but they've also helped me develop all these coping skills. Or at least that's how I feel. I've tried to make up for what I lack in cooking ability and having paid employment with trying to do as much of the cleaning as possible, with running errands, with doing all the laundry, and with trying not to pick or be drawn into fights about politics with my step-dad. But apparently he still thinks I'm a hysterical shrieking harpy who's mood changes faster than the weather in our Midsized Midwestern City. Finally, yesterday, I snapped, which only served to prove him right, at least in his eyes.

I know I should have sat down and really analyzed the skill that I could use best in this situation, written down step by step what I was going to present as the issue(s.) I should have had fucking multi-colored 3x5 cards. And I should have taken a magical pill that would prevent me from crying when I got mad or upset or sad and that forced me to keep eye contact, instead of looking down at the floor to catch my thoughts. But I didn't. And I lost. Leaving for the night to get some space on the issue turned into me running away. Asking him to say something or listen at all, even after he himself said he didn't like that there was no communication in the household, was me trying to change him and he's just not going to change. The real problem is that I just feel too much, think too much, and want too much. In my therapy, we call this invalidating, and, as you can probably guess, it's not a positive term.

The homework my therapist gave me was to do the thinking-work and paper-work with the skills I should have used, so I can have a better grasp on the issues, assert myself, reinforce why these changes might be a good thing, etc. Obviously, it's a good idea. But I really wish I could just have picked up the phone tonight, told you what happened, which you probably already heard from my mom in a phone conversation during her lunch break, and you would have been able to just whip up the perfectly suited advice for me to handle the situation with my step-dad in a manner where we could both feel like we won. Hell, I would have called you last night before I went off with my guns half-cocked, and you would have given me that advice then and the situation wouldn't have ended up fucked up and with me being told it was still my fault, like I was back to being 15 again. And I'd be able to escape to your house as soon as I had a couple days off, to get some space, some perspective, and to cool off. I really could have used a good night of drinking and bitching with you. I have a few lovely friends who are kind enough to let me crash on their couch for a night, but they're not family, so they don't know my folks and can't call telling them to get this shit settled so I will get off their couch and back to my parents' basement.

But you aren't here and I'm at a loss as to how to fix this on my own in a way where I get any part of what I want without having to give away everything. And you could explain why I'm always in these situations with (straight) men, where I have to change completely to be satisfactory but they don't have to do anything. I can give up dating them, but I can't really stop one of them from being my step-father.

I just miss you so much. Everyday there's something else I want to tell you, show you, let you listen to, something I'd love to hear your opinion on, some bit of family history I can't quite remember and wish you were here to ask. The last two weeks in my group therapy, we focused on "Radical Acceptance." I've gotten to where I can tolerate that you are gone. But I haven't been able to accept it yet. Despite what therapy says about how radically accepting something isn't saying that it was ok, that it was what we wanted to happen, that it wasn't a bad thing, kinda like Oprah's opinions about forgiveness, I don't feel that is true, like radically accepting your death would erase how cosmically unfair it was, still is. It'll mean I don't still need you, but I feel like I need you more every day.

I hope you know how very very much I miss you.

Picking at Scabs

It would be so nice to feel sleepy around 10 pm, before even taking any medication, then just lay down in bed and fall asleep. I'm told that's what normal people do and what I will eventually do when I'm healthy. I think it's all bullshit. Tonight I started feeling sleepy, drop dead tired at around 10:30, after eating, but I made the mistake of playing around on my phone, then journalling my day, which led to me thinking about what day it was by that time, since it was by then after midnight, and, well, I fell apart.

I sent this email to Moneypenny, typed on my phone, so sorry about the really poor grammar.

There's an episode of House in which House & his friend Wilon are on the outs but Wilson & their boss conspire to, basically, drug & kidnap Houe to make him attend his father's funeral, at the request of his mother, who knows House has much anomysity towards his father that he won't go on his own. During the ride to the funeral, House tells Wilson that part of his feelings are that the man wasn't really his biological father, which he figured out at 13 because of recessive genetic traits and that the man was a marine, shipped out at the crucial time, but House felt that it was himself who was decieved. At the funeral, House even goes so far as to get a tissue sample by pretending to kiss the deceased, so he can prove it later. Wilson ends up fighting with him and getting so angry that he throws a bottle of booze, at what he assumes is the wall but is really a stained glass window, which he breaks.

In the last scene, Wilson brings House the results of the dna test,which he'd intercepted before they got to House. Wilson also came to tell House that he'd been right about something he'd said earlier, that for all the insanity House had gotten him into that day, it was the mostfun he'd had in a long time, since what paused their friendship. Of course, the test results confirm House's lifelong hypothesis about hi parentage. Wilson tells him that this must make him feel a bit better, because it proved he was that smart and right at 13. House doesn't look more pleased. "Wilson, [beat] my dad is dead." Wilson looks genuinely sad for him. "My condolencses. Let me buy you dinner." He opens the door and waits for his friend.

Being the Wilson to my House doesn't mean you get the shitty character.

My grandpa died today. Around 6 am. I'm so sad.

I started crying and decided I'd rather watch the episode of House, if I owned it, than lay in bed and cry. Somehow I don't have season 4, but I do have season 5, and this episode is the fourth episode of season 5. I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not.

Around 6 am, December 28th, 2007, so about four years less five hours from right about now, I watched my grandfather die.

As I stood in the kitchen, crying, trying to find something to drink that didn't have caffeine to go with my pistachio pudding, things started flooding back to me. You know, it's strange how things run together. All the deaths. All the regrets. All the things you didn't do. All the things you did do. Four years is the blink of an eye when you're watching your child grow up, when you're pushing your way through high school, when it's the last four years you get with someone. Four years is forever when you're watching people die. Four minutes is forever when you're lost and alone and can't figure out where you're going.

I drive Moneypenny crazy with late night phone calls and text messages. The text messages he, rightly, ignores. When it used to be phone calls, he'd feint interest and try to get me off the phone as soon as he could so he could go back to sleep. I don't fault him for this feeling. But, even before this recent extended dance with the Reaper, I've had this fear that I wouldn't say what needed to be said before someone was gone from my life. Maybe it was because I didn't know that the last time I saw my biological father would be the last time I saw my biological father. The anxiety most people felt when they wanted to tell someone that they had a crush on them was doubled by my own worry that this might be my last chance that I ever got to tell them that I had a crush on them, because they might move the next day or get hit by a bus. There was so much I told my uncle, about my life, about my feelings, about my crushes, about my friendships, on our long drives. But there were also times I'd sit outside his door while he was asleep, when I couldn't sleep, when I fought the urge to wake him up and tell him how bad it hurt, inside, all the time. When he was still living with my grandparents and my parents and I would visit from the Very Large Midwestern City, he'd give up his bedroom to my parents. He and I would have to share a bedroom, which was wonderfully awkward for a 9 year old girl and a 20 year old young man, though I slept on a day bed and he slept on a pull-out bed which only sometimes stayed propped up through the whole night. (That was funny, in a Three Stooges kinda way.) I'd lay in my bed, listening to him sleep, wishing I had the balls to wake him up and tell him that I was sad and desperate and maybe even suicidal, though I had no way to express that except reading all the horror novels I could get my hands on. I wish I had told him and yet I'm glad I didn't. It's hard enough dealing with my mental illness as an adult, when the doctors and pharmacists have a sort of kind of solid hold on what the illnesses look like and how the medications probably effect a person, much less children when it's all fucked up and topsy turvy. If my family is worried about me now, I can't even imagine the eggshells they would have felt they needed to walk on then. But I don't think I've ever told this to anyone. Not even Moneypenny. I wonder if my uncle knew. Even more than my mother, he seemed to know everything. While he didn't get to punish me for things I had no idea how he knew, he did get the burden of whether or not to share it with my mother, so she could decide what to do with it. On the other hand, it seems unimaginably cruel to let me sit outside his door for hours and cry and not do anything about it. If there's one thing he wasn't to me, it was cruel.

And why am I talking about my uncle when it's the anniversary of my grandfather's death? Because they all run together. Because I wasn't as close to my grandfather. Because it was easier to accept my grandfather's death. Because it's been longer. Because I could justify it by saying that my grandfather had done all, or almost all, of what he was going to do with his life. And why am I telling you? Putting all these personal issues on blast? Maybe just so I don't feel the need to wake up my poor good friend who is probably sleeping peacefully next to his lovely girlfriend and who definitely has to be at work at 8 in the morning tomorrow (or today.) Sigh.

But I still miss my grandfather. MGD and fritos. Steel guitars and lottery tickets. Ashes and strong coffee. Those steaks my grandmother made for him that I never could figure out how he could chew through without his dentures. A man who never said "I love you," but who never did anything to make me doubt that he did. I care him with me wherever I go and try to let his example lead me, try to be as good of a man and a person as he was. I miss you Grandpa.

[Oh, but I got the details of the episode wrong. Wilson goes to see House because House's patient pulls through. House is drinking in celebration of the test results which proved him right, but he's still depressed because he feels nothing at all at the news. But their final exchange is still the same. Your real friends are the ones who understand, or maybe just accept, that you can be righteous while being pissed off that you're right while still being sad that this person that you had such a strange and complex relationship with is dead. And while they might not show the textbook perfect response, their response is still... well, it's still something. Sometimes, something is all you really need. Your friends will never have the perfect response for you and you'll never have the perfect response for them. But being there is a big step in the right direction.]

[And I'm still the same person. I'm just blogging under an account that's tied to my Google. When I started the blog, google didn't own blogger and/or I didn't have a google account, so I used the email I'd been using for years. Now I rely on google for tons of stuff and I'm too lazy to log out of all my google stuff just so I can blog. So there's two of me blogging on here: Ava and AvaAlso. I think my gentle readers are intelligent enough for this not to cause a large problem.]