For the last 8 years I’ve struggled with an impulse that’s so embarrassing-on-a-personal-level that I’ve never told anyone. Due to the nature of it and the fact that I’ve done everything in my power to “cure” myself of something so ludicrous and shameful, I find that its persistence only makes me more ashamed of myself when it crops up… which is, incidentally, when I feel at my lowest. Not a healthy cycle. I know. I get that, too.

So yesterday, I waltzed into New Therapist #Whatever’s office (I haven’t been in therapy in a few years, although I’ve been maintaining my mental practices of reflection, self-inventory, etc.) and, when she asked Typical Initial Evaluation Question #1 (”Why are you here?”), I unleashed a 20-minute diatribe about how I’ve been dealing with this shit for what seems like forever and I’ve been through more “recovery” and therapy and group therapy and self-help and general “healing” than I could possibly begin to describe in the last 10-ish years and I’m just fucking EXHAUSTED with it because I find myself still stuck in the same stupid habits and mentalities as I was at the beginning and dammit, why aren’t I fucking fixed yet?! I’ve forgiven everysingleperson who’s ever so much at looked at me the wrong way; I’ve forgiven myself for everysinglemistake I ever thought about making; I’ve “let go” and “12-stepped” and “retuned my mental radio” and visualized and meditated and undergone hypnosis and dug up everysinglesecond of my childhood and “accepted” and “gotten the tools of serenity” and genuinely flung myself headfirst into every possible brain-sick antidote on the market (and, apparently, picking up aaaallllll the cliched recovery jargon along the way - seriously, try me) and I am ready for my subconscious to hop on board with me because I’ve been ready to move on and be done with all this noise now. For real. Seriously.
And I’m starting to become self-defeating in my frustration when my subconscious won’t cooperate.
And that’s become a battle in and of itself.
Dammit.

So, when asked to give an example of how my subconscious “isn’t jumping on board”, I described this aforementioned, embarrassing impulse of mine and how, when I try to fight it off (I am successful 98% of the time it appears), it haunts my dreams night-after-night and I hate it.

And she’s all, “Well, I’m not a dream expert or anything…”
Me: No, I know; I definitely am not looking for a dream analyst or something lame along those lines. Sorry…
Her: … but what does [the source of this impulse] represent to you?
Me: …Fwaahh?
Her: Or, rather, what part of you does [the source of impulse] represent? You mentioned that having dreams about a childhood antagonist you no longer know or communicate with is simply your mind creating a mascot for self-doubt, fear, and self-stifling, so what does this other impulse represent?
Me: Aaahhhmm…
(Beat. I’m embarrassed I’ve never stopped to think about this. I have the feeling it’s going to be painfully obvious.)
Her: Well, every time you give in to this impulse, you feel like shit, right? And you feel like shit even by having the compulsion to [do this weird thing] in the first place and after all these years and all your efforts, right? Because you recognize how destructive it is and has always been to yourself and how you’ve worked to get away from it for years now…? even though you didn’t for the first few years it was a habit because - as you said - your “self-esteem was in the crapper.”
Me: …yyyeeeaahh…?
Her: So could this impulse represent the side of you that believes you deserve to be punished?
(Another beat.)
Me: Holy. Crap… You’re exactly right. And it seems so blatantly obvious now.
Her: Well, not if you’ve never considered it that way. (smiles) So there; now you’re getting your money’s worth.

At that point, I felt like she should’ve spread her arms out like she’d just done a magic trick. Conjuring a major breakthrough in the first half-hour of our first session that has already started to change the way I’m reacting to my brain and, thus, started a chain-reaction of revelations (i.e. “So, if I feel self-destructive when I’m at my lowest, and that’s not really curing anything, that means I need to work on loving and forgiving myself immediately and constantly, even when I can’t find any reason to love and forgive myself… because THAT’S ultimately what’s going to make me feel better ever again and get out of these destructive habits/impulse-patterns for good… Whhhooooaaaa…”)?! She’s a wizard!
…and/or I’m actually on the right track…
…either way, I’m totally going back next Monday.

And, no, I’m still not telling anybody else what the embarrassing impulse is.

Change of plans.

The last few weeks have been a neurological nightmare. In the digging-through-and-revisiting of my past to start writing all of it, I’ve been inundated with a melange of Crazy, sending me into fits of depression and maniacal behaviors (all outdated impulse-habits of mine, of course. Nothing new and special to deal with; just old stuff I’ve been trying to leave behind/slough off for forever) and dreams filled with antagonist probes and AAAUUGHDAMMITALTOGETHER.

There was dysfunction. There were moments of genuine Crazy. There were impulse behaviors and then there was predictable regret. There was a blow-up. There was a meltdown. There was bad.
There was Crazy.

Which is funny, ’cause I’d made the assumption I was… y’know… good. Not still-volatile-and-easily-triggered-into-insanity.

I found myself drawn to a Caroline Myss book I’ve had on my shelf since 2002, when it was assigned to me in a religion class my sophomore year (the only class that whole semester that I finished.)

Myss talks about healing and why people don’t; I read about her thoughts on “Woundology” and how, even though we like to say we’re “healing”, we actually just hang on to the process of “healing” and use that as a definitive part of our identities and maybe even a way of feeling some sort of clout over others that we can manipulate for sympathy or attention. She went on to state that that’s not really “healing” because “healing” means you get past the wound, but if you’re still in the “process of healing”, then you’re still paying attention to the wound and letting it run your life, even if your original intent was to get over it. She didn’t say it, but she alluded to the fact that this sort of thinking is pretty gross. And I found myself agreeing. In not these exact words, she basically said, “Y’all need to get over this noise altogether ’cause you’re not becoming any more enlightened by hanging on to ‘recovery’; it’s taking up all your energy and prohibiting your growth and forward-movement.”
I totally agreed.

So I’m doing that.

Because that seems more imperative in general if I’m going to have any sort of selfless and/or progressive existence… which is, incidentally, the goal here.

1) Thinking of aliases to assign my life’s antagonists is FUN.
(as in: “Chet was the kind of douchenozzle who boasted to everybody he met about being a ‘good guy’ despite his rampant self-loathing.”) (Uh, I don’t know anybody named “Chet”.)

2) Thinking of evil super-villain names to assign my nemeses is SUPER FUN.
(as in: “I still effing hate Medurncqes and Dr. Fuqen de Fartle, despite their unnatural lust for each other.”)

3) Thinking of childish, physical-flaw-based nicknames to assign aforementioned antagonists is straight-up addictive.
(as in: “For all I cared, Trollface O’Badgumratio could suck it… and probably did.“

Long-ago abandoned synaptic avenues have revitalized themselves behind my back, now coursing neurons through them with ease as though I’d never spent a day in therapy and, worse, causing me to gradually resort to emotion-based impulses I’d considered long extinct.

This has been going on for a number of months, in retrospect.

The benefit, however, of having wildly vibrant subconscious activity is that my conscious mind is at last enjoying the relaxing reprieve of silence.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

So, after years of hearing people tell me I should write a memoir about my life’s experience and realizing that my particular story could act as a vehicle to break down those nasty, outdated stereotypes about folks with mental illness and the intended treatment of such. And, yesterday, I officially decided to map out a game plan and spend the next few months of unemployment writing this great memoir of mine that discusses my bouts with the disease, the causes, the effects, the trips to the hospital, the results of healthy therapy, etc. I was psyched and ready to go and went out and made a proclamation, asking friends and relatives to help me fund this venture (http://www.indiegogo.com/IAmNotUnique) as I plan to spend a lot of time on the road doing interviews and researching to my heart’s content. Feedback came gushing in from my friends was overwhelming, with people cheering me on and saying they believed in me and all that junk that friends are supposed to say.

And then, today, I woke up with the greatest fear I’ve ever known. Even greater than the fear of dying, to be honest.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE A FRIGGIN’ BOOK! Where do I start? How do I make it poignant and effective without sounding melodramatic? How do I make it honest without stepping on people’s toes? How do I put words together so they don’t sound like me rambling about something most people don’t care to understand in the first place (i.e. this blog.) What do I exclude that’s totally cliched and overwrought? What do I include that’s scary and may hurt people’s feelings? How do I make it heavy enough to drive a point home but light enough that people will recommend it to their friends and maybe laugh a little? How do I pick out a title? WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?

I want to set the storyline up to illustrate a painfully-typical middle-class, white girl who was raised in the suburbs within a nuclear family and never wanted for anything (hi. That’s me.) but somehow found herself battling complete and utter insanity within her psyche that nearly ripped her in half a couple times and sent her to a few mental hospitals. I want to tell my story in a way that has minimal shock value, but drives home the point that this is the stuff that happens to millions of people exactly like me, but because of social stigmas or psychiatric overmedication, the issue isn’t dealt with in a solvable, maintainable way. THAT’S the bottom line of what I want to convey… and I have no fucking clue how I’m supposed to word an entire novel about myself into that.

So, cut to me on this second day, curled up in the fetal position and saying, out loud, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to write this shit. I can write blog entries and essays that get published but a book? A FUCKING BOOK?! That’s re-goddamned-diculous.” while my beloved spouse kept the house in running order and soothed my flailing self-doubt.

This is Fear. And I was not expecting it so freaking soon.

FUN FACT: I’ve accepted government handouts before, am not ashamed of that, and did my best to get off of them and back onto my feet as soon as possible! I’d like to discuss!

I don’t really bother with politics a lot on this blog because, frankly, I don’t have the energy or time to and, honestly, I don’t care enough to get online and become yet another pundit. Besides, I believe that our most powerful ballots are our dollars (as beautifully elucidated by some old friends at a recent reunion) and there’s no amount of screamin’-and’-yellin’ that’s going to keep people from paying whomever they want to do whatever they want.

HOWEVER, all this Occupation stuff has had me thinking and, while I’m not going to spout off a diatribe regarding the protests and my opinion of them, I have had a few friends say something about “the 99%” that has really rubbed me the wrong way on a personal level: “These are just people who want something for nothing.”

Enkay. As aforementioned, I’ve been on a government program before when our finances were tight, so I have the advantage of seeing that that argument is bullshit. In mid-2007, I’d just graduated college, my then-boyfriend (now-husband) was working 50+ hr weeks for nil, I was slowly becoming increasingly pregnant (read: unhireable) and, after all the bills were paid, there wasn’t much left over for anything to eat, so we went on the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. (We’d considered getting government help for prenatal care, but our parents covered that as a gift to us. I am aware of how blessed that makes us.) After the Bear was born, we stayed on WIC for another 6-to-9-ish months, as they helped us afford formula, fresh produce, and milk products for her.

NOW. Allow me to go ahead and dispel some misconceptions and inevitable rebuttals regarding “those people” receiving food stamps/government aid:

~ No, I wasn’t using it as an excuse to “get something for nothing”; I used it as a means to keep myself and my child healthy while we were in a tight spot. I figured I’d been paying taxes for almost ten years; this is the reason these programs were put in place for those who needed it.

~ Yes, I was livid when I’d see another WIC recipient roll up to the Health Department in a brand new Escalade with designer handbag/shoes/nails/phone. Those people were making a mockery of a program that my family needed in order to survive and were actively arguing against the cause altogether.

~ HOWEVER, no, I didn’t see the people who took advantage of the system as the majority. Not for the entire time I was a part of it, which was right at the beginning of this last recession.

~ Yes, I received information about this and other government programs from other women who were in my same situation. These women are still my friends and are also not prone to sitting around and receiving handouts in exchange for no efforts on their parts.

~ No, I wasn’t proud of or happy with being on a government-funded program, but, ego aside, I was damned glad we live in a country where receiving a little help is an option.

I actually had a friend hear me talk about that and reply, “I think I’d rather starve than take anything from the government.” Okay, first of all: ouch. Secondly, I never for a second thought that I was “taking” anything from anybody; I’d paid taxes and I intended to continue once we got through the slump. If anything, I was only taking advantage of one of the many government programs I’d helped to fund, the same way I don’t have to pay tolls when I drive on roads in my state; they’re there for me to use because I helped pay for them. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And, believe it or not, there ARE many, many people who adhere to this moral standard. Like me. And the people I know. And probably some people I don’t know, judging by the odds.

So, yeah, when I hear people sitting atop their horses and making declarations like “I’d rather we starve than take food stamps” I kind of just shake my head at such ignorant audacity.

Because the truth is, No. No you wouldn’t.

If you found yourself (or your children) starving, you’d realize that you, too, had put taxes into this program to help people like you and you’d take advantage of it because you’re lucky enough to live in America, where that’s been taken care of for you. I mean, you probably wouldn’t boast about it, nor would you be happy sustaining the rest of your life on someone else’s dollar (because you understand the importance and pride inherent in working for and earning your own lifestyle…right?), but you’d suck up your pride and take it for the good of yourself and your family for as long as it was necessary. And then you’d thank God or Allah or Halle Selassie or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever Higher Power you subscribe to for putting you in a country where receiving help from a taxpayer-funded program could keep you healthy and on your feet.

And THEN you’d think twice about screaming about the “evils of socialism” and the awful people who believe that a little bit of socialism isn’t bad.

That’s all I wanted to say. Well, that and “Thank you for helping me and the Bear out for a while there; we’ll return the favor when needed.”

I’d like to submit the following evidence, from least-rad to most-rad:

1) I’ve been sick all week and the Bear has played patiently and quietly by herself whenever I’ve needed to lay down. Most days, she’s let me sleep in until 8:30, only coming in to check on me or let me know if she couldn’t wait for breakfast anymore. Awesome.

2) Today I had to go buy some undergarments because mine are some 7 years old (what? Victoria’s Secret makes durable bras!) and are hanging off of me at this point. Every time I tried on a new one and turned around to look in the mirror, the Bear would exclaim, “You look like a MODEL!” and “What?! How you’s a model aGAIN?!” Excellent.

3) On the way to “The bra store”, she wanted to hear Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” on repeat so she could sing along. Amazing.

4) On the way home from “The bra store” she wanted to hear Focus’s “Hocus Pocus” on repeat so she could sing along. F*#king rad.

…and I am happy to use these small examples to rub noses in the fact that I knew my kid was blessed and special the whole time I was carrying her “in spite of God’s Will”. (I’m not bitter; just joyfully vindicated.)

(Actually, I hate it when people finish a statement with, “I’m just putting that out there.” Obviously you’re putting that out there; that’s why you said it. Just like when people say/write “I feel the need to express/say/state.” Yes. That’s obvious. Just say it.)

Two things:

1) Since publicly posting that image of myself at a smaller size, I’ve received a number of random-as-hell-and-unexpected emails from male figures from my obscure, platonic past (thanks, Facebook!) that’ve basically been “Ohbtw! I’ve totally always thought you were hot, but now you really areOMG!” in theme. Now, while I do appreciate the sudden, unsolicited compliments, I’m having trouble taking them seriously from these sources because come OOONNN, dude.

Really. You’ve aaalways thought I was hot, huh? How strange, then, that you’d wait until I dropped a crapload of weight some 5-10 years after meeting me to inform me. Was my weight inversely proportionate to your courage in sending me a simple compliment all this time? And what if I’d never lost the weight; would you have just never shared this information with me? (Any way you choose to answer these will be lame. There’s no need to risk it.) Also, no; I’m not going to start thinking of you sexually, no matter how many times you mention that my “husband is a lucky guy…” (I do, incidentally, get what that means… because it’s transparent.) The only real validation of my new body that I’d seek is with him, actually, and that’s not going to be tough because he loved me when I was pregnant, leaky, and 95 lbs. heavier than this…

…which leads me to my Real Point Here: The compliments of those guys/girls who thought I was attractive before a few months ago are all suddenly validated in light of these new flagrantly-hormone-driven perspectives that’re coming in. If you’re reading and you ever bothered to try to hand me a compliment about my looks (usually for me to cower away from) allow me to sincerely thank you now. And apologize for letting my weird self-esteem cloud your opinion. (I get it. I’m a little slow on the uptake.)

2) This is mostly addressed to the Universe (assuming the Universe checks in with the blogosphere.) but I’ve been aching for inspiration recently. I haven’t written anything in a while and that’s weird for me. No short stories, no personal essays… Hell, even my blog entries have been short, stunted, uninspired and really just relaying-of-information instead of exploratory and exciting [to me] like they’ve been in the past. I hate it. I miss writing and the feeling that I HAD to write. It’s been months and months of dry nothingness and I can’t stand it. I can’t even try to wring emotion out of prompts these days and I don’t get it; I’ve never had a problem just freewriting until something of substance (even if it was tiny and relatively temporary or only significant to myself) came out of me but recently… nothing. I’ve sat down and tried to pummel substance out of words at least a dozen times in the last couple months and I’ll get three pages in and realize I’m rambling about nothing and I’m just forcing verbiage because of this habitual drive and my restless fingers. It feels wrong not to write; I feel like I’ve just been living in stagnation because I’m not writing. Even when I’ve sat down with a clear objective/subject in mind, it all just sort of fizzles before a form or concept can congeal… even in bloody rough draft form.

And I’ve been reading and changing up my reading selections to keep my mind active (I went from Michael Pollan to Hilary Winston to Deepak Chopra to Harlan Ellison, all in the last 4 months) and loose and open to new strains of mental activity but still… nothing.

I don’t want to say something obnoxious like comparing this to torture, but I’ve found myself at 2 a.m wandering the house/internet looking for inspiration. The energy to stay awake till all hours and create is still there, but the muse isn’t and it’s a bizarre sensation, like breathing but not retaining any oxygen. Instead, however, it’s me wanting desperately to write, but sitting on MentalFloss.com until the sun comes up. (That’s a true story that happens about twice a week.)

Hell, I don’t even care if I’m writing anything worthy of publication at this point - just something that I can complete would be nice. I’m past self-criticism or fear-of-not-living-up-to-expectation; I just want to put the pen to paper and have something come out of it that isn’t a grocery list.

So, Universe, I’d really love it if some inspiration fell into my lap. Just putting that out there.

Let the record show that I have been a size 10 or larger (usually larger) since the 8th grade.
I’d like to submit this unedited photo of myself wearing size 6 jeans today (while angels apparently sang, judging by the [also unedited] lighting in this image.)

Holl. Ah.