Dear Allison,
At church today, an elderly woman stood during the “Joys and Sorrows”-sharing part of the service to tell the community about her sorrow, which was that she was unable to be by her “best friend in the world’s” side as her friend’s life was coming to a close on the other side of the country. She told us this, then took a moment to look to the side before blurting, “…I don’t know what I can do… or what I’m going to do…” and then turning to light a candle. Meanwhile, I buried my face in my hands to hide my now-convulsive sobs; I wanted nothing more than to intercept the woman with an embrace as she made her way, deflated and burdened, to her seat. Without thinking it, I realized that that woman may one day be me and I may be talking about you.
And then I thought, “God, I hope I die before Allison does so I never have to live without her.”
And then I remembered how much you fucking loathe that Winnie the Pooh quote about him wanting his friend to die a day after him so he doesn’t have to live without him and what a selfish douchenozzle move that is to wish on a friend - that they’d spend their last day in total misery because their BFF just died AND they’re slowly dying. And then I started giggling about how that sort of thing pisses you off enough to make one of your rare rants about it.

We met ten years ago to this week, by the way.

I’m sure you’ve realized in retrospect that you met me at the exact moment I reached the precipice of my freefall into unfuckingimaginable insanity/destruction after years of a slow-but-consistent descent in prologue. Really, the fact that we were still friends within a year of meeting each other is miraculous in itself because HolyLordballs, was I busy losing my damned mind.

I have a confession I never actually verbalized to you: you were my Bright Spot then. I remember meeting you and going to your dorm room and seeing this art that you’d created just because you wanted to make a prettier space for yourself (wha?! I didn’t know people did that! I thought people made art to show it off to each other or because their art teacher assigned it or because they wanted to submit it to something and get “famous”) and you sang songs that you’d written for your own amusement and you were this completely self-actualized, energetic being in a world of idiots (read: me) who were flailing around trying to leech energy off anything they thought was “cool” or “important” at the time and it was an unbelievable state of mind to encounter from where I was. Because, most of the time, when there’s someone who is somehow “above” the mentality of their peers, he or she has to have some sort of following or need to declare their mental/spiritual/artistic superiority to everyone else - especially if that person has been recently liberated from the confines of high school. But not you, dude. You just sort of did what you did and you liked what you liked and you were completely oblivious to the fact that you weren’t just “different”, but really, genuinely, special. (And not “special” like our generation’s everybody’s-special-in-their-own-snowflake-way “special”, but special like holy-shit-she’s-going-to-change-lives-and-do-shit-that-bends-reality special.) I’m not saying that either one of us knew what, exactly, you were supposed to do with all that “special”-ness at that point in the game and, you know, you’ve had a bit of a learning process with it, but I still knew then. Even though at the time, I was busy being either a)completely obliterated or b)completely absorbed in that disgustingly destructive relationship I was enamored with, I still recognized the energy we had together, even when people around us did not. (And still don’t, I think. I’m okay in the idea that we confuse people, though.)

ANYWAY. I don’t wanna bore you with a wordy scrapbook of memories ’cause, you know, we’ve talked about them to a masturbatory degree. (The only people who love talking about how awesome their situation is more than we do are Burning Man attendees…)
But, after a decade, I’m convinced that there has to be something Bigger going on here than two weirdos having befriended each other in a bullshit theater class. (Seriously. That class was buuuulllshiiiit. “Constructive Rest Position”? Learning to tremble? Bite my ass, Jermaine.)

You loved me when I hated myself so much I literally tried to murder myself. You have loved me when I let my demons reject you from my life. You have had that same delusional faith in me even when my life was nothing more than rolling out of my bed at my parents’ house and driving to the technical college up the road in my pajamas day after day because I’d failed at literally everything else. When I told you I was pregnant by some dude I’d been dating for 3 months, (less than a year after my second mental hospitalization, ohbytheway) your immediate response was to exclaim “CONGRATULATIONS!” and send me a bouquet of my favorite flower (lilies) the next morning, even though everyone else around me provided me with silence and fear for the next month. You have cheered me on from the sidelines, even when you were literally my only enthusiastic fan and you have never once shown any doubt that I wasn’t the person you’ve been trying to convince me that I am, even though I’ve done things to contradict that hypothesis many, many times.

Even though the noises in my mind sometimes get too loud for me to focus, I want you to know that I have never stopped loving you just as much. I cried every night you slept in the hospital and, aching with powerlessness, leapt at the chance to cram all your necessities (read: record player, paints) into my Jeep from Greensboro to Charlotte. I blew all my money from that coffee-shop job of mine for those monthly (sometimes fortnightly) treks up to Asheville to see you and I never once hesitated to plaster your art all over my dwelling space the minute it was given, in any form. I made sure to practice singing along to the more obscure PJ songs so I’d know all the words for the “next time” we got to see them perform (it totally worked!) I have always continued to talk to Chloe about you and show her pictures so she wouldn’t forget her godmother between the times she got to see you.

But I am, by no means, unaware that I’ve dropped the ball a lot and, when looking at this friendship and identifying its role within my life from this vantage point, I can’t help but feel the deepest regrets for the times I’ve let you down - you more than with anyone else I’ve ever disappointed. (Don’t tell my mom.) Dismissing your declining health and its symptoms (and understandable insecurity of those symptoms that compounded them) as “selfishness”, I pulled myself away from you and cut you off completely, in the name of “self-preservation”, instead of bothering to find out what, exactly, was at the root of your uncharacteristic actions. In my heart, I knew better, Allison; I know you better than to assume you’re just another brainless, unaware victim of self-absorbed-twentysomething-ism… why didn’t I do more? Why didn’t I stop to look deeper? Why didn’t I at least recognize that you weren’t being yourself - that something was obviously hurting you? I don’t know, Allison. I’ve spent hours of time wondering to myself what the hell kind of mental state I could’ve let myself get to in which I would completely ignore the “you” I inherently know and then regard your disease as your Self so much that I’d turn my back on you entirely. This time spent has only caused me insufferable pain - pain that worsens when I contrast my actions with the ones you’ve made when the roles have been reversed. As a friend, by comparison, I have been a selfish coward whose actions haven’t supported all those rambling speeches about your greatness I’ve made over the years. I don’t know why I have ever betrayed your trust or love when you have never once been disloyal to me, but I do know that I may never forgive myself for it. It’s just another testament to your wonderfulness that you somehow have, as always, seen that these actions aren’t indicative of my real Self and have forgiven me. Additionally, you have never once held me hostage for my shortcomings… Don’t think I don’t always carry those truths with me.

I always say that Chloe was The Thing That Saved My Life, but you need to know that YOU have constantly been The Thing That Makes Me Better. You bring out something in me that makes me a totally different person than the one I always thought I was; the energy I get when you’re around makes me love being alive and love being present and love being creative and fucking LOVE being myself. That sounds inane and melodramatic and really, really adolescent, but it’s true; you make me really happy to love the things I love. (”I JUST LOVE THE STUFF I LOVE!!!”) Just like I’d always kept my burning passion for Pearl Jam stuck in my pocket until I met you and let it reignite like crazy ever since, you’ve been the one to give me permission to really hurl myself at my loves, regardless of how idiotic they look to everyone else. You’re the one who lets me ramble for hours about Jim Henson/“Sesame Street” and who wants to watch “Tommy” 4,000 times to blabber about its nuances with me and you’re the one who will introduce me to new stand-up comedians or let me subject you to them and then dissect their genius for years upon years and you’re totally okay with spending Bear’s naptime just hanging out, smoking a hookah, drinking a shitload of Cheerwine, watching/running commentary during “Gia” and giggling about how fabulous it all is after making freshly-picked-strawberry-jam and you’re the one who gives me confidence to submit my writing to other people when I think it’s not terrible and you’re the one who gave me the balls to actually put that first stencil to use tagging various landmarks by immediately shouting “YES! LET’S DO IT!” and you’re the one who fucking laughs her ass off when I make a joke that I think is pretty good. You’re the one (many times the only one) who encourages me to not only figure out exactly what it is that I am, but to get really good at being that thing and then showing it to other people, when you will cheer loudly about it. Jesus Christ! Just writing that makes me feel unworthy.
Oh, but oh yeah! AND you’re able to do all of this cheerleading while also going out and seeking your own identity and truth and rocking at that, too.
DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE THAT IS!? Do you have any idea how fucking lucky I am to have found the aforementioned person AND that that person hasn’t totally given up on me yet AT ALL EVER (maybe because she’s insane, but I’m okay with that)!?!?!?! Because I don’t. I literally cannot conceive the odds of finding someone as special as you, having you come into and stay in my life for this long, and giving me all the gifts you have (and not just because I’m terrible at math…)

So, yeah. I just wanted you to know that I thought about all this today in church and realized that I’ll be talking about you still if I make it to 70 years old. And I realized that I would literally peel the skin off my back and sew it into a greasy, bloody skin-shirt for you if you absolutely needed it [in some post-apocalyptic, dystopian reality where that would somehow be crucial for survival.] (That sort of plot-hole is why I don’t write sci-fi.)
And I hope you know that everything I’ve ever said about your energy and vibrancy and incredible talent is the truth and is one of the rare, few things I Definitely Believe In. And I hope you know that I love you and have loved you no matter what my slow-to-adapt mind has convinced me of. I feel like you know these things, but I also felt like I needed to state them plainly and in print, where they could be cited and referenced.
More than anything, though, I’m so grateful that you’ve been such a definitive part of my last ten years. I don’t want to say anything hokey or forecasting about the future because that always seems to backfire for morons (ex: “Hope I die before I get old” - P.T.), but do know that these last ten years have been wonderful (even when they were fuckinggoddamnawfully terrible) because you have been in them.

Thank you so very much, Allison. Even if all our inside jokes and all our co-creations and all our memories and all our shared loves were suddenly stripped away from my conscious mind, I would still love you and everything you inherently are. I promise.

Right behind you,
L P-S

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.

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.

AAUUUUGGGHHHNNOOOOOO!!!!!!

IIIII :::inhaaales:: SUUUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUCCCK.

If you haven’t been paying attention recently, I’ve been running into walls and having Epic Mental Meltdown 2011: Redux (and kinda freaking out about it) and generally unable to function like a grownup recently, thus prompting my psychiatrist (to whom I had to travel in a cab because of my inability to work car do drive things) to send me to a neurologist (because, dammit, if I’m going to have mental illness, I’m going to cover all my bases… not doin’ nothin’ half-assed, no’way.)

And then, due to a series of events afterward, it became apparent that my complete neurological dysfunction is caused, incidentally, by a character flaw I’ve been plugging my ears and eyes in the presence of for, like, the last two years and now it’s become a trigger for completeanduttermentalimplosion.

Or, in regular-people speak: I’ve been slowly becoming less sane because I’m chickenshit.

:::sigh:::

I’m probably going to be away for a while.

I’m going to say up front that I hate writing this even more than you hate reading it. I’m just as exhausted and weary of this whole motif as you probably are. I’ll also warn you that this is probably the worst one I’ve written yet, simply out of fear and my desire to put it into text.

And the other thing I hate about all of this is that I am, arguably, the single most blessed human being I know:
~ On Saturday, I will celebrate 3 whole years of marriage with a man who is strong and dedicated and honest and compassionate and full of love and good at cuddling and who is fearless and inventive and intelligently hilarious and really, genuinely loves making me happy
~ I have a 3.5 year old bundle of blonde love who runs around my house and encourages me to play dress up and to sing and to read to her and who demands to let her make me feel better when I am sick.
~ I have a family who has sat through a LOT of bullshit from me and still celebrates my victories.
~ I have more important, loyal, creative, loving friends than any person should. (Most of whom not only give a shit about me, but always ALWAYS come to my rescue in my seemingly endless bouts of The Crazy.)
~ I live in and love North Carolina
~ I have every physical necessity I crave, in addition to every physical desire I want.

All of these are reasons that cause my unexpected bouts of depression seem to compound in my psyche; because there is absolutely no reason for them. Thanks for 10-ish years of therapy, I dealt with and exorcised all the emotion-attacking triggers and, have since, been living a life that perpetuates happy healthiness! (No more toxic relationships/friendships! No more drinking to get hammered by myself! More asserting myself when I don’t want to be in a crappy situation! No more tolerating bullshit I don’t have to! Hooray!)

However, this doesn’t change the [nauseatingly overstated] fact that I still deal with the “chemical-side” of depression every so often, for no real reason. (In fact, I usually get it in the spring.)

These symptoms include:
~Throbbing in the head/ears
~Loss of balance
~ Inability to drive safely (which I learned today as I made a wide turn and nailed my mailbox.)
~Aching limbs and muscles
~Inability to focus on anything long enough to accomplish simple tasks. (Kinda like being stoned and being unable to get up off the couch because the beeper on the microwave has been buzzing for 3 minutes and you barely notice.)
~Losing track of time. (Kinda like being stoned and looking at the clock, seeing that it says “3:00″ then looking back a minute later and it saying “4:30″.)
~Inability to form sentences because your brain won’t put words together. (This is why I prefer to write; sure, it takes a lot of editing because of my misspellings and nonsensical phrases, but at least the finished product is better than trying to talk to me.)
~ Inability to physically focus on anything, as the colors in my periphery blur and I seem to become encased in a solitary little universe. (I don’t call it “The Crazy” for nothin’, folks.)
~The inability to dress myself, sometimes. (That was one of the lowest points, admittedly. Thanks again to my fearless, loving, patient husband.)
~ Finding myself subconsciously acting on scary/insane impulses that I haven’t in over a decadel. (for example: In 11th grade, I was at a party where every single one of my friends was being flirted with and I was being ignored. Suddenly, I looked down and realized I’d driven my car keys deep into my forearm without noticing. That wasn’t the first instance of that, but is the only I can remember.)
~Pain in the presence of sunlight.

However, in the last three-ish days, I’ve had a sudden Crash between Chemical and the Emotional depression - the latter of which I have not experienced in over 5 years. There was no recent trigger. There is no tangible reason. Everything in my immediate life is going better than it has in a long time, actually (which is saying a lot because I’ve been pretty damned happy since early in 2007.)

I am just simply and suddenly crippled by the physical symptoms and those long-forgotten emotions in which I do not just feel but deeply believe/know that:
~ I am useless, untalented, unintelligent and not at all significant.
~ I am wasting space and energy by being here and continuing to put the people I love through the burden of listening to this completely self-serving “disease”.
~ I am mundane in general, but I won’t shut up about it.
~ I am pretentious and don’t have the balls to find nor live my own identity.
~ … and maybe this identity is too boring to seek out in the first place.
~ I am insignificant in a day-to-day sense as well as a career or social sense.
~ I am selfish (but try to overcompensate by giving to charities and volunteering for causes)
~ I am self-centered and don’t listen enough
~ I am rarely as important to certain people as they are to me.
~ I am lazy
~ There is nothing important coming out of my mouth or through my actions.
~ I am spoiled
~ I have no global perspective at all
~ I somehow graduated college as a complete idiot in my field.
~ I am taxing to my friends.
~ I talk too much because I’m afraid I have nothing to talk about.

All of these things are the emotional staples I’ve had since… forever, I guess. And now they’re back and attacking me along with the chemical fucker while I’m down. I forgot what this felt like; I haven’t had this since the spring of 2006, when my life was significantly different. I thought changing my life to something completely different and better would fix it, but now I’ve Crashed again and I don’t know how to get out of it or where to start. But one thing I do know for sure is that I’m scared in exactly the same way I was before: at least that hasn’t changed.

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s become a huge trend to run around screaming “No more bullying!” these days, particularly if you’re a fan of Lady Gaga [and dress up in the most attention-seeking attire ever to "express you inner monster" and rebel and stand out from the crowd and all that typical adolescent noise, so when someone says, "Hey, you look like a freakshow" - which is probably what you were going for, right? - you can get all butthurt and call them out for being a "bully" instead of a "stater of the obvious". Ugh. /tirade.] This is particularly hilarious to me on a number of levels, including the fact that, y’know, bullies have been around literally forever and it took a pop star (or a girl doing a performance art piece that’s a satire of pop-starishness that literally none of her fans are getting… who even knows anymore…) to start a campaign to basically say “Hey, everybody! Play nice!” for the “bullying problem” to be publicly accepted and/or addressed. As someone who was pretty severely bullied at one point in my life, I ought to be mad, but, really, I can’t help but be grateful for the few years I was bullied and what that experience gave me.

Okay, now, look. I’m not, by any means, advocating bullying because, frankly, I’ve been on either end of a bully-situation and they both involve feeling shitty about yourself - the bully-side moreso than the bullied-side, honestly.

And I know you’re probably rolling your eyes at this point, thinking, “Oh, here she goes with more crap she had to ’survive’ and become a ‘better person’ from and what bullshit she learned from all of it. Seriously, when is this gonna end? And how badly could she really have had it? She’s a middle-class white girl from the South… Shut up already.” But, honestly, I’ve always cited my early adolescent experiences as the catalyst for my self-destructive tendencies alongside the rapidly-evolving symptoms of depression I was caught up in at that time. And if you don’t wanna hear about it, then why do you keep reading this blog, for crying out loud? This is the basic theme, y’all.

There are a lot of things I’ve told friends about in the aftermath of my 6th-8th grade years, like the relentless hateful rhetoric from a certain group of peers [I naively chose to believe were "important"] based solely on whiteboy anger and an obvious disappointment regarding disproportionate genitalia. There were literal physical attacks and more than a handful of “swirlies” (which lead to my hiding hair products in my bag and wearing my hair in a ponytail on a daily basis.) And, until a recent therapy session, I had completely forgotten about being molested by a huge, quiet football-player-type every day on my way back from lunch in the 7th grade. I remember telling many administrators about all of these things, but they shrugged me off, as they apparently had bigger problems to deal with - this took a toll on my already-dwindling self-esteem. My inability to keep quiet about how I was being treated was, inevitably, fuel for the “bullies” to press harder, to really start targeting my psyche instead of my body. And it totally worked. I believed every single one of those idiots’ insults, even though I consciously knew that most of them were worthless idiots, destined for lives of worthless idiocy. Those lies became inherent  beliefs in me that drove my every decision from then until I started recovery and, naturally, I went ahead and made myself a textbook case of crappy self-esteem by making self-destructive choices (shitty relationships, substance abuse, becoming a bully to others just for the hell of it/due to misappropriated anger issues, etc.) which, of course, continued to spiral downward in a frenzy - along with the exacerbated and still-undiagnosed depression - until I hit the CompleteAndUtterBatshitCrazy (medically speaking) phase of this painfully cliched psychological path. Wheee!

I know; not a very good way to start an essay of gratitude and/or praise. Just hear me out.

In retrospect, I remember nights of cutting my thighs open and taking whole bottles of sleeping pills and waking up pissed off that I was still alive. I remember sitting in classes just staring at my desk so nobody could see me crying to myself. Sure, I remember things that were said and idiotic rumors that were started about my sexuality and my siblings being bullied because their sister was, apparently, the big dyke on campus. (A local minister even mentioned that “one of our town’s youths, just across the street here at _____ Middle School, has become a lesbian!” as a means to illustrate the apparent corruption of Satan our tiny town was supposedly enduring. Score!) In fact, for a long time after this era, whenever anybody posed the “What would you do with a time machine?” question, I’d always answer “Go hide in my jr. high locker and whisper witty comebacks to my younger self as her personal cheerleader.”

But I also remember not being able to just shut the hell up and walk under the radar. You’d think that someone who was targeted so often would tuck herself away in a corner and try as hard as she could not to be noticed, but not me. In fact, I did the exact opposite. In 8th grade, one of my classes required us to write a report for Black History Month and we’d get bonus points if we dressed in character. So I took my happy ass to school in vintage yellow, green, and red plaid bell-bottoms (borrowed from a friend’s mom - Thank you, Mrs. Lammers!), a green top, a self-made hemp necklace and homemade dreadlocks and presented my report on Bob Marley with more passion for the assignment than I probably should have had. Of course I was reamed and/or shunned for it, but I felt happy that day, regardless of how many people called me out for squeezing a size 12 ass into size 8 pants. It was even worse when I chose to cover the debate about gay rights for the Academically Gifted program’s statewide assignment to do a personal study on controversial issues. I was simply required to look at the issue and discuss the pros and cons and that’s what earned me the “lesbian” title. (In fact, before I started on this project, my teacher pulled me aside and said, “I just want you to know that, even if you never publicly state your opinion on this, you’re going to catch hell from a lot of people because this topic scares people.” - this was the year DADT was signed and Ellen came out, so people were up in arms about “the gays”. Anyway, when I told her I wanted to do it anyway, her eyes lit up and she got an impish grin before quietly exclaiming, “Okay! Let’s DO it!”  Thank you, Mrs. Crawford.) Naturally, I caught hell for it, as predicted. There were a few people who stood up for me, but even some of my “friends” started “praying for me” since I was apparently “treading a path of evil.” Again, folks: This was all over an objectively researched report.

(And the joke turned out to be on them, anyway; I’m not a lesbian; I’m bisexual and have dated a couple undeniable bombshells. Plus, I’m SURE all those guys who were throwing rocks at the “fat lesbo” have enjoyed observing many a girl-on-girl makeout session/film/etc. in the years since.)

I can name a bundle of other examples of my inability to stop being such an easy target, but, realizing that I always kept going and somehow held my own through those years kind of makes me rethink the idea I had of who I was during that time. Continuing to do what I wanted and expressing myself when nobody else wanted me to (my parents never spoke to me about the gay project, for example. They still won’t.) built a backbone in me and challenged me to seek out what it was that I believed and what I wanted to stand for and what I wanted to project if I was going to have to wake up and deal with all that crap from others on a daily basis. Alright, sure, I spent the years after all that grappling with my identity and feeding into the lies I’d been conditioned to accept as reality and letting them fuel some terrible decisions, but I’d rather have gone through all that and have a firm grasp on who I am now than have wafted silently through my formative years without anything to challenge the reality I’d been spoon-fed and coddled within since birth. The idea of being my current age and only just getting around to questioning my intentions and beliefs and authority figures and all that just seems incredibly depressing to me. And I don’t even want to think about those people who still haven’t gotten around to probing around and exploring facets of themselves and building an effing character for themselves and have no intention of ever doing so. Yikes.

I don’t have a vanilla personality now because I was forced to try extremes in order to feel a real happiness. (I’m not saying the flavor of my personality is necessarily stabilized, nor palatable to everyone; I’m just relieved it isn’t vanilla.) I’ve seen a load of scary, awful things in drug-laden dens and strip/sex clubs and mental hospitals as a distant result of the mental pummeling I took and the path it set me on and, now, with my sanity (relatively) intact, I have experience and insight coming out my ears.  I wouldn’t trade that in favor of blissful naivete/ignorance for anything. Those years of mental/physical torment were hard to wade through (I still have dreams about one of the tormentors to this day, actually. No idea why.) but, kind of like boot camp, it allowed me to break all the way down and choose to rebuild myself exactly as I wanted to be (or at least have the option to make adjustments where needed.)

Again, I’m not advocating bullying or harming others in any way at all. My only point here is that I cannot  deny that it is completely the fault of those morons (who are mostly - with a few exceptions - drunken, ignorant, ridiculously self-glorifying morons to this day. Thank you, Facebook!) that I am now a person I’m proud  and that I’ve chosen a life I’m really happy within. Don’t get me wrong; I know that I’m not perfect and I know that I have and will continue to make mistakes and I’m not totally awesome. I just know that I don’t suck and I had a choice in that. And, apparently, my 11-14-year-old self sensed that her/myself, too, which kinda makes me a little smug; and I do enjoy a good case of the Smug.

So, thank you, bullies! (Even though I know you don’t, you know, read, I just wanted to put the sentiment out there.) I’m so glad your hopes and great efforts to wreck my life backfired!

This may get a little train-of-thought-y as it’s late and, frankly, I’m working this all out in my psyche as you’re reading this, so, you know, it could get interesting.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I’ve always been one to overanalyze the shit out of any given situation, even the most banal. On top of that, I’ve always been That Person Who Needs an Answer from events/people/happenings before the situation is considered “defined” and I’m also That Person who will poke and prod until I get it (or, at least until I stop receiving answers altogether, which leads me to The Answer That There is No Answer.) Christ, I am exhausting.

But, thanks to years and years of therapy I’ve learned to close doors that I always tried to keep a teensy bit opened, with those natural realizations that most of the events of my past rarely had anything to do with me, personally, anyway and, even though I’ve been chronically plagued by my past to a degree that I’m sure is borderline insane (especially with those dreams about that sonofabitch…) I’ve been genuinely successful at that whole “letting go” and “finding peace” thing. Hooray!

However, in the last couple months, there’s been a strange undercurrent that has been dragging my Past back up to the surface and forcing me to look at it dead in the eyes from a post-therapy/healing perspective and, although it’s not something I was planning on it is, in fact, very present. Alright, so I cast the bait for one of the instances in which I discussed with a brief lover the exact nature of our affair, what had gone wrong, and the agreement that even though we had a great time, there weren’t any really hurt feelings and we were still happy to “see” each other when reacquainted online because we still think the other is pretty rad (score!) And then there was the recent phonecall in response to a blog entry I’d written almost two years ago about an unnamed character, who recognized himself in the text’s events and called to quell my residual feelings on something that had happened 10 years ago and what tiny bit of it exists today.

But then the tide came in and a literal dozen of faces and memories I’d never thought to bring up in therapy were suddenly there at my shores, greeting me and wanting to remold me or hold myself accountable for whatever this is that I’ve currently defined myself as due to all the stuff from waybackwhen that I’ve built upon… or who knows what. It’s just been a lot of “defining characters” allatonce and, needless to say, my mind has been on “Buhhhh…” for a while now in response.

A few of the faces are not only welcome, but have completely changed the way I view myself and how I’ve dealt with relationships in the past. Talking with a few friends I knew as a child, I am suddenly filled with regret for not having pulled those people closer and recognized them as the ones who actually gave a shit about me, instead of glossing over our bonds for the people I thought I was “supposed” to befriend and, incidentally, who only made me feel worse about who I was trying to become. It’s been a blessing to reunite with these people on “the other side” of the turmoil of adolescence/early-adulthood and, frankly, I hope I have the privilege of calling them “friends” for a long time to come.

As for the others, the trickiest part for me is knowing which ones to say “Fuck you! No, really; I’m fucking DONE, remember?!” to, versus which ones to say, “Hey, uh… Could I ask you something totally outdated and possibly trigger-worthy but inevitably obsessive and certifiably insane?” And what’s genuinely AMAZING about all of this is that there are many with whom I’ve felt nothing but a general, “Oh hey. Welcome back.” sentiment, despite my ever-present quest for ANSWERS, DAMMIT, ANSWERS!! VALIDATION!! WHY CAN’T YOU TELL ME WHO I AM SINCE YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN AND FOUND THAT REASON ENOUGH TO REVISIT!?!?!?

Maybe it’s finally starting to sink in that none the deep, social rumblings of all those yesterdays mattered as much to anyone else as it did to me. Or maybe I’m just starting to accept that I’ve made peace with it enough to look at it like a yellow-lined page in an old photo album without needing to peek closer for [and then get over-emotional about] social contexts that no longer exist. Or maybe I’m finally okay with myself to finally enjoy the party with others, as long as they aren’t morons or jerks, regardless of what part of my life they’re from.

Yeah. Probably that.

Either way, it all seems to be coming at me full-throttle and it’s making me wonder what in the hell is happening in the Energy realm right now that would be bringing all this to me right now. Frankly, it’s getting to be a lot more than coincidence.

I should go touch-up my mascara, if this is the case.

Hey everybody! I’m in the middle of the second week of “Good Days”!!! I haven’t had this kind of consistency since Jan-February-ish and, so, I think it’s safe to say that I’m on the other side of Bout o’ Crazy 2011. I’m freeee!!!

Here is a video that could not more perfectly describe how I feel right now.

Tommy- I’m Free

I’ve been cooking dinner and staying on top of laundry and taking the Bear out of the house and playing and painting and cleaning and sleeping all night and bathing and gardening and getting things done just like a normal person and I am so, so very happy and relieved. It seems so foreign that, just a couple weeks ago, I was unable to do any of those things. Hooray for going with my gut and ditching that quack! (I’m starting with a new doctor in a couple weeks.) Now I can spend time being in love with the life that I have again and making up for all those months of awfulness during which my wonderful husband kept us afloat on almost every level. (There will be cake and backrubs!)

YYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!

Oh, and thank you, too, reader. I know it gets exhausting to have to read my annual complaints, no matter how much I attempt to vary their themes for philosophical context, but it’s nice to know you’re out there, giving a shit and pulling for me. Seriously.

It’s funny; you would’ve thought with all my therapy and introspection and noisy, unrelenting psychoblather about myself in these last years, I would’ve picked up on this before now. But nope. Finally hit me tonight.

It doesn’t matter how many people love me and give me so much of their time and patience and attention and unconditional (perhaps delusional) encouragement and how many people have done so over the course of my life that have outnumbered those who haven’t, if I am rejected by someone I thought was a friend without any closing discourse or response to my humble attempts at communication, I go into Ultimate HolyCrap Meltdown Mode. It doesn’t matter if this person/these people (it’s plural at the moment) are people that I’ve known for my whole life or less than a year, or if they’re people I’d keep on my Top 10 List of Friends, being rejected and dismissed without the consideration/respect for an explanation (even when I’m practically begging for it), I just straight-up lose my shit, reminiscent of the aching nights of self-loathing agony I endured in high school.

Without any adherence to the Four Agreements I tend to strongly believe in and desire to live within, I immediately/automatically turn inward and start tearing things apart. I begin to question my entire self-worth, what I’m doing with my life, what kind of person I am, why people bother with me in the first place. There is the old, almost-forgotten impulse to drive sharp objects into my forearms and thighs, the desire to randomly contact every person who ever rejected me in the last 20 years and demand answers, a barrage of memories to reiterate that feeling of impact when the realization of rejection first hits, the compulsion to contact any person I feel I might have wronged in the slightest and beg forgiveness for being such a shitty, horrible person in general and thank them for taking time out of their significant lives to pay attention to me, and that great, ever-present urge to drink or medicate myself until I can’t feel the powerlessness anymore.

Whoa.

Aaahhhm, I’ve still got some shit to deal with, apparently. Luckily, this all comes right after my physiological problems have been beaten back for a while and I’m actually in a level-headed spot for the most part. So this eruption of emotions comes at a time when my mental state is relatively stable, thus alerting me to the fact that it must be some sort of trigger. And, while it sucks a good deal, it’s definitely beneficial to be able to recognize these things, although, again, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long. Maybe I just needed all the exterior bullshit stripped away before I could deal with this one major quirk as it is singled out.

No, I know I have a shitload of people who care about me (and who bother to read me as I continue to ramble about being a neurotic nutjob) and I know I have a solid base of at least 10 friends whom I could call at any moment, after any length of time without speaking and say, “I NEED you,” and that person would be right there with me - no questions asked. I know that I have people I’ve tricked into believing that I am intelligent and capable and one of them even thought I was pretty enough to sign some papers saying he’d live with me and give me kisses every day for the rest of our lives. I know I’ve been blessed with scores of people who believe in me and don’t give up on me just because I’m a bit “off” and tend to screw up from time to time. (In fact, I just reunited with an old friend with whom I’ve had an on-and-off/kind of roller-coaster-y friendship with - due to our varied insanities/personal lives - who still finds me “amazing and intelligent” after having not spoken in two years and is okay with me just diving right back in where I left off.) I’m surrounded by so many wonderful people that it’s baffling, actually, but, should I lose one or two, my entire sense of self and my belief that I’m capable of maintaining a decent friendship are both shaken to the core and I am left with nothing short of the inherent knowledge that I am worthless and unlovable.

Instead of, you know, considering that their reactions might not have anything to do with me at all (like a sane person.)

I mean, mourning the loss of a friendship is one thing, but being immediately driven to attempting self-destruction because of someone else’s inability to rationally discuss a relationship-ending problem with a friend like an adult? That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it? I should probably have that looked at…

So, yeah, right now I’m hurting a lot. And I’m confused and vulnerable and fighting the temptation to just shut up and hermit myself away forever, in fear that everyone else in my life will eventually figure out what these recent rejectors must’ve and leave, too. And I’m scared that, because I don’t understand why I was rejected and why I wasn’t respected enough to be given an answer, I’m doing something wrong in my relationships that’s going to continue. And I’m probably crying too much.

But I also learned something about myself that’s apparently pretty fucking huge and may explain a great deal of my actions in the last 15 years. So I’m gonna be one of those obnoxious ever-self-discovering-types and thank the Universe for this learning experience, just like those doe-eyed optimists I always want to punch in the face. I’m grateful for the opportunity to realize that I have an unnatural reaction to human conflict/dynamic and now I have the ability to fix it… even though it’s probably going to suck, ’cause most therapy does.

Wooooo. Lemons to lemonade and stuff.

But, for now, I’m going to sit here and be confused and try to distract myself with funny videos of cats and fight the urge to send my first boyfriend yet another email about why he broke up with me in 1997. At least there’s no Ben & Jerry’s in the house; I’d hate to be an all-encompassing cliche.