The last few weeks have been more intense than any I have experienced. Aside from the outlandish (being offered an episode on a reality docu-series, getting to tell Congress about my high school sex life, turning my friends yellow, this new rare freakshow health problem I’m suddenly dealing with, etc.) my subconscious has been exploding with revelations and annihilating the barriers that have plagued me and hindered my happiness literally my entire life.

I recently talked about my realization that all the hateful, horrible opinions that were beaten into me as a child were untrue and, later, about how free I suddenly am with this realization that none of what had happened was my fault.  With my newfound self-validation, I tackled opponents who had continued to emotionally abuse me up until now, and I informed them that I’m shutting the whole dysfunctional cycle down by removing myself from it whenever they’re projecting anger through hurtful language. I made sure they knew I’m just fucking exhausted from all these years of garbage and I am so ready to be over it, so it’s not even something that affects me anymore. They’re forgiven because I see where they’re coming from. Anytime they want to change, I’m open to help because, Lord knows, I’ve had the luxury of gobs of therapy, and maybe others haven’t. I get that. I’m all about getting everyone else to be happy and free from bullshit, too.

VICTORY!

Oh, but silly me for assuming that this would be the end of this incredible toppling-over of those long-instilled beliefs under which I lived. As my subconscious kept plowing forward, I suddenly realized that, if I was a beautiful, smart, intelligent, etc. person, this would mean that maybe I was really loved a lot more than I’d ever thought. And maaaybe people weren’t just trying to be closer to me to use me and reject me. And maaaaybe the people who did hurt me and reject me only did so because they felt intimidated…or… or something.

Oh. Ew. Weird. Really?

But then, I remembered back to when I was talking to that one crazyhot vixen from my high school, and I was apologizing for saying awful things about her out of my own insecurity (and the fact that I was probably in love with her). She and I were talking about how she’d never done anything to offend me, personally, and how I’d realized that I only said awful things about her because I was so threatened by her ability to seduce any teenage lover she wanted.

And then I blurted, “But I never, ever thought you would give a shit about what I said about you…”

I thought about that for a minute. “I hated myself so much, I never thought anybody could possibly be bothered by any stupid thing I said about them.”

She said, “Whoooooaaa…”

And we sat there in silence for another minute.

Never once in my entire life did I ever assume that I had any clout over anyone else’s feelings; I simply never thought I was important enough to be taken seriously…at all… in any circumstance… ever… From here, I can see that I just assumed I was floating through my interactions with people without having any affect on them at all, positive or negative. Needless to say, the idea that anybody regarded me as someone  intimidating and/or gave my self-loathing proclamations any credence is still laughable to me… And, unfortunately, it’s also probably true….

It took me 4 effing years since then to realize that I probably did that to a bunch of other people… other than her…

Aaaaaahsheeeeeyuuuuaaaaat. Dammit, really?!

So, in the tradition of the 12 Steps (which work on any sort of recovery, btw – not just alcohol abuse), I flung my dignity by the wayside and acknowledged that maybe some of these people I’d always thought were out to hurt me actually might’ve been hurt by my emotional flailing too. And, like I do, I sought out everybody I had an inkling might’ve been affected by this, fully realizing that a) this shit all happened a really, really long time ago and b) I was going to look like an emotionally unstable/crazy person who can’t let go of the past by bringing this shit up.

Whatever. Apologies are definitely one of those things that are better when delivered late than never. And in the off-chance that any of these people I hurt held onto the same kind of anger and misguided beliefs that I did from my opponents, then they definitely deserve an apology… Or even if they didn’t, really. It doesn’t matter. When I fuck something up, I should apologize. Simple as that.

I am both mortified at the realization that I was kind of a cunt to people because I hated myself and didn’t know it and thankful for the insight/opportunity to recognize it so that it nevereverever happens again. And, in the future, I won’t have to bother people who ran away from me years ago with retarded apologies (“retarded” is used in the literal sense here, folks. Calm it down.) that interrupt their current lives like an unhinged maniac.

So… that’ll be nice.

…

But, ultimately, I feel so much lighter, so much freer. All those mantras RuPaul has had me saying for 20 years suddenly all make sense; I couldn’t love anybody properly until I loved myself. What other people say about me really isn’t any of my business because it doesn’t have anything to do with me anyway. (4 Agreements, ahoy!)

I’m pretty exhausted, but I’m also really, really fucking happy for a change. This is new; I like it.

I hit the wall today and crumpled. I sobbed harder than I can remember; I hurt worse than I have in many, many years.

I have encountered yet another freakish, unbelievable health problem that is confusing and scary and for which there is no absolute cure. It is very taboo, so much so that I am not comfortable discussing it publicly yet. I am too tired of being belittled, not taken seriously, and mocked with horrible stigmas to handle such hurtful ignorance and rejection right now.

Greg also collapsed under the sudden weight of yet another roadblock yesterday. It broke my already aching heart. In the last 6 years, he has dealt with continuous curve balls regarding my health. First there was an unexpected baby, which forced him to fling himself into work and support us while I was unemployable. Then there was my mental illness that continued to be undiagnosed until just last year. Finally, when it seemed I would finally be able to love him freely and spoil him with the unconditional support and physical attention he deserves, I am given another barrier, another thing to overcome, that is already driving us apart and forcing me to pull myself away from me because it physically hurts my body too much to interact with him.

In the last few months when I have felt better, he has finally allowed himself to feel all the emotions he’s suppressed over the years in order to plug away and keep our family afloat financially and emotionally. I saw him become debilitated with relief and the impact of the toll my burdens have taken on him. He slept for days. He had anxiety about being able to reconnect with us on an emotional level because he has become so insecure with himself. Because of his selflessness and inability to focus on himself, he has lost a sense of self and the ability to be happy with himself and his own company. This was one of his most appealing features when we met, and I can see that the lifestyle my presence has created for us has beaten this out of him. He has been seeing a therapist to deal with me and the effect I have had on him because he is unable to share his struggle with me. These things are not fabricated; they are hard evidence.

Greg has never hurt anyone deliberately or devastated anyone’s feelings in his life because of his own dysfunctions. I have, more times than I can count. I finally am in a mental place and in a relationship in which I can shower my partner with love and smother him with all the luxuries he has unconditionally given me. But because of my constant ailments, I am constantly unable to do this.

I am slowly breaking him. I see this. It hurts me worse than any guilt I have ever experienced. I know these health problems are not my fault; I know that I have been working defiantly to give him the wife and Chloe the mother they both deserve, but I am becoming disheartened at my continuous inability to deliver these things. I am seeing evidence that I am a drain on the person who has loved me the most fearlessly and unconditionally, and I cannot help but think that he will continue to give until there is nothing left of him.

I love him too much to let that happen. This I know as fact. I will not waver on this belief.

Greg deserves someone who will give him what he deserves instead of someone who will slowly suck every wonderful thing out of him. As I cried, he began to blame himself for sharing his emotions with me because he believed they were what was hurting me the most. I assured him that they weren’t; they were among the two things that kept me fighting for a better life when I was sick – the other being the fact that my beautiful daughter deserves an awesome mother.

If it had not been for either of these, I would not be here today. I mean that sincerely; I would not have had the courage or responsibility to keep working for a solution even when there was no end in sight and no hope that it would come. I was hospitalized a second time for suicidal intentions less than a year before I met Greg and conceived Chloe. Since then, I have had the worst mental episodes of my life, but, despite them, I have never once considered suicide. I fully believe things have played out this way on purpose.

I realized that the only better choice I have than removing myself from their lives is to control what I can while I continue to work for better health. I have been given the necessary gifts to continue this far; I am not foolish enough to dismiss them now, not when they seem to be aligning so perfectly. I feel so connected to God/Spirit/the Universe’s intentions for me.

I have this book I have been working on slowly for the last ten years that is almost finally complete. It is something I believe in more than anything I have ever produced. I believe it will be great. I believe it will bring us success that will relieve some of the burdens from Greg, as he is always preoccupied with our finances and the feeling that he has no room for failure. I believe that, right now, in this moment, working to get this writing work out into the market is the best use of my energy with the most immediate hope of helping us morally.

So I will continue to work to be physically better and I will continue to work at what I know I can do best and that I will flourish at, until there is a day when I can’t anymore. That day isn’t today. It probably won’t be for a long while. It may never come, but I can’t worry about that right now. I want to do what I can while I can.

Greg deserves that and so much more, because he has always given me exactly that. I don’t have any idea what this new obstacle will present to require changes in my life; I don’t know how this will affect our relationship or what potential it has to damage him further. I can’t worry about that or it will sap the energy from me, which is too valuable to jeopardize.

I am thankful for his love and for my mental clarity right now; otherwise, this would be impossible.

I’ve begun a sizable writing project that’s requiring me to delve back into the sinkhole that was my darkest struggles with mental illness, and, against the advice of a trusted friend, I thought I’d kick off my excavation by revisiting blog posts/journal entries from 2003-2006. This is arguably the worst mistake I’ve made in years.

After three hours, I was literally nauseated and self-loathing in a very scary, dark mental space that I had almost completely forgotten existed. Not to sound melodramatic, but no effing wonder I tried to kill myself: I was a drama-perpetuating, materialistic, emotionally unstable/codependent nutcase who was fixated on negativity and this exhausting need to protect my ego. JAYsus. I wanted to reach through time and strangle myself… which reminds me that I owe my mom a LOT of flowers… I got worn out just trying to read all the lies I was telling myself and everyone else. I mean, I knew I’ve changed since then, but I didn’t realize to what degree until I went back and read all the noise I was making at 22 years old. It filled me with a black, heavy grinding in my chest that I haven’t felt in a long time.

Shit was crazy.

Not only that, but it quickly became apparent that my tendency to “live in the past” and rake myself over the coals for painful memories has allowed my mind to drastically warp situations into something they weren’t when I look at them in objective retrospect. Things I have long felt guilty about weren’t my fault at all, once I’m able to remember the events as they happened; meanwhile, things I’d blown off and never apologized for were truly awful and deserved more energy than they were given. Interestingly, this has taught me a valuable lesson about letting things go; I wonder what else my memory has warped in order to facilitate needless, ongoing guilt?

Actually, I learned a lot about my mindset while reading the absolute insanity I used to participate within. I cringed at my repulsive stubbornness and self-affirming righteousness that I held while rampantly denying how godawfully I was conducting my daily life. I was slack-jawed at my audacity for arrogance and outright anger at everything that had “done me wrong”, whether or not these things were valid (some were; some definitely were not.) These days, I don’t mind going into older blog entries from the last 3-4 years, but it seems that a touch farther than that is dangerous territory. However, gaining some hindsight has certainly given me pause to reconsider my tendency to hold onto things that may be complete fabrications of my mind.

So that’s not happening again. Ultimately, I’m much happier that I live a life I’m not ashamed of right now and that I’m happy to share and celebrate. I guess I didn’t realize how much forward movement I’d made until I spent a few hours reenergizing my younger self and becoming physically ill from the conflict in vibrations. And, thankfully, what I gleaned from this is that guilt about that older Self is needless at this point; if I don’t remember the severity of my dark insanity and consequential tumultuous lifestyle, chances are that nobody else does, either. It’s okay to live in the now, already.

Hey, Self.
How’s it going, hon? I know. This last week has seen some major change and we’re all super proud of you for pulling your head out of your ass and doing what needs to be done without having to be asked or needing a mini-intervention/confrontation. You can see how happy this makes your wonderful husband, and, for the first time in ages, he seems really relaxed. Good for you guys.

Look, I hate to nitpick, but you seem awfully… angry? frustrated? filled with ever-present animosity?… recently. I’m not saying that your anger is misplaced because, admittedly, some shit is fucked up and bullshit. I get it. It’s okay to have feelings and to experience those feelings instead of squashing them and letting them manifest into something awful and long-term destructive. All that stuff we got in therapy. It’s cool.

However. It is time to get over it. Not only does nobody care about you being pissy, but it’s boring and trite and cliche and not really that important, and is only serving as a means to occupy your brain/time/energy from progressing and doing genuinely important stuff, and is only hurting you at this point. Are you planning on expressing your anger to any of the guilty parties? Probably not because you know it’ll just perpetuate negativity and won’t actually solve anything? GOOD! Now grow the hell up and quit perpetuating that negativity in your brain. It’s gross and is wasting your time and we’ve beeeen throoouugh thiiiis. Like, a lot. Remember how proud you keep saying you are that you’re not wasting time on bullshit like you did in high school? Enkay, well you’re being a big damn hypocrite.

Stop being mad. You got nothing to be mad about. Not a thing.

Go do productive stuff. Spread cheer. Be quiet. Put out Love. You know; all that stuff you deeply believe in and know will bring you peace. Do all that.

Sincerely,
The Other Self

I’m so giddy I don’t know where to begin. I’ve had a revelation that’s changed everything, but at the same time, it is so trite and obvious that it’s a bit embarrassing. And it’s all going to sound a little crazy in summary.

Maybe I should issue a disclaimer.

WARNING: This post is obvious, first-worldy, superficial, multi-faceted, layered, complicated, life-altering, relevant, and, ultimately, not important at all.

I recently realized two Very Important Things:
1) I really do love my body.
2) Nobody who matters actually gives a shit.
(Those two things are related.)

Oh. Yes, this is going to be yet another post from a middle-class white girl in America talking about body image. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this will be the last time I ever publicly talk about it! For real!

See, last year I fell in love with my body because, for the first time ever, I’d finally stopped obsessing about my weight and, somehow, found myself at the smallest size I’d ever been. No dieting. No change in physical activity. No counting calories or feeling like a worthless heap of fat every day until I was whatever arbitrary number I’d decided was “perfect.” I just kind of stopped worrying about it and, one day, woke up and realized my jeans were looser and my scale read a much smaller number than the last time I’d checked. Cool! What happened as a result is that I finally started paying attention to my body as though it was worthy of respect.

Okay, I know this whole next part is going to sound insane. But, honestly, for more than half my life I’d fought my body and just hated it so much that I’d learned to treat it like an annoying sibling who hung around just to make fun of me in front of my friends. The times when I put on weight (because I’ve gained and lost the same 30 lbs more than a dozen times), I would stop acknowledging my body altogether – hiding it under mounds of dark clothes, not looking at it in the mirror, and pretending it just wasn’t a part of me at all – like I could erase it if I denied that it was there. I had the very real belief that if I acted like it wasn’t really a part of me, nobody else would be able to see it, either. And, if they couldn’t see it, then they wouldn’t have the opportunity to think I was fat.
Genius.

So, last year when my body started looking the way I’d always wanted it to, I started daring to look at it objectively – even appreciating parts of it without shame. It was exciting; I’d never had the courage to praise this vehicle and, suddenly, I gave myself permission to like it and (::gasp::) even enjoy it. I took it swimming and put it in comfy, flattering clothes, and dressed it up with outrageous costumes and makeup, and rubbed it down with fancy oils and liniments, and let other people massage it and treat it with skin therapies, and let my husband cozy up to it, and did things that made it feel nice. I took it out to play and started experimenting with what it could do when I spent some time working with it in a yoga studio. I started living in it instead of apologizing for it. I stopped wasting so much time obsessing about changing it or worrying about what other people thought of it and I just enjoyed the peace of being appreciative that it was healthy and functional.

Then came the test that lead to this great epiphany. See, I have this belief that everything should be done in moderation – even moderation. So, while enjoying wild celebrations in the last few months, I really indulged in a lot of luxurious food and drink and didn’t worry about labeling my behavior “bad” or “wrong” or, really, giving any more thought to it than needed. Naturally, this has caused me to put on, um… a good deal of weight.

However! For the first time in my whole entire life, I’m actually okay with it. For the first time ever, I didn’t begin berating myself and diminishing my self-worth because of my size. I didn’t cry because the number my scale reported was higher than I was anticipating. I didn’t sit down and plan out an intensive diet-and-exercise regimen to which I would miserably adhere until I was back to where I “belong”.

Instead, I looked right at myself in the mirror. I stared, actually.
Right now, it’s curvy like all those statues of goddesses indigenous peoples around the world have crafted and reminiscent of the art the great painters created during the Renaissance. My skin is smooth and toned over my curves, tan and glistening from playing outside and drinking gallons of coconut water. I’m soft but strong – my thighs capable of supporting me in powerful standing-and-balancing poses that I used to gawk at when I flipped through yoga magazines but can hold comfortably now. My hair is shiny; my nails are strong; my skin is firm, clear, and hydrated; I have energy to propel me through the day; my muscles and bones all work accordingly; I’m full of nutrients that keep every part of my physical self functioning properly; I’m flexible and agile; I’m healthy. And I’m beautiful.

Holy shit.

So that’s the first Gigantic Breakthrough that has liberated me today.

The second Gigantic Breakthrough is that none of this shit matters.

That seems kind of contradictory. How can something that ultimately doesn’t matter have such a powerful impact on how I think/live?

Here’s what I realized: I actually don’t give a shit about anybody’s size. That’s not to say I don’t worry about my loved ones’ health; I absolutely do, but I’m not obsessed with how “fat” or “skinny” they are. In fact, I really don’t care. At all. When I tell the people that I love that they’re beautiful, I always mean it; however, I’ve never once stopped to give a shit about anybody’s weight. Ever. Additionally, I pride myself on not being friends with overly superficial people…

…so why in the hell have I always believed that people are going to love me less or think less of me because of something as trivial as weight I may put on?

Actually, I know the answer to that. It’s the influence of the media and superficial toxic people I used to put myself around. However, since I learned the power of ignoring stupid toxic people and not subscribing to the Grand Illusion (see: Styx 1984) of the media – RuPaul calls this “the power of ‘Fuck you.’” – there’s kind of no excuse for my weight worry in regard to other people.

Because it doesn’t fucking matter. HOORAY!

I don’t care if my friends gain weight; I’m still going to love them and think they’re beautiful. I don’t care if someone thinks I’m a hideous fatass; those aren’t the kind of people I want to be around in the first place. I don’t care if someone I know is dieting OR if they have 3 extra pieces of cake; there are more important things I choose to pay attention to on a daily basis. I don’t care if a celebrity puts on weight; why should I care about what a complete stranger is doing with his/her body?

Ultimately, when it comes right down to it, I don’t give a shit about other people’s weight. Anybody’s. I’m really proud to say I never have. I never stopped to think about it, but when I’m legitimately assessing people, I pay as little attention to their size as I do their race, because those factors are equally unimportant. Both sexually and platonically, I’m attracted to big people and small people because I’m attracted to intellect. (If we’re going to split hairs here, I’ve been in relationships with people that other people didn’t find attractive and, subsequently, I’ve seen some people as hideous despite everyone around them thinking they were beautiful. It’s subjective ferchrissake. The person I’m in a monogamous relationship with at the moment thinks I’m sexy no matter what size I am – I’ve tested this theory on him… rigorously – and I’m not too worried how many other people my body is pleasing aside from that. This is logical, right?) I have fat role models just as I have skinny role models just like I have black role models or white role models or male role models or shemale role models… it’s all superficial; it all doesn’t really matter. This is something I’ve always inherently known about myself, but have never actively applied to my mentality of how others must view me. What is wrong with me that I’d try to cater to everybody’s physical tastes – even those people I don’t care for?

Mother of GOD, I’ve been wasting a lot of time.

So, basically:
I don’t care how big or small other people are
and
I don’t like people who do
so
What have I been so worried about?

It seems so simple now. And unimportant.

Look, this isn’t to say I’m not going to lose some weight in the future. It’s not to say I won’t avoid gaining too much and making myself unhealthy or losing too much and making myself unhealthy. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter. It’s not important enough to talk about publicly… ever. I get that now.

So I put on a wrap dress that hugs my curves, some makeup that makes my eyes pop, and some heels that enable a subtle saunter. I wore my long, shiny hair down and put on some sultry perfume that makes me feel exotic.

I checked the mirror, liked what I saw, and turned my focus to more important things.

Finally.

Things are going so wonderfully right now that I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell. This realization hit me last night as I was lying in bed, luxuriating in the extra 10 lbs of seafood, barbecue, and rich beverage I in which I swathed myself during the last 10 days while attending two destination weddings in glorious Southern coastal havens. I’ve just spent the last 1.5 weeks indulging in bliss with old friends and close family, greeting the arrival of my favorite season with outrageous quantities of luxury, and enjoying the relief of mental stability (also a great luxury to me.) After returning to a clean, brightly-lit home, I’m celebrating another anniversary within the greatest love I could’ve fathomed and awaiting the arrival of one of my Top 5 favorite people, due for a rare visit from the West Coast this weekend.

It’s sickeningly perfect right now.
This feels wrong.

No, I know that seems overly pessimistic, but there’s something rattling around in the back of my subconscious, reminding me that there are people without homes, children without food, lives without hope, etc. It seems wrong to accept this level of comfort, knowing that that exists without any regard to others. This doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy and be grateful for comfort/luxury; I just feel wrong taking it blindly. And, frankly, I don’t think that’s pessimistic of me. At all, actually.

I can hear the whole Oprah/American-dream mentality arguing against my need to overanalyze my present situation with, “You can’t change the whole world/there’s nothing wrong with enjoying life/why do you have to be so difficult?”, but I’m pretty sure it’s the notion that we’re somehow entitled to luxury simply by being alive that perpetuates our constant obsession with luxury and disregard for those who never have the option for it. That’s… not right.

However, admittedly, I’m [selfishly] not going to give back or refuse all these recent blessings anytime soon. And I’m certainly not going to waste any of myself on guilt. So, at the moment, I’m seeking a way to not redeem myself, but balance this scenario. (Hell, I’ll even venture to say “share my gifts unconditionally” with the knowledge that such an impulse reeks of dreaded socialist intent. WHAT HAVE I BECOME!?)

What’s funny about all this is that, usually I’m the one who sort of agrees with the idea of universal balance just because I know I’m “supposed” to; today I’m finally considering that it’s actually imperative on a personal level. Hunh…
Hooray for belated epiphanies!

I’ve had two old, close friends pull the rug out from under me and wound me deeply, in betrayals I couldn’t have anticipated had I allowed myself to be so cynical. I was left very raw, vulnerable, and disillusioned about people in general. I contemplated misanthropy, which is the one thing I hate the most.

And then a friend heard my story and empathized, but shrugged at my assertion that all of this was “weird”, saying that people were fickle; this is just part of being one of them. This is a man who faced The Ultimate Marital Betrayal and now spends his days doing rescue work for complete strangers, where he has found happiness. (He’s like a male Mother Teresa, really, but with more weed.)

And that – in addition to the words of other great people on the subject – was the inkling of Zen I needed to keep being a hopeless fangirl about the people I love. I’m an unabashed, borderline-fanatical fan of my friends, even with the knowledge that my friendships can’t/won’t logistically last forever.
That’s okay with me. Finally.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” – Mother Teresa

“If you ever get close to a human or human behavior, be ready to get confused. There’s definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to human behavior.” – Bjork

*Gorillaz – “Sound Check (Gravity”. Damon Albarn. 2000.

When I was 18 months old, my father won a few cases of beer off his friends by betting them that his toddler (me) could walk up to their license tags and tell them each letter and number I saw. This was my father’s favorite party trick, apparently, as he would allow me to perform this feat just about anytime it was requested.

I snorted through my nose and cackled, “Gawd, I must’ve been a HUGE disappointment after that kind of build-up.” to my parents when they told me this anecdote some three years ago.

Only recently did I start to ruminate on that. If you’ve read this blog for, say, more than three entries, you’ll have picked up that I’ve done more than my share of therapy and, incidentally, I’ve spent the majority of this time on the couch healing the person I became when I first collided with mental illness in my adolescent years and the fallout-personality that ensued afterward. This has caused me to focus on that sick person for 10 years, after being that sick person for another 10-ish. And I only just remembered that there was another person there before all of the mental fuckwithery started, and she might still be buried underneath the 20 years of rubble. What is ultimately dawning on me is that perhaps I should’ve been focusing on saving her instead of the broken person that came afterward… Lemme explain.

From the time I hit kindergarten until about 6th-7th grade, I was That Kid in my class. Don’t get me wrong; there were a handful of us, and I’m certainly not saying I was superior, but there were many cases that back up the fact that people expected big things from me. My kindergarten teacher took my best friend and me out to McDonald’s-and-a-movie because I’d read 4 times the amount of books that everyone else in my class had; my third grade teacher went ahead and bought child-friendly versions of the Sherlock Holmes books for me a week before the Multiplication Bee because she knew I was going to win… This was the kind of person I was. I remember starting kindergarten and being so bummed that we weren’t going to get homework that I spent an hour at my little desk every day diligently coloring in a coloring book until every single page was awash in pigment. I was relentless in my nerdiness, using vocabulary that got me picked on (I’ll never forget how I was ridiculed for weeks after using the word “thrice”); having an extracurricular after school every day at which I excelled (I made it a goal to earn everysingle “Try-It” of Brownie Girl Scouts before I “bridged” to being a Junior. Totally did it. My mom totally took me to Sears to get my portrait done in my full uniform); reading books just to impress people (I may’ve made some coin off disbelievers in the 5th grade who couldn’t believe I could clear a Goosebumps book in 15 minutes. I had a small group of peers challenge me to read a new one and then take a prepared quiz about the book’s details. Every month, I collected fresh dollar bills from amazed 11-yr-olds who would talk about it like I’d walked on water); and setting goals that I would actually achieve (Mom set the challenge that, if I could make 100% on every spelling test in the 1st grade, she’d take me to a haute cuisine dinner at the famous Pinehurst Hotel. I totally did it and, thus, got to experience sorbet that next summer.)  Like I said, I was shamelessly “That Kid”.  Always did the extra-credit assignment; always got made fun of for “brown-nosing”, when I really just enjoyed learning; always got strangely aroused when it was time to buy school supplies; always liked trying new things, even if I turned out to be godawfulbad at them (See: soccer career, circa 1991-93.) I’m not going to say I wasn’t obnoxious as a kid, but I was driven and wildly enthusiastic about mental stimulation.

I’d all but completely forgotten about all of that.

I don’t remember exactly when the change started, but I know it was gradual. I remember getting my first “C” on my report card and crying about it for weeks like someone had died. I remember still being active in school groups and church youth-group extracurriculars and piano lessons (I was a “competitive” piano player at one point, touring the state to “compete” musically against every Asian child in North Carolina) and Girl Scouts (not gonna lie; I was a member of arguably the most ambitious troops ever, so it wasn’t all mediocrity and cookie-sales for us. We did Mountain Trail Outdoor School and aviation workshops and mountain-biking trips along the Appalachian Trail and, you know, interesting things that didn’t suck. I plan to regenerate that idea for the Bear when she’s old enough.), but my grades began plummeting around the time I turned 11 and, by the time I was transitioning into high school, I was another average-grade student without any real intent on improving. When I graduated high school, I was #64 out of a class of 120.

I’m sure a part of that was becoming wildly self-conscious as a preteen and wanting to shed a little of the goody-two-shoes image, but my depression began hitting hard during those years as well and, when I reflect on it, the difference in my personal morale and/or drive before and after jr. high are staggering – almost as though they were performed by two different people.

And, naturally, we’ve seen where all this goes: I committed myself to being that second person and reaaally delving into that dark, cynical, resigned part of my Self and, you know, subjected myself to awholelotta Bad and perpetual self-sabotage and academic wtf-ery, etc. And that’s the person I’ve focused on “healing” when I started treating all the Crazy…

…which I’m starting to think may’ve been a mistake. See, by rejecting/forgetting That Kid I originally was, I didn’t give myself any options as to where to go when the gloomy Self was healed… so I sat around and was scared… a lot, actually. Oh, there have been times when I’ve felt completely back in my original mental state and was functional and happy with that (most notably was the year that I was teaching at a community college. I never wanted to miss class and was always prepared; always enthusiastic; always trying to get more out of the experience and going beyond my required work to give more to my students. At home during that year, I was diligent and even-keeled. ) but, strangely, my husband and I never connected the idea that mental stimulation and personal challenge was something I’d need to be able to maintain psychological stability. (I know. Hindsight is totally clearyadayada…)

Look, the thing is that, in the last couple years my mind has been such that it will meltdown halfway through a day when there is nothing else going on and keep me in perpetual physiological limbo for forever. (Yeah, unfortunately, when I say “meltdown”, that absolutely refers to physical symptoms as well. Whee!) It’s been going on for entirely too long and far too frequently and, frankly, I’m tired of whining about how tired I am of being nuts. I’m tired of talking about things I’ve tried to make it better; I’m tired of talking about being frustrated; I’m tired of feeling guilty because I’m not pulling my own weight as a wife because my brain kicks me out of the game halfway through; I’m tired of all of it. I feel like we’ve made progress with the recent diagnosis from last spring(-ish), but dammit, this has taken up 2/3 of my life. I’ve been ready to be done with it. Even this mini-rant is cliche at this point. YOU know…

However, remembering that there was a time before all this when I was a different person who was capable and happy and driven gives me a lot of hope and a new mentality from which to function. I don’t feel as lost on this whole “recovery” path anymore because I’ve actually located who it is I want to recover. I know that seems like a rather petty/borderline ridiculous epiphany to be having so late in the game, but it’s a luxury to remember that I was born someone I genuinely liked and, somewhere tucked in my being, I probably have the ability to be again. It’s been a long, long time since I was able to complete basic tasks and/or excel at whatever it was that was in front of me because of my psyche interfering, but the recent memory of how that felt and the realization that that behavior came naturally to me at one point is empowering, especially when I’m feeling pretty beat-down and am exhausted with coalesced disappointments in myself.

So, basically, instead of sitting around trying to administer more therapy and/or attention to the defunct personality I developed when my mind was clouded with mental illness, I’m going to start regarding myself as That Kid again. I’m going to start applying myself with a little of That Kid’s innocent arrogance – as though I’ve automatically assumed I’m going to be successful at whatever I’m doing and will go through whatever needs to be done to accomplish things for my own self-validation.  Again, it seems incredibly trivial when spoken out loud/seen in print, but I guess what I needed was the faith that I could be better to give me the courage and motivation to do so. And the memory that I have actually been much, much better more than suffices.

Today, I’m thankful for remembering That skinny, bespectacled, book-clutching, poorly-dressed, self-assured Kid.

So, I made a mistake… maybe a few years’ worth of mistakes.

See, the thing is, this time of year, I always write about my inevitable mental issues on this public forum as a means to connect (I have a few readers with whom I discuss and from whom I’ve received appreciation for sharing my experiences every year, which encourages me to do so) but, after so many seasons of expressing the same “I DON’T LIKE MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW!/AUUUGHITHUUUUURTS!!” sentiments, I’ve started to wonder if I’m not just breathing more life into the situation by giving my depression a voice. By writing and talking about it, I allow it to state itself as the manager of my body and I acknowledge it as the controller of my Self, if only for a small amount of time.

I think that might be a mistake on my part… especially since I’ve turned my focus from “recovery” to “healing.”

See, I was raised in the type of society in which we don’t discuss such things as mental illness and being a little whackadoo in an open forum, so, in my recovery, I thought I’d be blasting through all those reservations in the name of “progress” and “awareness-raising” and all that. And I really, honestly loathe the idea of sitting on something and denying its existence or (heaven forbid) trying to act like nothing is wrong (I happen to be the product of a “sweeping-issues-under-the-rug” culture… nothing terrifies me more than perpetuating that. Literally nothing.) when something VERY MUCH IS AND NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED RIGHTEFFINGNOW.

However, I think after all these years and all this time recovering, there comes a point when I can’t keep giving my illness/neuroses/damage a megaphone if I expect to actually heal. It can’t keep speaking over me, regardless of how eloquent it makes me at times.

I’m grappling with where to go from here, when I stop to consider that this might just happen every year, no matter how much yoga I do, how long I sit in the sunshine/in front of our SADlamp, how many raw fruits and veggies I’m getting, no matter how many crazy extra supplements I pump into my body, no matter how much hypnotherapy I undergo, etc.; this might not go anywhere for a while – not without another decade’s worth of work. I feel like I should prepare for that to be the “worst case” scenario and make a resolution to behave accordingly, in a way that won’t give “It” more inertia when it comes to mess with me.

So, much like that other thing I’ve sworn not to talk about on this blog, my personal bouts of depression is henceforth off-limits here. If you need any other references, just search under “Things that Suck.” It’s aaallll there.

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