searching for euphoria

It's funny how things can creep up on you.

I haven't been leaving the house much these days. I have a whole arsenal of excuses I could throw at you. It's really cold outside. I'm tired. I'll do it tomorrow. It's so easy for me to drift down this path, like burrowing into a warm dark place and falling asleep.

Therapy this week was particularly difficult.

Molly wanted to know what my depression looks like lately. Instead I told her all of the million ways in which I don't actually look at it. I told her about how I've been sleeping a lot lately. 4-5 hour naps during the day. 8-10 hours of sleep at night. How I watch meaningless tv, or play meaningless games on my phone.

And I didn't even realize it until she said it.

"That's you making yourself feel numb. What does it feel like when you aren't distracting yourself?"

I've lost the past few months to numbness. Because when I'm not numb, I think about suicide.

...

We were trying to create a visual of my brain.

Again.

I've spent a large percentage of my time in therapy poorly trying to explain why I hate it when therapists talk about my "eating disorder voice." Like it's this other person in my head, separate from me. 

As I stumbled my way through my argument, we landed on something that felt like truth.

Childhood development is so important. It's not a very long span of time, compared to an average lifetime. But it's so crucial to the rest of your life. And while I was learning basic things like, I am a human being, my mother was also teaching me, I am worthless. I learned about food as something dangerous. I learned about my body as something ugly and shameful.

I've barely scratched the surface of working through this, but I know one thing. My depression, my eating disorder, they are branded into my skin. I know how to count, I know what sound a cat makes, and I know that I am a fat, worthless piece of shit.

...

I'd moved past blaming my mother. I honestly believe I had.

But today, today I'm just angry.

It's not all her fault. Some of it is just simple brain chemistry. But some of it is. And I am stuck in a loop of familiar, painful memories. I've seen them a million times, but today they feel new. And I can't understand. I can't. 

Why would you do this? Why would you say such horrible things to your child?

...

I've been living my life searching for euphoria. 

At the core of my being, I don't believe I deserve to live. So why am I still here?

There are moments, like flickers of flame, that give me doubt. They are a rush of happiness. They make me think, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not worthless. The mister. My artwork. People who love me. My little zoo of animals. Kind words spoken by genuine people.

But there's one flame that burns the brightest. 

Anorexia is a double edged sword. At once euphoric and deadly. Nothing can match it. Lower numbers on the scale, smaller sizes, protruding bones. Control. Control. Control. 

It's ironic that only when I'm physically dying do I feel like I deserve to go on living.

to say: I know

This summer the Mr. and I packed up our tiny first house and moved into my dream home.

It is not what most people consider a dream home, but it is mine.

The house is 108 years old. The wooden floors creak under my feet. Cold drafts always seem to find my toes. Compared to our first house, this one is a mansion. An old, old mansion that has been almost untouched by time. The Mr. doesn't like to talk about ghosts, but I feel comforted by the possibility of their presence. They haunt this house as I haunt myself.

...

Molly makes me laugh now.

It took two years to tear down that wall I erected between us, but now only a few pieces remain like jagged teeth. I still can't cry in front of her, so she cries for me. She is a breath when I cannot breathe. She is a warrior when I cannot fight. 

I never thought it possible to consider a therapist as a friend.

...

I stopped weighing myself every day. I don't know when. It crept up on me, slowly slipping away when my back was turned. I seem like a normal human being when I eat, and sometimes I even fool myself. 

Fragile. I am walking on glass. I am ok, but I'm not foolish enough to believe I am safe from myself. It would be so easy to fall.

...

"Let's make a baby." I whispered to the Mr. one dark night. 

I was confident then, in that precious tiny moment. In the many days since, I have fallen apart over and over again. What was I thinking? I can't. I shouldn't. I won't. I wish...

The Mr. of course went straight to work devising a plan. "We could start trying this coming spring." He finally says as we walk through the park. He is smiling, looking at me, waiting for me to be excited.

I try to smile, but I want to be sick. What was I thinking? I can't. I shouldn't. I won't. I wish...

...

I am afraid that my life is looking perfect these days, and it nags at me like a sharp stick in my side. I am not that person. I am not put together. Did I create her again? That perfect shell who smiles in pictures and tries to make people laugh? Did I bring her back? Am I selfish? Or am I hiding? 

I don't know. 

I see people hurting and I want to grab their hand. I want to say, I know. I want to say, you are not alone. But here I am full circle once again. Would they believe me? Or would they shrug me off as just another person who repeats "I understand" because they don't know what else to say?

I don't know.

So C and M, if you are here, this is me trying to say, I know. Not everything, of course. But I know parts of your struggle far too well. I won't lie, things are ugly here, but they're honest. I'd like to say I barely recognize the girl who started this blog, but I still see her from time to time. I am not perfect.

But I am living.

living

I miss writing here. I miss all of you lovely people. I'm tired of being afraid because it feels like all of my meaningful words have evaporated. I'm tired of being afraid that all I have left is superficial and shallow.

I lost my job at the end of April, and it felt like a deep, cleansing breath of fresh air.

It wasn't because of me, which was surprising. Every day was a struggle with my boss. She "understood," but she did not hesitate to tell me exactly how much money I was costing her by going to therapy every week. She was "sympathetic," but she openly mocked people who were even slightly overweight and made a big show of her diet and weight loss.

I was laid off due to financial reasons and she cried when she told me. She choked out the words between sobs and I felt guilty because I couldn't cry. I wasn't sad. Not even a little bit. I was elated.

Now I work from home as a freelance graphic designer. I can sit at my desk with a cat in my lap and a dog at my feet. I drink my own coffee and don't wear a bra. In the afternoon I can nap on the couch. It is the best thing I have ever done.

This is the part where it would be easy to say, "and they all lived happily ever after."

But in real life, the chapters keep going.

I get to work with people I want to work with. I get to create things I want to create. But I still lay awake at night paralyzed with anxiety about the phone call I will have to make tomorrow. I still waste an entire day crippled with anxiety about a project instead of working on it. But I am still here. My chapters keep on going.

I've said before that I don't believe you can be healed from depression. You can't recover from anxiety. I still believe that. But there's a third option that I couldn't see until now.

I am living with depression, anxiety, an eating disorder.

I couldn't see that option because it seemed as implausible as reaching up and curling my fingers around the moon. Somedays it still seems impossible, but I can see it now. And I want all of you to know that it exists.

So this is my new chapter on this blog. It's titled living.

eleven o'clock on a wednesday

I am sitting in Molly's office again, but everything is different. Her new office is in a wealthy suburb that takes me half an hour to reach. The lobby of the building sparkles with marble floors and carefully placed black leather chairs. Once I came in to find a woman setting up an enormous golden harp.

She left the recovery center. I found out. I made an appointment.

It's both comforting and strange.

...

I'd heard the ads on the radio, the tv, and all over the internet. "Side effects may include suicidal thoughts or actions..." I'd heard them so much, I became immune. Then my meds changed and so did I. It was as though some outside force had possessed my mind. My thoughts are often toxic, but they are mine. They belong to me. This was different. These were not mine. I hope you never experience what it's like to have thoughts that don't belong to you like some sort of deadly alien virus.

I'd told myself to die a million times, but I'd never told myself to die when I didn't want to.

...

I hate roller coasters. 

I always say no, but every once and a while I find myself clutching the metal seat restraint as we go up and up and up and up. Everyone around me is shrieking in excitement and fear. I am white-knuckled, silent, waiting for the drop. And when it comes I don't scream and wave my arms in the air. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the ride to stop.

The drop isn't the worst part. The worst part is going up.

When things are good, I go up. I feel like I can do this thing called life. I make appointments. I finish chores. I shower and do my makeup and hair. I make plans and I then I follow through. And it's elating, feeling like maybe everything is going to be alright, maybe I'm going to be alright. But there's always a knot at the bottom of my stomach because I don't know when I will drop. 

And then I do. And it feels like an old cartoon where I'm carrying an anvil above my head, thinking it's something else. I was holding it up just fine until I looked at it. Then it crushed me. In the cartoon a laugh track would play, and I'd comically run around all squished for a while. In real life, I'm just stuck there, under that anvil. And it's crushing and awful, but worse is knowing that I was stupid enough to run around arrogantly carrying it in the first place.

...

Writing is so hard these days and I don't know why.

say you'll remember me

My sentences are trailing off, skipping down rabbit holes. I am trying to write something because I want to write more, but I keep losing my thoughts.

My thumb burns from holding the lighter wrong. Typical.

"Do you ever think about that girl who was obsessed with Hitler?" I text Bill.

Move. I tell my fingers.

What am I trying to say?

I am sad.

God, I just realized this is sounding like a suicide note.

It's not.

[Spoiler Alert]

But I am sad.

Heavy, sadness. I can't drop it because I haven't decided if the end justifies the means. I am tired of pills. I am tired of this routine.

Hopeless is the word I used in therapy.

But hopeless isn't enough. Despair draws closer, but maybe this is one of those things where there's a word for it in French or Italian that just doesn't translate.

I am sad. I am tired. I think about killing myself every single day.

Every day.

Many, many times.

Call this number. They say. Go here. But I can't. I can't every day. Every few hours. Life doesn't pause for your mental breakdown. These thoughts, they're like the boy who cried wolf. Even I am not sure when they are bluffing.

I broke the mental cord that tied cutting to death. A silver lining that can't quite hide the marks on my leg. It should scare me, how much I understand it, but it doesn't.

I am an addict. I am addicted to darkness.

Juvenile, I scoff at my fingers. Addicted to darkness? Is that a heavy metal band? Are you writing dramatic poetry? How old are you? 

I am too old. I told them that, the first time I sat in the psychiatric emergency room. I'm too old for this shit.

...

There is a baked potato sitting on a pan on top of my stove. It stares me down as I move through the kitchen, icing my throbbing thumb. It's cold now, its skin wrinkled and shrunken, my dinner. I pretend it isn't there. 

I just can't. I can't eat it.

danger night, alternately titled "a lot of Sherlock gifs"

The flu. I hate it.

Since I didn't move off the couch for about two days, I watched a lot of Sherlock.

[If you have never watched Sherlock, go watch it. This post will contain spoilers, and I refuse to apologize for that because you should have watched Sherlock at least a dozen times by now]

A Scandal in Belgravia is my favorite episode. But as I was watching it, I caught something I'd missed before. 

When the Holmes brothers are standing in the morgue after Sherlock identifies Irene Adler's dead body, Mycroft offers Sherlock a cigarette. Sherlock accepts. After Sherlock leaves, Mycroft calls John Watson who is back at their flat.

Mycroft: He's on his way. Have you found anything?
Watson: No. Did he take the cigarette?
Mycroft: Yes.
Watson: Shit. [to Mrs. Hudson] He's coming. Ten minutes.
Mrs. Hudson: There's nothing in the bedroom.
Watson: Looks like he's clean. We've tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight's a danger night?
Mycroft: No. But then I never am. You have to stay with him, John.

I rewound. 

Danger night?

I had to pause the show so I could do some research. Did I really hear that? I read through several fan theories and that's when I found this:

"Sherlock’s exit gives Mycroft a chance to call John. Everyone’s panicking: the offered cigarette was a test, and that Sherlock (an ex-smoker and clean drug addict) took it indicates his fragile state. John and Mrs. Hudson have both been searching the flat for anything that might help him be unsafe. John asks Mycroft if he’s sure tonight’s a “danger night,” and instantly the gaps between series, between episodes, are filled in. Sherlock has periods where he tries to harm himself; perhaps he succeeds. So John isn’t just his friend—sometimes he’s also a carer."

I re-watched the scene, and it stabbed me through the heart. It wasn't just something familiar or recognizable. I've lived and breathed and walked through this scene. I have the steps and lines memorized, but it still hurts to watch.

John's face when Mycroft says "danger night." He doesn't have to ask. He already knows. They've had this conversation before. 

John waiting for Sherlock to come home, pretending to read. Pretending he's not worried.

This look. This look on Sherlock's face when he walks in and immediately knows that John and Mrs. Hudson have searched the apartment. The moment when he knows that they know he would probably try to harm himself. That they have already acted to prevent that from happening. 

In that knowing, there is so much shame. Disgust. Humiliation. You were certain that this was the bottom, this pain, this heartache, this despair. Then, an act of kindness. A demonstration of love. And all you feel is anger. You're just angry. You hate them for hiding anything sharp. For tossing the pills. For searching through your things, trying to find whatever you are trying to hide. And you suddenly realize that you still have so much further to fall. 

His snippy line about his socks. Because it's easier to focus on the fact that someone invaded your privacy and went through your personal belongings. Don't think about how weak and pathetic you must be to require a caretaker. Don't think about how fucked up you must be to lose the simple right to have privacy.

And John. Poor John who just looks so tired and worried. Because in real life there is nothing funny, nothing easy about loving someone with a mental illness. 

The looks, the conversations that happen around you. The worry that hovers at the ceiling like a heavy, heavy cloud. The questions spoken and unspoken. 

Of which, you are always painfully aware. 

I feel as though I will forever be caught in this endless circle of being honest until I can't take the worry, then lying about being better, then falling to pieces under the pressure of acting like I've got my shit together, then being honest, then lying, then falling to pieces...

It goes on and on and on, and I honestly don't know if there is a way to make it stop.

...

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. An arguably questionable historical holiday, but a day of thanks nonetheless. 

And I am thankful. For so many things. 

Such as my beautiful Christmas tree:

And, of course, for all of you.

blue

In case you thought it was just a figure of speech.

invisibility

I hate the waiting room at my therapist's office.

The office sprawls across an entire floor of a tall, fancy building. The kind of building that has four glass elevators and real plants growing up up up towards the far away skylights. Business suits and the clicking of high heels echoing down the halls.

It is easy to spot us. The ones who don't belong.

For such a large facility, the waiting room is like a terrible joke. As soon as I step inside, I feel that squirmy knot of panic in the pit of my stomach. I'm third in line to check in which puts me too close to the door. The next person to come in has to awkwardly squeeze in sideways, barely avoiding the knees of the three people unlucky enough to get chairs by the door. There are never enough chairs. It is a horrible box. Too small, too full of people, too loud.

The woman in front of me finishes checking in. She walks three steps, stops, and painstakingly adjusts the plaques hanging on the wall. I check in, mumbling my name as quietly as I can get away with.

Paranoia.

I find a chair in the corner. The woman who adjusted the plaques sits heavily next to me. I notice that she fills the entire chair. I do not. A tiny prick of satisfaction.

The water cooler is in the middle of the chairs. The people on either side of it are having a conversation as though we are all just waiting for a bus or a museum tour to start. Anyone who wants and small, waxy cup of water is forced to wedge themselves between the talkers. I stare at the wall and breathe through my nose. I can hear everything. Noise bounces off these walls like shrapnel. I can feel people staring at me, and I wish I was invisible.

But my hair is blue.

Invisibility is not an option.

...

Not everything looks better in the light of day.

There are bad days that lead into bad nights. There is snow. The wind blows bitterly cold. It seems almost cruel that winter has already arrived.

Bad days. Bad nights.

It would be easy, I suppose, to see that and think, Oh, maybe she was late to a meeting. Maybe she spilled coffee on herself. Maybe she got stuck in traffic.

At work, I struggle. I struggle to focus. I struggle to smile at customers. I struggle to listen to my coworker. I struggle to keep standing when my boss jabs accusations in my direction. I have recently found myself to be the scapegoat, the problem child. By the time I leave work, I am a hollow, beaten down shell. I drive home in silence.

You're so stupid. Fucking idiot. This is how it's always going to be. It's never going to change. You're such a stupid, stupid bitch. Worthless. This is your life. This will always be your life.

At home I curl into a small ball on the couch. The Mr. brings me a whiskey ginger with a bendy straw and strokes my hair. He coaxes me to watch one of our favorite shows, and I try, but I am slipping further away.

It's almost nice here, down the rabbit hole. There are no more screaming insults in my head. There is quiet. I am lightly buzzed on whiskey. I stare blankly at the tv and for a few moments, I feel nothing.

The evening continues on around me. The Mr. is moving about the house. The kitties sniff at my hair and play with the bendy straw in my empty glass. The puppy licks my elbow and follows the Mr. upstairs.

That's when all the nothing and all the quiet become deafening, a tsunami that destroys my desperate illusion. It is too much. There have been too many bad days and bad nights and I am drowning.

It's easier this time. Quick swipes. No emotion. No panic. The pain is like waking up from a nightmare. A jolt. A reminder. Something like calm.

But the lines turn red too quickly. Little red beads forming across my ankle. I pull up my sock and the red slowly stains through. Too much to hide and I am too tired.

I climb up the stairs and crawl into bed. I can feel my pulse burning through each slice on my ankle. It is barely 8:00 pm, but I am asleep before my head hits the pillow.

Sometime in the night, I am awoken by the Mr.'s hoarsely whispered questions. I am half awake, lost in the fog. I drowsily try to say the right things, but he's frightened because there have been so many bad days and bad nights and he doesn't know about my ankle, but he knows. He knows because of the last time.

...

It is several days later that I tell him. We are huddled together on the couch and I tell him. 

I tell him.

I tell him because I can feel myself slipping again, and for the first time in my life it scares me. I have never been afraid of myself because I had nothing left to fear. But I am not invisible anymore. Not to him. Because of the last time. And I am scared.

So I tell him.

these words, down on paper

I never stop writing. I write as often as I breathe.

Just not here.

There are pages and pages of words stuck in my head. I organize them into neat sentences and paragraphs, but my fingers never move.

I am somewhere outside myself, watching, writing. I am writing the story of myself. Not always. Sometimes I am the protagonist. Sometimes the antagonist. But there are the times when I can't bear the weight of my own story, so I step aside and write.

Dissociation. My therapist says.

 He likes to define things. I like to later look up his definitions and have a panic attack.

I want to give you an art project. He says. I want you to make three drawings. One that answers the question "What is your problem?" One that answers the question "What needs to happen to resolve your problem?" And one that answers the question, "What would your life look like without this 'problem?'"

That was a month ago. I haven't touched my sketchbook, but I've thought about it.

What is my problem?

I hate that question.

You. Me. Life. Breathing. NOTHING. EVERYTHING. 

Depersonalization disorder (DPD) is a dissociative disorder in which the sufferer is affected by persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization and/or derealization. Diagnostic criteria include persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from one's mental processes or body. The symptoms include a sense of automaton, going through the motions of life but not experiencing it, feeling as though one is in a movie, loss of conviction with one's identity, feeling as though one is in a dream, feeling a disconnection from one's body; out-of-body experience, a detachment from one's body, environment and difficulty relating oneself to reality.

Even now, I feel it. It feels like floating.

...

Bill texts me after a long silence. He voluntarily checked himself back in to the hospital. Thought I sensed your aura in the corridors. He says. 

...

My co-worker's niece was born 3 months premature. She sends me pictures of a tiny, fragile, soft creature with fingers and toes and ears. She weighs 1 lb. She is the smallest bundle of tubes and wires, tucked beneath a glass case so no one can touch her. So she won't break.

But she is so little, so unprepared for life in this world. Her body is failing. 

Airlifted to the city. Incision to relieve the pressure. Surgery is a last resort. She probably won't survive.

I wait, terrified, for the text message from my co-worker. The one that says she's gone.

I don't know this baby. I don't know my co-worker's brother and his wife. I have no connection except that this is another life and I wish, sometimes I wish so badly, that I could trade mine. I wish I could give that baby my life. I wish I could give a terminally ill child my life. I wish I could give my life to any number of people who have found out that theirs will be cut short. I wish I could give my life to someone who deserves it.

I don't know this baby, but I want so badly for her to live.

one year

I told myself I was going to write something today.

Then I told myself to fuck off.

September 9th is more than just any other day, and I am stuck somewhere between obsession and denial.

One year ago I wrote this. Minutes afterwards, I unraveled. One year later, I am still living under the shadow of September 9th.

How am I?

"I'm actually excited for Fall this year!" I told the Mr. one sunny morning, but the first chilly day brought me to my knees.

I'm only working part time now because my head is still fucked up and my boss can only be "understanding" about mental illness for so long.

I adopted a dog from a rescue. She curls into my body on the couch. She doesn't move, not even to wag her tail, but her brown eyes stare into mine with so much love my throat hurts. There are ghosts in those eyes. I wonder if she sees the ghosts in mine.

I gained twenty pounds.

I started seeing a new therapist. We've met once. It should have been twice, but I cancelled my appointment this week. I hate starting from the beginning.

I've noticed lately that my name is being included with others under the label of "people who have their shit together." It makes me laugh. A sort of laugh that feels like a knife between my ribs.

"What medications are you taking?"

I can list the first three, and then I pause. I don't remember the names. They are a line of identical bottles. I am a research project. "I'm going to prescribe you this blood pressure medication." My psychiatrist tells me. "Sometimes it helps." "Let's try this pain reliever. It's usually prescribed for seizures, but sometimes it helps." I just nod because I don't really care. It's just another pill I have to swallow.

"I really don't understand why he prescribed you that." Says the nurse in Urgent Care.

"I'm not a psychiatrist, but you really shouldn't be continuing to take that medication." Says the physicians assistant at my doctor's office.

"You don't want to be on those pills forever, do you?" Says the specialist inspecting my achey knees.

Just once I would love to list my medications and have someone simply say, "Thank you."

I miss Molly.

I miss my brother who decided to drop out of college and live with my parents, 1000 miles away.

I miss Bill. He keeps asking if we can get tea together. I keep not answering my phone.

I miss the lies. I miss being the only one who knew.

I am happier. I am. One year ago compared to today is like night and day.

But I'm not convinced that recovery really exists. There's no such thing as "better." There's not some magic day where you can declare yourself "healed."

There's just life.

Some days you laugh with your friends, you play with your dog, you bake a cake, and you smile.

Some days you can't get out of bed, you spew the cruelest insults you can think of at your reflection, you wish with everything in you that you'd just fucking killed yourself a year ago.

But I didn't.

So here I am.

like it doesn't exist

i'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier
i'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist

like it doesn't exist

i'm gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry
i'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier

and i'm holding on for dear life, won't look down won't open my eyes
keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause i'm just holding on for tonight

help me, i'm holding on for dear life, won't look down won't open my eyes
keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause i'm just holding on for tonight, on for tonight

sun is up, i'm a mess
gotta get out now, gotta run from this
here comes the shame, here comes the shame

There are so many things that reach out to me from this music video in a way that I can't accurately put into words. It's been playing in my head on repeat.

Where have I been? 

Inside that empty, crumbling house.

I've been going through the motions, but when no one is looking I'm kicking the walls and making ugly faces at myself, running wild and manic, and never even trying to open the door. 

I make promises. I make conflicting promises. I make conflicting promises about the conflicting promises. I'm not sure when I'm telling the truth anymore.

I left the Recovery Program. 

For good or bad, there it is.

I knew it was going to happen long before it did. I wasn't telling the truth. I wasn't trying. All my false sincerity was worn thin. I even stopped trying to play by the rules. When Molly's hours changed and she couldn't fit me into her schedule anymore, I didn't even care.

So one day, instead of driving to DBT, I sat in the Target parking lot for half an hour until I knew my therapist wouldn't be in his office. Then I called. I left a voicemail and made sure to say all the right things. And that was it.

It was helpful. In many ways it was helpful. I learned a lot. I met some really wonderful people. 

But it is exhausting to fake remorse.

i'm going to be better at this

Hi, I'm Kay and sometimes I write things.

You guys said such sweet things on my last post. Thank you. You are all so lovely, and I'm so glad I know you.

Life.

I'm going to try to summarize.

I saw my psychiatrist today, and she told me she's leaving. It shouldn't have taken me by surprise. I am still attending the small walk-in clinic at the hospital. The clinic that is full of students completing their residency. They come and go like waves, and I have planted myself stubbornly in the sand, pretending not to notice.

I don't know why I am so reluctant to move on. The Recovery Center provides psychiatric services now. I could go there.

I could.

I feel so disjointed lately. I haven't seen Molly in two weeks because of random schedule conflicts. I am no longer seeing her for my individual DBT therapy. I was given a choice, but I knew there was really only one right answer. Now I meet with one of the leaders of my group. He is awkward and brusque, but earnest in a way that genuine people are.

Last week I learned that several people in my group will be graduating soon. I'm already dreading it. I love the people in my group, and the upheaval of graduation and potential new members makes me queasy.

 The scale has not been my friend lately. And I am caught in the trap I've created. The one where I can't really talk about how I really feel because if I do the dietitian argument will flare back up. Or worse, people will start mentioning "more intensive options." I hate the numbers I keep seeing. I hate how I feel. I hate how I look. But I hate those conversations more.

A few months ago my boss told me that I had to start working extra hours to make up for my lost time. My time lost to therapy.

Everyone is forgiving of a mental illness until it becomes an inconvenience.

I'm not as angry now. I was. I was furious. Work was already an almost insurmountable task, and then she piled more on. I wouldn't say I'm happy about it now. I suppose I've just been trying not to think about it very much. I've been trying not to think about much unless I have to. I let myself go numb because otherwise, I just plunge into anxiety. Which lately has led to drinking too much wine and inevitably crying all over the Mr.

But there are good things too. And because I am tired of thinking so much, I'll just show you some more pictures instead.

Good thing #1: My front yard no longer looks like this.

Good Thing #2: The Arizona sunshine I was able to experience when my yard DID look like that.

Good Thing #3: New glasses!

Good Thing #4: Springtime! And finally being able to show off my new tattoo!

Good Thing #5: This sweet guy.

Good Thing #6: And this sweet guy.

Good Thing #7: And this (sometimes) sweet little girl.

And of course, the Mr. My best friend. My husband. My always.

♥

I promise I will try to catch up on your posts soon!

thoughts

My knee aches.

The snow is gone, and in its place green grass welcomes me every morning. The snow has stopped, and now it rains. It rains and my knee aches, but I will not complain. I want to breathe in the green, the bare ground, the birds chirping. I go to the window every few minutes to make sure it's still there, that it wasn't all a dream.

....

I've stopped seeing my dietitian. 

I achieved the doctor's approval, so everyone else had to fall in line. So I continue on pretending that I don't see their thinly veiled disapproval. 

I continue pretending that I am fine.

...

Change does not come easy. Every time my father leaves a voicemail he is sure to state his name, the date, and the time. My phone tells me these things before he does, but he still follows his own antiquated patterns. 

I wonder if it's just human nature to stand stubbornly in the way of time.

...

"hey." Bill texts me. "the sun shines. listen."

...

I am happy. I am sad. I am angry. I laugh. I want to cry, but I don't. 

I go through the motions. Work. Therapy. DBT. Work. Sleep.

I am tired of pretending to care, but time carries on.

...

One pink line.

Negative.

"What are you afraid of?" My new DBT therapist asks me.

I am afraid of myself. I am afraid of seeing two pink lines. I am afraid of the things I am capable of.

I don't know why that one pink line makes me so sad.

...

I wish I could give you a glowing report about how my life is perfect now. I wish I could tell you that I don't bristle every time someone says "your eating disorder." I wish I could tell you that I want my life to be different.

But I'm just me.

a ghostly hello

My life has been long, long hours at work and driving to and from therapy appointments. When I'm home, I collapse on the couch and only get up when I drag myself to bed. 

I've missed so many posts, so many comments. I try to write, to draw, to paint, and I just end up frustrated at myself. My mind is full of cotton. I seem to be caught in a creative black hole. 

But I miss you. All of you. I am so behind in your blogs, and right now I don't think I can catch up. But I really want to know how you're doing. Are you ok? What are you thinking about right now? What are you happy about, frustrated about, angry about, sad about? 

I think about you guys a lot. Even when I'm not writing. Thank you for all the comments. I'm sorry I'm such a ghost.

Love,

Kay

it's only a change of time

I had a dream last night
I dreamt that I was swimming
and the stars up above
directionless and drifting
somewhere in the dark
were the sirens and the thunder
and around me as I swam
the drifters who’d gone under

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

When I was ten years old, I slipped into the middle of the woods and begged God to let my Grandma live. The early spring snow was wet and slowly seeped into my battered second-hand boots as I pleaded, offering everything I could think of in exchange. But God was silent, and eventually my desperate words faltered. Cancer had been a part of my vocabulary for a year now, but it had just been a word. It was the reason Grandma was tired. The reason she had to go home early. The reason we couldn't visit as often. The reason we couldn't see her if we had a cold. It had not occurred to me that my Grandma was going to die, but now surrounded by the dripping trees and divine silence, it was suddenly, painfully clear. I stayed there until the sun began to set, alone, snow soaking into my jeans, my grief mixing with the sharp taste of pine.

I had a dream last night
and rusting far below me
battered hulls and broken hardships
leviathan and lonely
I was thirsty so I drank
and though it was salt water
there was something ‘bout the way
it tasted so familiar

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

I knew it when my parents sat us all at our worn dining room table in the early morning. I knew it when my mother stared silently at the floor. I knew it when my father stood, calmly grave. I let three tears fall onto the table, but that was all.

the black clouds I’m hanging
this anchor I’m dragging
the sails of memory rip open in silence
we cut through the lowlands
all hands through the saltlands
the white caps of memory
confusing and violent

We stood beside the open grave, just family. A man was speaking, a Bible in hand, but I couldn't stop staring at the coffin, sacred and elegant. I just couldn't picture her inside. That was not her. She was laughter and the crumbly sweetness of pound cake and the soft clucking of chickens as she gently placed a warm, freshly laid egg in my small hand. I fidgeted, stared at the sky, watched the cars drive by. When it was finally over, I raced my cousins back to the car. I didn't care if I won, I just wanted to get away from the deafening silence of that wooden box. I put my hand through the open window of my Grandpa's car to unlock the door, only to start when he yelled out sharply for me to stop. He didn't want the car alarm to go off, but he had never yelled at me like that before. I sat silently as we drove from the cemetery to the church and tried to make sense of the tumultuous fear playing round in my head.  

The organ played mournful tunes for what felt like hours before the service even started. All around me were the sounds of people crying. My family. People I barely recognized. People I didn't know at all. I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails bit into my palms. Throughout the entire service I sat that way, stubbornly stoic, refusing to cry.

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

At the reception, we children ran like wild things around the small room. It was a maze of legs adorned in sleek pleated slacks, leather dress shoes, tan colored pantyhose, and sensible heels. We yelled and laughed manically and stole an entire bowl of sugar cubes for my cousin's horse, but no one said a word. We were the grandchildren of the deceased, untouchable.

Afterwards, it was easiest to pretend she had never existed. The memory of life with her was more bitter than sweet. It was too hard to remember her, always so full of love. It was too hard to remember my mother laughing, to remember her face lit up with joy. It was too hard to remember that my Grandpa hadn't always been silent and stooped with grief, that my mother hadn't always been raging with hate.

But she haunts me still. Sometimes she is well, laughing, warm with life. Sometimes she is skeletal and frail with sunken eyes and cheeks. Her ghost held my hand through the deepest valleys of depression, sometimes more as an anchor than a guide. She is ever present, and I do not know which one of us won't let go. 

Sometimes I get lost imagining how things could have been different if she had lived. It's a dangerous road that leads further and further into nowhere. So I have to remind myself over and over again that this is what is true:

I only had her for a short time, but in that time I never doubted that she loved me. 

And I will see her again. I believe that with all my heart.

it’s only a change of

time, love
time, love
time, love

it’s only a change of
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

To Millie, my Grandma, with love.

Song lyrics from "Change of Time" by Josh Ritter

insane (adjective)

A deranged state of the mind; in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.

My life has become a list of skills. Skills I used. Skills I didn't use. Skills I thought about, but didn't want to use. Skills I tried to use, but didn't help.

This is DBT. 

DBT is all about skills. 

I am crabbily scribbling down answers to our homework assignment. The Mr. is passed out next to me. It's late. I'm tired. I have three worksheets to fill out, and I have two choices: write down the truth or what I know they want me to say.

I choose the truth.

This skill is called Check The Facts. It helps regulate your emotions. 

"Every emotion you have is valid, but not every emotion you have is justified." The therapist says.

This is where checking the facts comes in. If you are angry, you are supposed to stop and ask yourself WHY. What prompted it? Then you check the facts. Here, list them on this sheet of paper. Now, is this a reasonable reaction to this situation? 

It sounds simple, right? I can see that thought on the therapist's face as she smiles at us. This is simple. Obvious.

Sure.

I write down my facts. I ate too much food. I gained weight. I am a worthless piece of shit.

So my anger is justified, as is my decision to restrict the following day.

In group I am politely corrected. Only my weight gain is a fact. The other two are judgments. My emotion is unjustified. 

"They are all facts to me." I say defiantly. 

"That is your eating disordered mind talking."

"But I believe them."

We go in a circle until we end here: my facts are just wrong. And that's that.

The things my brain tells me to be true and real are not. And a small part of me knows that. I know that I believe what is untrue, but I also wholeheartedly believe what's untrue is true.

Does this not sound eerily similar to the definition of insanity?

Do you know how it feels to know you can't trust your own brain? Do you know how it feels to be told that you can't trust your own brain? Who then can you trust? Anyone? No one? What is the point, then? To go on listening to your broken brain until it leads you off a cliff? To trust the people telling you differently and blindly follow their every direction? Do you feel the walls of reality crashing around your ankles?

Molly tries to lure me into naming my eating disorder with Harry Potter. "What if you called it Voldemort?" She says.

I don't say anything.

"What are other good names from Harry Potter?" She looks up, thinking, waiting.

I don't offer any.

Stop dividing me up into pieces. I want to scream. Stop telling me that this piece is good and this one is bad and this one is wrong and this one is right because I am left believing that something is both black and white at the same time and I feel like I am losing my fucking mind.

I am not very good at checking the facts. Apparently.

There are six women in my group and one teenage boy. We are all different ages, sizes, and shapes. I have seen them cry. I have seen them yell. I have seen them get up and abruptly leave the room. I have seen them happy. I have seen them fucking pissed.

And I've come to care about each and every one of them.

At one of my first appointments with Molly she told me that the first thing she realized about people with eating disorders is that they're all really smart. Almost across the board.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but once I did, I realized how absolutely true it is. The people in my group. The writers of the blogs I've read. The people who comment here. I have seen so much creativity and wit and intelligence in people labeled as mentally ill. 

After we were dismissed, one of the girls in my group caught up with me, and we ended up talking in the hallway for forty-five minutes. Surrounded by people I don't know, I can be painfully shy, and this was the first one-on-one conversation I've really had. And it was so good. When someone understands a tangled, messy part of you that most people don't, it's like finally surfacing from underwater. 

Maybe I am insane and broken and disordered, but I'm not the only one. And that one conversation helped more than the three and a half hours of therapy I had today.

til the last moon droops

Bill texts me in the darkness before dawn.

"a piece of a poem written by arthur symons." He writes,

"unresting water, there shall never be rest

til the last moon droops and the last tide fails.

and the fire of the end begins to burn in the west

and the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea

all life crying without avail

as the water all night long

is crying to me."

...

"Life carries on." They say. But it doesn't really. Not for some.

It is the darkest, most malicious winter I have known in my twenty-seven years. On the eve of March, we are still buried in mountains of snow, still bracing against dangerously cold winds as the temperature drops and drops again.

There have been two suicides this past week that I know of.

I didn't know either of them personally, but I know it could have been me.

...

"We never talk about the hospital." Molly says, out of the blue. "About your suicide attempt."

I pause, but then I shrug. "I've talked about it so much, it doesn't really bother me anymore."

She looks skeptical, so I start to talk, to prove her wrong. But for the first time in five months...I find myself lost for words. 

"What are you feeling right now?" She asks gently. She's leaning forward in her chair watching me struggle, and I suddenly feel fragile. 

"....like I might cry." I finally mumble.

"You can cry, you know. It's ok to cry." She says.

"I don't want to." 

So I don't.

...

I get in trouble at work. It's over a small thing, in my opinion, but my boss thinks otherwise. She surprises me one morning with a guilt trip so thick, I am stunned. She slaps it on, layer after layer, without giving me a chance to breathe. 

I should have defended myself, but I didn't. I just slowly caved in.

Stupid. You stupid fucking idiot. I tell my watery reflection in the bathroom mirror. I hate you. Everyone hates you. Why don't you just die already? I wish you would just die.

I stumble through the rest of the day, a defeated, hollow shell. I try to focus on my work, but I just keep thinking about how pointless it was to go on living. I thought I'd mostly clawed my way out of that dark hole, but one little conversation shoved me right back in. 

...but maybe not all the way.

Because that night, I tell the Mr. I tell him. I speak the words out loud. And he doesn't panic. He just holds me and makes me say all of the things I love in life until I am completely annoyed, but smiling at the same time. 

The thoughts are still there, my own furious, damning voice echoing around in my head, but they are a little easier to ignore.

...

I try to start a new blog. I am spurred by a sudden passion to tell my story as myself. To show the people who know me who I really am. To be an advocate for people with mental illnesses. To maybe give someone else the courage to be vulnerable.

I throw myself into the design. I am excited. So excited that I struggle willingly through lines of code that read like Chinese to my brain.

Then it is all designed, beautiful, just the way I want it. I open a new post, the first post, and I stare at it.

The cursor blinks blinks blinks blinks.

I write a paragraph. Then two. I start over. The cursor blinks. I get up, make some tea. I come back. I write one sentence. Then I delete it.

A week later, the blog still sits empty, void. I don't know how to fill it with honesty, with the ugly things inside my head. They won't get it. They won't understand. I thought I was brave, but I just feel....fragile.

...

"...all life crying without avail

as the water all night long

is crying to me.

hope it rings true in your dark, porcelain heart, jasmine."

I read Bill's text three times. Then I lay back down, next to the Mr. who drowsily throws a warm arm around me. I fall asleep again listening to the crying of the sea.

I hope you have people in your life who understand. I hope you know that if you need someone who understands, I am here in my dusty, cluttered little corner willing to try.

of drama

"Is there anything I can do to help you get back on track?" My dietitian asks.

I smile politely and shake my head as though I'm declining sugar in my tea.

"Your dietitian spoke with me. She's worried about you. I am too." Molly is leaning forward and I am purposefully not looking at her. I know this trick. I know what she's doing.

I want to throw things.

I stopped following my meal plan.

If I hadn't said anything about it, if I'd just lied, I know all this drama wouldn't have happened. But I told her, my dietitian. Partly out of spite. Partly because I wanted her to know that I was in control.

I didn't expect the drama.

It was as if I told them that I'd stopped eating entirely. That I was never going to eat again. And so began the guilt trips, the scare tactics, the emotional manipulation.

When I look at them now, all I can see is my mother.

I want to be done with this. I was told to go to treatment by a team of people in white lab coats, so I did. I went because I was just a small broken person in turquoise scrubs, all my secrets revealed. I went because it was expected. I went because all the people in my life looked so worried. It wasn't for me. It was for them. And I'll admit, I was curious. But I am so done with it now. With all of it. I can't trust them anymore. I have no desire to change. I never have. I am the wolf in sheep's clothing, and I am so tired of saying what I know I'm supposed to say.

Anger constantly lurks around my rib cage. I find myself clenching my fists to keep from exploding at my boss just for talking. My family wants to know how I'm doing. They want a progress report. Concrete numbers marking my ascent into sanity. They love me. I know that. But the phone calls and the emails slowly pile up.

Get better. Get better. Get better. Get better.

They want to know how long I'll be in therapy, how long I'll have to take medication. When? When? When? And throughout it all I can hear what they're not saying and the pressure is crushing me.

Get better. Get better. Get better. GET BETTER.

It makes me want to scream.

I've never been an angry person. I don't like angry people. Including myself.

My dreams come in strange flashes as though someone is flipping quickly through a slideshow of pictures. It is a barrage of light and dark and emotion. Bits and pieces of normal life intermixed with the strange, the terrifying, the horrifying, the heart-wrenching. Throughout the day I find myself suddenly perplexed about reality. What is real and what is dream? I try to sort through the pictures, but they are scattered across the floor in a jumbled mess.

I am tired. I am crackling with irritation. I am frustrated. I don't want to go to work. I don't want to go to treatment. I feel like I am losing my mind. I just want everyone to leave me alone.

Even writing is difficult. It's like trudging through knee deep mud. I've closed countless blank pages before I managed to spit these jumbled words out.

I'm afraid I'm not a very pleasant person these days.

a brief escape

It is early, and I am tired. There is no noise, but for clomping snow boots, zippers, and yawns. I am trying to breathe deep and mindfully, but I can't find my mittens.

The cold steals my breath as I step outside, but for once I almost laugh. Exhaust clouds billow across the freeway. The skyline is beautiful in the morning.

We slowly merge like sleepy bees up to the curb. I strip off my coat and boots and mittens, and I kiss him goodbye. The cold chases me as I run to the safety of the big glass doors.

I find my seat on the aisle. That one. The one next to a frowning middle aged man.

"Tight space." Is all he remarks. His knees are pressing against the seat in front of him.

I fit nicely into my small space, and smile politely.

A couple hours later, I glance out the window and spots dance in front of my startled eyes. How long has it been since I've really seen the sun?

There are palm trees growing out of the ground. I stare at them through the glass. Palm trees! Growing there in the ground. Real palm trees. And the sun! The sun is brilliant. I can't wait to get outside.

My friend, one of my best friends, is waiting for me on the other side of the secured doors. Amused bystanders watch our enthusiastic reunion, and I am truly happy. We drive with the windows down, and I am overwhelmed by the desert. She grew up in the sun, surrounded by cacti, but this world is brand new to me. Around us people move and talk and shop and scold their children and are entirely unimpressed by their surroundings. I have to resist the urge to shake them. 

"Don't ever take the sun for granted!" I'd shout, like a crazy person.

It is a brief trip. Fifty-two hours in paradise. We laugh and talk and talk and talk some more. She shows me the past pieces of her life. High schools and the house where she grew up. We walk into a tattoo parlor and walk out with new matching tattoos. We eat food and drink beer and sit in the sunshine and play with her cat and dog and watch movies and talk over a bonfire on the patio at night. 

It is perfect.

I have a middle seat on the return plane ride. The woman to my right explains twice that the sauce from her burrito has leaked. She dozes off halfway through the flight, but startles awake to tell me about her parents' thirteen year old golden retriever who likes rides on the ATV. The woman to my left is dignified and calm with her paperback book. She looks at me over her glasses, and I feel like a specimen on display. I buy a package of peanut m&m's during the flight, and I eat the entire thing.

It is not quite so cold when I step outside, but I run anyways. The Mr. is waiting, and his smile warms the entire car.

The next morning, reality is a whirling snowstorm, windblown drifts up to my knees, and a crawling commute on icy roads. I leave work early to attend DBT, but the lines of cars and the way my car slides as it plows through the snow chokes me. I take the exit for my house instead. I can't face the cold, the snow, the icy roads. Not now. Not today. 

Today it's hard to believe that the sun is still shining anywhere.

in which things go back to being not good

Her name is Valentina.

She can't be much older than I am. She looks like she should be seen between the pages of a magazine or on billboards or strutting down a catwalk. Definitely not sitting in this small, plain office. When she speaks, I find myself listening to her accent instead of her words. I can't quite place it. Russian maybe? Italian?

She's not a Model though. She's my new Psychiatrist.

I expect to dislike her, to distrust her, but then I don't. She listens. She radiates calm. She speaks intelligently. I realize I like her after only a few minutes. So when I speak, I tell the truth.

....

Despite the cold, it has somehow managed to snow again. The world is coated in giant, fluffy flakes like a child sprinkled pretend snow over a playhouse. The snowflakes are so light that they fly in all directions when I brush them off my car, covering me in sparkling snow. 

....

I met my lunch goal 5 out of 7 days.

My dietitian is very pleased. 

I am making an effort to be pleasant. Turning over a new leaf.

"This is the most I've ever seen you smile." She says.

She takes my weight. I wait for her to tell me what it was so we can talk about it. Like she promised.

But she doesn't. 

Instead she asks me if I'll stop weighing myself at home.

Again.

I stop smiling.

....

All of this is supposed to make me feel better, but it's not. I don't think the program is broken, I think I am. Therapists and dietitians all operate under the assumption that you want to get better. 

And I am still defining "better" wrong.

Or right?

I don't know.

I hate myself right now. I hate myself more than I have in months. I hate how I feel. I hate how I look. I hate the numbers on the scale. I hate my dietitians smile. I hate it when Molly talks about my "ED voice." I hate the diary card I'm supposed to fill out for DBT that monitors how I feel. 

I feel awful.

Last night I couldn't take it anymore. So I looked myself in the eye in the mirror and spewed out all the horrible, hateful thoughts I've been having about her, the girl in the reflection. I took my pills like I was supposed to, but they didn't stop me from slamming my arms into the door frame again. 

The pain worked better than the pills, anyways.

I don't want to do this. I don't think I can.