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