Because

On some lonely nights I feel like the last three years have been an intense, long-winded manic episode, followed almost immediately by an intense period of depression and horrified anxiety upon waking up.

The sugar high of dropping everything and going somewhere completely new took two years to crash, I guess.
I think about what my life was like then; working retail and food service, just getting by, desperately trying to figure out what kind of hustle I was good at because my expensive degree was getting me nowhere.
The exact thing that made us finally leave, I don't really remember, which bolsters my mania theory a bit. But mania or not, some kind of adrenaline kept me going for so long now, I'm so tired. I'm constantly looking to settle -- which feels so... different.
I try to think about gratitude, because of all the people and circumstances that were critical to almost every step along the way. The luck I've had; the chances I've been given; the people who've picked me up when I've needed it.
I wonder now what I was thinking, to pack up and gamble everything away like that.
Then I remember
that I only have anything to lose now because I took the chance then.

Homesickness. Part 1.

I found this entry in my "It's Gonna Be Okay" journal from 4/1/15: the first day of our first full month in Portland, thousands of miles from home. I've edited it a  teeny bit for sense and flow, because nobody writes pretty journal entries.


Keep yourself busy. Keep your mind off of the distance. Cleaning is good. And reading. Meditating is not. Go for walks. When you're inside you may have the feeling of unreality; as if outside is just your world. As if, if you walked out your front door, you could be there, in that familiar place with familiar buildings and familiar people. This may also be the case in national chain businesses. Any fast food place could be the one there. From inside, the unfamiliar world doesn't exist.  Explore. Being surrounded by new things grounds you, helps you adapt because it's real.
Hang on to the people you know, stay close without using them as a crutch -- they are your connection to home. Don't let them go.
Making new friends will feel impossible. Like trying to pick a movie to watch when nothing looks good enough and you're not sure what you're into anyway, and what if it sucks or you can't focus or they're so horrible you leave traumatized or scarred? Do it anyway.
Try not to overthink others' lack of communication. Imagine everyone else is going through some version of what you are. Refrain from judging or making assumptions.
Spend just enough time on social media to feel connected to those you care about. Refreshing the screen every 90 seconds to see if there's anything new will remind you of your isolation. Don't do it.
Make a routine. An exercise in the mornings. Washing all of the dishes before bed.
Try not to drink much, or smoke too much weed. It increases the chance of dysphoria, and forgetting what's real.
When it all feels too real, too different, spend your free time inside. Watch tv. Stay in bed. Remind yourself that you're still you, and you don't always have to be overwhelmed by the newness. This is not vacation, it's your life. It can be slower, it can be lazy. You can still order Chinese takeout and binge watch Netflix.  But keep the windows open, let the light in, let the real world in a little bit. You still need to remember that you're here. That your life can be normal here.

I don't know where I lost the will to write.

Writing is work. Even if that work is just sitting in front of a keyboard -- I still have to keep my fingers moving and sometimes, for a long time now, that's hard.

I was never great at being consistent. I never wrote daily or blogged regularly. But it got worse a year or two back. Then somewhere along the lines I had the incredible opportunity to interview Francesca Lia Block, but I wasn't in one of my blogging-success patterns and I really, really didn't give it my all. This was one of my dreams, people, and I didn't give it my all!
Thanks depression and dysphoria, so glad you could join the party...

After that I was caught up in the whirlwind of moving across the country and trying to find work and succeed at all in another place where the odds are stacked against us. Against everyone, really. I lucked out like crazy with an internship to get me through the doors and part-time job(s) to pay the bills, but lost essentially all of my creative energy and motivation.

Over time, this started to create a fuzzy little noise in the back of my mind, like a tumor reminding me that I've given up my creative and artistic goals and never accomplished anything. Then came poverty.

I love this city, but everyone knows it's kicking us out. My rent is literally double anything I've ever paid for housing before. My car is constantly one step away from repossession [I've since sold it --read; paid a lot of money to not have to pay for it any more]. We haven't bought groceries in over a month. Every time we've thought we were almost caught up, something else happened and we were at the bottom of the money hole again.

It's like all of my energy and motivation and hope has drained away in the last year, maybe it's just been too long struggling to make things work here, fighting possible homelessness over the last few months, going hungry for the first time in my adult life. I worked three jobs (one unpaid) over the summer and two after that fo
r months. When I lost one (the one I hated, luckily), I spiraled. I'd spent so long working 40+ hour weeks that I exploited my new-found free time. I'd go to work and I'd come home and I'd watch tv. Over and over. For months I overcompensated for a year of overworking. Getting to work on time became a small win. Doing the dishes; a big win. Working for more than 5 hours a day; huge.

Everything fueled this depression trying to creep over me, but I smoked lots of weed and curled up on the couch to watched tv. First I stopped writing. Then I stopped reading. Then I stopped being social. Then I stopped doing pretty much everything. It wasn't like my past depression -- curled up under piles of blankets with a black hole inside of my chest -- this was... almost functional. I assume, perhaps logically, that this difference is due to my being medicated now versus then, but who knows.

And we got through it pretty decently. We started to take walks more often, just to get off the couch. We found local resources for free food. We found ways to make a few extra dollars -- selling plasma, selling furniture, etc.. We played with our dogs more and we cuddled more and we keep our heads up and kept moving.
Mood-wise, we were okay: it was like doing yoga next to a crumbling cliffside-- sure, you're keeping your cool, but any minute now that wall of rock is going to collapse on top of you and kill you, and you know it's coming. This was my feeling pretty much all of the time. And every time I thought about something I could do to help myself -- write, read, be social, clean -- I just... didn't. I didn't have even the slightest bit of willpower to get my ass up and do anything.

Now is a little bit different.
Now I'm the sales manager where I was interning, a rad [i say rad, now, cause i'm a west coast grl.] publishing house that is getting bigger and bigger every year, and I'm excited to help them grow and succeed. They've been incredibly patient with me and my situations over the last year, and it is an amazing opportunity. I work with books all day and, basically, am doing exactly what I came here to do. If I work a full forty hour week (which I'm still working up to and it's slow-going) I have almost enough to pay my rent and car payment, and hopefully the electric bill (not our other bills though, of which there are many).
We're not even close to paying any of our bills, our taxes (holy shit it's a lot), our loans, my car payment, or being able to buy groceries any time soon. But we still have an apartment and we're constantly looking for somewhere cheaper. I have a reliable, grown-up sized paycheck coming in.
For the first time in months, there's this underlying feeling of possibility.

We're not okay, but every week it's more and more likely that we're going to be. There's something inherently freeing in that possibility.

How My Abuser Still Haunts Me [2]

This is [part 2 of] a long article/memoir essay I wrote for SkirtCollective last month. It was hard to write, but once I started it just kept going and going until I had said everything I could. I had nightmares that night. 

Trigger warning here, I guess.

After a while, I said ‘no’ more often, hung up on him more often, went out of my way to spend time with my family or old friends instead of him. Eventually, I stopped picking up the phone altogether.

It’s extremely hard – and terrifying – to break up with an abuser. Especially one who’s known you for so long. After all, breaking up had happened before: over and over for years. This time I was determined, and after a week of angry phone calls, threats, insults, guilt and harassment, it seemed to stick.

I don’t remember how terrified I was. Maybe I blocked it out.

It was the end of the school year and I do remember him hovering near my classrooms and parking spot. There was one day, near the end, when I was waiting for my ride next to the school. He was standing by the entrance, eyes on me. I knew he would come closer when more people had left, but I didn’t know what he would do.

But for some reason, two boys I knew came out of nowhere to sit with me. One was a friend, the other an old friend’s brother. I didn’t know why they were there, suddenly on each side of me, making random, simple small talk about pretty much nothing. When my ride showed up, they left, and I’d made it through the day without a confrontation. I’ve never mentioned it to the one of them I still keep up with, but I’ve told the story a lot. I don’t know if this was intentional, to keep him away or just keep me company, but I couldn’t have been more grateful. It meant so much to me to feel protected, even in that small way.

After that, things were easier. Less angry phone calls to ignore, less days I stuck close to the few friends I still had, avoiding him in the halls. Then it was summer, and I could almost pretend he didn’t exist.

It didn’t occur to me at the time how much other people had my back in that time. Not only the boys after school, but old friends that seemed to conveniently intervene here and there. I have little doubt that everyone knew things were awful – though not how awful – and they seemed to accept me back pretty easily. It never felt like they judged me for distancing myself from everyone, and they seemed to take my side – even some that had once been his friends.

I wish I’d noticed that then, and appreciated that support more.

It’s been ten years, I suppose, since the summer I got out, but every once in a while he tries to contact me. We chatted once, not long after I started college – because I was stupid and thought it would be okay. He said I was crazy for still feeling bad about our relationship. That I must be really fucked up if it all bothered me so much.

He will never remember half of the things I will never forget.

I think that’s the only thing that still hurts.

He still tries to add me on Facebook sometimes, and once he contacted me via my tumblr page, violating a space I saw as my own. I don’t use it anymore.

There’s a special kind of pain that comes from sexual coercion. A very particular type of guilt that rots your insides. It hurts to think of all the things that were done to you and to think ‘I said yes.’

Now, years later, sex is an endless exercise in willful, selective memory. Exposed nipples remind me of the abandoned movie theater where he lifted my shirt to fondle me, barely hidden behind the building’s columns, pretending to be interested in it all and trying not to cry when a car drove past and might have seen. I have a strange relationship with my vagina as well, remembering his fingers, rough and forced, in my parent’s moldy, dingy basement, or his lips when he convinced me to lie to my mother, sneaking out of a movie to go to his empty bedroom.

Then there’s his hand pulling mine towards him under a blanket or table, moving my hand to stroke him while people around us talked. There’s a sense of hidden shame when my pubic hair grows out too much, remembering the time he sent me a series of instant messages that said ‘SHAVE THAT BUSH’ over and over again. Or the time he convinced me to go down on him for the first time, sitting on the floor in my bedroom with my parents in the next room. I have to be high to enjoy doing that now, to block out memories that make me want to curl up, shivering. I know this would legally be considered rape, and that there’s some kind of irony to it all, considering the context, but sometimes the only way I can have sex is to be able to let go – to focus on the sensations of my skin without the flashbacks. It isn’t fair, but it works.

Still, it leaves a sick, queasy feeling in the very core of me. Like it’s me that’s rotten. Sick. The days my depression hits hard and I can’t get all of these stupid moments out of my head, I feel broken.

But on my good days, when my husband is sweet and patient and caring, I feel free again. I remember how lucky I am. That I got out. That it didn’t get worse than it was.

That I am stronger and braver than he ever gave me credit for.

That it will never, ever, happen to me again.

How My Abuser Still Haunts Me [1]

This is [part 1 of] a long article/memoir essay I wrote for SkirtCollective last month. It was hard to write, but once I started it just kept going and going until I had said everything I could. I had nightmares that night.

Trigger warning here, I guess.

I talk about him openly: the abusive boyfriend I had for most of high school. I talk about how he separated me from my friends and family so well. My isolation was important to him. I talk about how he would “hug” me when he was angry in public; squeezing me so tight I felt like I might break. How he’d wrap his arm around my waist or shoulder in a similar way. From the outside it looked like affection, and if anyone could tell that his fingers were digging into my skin, they didn’t say anything. It made me feel so far away from everyone else. So alone.

I complain about the day he thought my jeans were too tight, so – when we were alone – he criticized me and grabbed the crotch of my jeans and squeezed so tight that I ached for the rest of the day. Or the time I visited my best friend at the beach and – because I’d mentioned that she was bi – he was certain I would end up in a threesome with her and her boyfriend.

He called me three times to make sure I wasn’t doing anything he didn’t want me to. He begged me to go back to my family at the hotel, to promise I wouldn’t spend time with her. He hissed insults through the phone line and, when I hung up on him, he called again. And again. And again. I turned off my cell phone, knowing I would regret it later.

Sometimes I laugh off the way he’d threatened me on the phone, or threatened to kill himself if we broke up. I always say I wish he had. It’s kind of true, but I know it would have made him a martyr to our teenage romance; our tragic love story. I also know he probably would have botched it on purpose – for sympathy and attention and to make me feel guilty. I vaguely remember him doing something like that. Still, it would have saved me a lot of pain, fear, and isolation.

It’s hard to ask an abuse victim of any kind why they stayed with their abuser, because it’s hard to answer. Love? Fear? Desperation? Guilt? It’s so hard to explain all of the bizarre feelings that come along with being someone who hurts you. The excuses I told myself so often were internalized over time, so I could almost convince myself that it was all true.

I can’t say I didn’t think I could do better, or that he was just misunderstood or needed love. I was a teenager. He said he loved me and that was important – that was what mattered. I still thought Romeo and Juliet was a love story. That fighting and persevering somehow made our relationship more real, as if it meant we care more, or something. It didn’t help that I thrive on emotional drama, though this all might have been how it started. I used to pick fights with my now-husband just because I could.

I think I also wanted to be saved. I wanted someone sweet and strong and brave to stand up for me. I wanted someone who would tell me I was brave and strong for living through it all. I wanted a hero.

I thought I got one, years into the wreck that my life had become. Three years of being pushed against walls, threatened, called a slut and a bitch then being coerced into activities that made me cringe. Three years of him being so very good at convincing me that these sexual activities I didn’t want a part of were about love. Three years of being made to feel guilty for anything I wanted that didn’t involve him. Three years of the kind of pain that never left a bruise or a bloody lip.

My so-called hero talked his way into my heart via online instant messaging. I was desperate for a savior and he was happy to oblige through text, though only in theory – never doing anything for me offline. But I didn’t see that he never really stood up for me, never tried to protect me, and I never questioned his claims or confessions. I have known a few mildly compulsive liars over time, but none were quite as damaging as this one. Eventually this would all lead to the most intense heartbreaks I would ever experience; one that lasted for too many years and too many nights feeling like such an idiot. But for now he was my reason for wanting more, for wanting out. I felt special – loved – in a beautiful, magical, safe way.

{next part...}

writing is hard.

tonight i've seen videos of police wrangling protestors in Baltimore, of people on the streets reacting to the death of a young man with irresponsible violence and fully justified anger.
i also watched a clip of the President of the US participating in one of my favorite comedy sketches (and, in the process, revealing some nice humanity).

these events happened very close to each other, physically. i enjoyed watching one and i needed to watch the other. but only one was really in the news. a lot. and the other i had to dig through social media to find information on beyond one or two articles.
guess which one's which.



this week my depression has been a hand on my shoulder. not trouble, exactly-- no raincloud following me around and ruining everything, no pit in the ground waiting to swallow me-- but there. present. heavy and just the tiniest bit threatening. i'm working two part-time jobs and one unpaid one, but there's -$1 in the bank, and i'm running through my newly acquired SNAP benefits faster than i'd like. we're not starving, though, so that part's working well. but my car payment is a week late and i don't get a paycheck from either of my jobs for a week and a half. and there's no way i'm going to make rent without using the very last of our savings.

i'm almost tempted to drive to Washington, find a dispensary, relax in a park in the sun, let it all go for a while. but that would take money, i don't think they take food stamps. and i have to be up at 6 for job #1.
i wouldn't anyways.


i miss my sister. and my best friend.
but, even then, in a distant (hand on my shoulder) kind of way. like seeing stars in the corner of your eye; not being able to see it when you're actually looking at it.

Can't Explain It

I can't explain to him the empty rage like spiders crawling under my skin, whirlwind flames spinning through my brain and cutting off any sane, logical thought process. I can't explain to him the blind fury, desperate and alone but determined and proud. Don't want Don't need I'm fine.
Fingers clench, aching to reach out, to find a strength of will and understanding that isn't there to grasp.
I can't explain to him the knots in my chest, tight and choking, rising up my throat; a scream begging to happen. No reason No purpose I'm fine.
I can't explain to him why I hate him sometimes. That it isn't really him, it's me. The little things he does and forgets bug me, but the extent to which my body reacts makes me furious, my brain lashing out at itself, and him, because he's near.

I can't explain the urge to scream, scratch my eyes out, cry, or pull my hair from my scalp

for

no

real

reason.

Oh, it's real enough in my head.

Like a banshee tearing through me.

But the logical part of me knows it's insignificant. That something inside me is taking this miniscule thing, whatever it is, and inflating it, taunting it, urging it on and making it grow into monstrous proportions, throwing my hormones into an emotional frenzy where nothing in the world is GOOD ENOUGH.

and I can't

explain it

to him.

The art of losing

I think I'm tired
of watching other people's lives.

I want friends
and adventures
and smiles.

Where did I forget them?
Where did I lose them?

Looking at a girl's smiling candid I wondered
"is this what my life would be like
if i weren't crazy?"

crazy.
i don't usually say that.
crazy.

Trapped in my skin and my head and my stumbling tongue.

Where did I forget myself?
Where did I lose it?

Melancholy

I feel a sense of melancholy today. Quiet and reserved. With tiny, secret bouts of fury and terror and pain. I want to wish the world away and stand in sunshine. Sleep in warmth and dream of waves and skies and stars.

"What shall we do, all of us? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth..." -Blood Roses

My day job makes me too lazy for my freelance work, and I sit and waste the afternoon away.
I want to buy back my hours, the ticking seconds I didn't use. They make me feel useless. Wasted. Old. Every second another moment of my life gone to nothing but sitting here.

"But the Cyclops eye seemed like it could drill a hole right through her, so that in the pictures the tree tapping the window would show up where her heart was supposed to be." -I Was A Teenage Fairy

My medication hasn't taken away my depression or anxiety (yet?), but instead I have a sense of clarity within them. My depression comes in phases curled under the covers. Eternities of seconds staring at the ceiling in empty, quiet thoughts. Each individual anxiety eventually lost in a haze of moments passed. Forgotten with the simple, silent passing of time.

"'Let the pain wash over you,' she said. 'Let the pain teach you. If you can feel it then you can feel joy again...'" -Blood Roses (Changelings)

Only my anger remains. Surviving the ticking clock as my skin crawls and my mind twists with useless, mild rage. Curling through my thoughts like wisps of smoke, slithering snake temptations of hate.

"I wanted to destroy the body I was trapped in, become what she was, no matter what it took. No matter how much mutilation or pain." -The Rose and The Beast (Ice)

Even food is like work, and I ignore hunger pangs like unwanted advances, curling up to listen to the silence.
It comes and goes, this peaceful, empty melancholy. Some days the world is mine. The sun shines and music plays and work gets done my new apartment is its own world of possibilities and I am potential itself.

"We try on different dresses, different selves, but our souls are always the same-- ongoing, full of light." - Psyche in a Dress

Then the quiet days come. Empty but the buzz of the ac unit or the refrigerator drone. I listen to dogs bark and people climb the steps behind my bedroom, and think of nothing, or wish for everything, and sit with my nothingness.  

"I wanted him to call me darling. Tell me it would be okay. We'll take care of it." -Echo
 

I wait for the better me, as if she will crawl out of my own skin to make me dance and sing and smile. She will be beautiful because she is strong in herself. Not for others but for her. Lips tilted  upwards and heart open to the sky and the world. Unafraid of her own shadow and the voices of others. Unafraid of the blank page or the open door. She will be me. The right me. Born of my self.

"I will paint a Tarot deck-- my own.... I will be the Hanged Man, also the woman in the Lovers card, also the Queen of Cups. I will be Strength with her lion." -The Hanged Man

Om Mani Padme Hum

"I will be Strength..."

Watching My Anger Through a Window

A new medication makes my days less intense. Less stressful and angry and frustrated.

But still this anger seeps through, like acid filling my head, ants crawling over my skin.
Suddenly there is a hate inside, so intense that you want everything to burn. To stop existing.

My eyes are heavy from other medications. Downers to lesson the flames. But still my thoughts run; slower but just as angry. Not enough. Never enough. So much I could be doing but instead I'm sitting tired and slowly, scorchingly angry over something trivial and unfair. Something useless.

New bed and new room and new home. But the same useless, angry me that can't let it go and can't get things done and will never
be
enough.

Testing a Diet

Day Two of my Juice (half)fast.
So far, so good.
Day 1 was definitely a little weird. I spent the day drinking apple, carrot, and beet juice most of the time, particularly for breakfast, with some kale usually, with a Salad Juice for lunch today and yesterday (leafy greens, tomato, cucumber, lime, garlic, dash of salt). For snacks I drank small cups of apple, carrot, orange, & beet.

If you don't care at all about my "diet" attempts, feel free to skip this post. I'm making new labels/tags-- Dear Diary & Diet-- for all of these personal things, which I don't think is interesting to anyone but I'd like to keep track of it.

Rest of my so-far-success after the break.