Monday, November 8, 2010

Every Day, Every Night

Everyday, I get up, and the first thing I hear is the voice in my head telling me I'm not worth it. 

Everyday, I take a shower, and I wonder why I bother trying to keep going.

Everyday, I go to work, and I know that there I'm valued, not as a person, but as free labor.

Everyday, I come home, and I'm reminded that I'm alone in the deepest sense.

Everyday, I eat dinner with self-hatred for company, with guilt and depression as side-dishes.

Everyday, I get online, hoping that someone will ask me to hang out, hoping that someone will value my company enough to seek it out.

 Every evening, I spend my time hoping for things to get better, and knowing that experience says they won't.

Every night, I sit and stare at something, anything, to distract myself from the pain that lurks in every shadow. 

Every night, I go to bed, and I give in to the pain, and the fear, and the loneliness, and I cry myself to sleep.

How do you explain that to people? I mean, people know what it's like to be depressed. Everyone has gone through that at some point or another. But few know what it's like to live like that constantly, day in and day out. To me, getting up in the morning is a struggle. The first thing I hear in the morning is the sound of my own demons telling me that I shouldn't bother trying, and that's what I've heard every morning for the past 11 years. At the age of 8, I knew I was worthless. Can someone who's never been there truly understand that?

I go through every day trying not to give up. I can pretend to be like everyone else for a while, but the monster lurks at the edges of my vision. I never know when it's going to strike me down, when it's going to pull me from the edge of the light into the deep darkness I'm constantly trying to escape. In the middle of a good time, I can go from being happy to being suicidally depressed, and I have no control over it. It's not fun, not being able to control your own emotions. It takes over your life in ways you can't imagine. You become afraid of people, because your brain tells you they all hate you. The people you love make it loudest, because it hurts the most. It makes you hate to look in the mirror, because it tells you that you're ugly, and worthless, and only fit to beat and hate. It makes you feels stupid, and little, and useless, and ugly, and terrible, and like you're a bad friend, and a bad person, and a waste of air. I apologize so often because my brain tells me that I'm hurting people by trying to talk to them. How do I say that I can't talk because I can't think of anything to say, and that, even if I did, I don't have anything worth saying? My experiences are filtered through a glass of self-hatred and darkness. Why should I bother?

It's like there's a devil on your shoulder whose only purpose is to make you doubt yourself and hurt as much as possible.  It wants you to give in. It wants you to die, and some days, fighting it is like trying to hold a river still. Whenever I'm awake, and often when I'm asleep, I hear it telling me that I'm a burden to those who know me, and I can't protest anymore. Every day, I have to fight the thought that killing myself would be the kindest thing I could do for the people I love, because having me there is bad for them. 

Worst of all, it takes away who you are. I was, once upon a time, intelligent, and witty, and engaging, and somewhat confident. It took that away.  I used to be curious and driven. These days, I put so much energy into just making it through the day that by the end, I don't have the energy left to be curious, or resourceful, or driven. And I miss that part of myself so badly. You cannot know how much it kills me that I let this beast drive that away. Worse, I don't know if I can ever get her back.

I seem my friends (the few that I have), and I wonder how they do it. They all seem to be able to function above and beyond the basics. They all have friends, and go out with people, and go fun places and do amazing things. God, I can't blame them for not wanting to hang out with me. I want that so bad. I just... I can't figure out how. How do you make friends? How do you not worry? How do you find these people and these places and these things? How do you be happy? Then there are the ones who travel and see places. I've wanted to travel for years. I just can't see it as an option. And I can't even rationally explain what stops me from all of these experiences. It's like, people explain it to me, but it doesn't compute with my brain. People say "don't be so down." That's easy to say when you don't live in the dark. They say "Act happy". I cannot tell you how exhausting is to pretend. I can't put a smile on when my heart is dying. It's too much. I want friends, but I want to be able to be real, and this is who I really am.

I want have friends, but nobody really wants to hang out with me. No one ever calls me up and says "let's hang out." or "let's go to coffee.". People say they will, but they won't. I'm tired of being the only one to make effort in my friendships. Do you understand what it takes for me to put myself out there, and put the effort in? At the end of the day, I just want to cry in a corner until I pass out. To put the energy into trying to be your friend, I must see something really special in you. But I can't do it alone anymore. I'm too tired. Please, if you don't want to be my friend, just say so. I can't put that kind of energy into  something that's not reciprocated. It's too much.

It's so hard to just survive, and I want so much more. I want to be able to do good things in the world. I want to be a functioning member of society. I want to be able to go places and do things without worrying about whether my mood will do an untriggered about-face.

I want to move beyond surviving. I want to thrive. I want to

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Say Goodbye

She never meant it to happen
The accident that changed her world.
Just one night, she told herself
One night to see it begin and end.
But his eyes held hers
And in them, she could see the light.
One night becomes many
Before she blinks an eye.

Kisses that forced her lips 
Into an upward curl.
For once, she could smile without lying
In all her life, never a real laugh
Until he showed her how

Like a dream, she's flying
Not sure how she got here
Not sure where she's going
But lost in the bliss of a new song

Her heaven was in his arms
On the cold, broken nights,
Wrapped in a golden melody of happiness
Cushioned by a cloud of promises and sweet nothings
Protected from reality by an illusion of love.

Two souls dancing to each other's beat.
Or so it seems
When one soul falters, 
Can they still waltz on
Or will we all fall down?

Shouts and anger
Once a prince, now a toad
She's wholly true him, warts and all
But "I love you" takes on a hollow ring to her ears.
She wonders if he means it.
She wonders if he ever has.

Kisses once passionate become things of routine.
Eyes that once held light
Now gleam with blame and suck her happiness away
And the arms that once lifted her up
Hold her prisoner to her own heart.

How do you escape your own heaven?
To leave would be to carve out her heart
A pain so great she'd rather die
But to stay would be to let it rot.
Reality is a tricky thing
A balancing act between want and need.
And in the end,
The only soul she can save is her own

Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Truth Is...

The truth is...
I'm tired of you telling me what to do
I'm not yours to control.
I hate being treated like the dog you tempt in with kindness,
Then beat for fun.
Your doormat I am not.
And I have told you this, to no avail.
The truth is
I hate even more when you make me doubt
Whether I have a right to be angry

The truth is...
I miss you more than I can ever say.
It's not like I'm missing my heart,
But, rather, a small piece of my soul.
I don't know how to ask for that back.
I don't even know if I want to.
The truth is, though
I can't be your villain.
I'm already my own.

The truth is...
I'm not sure I can be your friend.
Not after what I've seen you do.
You can't treat people like that
And expect no one to stand up to you.
I can't forgive you for hurting someone I love.
The truth is
That doesn't mean I don't worry about you.

The truth is...
I KNOW I'm worth something
It's just hard to remember most of the time.
I know, theoretically, I have a right to be treated well,
But I'm used to being told otherwise.
The truth is
I doubt whether I have a right to stand up for myself,
Because it's easier to accept the pain than to try to find the strength

The truth is...
Most days,
I don't even want to get out of bed
Because every moment awake
Is another moment I want to die.
Most nights
I just want to get on a bus
And go somewhere far away
Wander into a dark alley
And let someone do the job for me
Because, most of the time, I truly believe I am worthless
And a drain on society
And a hinderance to the people I love
The truth is
The only thing that keeps me alive
Is the love of a child,
And knowing that I made a promise, once upon a time.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

My Life in a Very, Very Full Nutshell

I'm scared. I usually don't actually journal on these things, but I need to. I'm really, truly scared that I can't fix this. In the last week, I've gone through a shit ton of stuff, and most of it occurred after I had already realized that something was terribly wrong with me.

Sunday evening, I dissociated out of my body, in a way I had never done before. I quite literally went somewhere else for what seemed like hours, only to 'wake up' in my body a minute later. This would have freaked me out at the best of times, but worse, I was driving when it happened. Someone could have walked out in front of my car, and I wouldn't have been able to stop it. I'm terrified every time I drive now that I'm going to lose it again and someone will get killed.

Following that, I got in a fight with someone I love dearly, resulting in a change of relationship with them. That left me heartbroken. I made a number of mistakes, although I was not the only one.  I feel so guilty, even though it wasn't my fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, really. Sometimes you just can't give someone what they want.

My roommate, instead of being "yeah, it's normal to be down after that", the way I was when he went through a lot of shit recently, said that he was done with me and complained about how I never took his advice, but he was going to give it to me anyways. He then informed me that the plan for him to move out and in with a friend (something we had agreed upon weeks ago, and I need. I cannot be abused by him anymore. I'm afraid to be in my own house) was more of an idea than a plan, and he doesn't think it's actually going to happen. When I pointed out that I had already been seriously discussing with another friend the idea of them moving in with me, he got mad. Apparently, I hadn't mentioned this to him before, and I was supposed to wait for his go-ahead to talk to people, and he had never actually said he was moving out (B.S. on all accounts. I'd mentioned it several times, and he had given me a plan about how the moving out was going to work) So he started coming at me like "So, what, you're just kicking me out? I'm so fucking hurt!". Stupid sap that I am, I said no. Because I'm honestly afraid of my roommate.

So, in addition to being freaked out, I've also been extremely depressed. It seems like the stress will never decrease, and sometimes death is the only out I can see. I've been having fantasies about jumping off a building, which is not good. I'm lucky that I have parents who I can go to for help, but that required some explaining about stuff that I hadn't been telling them because it would have caused problems before.

Because of all this stuff, I haven't been able to go to work for a couple of days now. I work for CPS, dealing with abuse and neglect cases. Not a low stress job. I can't help with traumatized people right now. I mean, I haven't been able to eat. Like, I get hungry, and when I try to eat or think about food, my body rejects it. I have to force myself to eat, then force it to stay down. I can't sleep well. I wake up every few hours and feel so utterly hopeless that I can't move, so I'm constantly exhausted. And every so often, for no apparent reason, I start panicking. There's no obvious trigger. I just feel a need to run away.

My therapist says that my body is breaking down because of all the stress. My 'Fight, Flight, or Freeze" system has kicked in, and nothing but the parts required for safety will be given energy. That includes my digestive track, apparently. I've been taking Kava extract, which kind of makes me stoned, but even with that, it's a nearly constant battle. My therapist says that, between the dissociation, the suicidal thoughts, and the physical symptoms, she believes the problem is more serious than I had thought (and I'm prone to worrying too much). If I don't get the stressors in my life under control, my body will continue to break down (My roommate was kind enough to point out that if I can't eat, I might lose a few pounds). I have to stop the process and put it in reverse, or hospitalization may be the only option. And I REALLY don't want to go there.

I'm trying some coping mechanisms, which are helping a bit. I keep reminding myself that I need to focus on changing the stuff around me that I can change, and cutting the bad people out of my life. Some of that is easy. I can choose to ignore some people. But other, mostly my roommate, are more difficult. I don't know how to tell my roommate that he needs to leave. Before it was easy, because we agreed on it. Now it turns me into the villain, and I'm worried that I'll lose some very good friends because of it. So I'm not sure what to do there. I also think I'm going to go visit a friend an hour or so north of here for a few days. He's been helping me a lot, and he offered me his floor for a couple of days. I think a change of scenery might be just what I need.

Anyways, thanks for reading this. I really needed to get that stuff out to someone, even if it's an anonymous web-surfing stranger. I don't know who you are, but thank you. I hope one day I can extend such a kindness to you.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

(Untitled)

Beaming face
The sun in the sky
Beautiful face
My lover's eye
Shining down
Lighting my day
Too bright a candle
To ever stay.
I played the role desired
Unknowingly, I wore the ruby cape
With love, I played the bad guy
To give something to escape.
But who will you blame,
Now the villain is dead
When those seductive attacks
Are stuck in your head?
If you define yourself by how you're oppressed
You'll never be anything else
Because when it comes down to the bone
The only one oppressing you is yourself.


Why are the best things in life bad for you?
Why are the worst things good?
The poison feels the best going down.
The hangman kissed me goodnight.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

What I'd Never Do

I'd be my Daddy's Little Girl
Forever, so I said
I'd never, ever kiss a man
Or take him to my bed

But then one day, my body changed
And with it my desire.
With womanhood there came in me
Hidden, searing fires.

In time, I went and kissed a boy
And let him hold my hand
But still I sternly told myself
I'd never love a man.

He came at the worst moment
Found me confused and lost
Showed me an illusion of shelter
But never disclosed the cost.

He snuck into my mind
And took over my life.
I let him into my bed.
I thought I'd be his wife.

Foolish girl, You dreaming one
Can't you see the lies?
There was no real love in his heart,
Just acting with his eyes.

And so he went and left me,
Not so broken as I seemed.
For two years thence, I healed.
Of wholeness did I dream.

I said I'd never love a man
Who was mere 5 years older
But I guess time and experience
Made my heart much bolder.

 When it rains, it pours, they say
I guess it's true with lovers
But sometimes you really don't want them
I suddenly discovered.

One of them, and one man only
Could my interest entice
And what a person, this person is
I loved him not once, but twice.

So many things I've gone and done
For reasons I cannot construe.
If I could so change my mind,
What else won't I do?