Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New year and fresh starts.

I believe 2013 was one of the worst years of my life.  Today it seems like that is an accurate statement, at least.  I lost myself.  Knowing that, yet leaving it alone, did not result in Joanna coming home, wagging her tail behind her.  (That was a vomitrocious Little Bo Peep Allusion...  It's 3:00 am, yawn, give me a break...).  Sigh...  I haven't come home.  I don't know where home is anymore.  I still don't know where to find me.

I regret deleting my blog completely.  I tried to bring it back, the writing.  I couldn't delete it completely.  I saved my writing in documents because I thought I might need to reference something I was thinking or feeling when I was finally cured of this mental illness.  (Ha!)  Although I understand that dwelling on negative aspects of human existence (mine in particular) can lead to a perpetuation of sadness and depression, I also know that writing is sometimes my only outlet to work through all the things in my head.  I haven't been writing... Not really.  I have wanted to.  Every time I wanted to--no needed to--I wrote to a friend whom I know would never actually get the messages and never read them.  That seemed rational at the time, but always, in retrospect, it was irrational and painful... It was heart-wrenching.  It is.

When I wrote blog posts, there was never even an inkling that someone would respond.  I knew someone out there was reading them, though...  I mean, maybe it was just robot trolls.  I hoped it was someone who loved me.  Or, that my experiences and feelings could make someone else, (who possibly came upon this site), feel less alone.  "That woman feels the same way I do."  Maybe someone thought that after reading a post I wrote.

No...  I know that's not true.  I don't know if I ever believed that either.

PMDD makes me do things in a rash and tactless manner.  My blog is negative?  I know! I'll just delete it. Yeah, that's a good idea!

No.  No, it was not a good idea.  I threw away part of my life, and who I was.  Sam certainly didn't stop me.  If you have been here before, you know I was kind of critical of him at times in my writing. He told me to go for it, delete it all and forget it all.  I'm sure it does seem like a healthy thing to do--to throw away negative thoughts--but I needed to see I was something these past months or years...  That I was feeling and thinking...  I am not sure how much I do of either of those things lately.

I deleted other writing too.  I deleted old email messages.  You know what was devastating?  It made my blood coagulate to see how I didn't listen or hear other people when I was in my own head. I was "in the well," as I often wrote.  I was hiding my face in darkness and not hearing anyone trying to get me to look up at the light.  I reread conversations, and I saw everything so clearly and wanted so badly to respond to those old conversations--those people--with sentiments that reflected what I know now, and not the empty, often hurtful, crazy talk.

If I read a message written to me, I think of what I want to say in response.  I would then read what I actually wrote at the time, and it just made me cry and feel nuts.  I hated seeing that I was that fucking crazy, and self-centered, half of every month.  I hated seeing words that weren't me, my responses, but there they were, flowing like a crimson stream, after my "name" in the conversation.  That was my blood.  It was part of who I am.

Sigh... So, I thought it was a good idea to not beat myself up reading those messages, (even if they were kind, and hopeful, and encouraging towards me), over and over, always wishing I could retract all the ways I reacted and just erase them from memory... Everyone's memory.
That's impossible.
The evidence doesn't need to be in print.
It's etched into my head now.
I know I have a big problem on my hands; PMDD is a fucking bitch...
Or is that just me?

Here's what I know for sure.
For sure.
I'm still learning, you see.
What I take as crushing blows during the second set of 14 days every month,  are things I would have never let crush and consume me before my body--my hormones--started messing with my head.

God, I read the messages, or remember the conversations and sometimes it was just someone holding out their hand for me to grasp, but it felt like a slap across my face.  I was confused. I was so confused.  I do get so confused.

My reality is so different when I am mine.

I know that scars are permanent, whether the wounds were inflicted when I have control over my thoughts or my life, or when I was apparently not really thinking at all.  They feel the same to the person I was hurting.  They ache the same.
They burn the same.
They remind the same.

And I should write about something positive, for this new year.  I really want to.  I'm just so damn tired.
 I often can't sleep when I'm in the well.
And this early morning, 3:33 am,  I don't even know where I could really rest in peace.
Sam passed out soon after midnight.
The kids watched the ball drop and wanted to have a sleepover downstairs.  I sat and talked to them, (because gosh darn it, they are such smart and expressive little kids) until I realized I shouldn't, and that they needed to go to sleep.  They couldn't, of course.  Stella missed her bed.  Michael wanted me to sing "American Pie" to him on the couch... but not if Stella wasn't going to be there.  Stella couldn't sleep upstairs alone, she sobbed.  Michael needed a song. My eyes were burning by then.

I tucked him into bed with Sam, in my "spot," and I brought Stella upstairs, laying next to her and rubbing her head until she fell asleep.
"Mommy, you are the best mommy I could ever have and you always make me feel so happy.  You know why, mommy? Because you love me so much."
I do.
I love them infinitely.
I give all of myself, everything I have, to them without ever thinking about it.

I know that's what Chopin warned against, for women, wives, mothers...  "I would give my life, but I would never give myself."  I give myself.  I don't know how else to live anymore.  Not right now.  I don't believe in myself, but I do believe in those two miracles of God.  And when she fell asleep, I wandered to his empty bed, and downstairs to my fully occupied bed, and the couch...  And I sat down and realized it didn't matter.

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