Second Chances.

Here's my wish:  I wish everyone could have a second chance... when they really need one... with no strings attached.  When all things go to Hell, I want everyone to have a redo...  I want them to be able to say, "Okay, I'm going to get up, walk out the door, walk back in, and introduce myself again," or, "We are going to stop talking, close our eyes, take a deep breath, open our eyes, and start this conversation over."

How many people have that feeling after everything falls apart: "What could I have done differently?"  I always think of all the things I really wanted to say, and the things I really meant, wondering why they didn't come to me when I needed them.  Why did I say those things?  What was I even talking about?  (I also really, super-duper just wish I had one of those Men in Black memory eraser wand thingys because I would need a whole lot of second chances with a whole lot of people and often... So that thing would come in handy).  Before I say something, I want to have the ability to take a moment to understand where my head is, and what I am doing, and see the big picture, the entire symbolic Tralfamadorian mountain range, see it clearly--past, present, and future--and react with all that I truly know, and not all that I feel at that one moment... Especially when that moment is so claustrophobic and dark.

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. --Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five.

God knows my emotions are unreliable...  Or is it my mind?  I don't know.  I have a hard time delineating where my feelings stop and my thinking begins because I'm a sensitive person anyway.  But I know PMDD makes feelings and thoughts all mix up together; they overlap, there is no delineation.

I had been feeling a lot better, you know?  However, when stress is added to PMDD, it can lead to many a frightening thing...  I'm still learning how much it can cripple me.  My thoughts and words and feelings are not my own;  I don't have control over them.  That's when I need my second chance. Because I say things I don't want to say.  I say things I don't even remotely connect to, and would never even think if I were rational.  When I read them later, sometimes, I think, "What a nutjob.  What's her problem?"  Then it's an understanding: "OMG, that is me.  That came from me."  I know I need to step away from people and conversations.  I need to step away until it passes...  Second chances...

The problem is, most people need you to walk right back into that room and reintroduce yourself... They need you to open your eyes and start talking again, right now... Not a week or two from now.

And, I've tried to do that stepping back thing.  I will say, "I'm going to check the fuck out for a week or two, talk to you later."  But that doesn't work.  I'm at the bottom of a well, God Damn it.  My arms span the width easily:  I can touch each wet, slimy side at the same time. I can barely see the top...  The dark cylinder is all up, in one direction, and my thoughts are linear, shallow.  I don't even have a place to step back to... It's just Bang: wall, wall, wall, wall, wall, wall, wall, WALL! When we are alone in our paranoia, and assumptions, and anger, and our feelings of inadequacy and failure, it all festers.  Don't even bother stepping anywhere.  It's scarier to reach out and touch them. It's better to just sit and wait it out, with your arms wrapped around you, alone.

I need to say this: I have never expressed anger towards my children.  I have never yelled at them.  I protect them from PMDD.  I save up all hope and happiness and smiles I can muster for them. When I am not overwhelmed with unknowns and stress, I can even handle not being alone.  I'm only halfway down the well.  Hey, I can even talk to the people going about their lives up there, outside of the well.  I'm kind of a part of the world.

But there are months when I am not okay.  And It wasn't until today that I realized I was "yelling" in a different way, by writing, when I was "alone."  I think I'm protecting everyone, but the computer, (and my writing), is a tool for my own self-destruction, and for hurting others when it all festers.  I have a stinging lash.  I leave welts and gashes, that lead to scars.  The proverb, "The pen is mightier than the sword," rings true.  I've stabbed the hell out of friends with my pen...  And I thought I was protecting everyone...

I dream that my wish for second chances could come true, yet scars remind us of pain.  Who wants to give someone who lashed you to pieces for being a good friend, and not just walking away, any more chances?  It's just putting salt in the wounds or reopening them over and over again...

I guess the thing is, I would and will.  I would take the lashing from someone I loved until I could get close enough to remove the weapon from her hands... and hug her... and tell her I love her, and I will forgive her every time.  No matter what.  

                                                                       Crazy Baby

And your hands are really shakin' something awful

As you light your 27th cigarette

Oh how long have you been sittin' in the darkness

You forget

Oh you know you're gettin' really hard to be with

And you're cryin' every time you turn around

And you wonder why you can not pick your head up

Off the ground

Oh my crazy baby

Try to hold on tight

Oh my crazy baby

Don't put out the light, the light,the light, the light

And they look at you like they don't speak your language

And you're living at the bottom of a well

And you swallowed all the awful bloody secrets

That you can't tell

Oh you know you ought to get yourself together

But you can not bear to walk outside your door

No, you can not bear to look into the mirror

Anymore, anymore

Oh my crazy baby

Try to hold on tight

Oh my crazy baby

Don't put out the light, the light,the light, the light

And your hands are really shakin' something awful

As your worries crawl around inside your clothes

Ooh how long will you be sittin in the darkness

Heaven knows

Oh my crazy baby

Try to hold on tight

Oh my crazy baby

Don't put out the light, the light,the light, the light, the 

light,the light, the light, the light,the light, the light
--Joan Osborne

(P.S.  I'm writing a lot more, lately, but don't get used to it.  I just have a massive sinus infection (apparently one that has been messing with me for over a month now), and I'm really run down and tired for other reasons... I'm sad... I am finishing blog posts I began and never finished).