Friday, October 30, 2015

Dithyramb.


I like words.  I just wrote about music:  It's the lyrics, the words that move us, right?  Some people, if the songs are lyrical poetry, are moved deeply by music.  It's the words, and how they are written, that trigger emotion...  The order, the emphasis, the punctuation, the syntax...  Italicized or bold or underlined.  Read these words!  Ignore the rest!

I want to write my thoughts into words, and express them.  Often.  I feel, not just a desire, but a drive to write.  I write when I should not.  I write to people who don't want to read what I have to say.  I write words that no one will ever read.  I write words that no one should ever read; sometimes I offer them up to be read anyway; I shouldn't do that.  Many times I should write words for myself, and myself alone.

And I read words that others wrote for me.  I read words that were written just for me, to me, about me.  I read them, and they give me hope or make me cry, or frustrate me.  Words make me angry.  Words hold such power over me.  I love words.  When a person can write beautifully, they can capture a heart and hold onto it; they are a weapon with power that no other craft can wield.  Kisses mean nothing.  I love you, sounds nice when said aloud, but is so commonplace.  Let me count the ways...

Once words are written are they truth?  Are they?!  If they are written just for us, a love letter, or a goodbye letter, or an epitaph, they are the truth from the heart of the writer.  Right?  Write?

Is it easier to lie when speaking or writing?  I read words and believe they are truth.  Because I can't write lies.  I can write things I don't mean.  I can write angry words, or sad words, or words that express a feeling or emotion that is in that very moment and not in every moment.  Even if I believe words are truth, I want to ignore that sometimes.  I want to ignore the words that hurt me:  Flip the pages of a story back to the part where it felt good.  It felt good to read that part.  I wanted that part to be the truth and only truth.  And once you keep reading, you can't undo the after words.  You can't undo words at all.  You can't just erase them and think:  There, they are gone now. That is not what I wanted to see and hear and feel.  I'll just go back to the first page and stop before I get to this part again.  I didn't mean it.  She didn't mean it.  He didn't mean it.

Because some words do erase past words, written in promises and in joy and in love.  Some words, even a few short sentences make all the other words inconsequential and irrelevant... Irrelevant.

Yet, I always feel like my first words are the most truthful... and words with no response become more and more desperate and unreal.  If I write words in questions, the person should answer.  Unanswered words are the saddest thing I've ever seen... or felt...

Imagine a letter, written so carefully and thoughtfully to you, lost in a drawer, or fallen behind a bench, or a chest of drawers... You never even know it existed.  What if they were the words you needed to read?  What if they are never found?  What if they come too late?

Words break my heart.  I hold onto words.  I hold onto words written long ago by me, by others... and words just written.  I hold onto words I know no one will read. I hold onto words I wish someone could see.  I hide from words I don't want to process or see again.

I hate words when deeply they affect me, and take me from one place to another so easily...  Words that take me to a place I didn't want to go, yet are carved into marble, and forever etched in my brain.  You can't erase words written in stone.  I hate words.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Hello.

Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time's supposed to heal ya, but I ain't done much healing


Hello, can you hear me?

I'm in California dreaming about who we used to be
When we were younger and free
I've forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet
There's such a difference between us
And a million miles


Hello from the other side

I must've called a thousand times
To tell you I'm sorry for everything that I've done
But when I call you never seem to be home


OMG.  I love Adele.  I love her.  And I'm so happy she has a new album.

.
Of course I have listened to her song, Hello, 100 times, and it just makes me cry.  I like to play it over and over and just cry until I have used an entire box of Kleenex.  It's one of those things girls... okay, probably just messed up girls do.  We just need to cry for an hour, after holding a lot of sad feelings, or stress inside.

And music is what always influences my emotions when I am PMDD.  When I am already an emotional powder keg, and then I listen to songs that are melancholy or haunting... Watch Out!

"The whole place is about to blow!"

For goodness sake, I am a crazy person when I listen to this shit (it isn't shit, it's genius) when I'm Luteal.  It's not normal, how I react, I'm sure of it.  It would be funny to see if I weren't genuinely sad.  I can see myself from the outside sobbing, and drinking wine, and blowing my nose, and sobbing, and...  I cry until I fall asleep.  I've done this for two days.  (Yes, I do it to myself).  I listen to songs like that over and over and torture myself.  I'm doing it now.  I do it when I write.  I write about the past.  I dwell on things I cannot change, people I cannot change, and time that is gone.

Sam asked me what the song meant to me... why it bothered me so much:  Is it about lost love?  Maybe.  It's her voice, it's the emotion in the music, and there is a familiarity...  of understanding in life exists "the other side."  It's about lost time.  Lost time. And it affects me so deeply.  I have always been this way about time and change since I was a little girl.  And lately, as I've been writing my story, I've understood there's a tipping point when we move from beginning to the after, and when we're in the after, there's no going back.  I know that, yet I can't seem to stop myself from dreaming of it all beginning again... I dream of being at the beginning and being ignorant about the other side.  I cry because it's unbearable that I will always be in the after, now.  And I desperately, and crazily claw at the darkness that blocks me from what was.

Hello from the outside
At least I can say that I've tried
To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart
But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore


Hello, how are you?
It's so typical of me to talk about myself, I'm sorry
I hope that you're well
Did you ever make it out of that town where nothing ever happened?
It's no secret that the both of us
Are running out of time


We are all running out of time.  We can't live in the past and wait for things to be as they were.  That is impossible.  People tell me that all the time...  I still don't want to believe it.  Accepting that seems like death. Maybe acknowledging the truth of life would help me move on and live?

So hello from the other side
I must've called a thousand times
To tell you I'm sorry for everything that I've done
But when I call you never seem to be home


Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I've tried
To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart
But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart
Anymore
Anymore
Anymore
Anymore, anymore


Hello from the other side

I must've called a thousand times
To tell you I'm sorry for everything that I've done
But when I call you never seem to be home


Hello from the outside

At least I can say that I've tried
To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart
But it don't matter, it clearly doesn't tear you apart
Anymore


-Adele



Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Wrecking Myself... Still not checking myself...

Have you seen that ^ guy's serious face?
Stupid blog.  Stupid Ice Cube.
                    (Oh... No, no, no. I'm super sorry about that Mr. Cube,  I didn't mean it.)

Stupid blog title.

I thought I would write a blog that showed the growth and progression of a woman with depression.  Over the years and months, I should have bee writing about treatments that were working, and how I had begun to feel better... about myself... about life... about everything...

What's my damn problem?  What's my stupid problem?  You see, I look so normal on the outside.  I'm strong and can be funny.  I am blessed, that even when I look like a complete wreck of a dump dog, I still look better than half the people in this town...  That's not conceited...  Trust me... Our town...

I am lucky I have healthy, wonderful, remarkable children and people who love me and care about me.  I am lucky.  So to admit I goddamn don't even want to be alive, when other people have so much less than I do. I'm lucky.  I'm alive.  I have life.  There are people who die tragically, who should be alive and wanted to live and would have done beautiful things in the world... and I'm this whiner, this complainer, I should suck it the fuck up and get my act together.  Get some fucking exercise.  Get some fresh air.  Talk about your problems.  Get a job and feel useful again.  Go play with your children, and appreciate them.  Get out of bed.  Stop crying about the past.  Stop hanging onto what is gone from you.  Get a fucking life.  You know how lucky you are?  You know how lucky you are?!

I do.  I know.  And I wish my brain could stop forgetting all of that and just do what it's supposed to do.  Or, I wish my body functioned properly... normally.   I'd like to be normal is all.  Is that too much to ask?

My Nanny Tops told me years ago, that I needed to get my blood tested over and over, regularly.  She remembered the miracle of being treated for hypothyroid disease, finally, and how she finally felt "normal" again, after she had entered her mid-thirties tired and worn out.

I haven't had my blood tested since the spring.  My thyroid antibodies and levels have not been tested.  I wrote about taking Nature Thyroid in September, trying it out, and feeling better.  And as you could see in my last few posts, I was not feeling better all over again... I had stopped taking it, because you're not supposed to take medications that aren't prescribed to you.

Yet taking 4-6 mg of Klonopin per day didn't seem to be doing much good for me either, you know?  It was prescribed to me.  When I took it, it might stop me from thinking too much, or dwelling.  Dr. A. said my brain nausea sounded like a panic attack.  That made sense, although I imagine attacks as coming in short bursts, and the brain nausea could last for as long as it wanted to... as long as it took for me to give up and drink some wine and take some sedatives...  And that was just a way to stop myself from thinking, wasn't it?  How do you escape your thoughts?  What if that's what wrecks us?

I started Nature Thyroid again, and I stopped taking Klonopin and I stopped drinking alcohol.  It's only been a few days, but I feel better.  Thoughts still rattle me, of course, but it's parts of my life, and my past that haunts me, not something pretend or imagined or hallucinated.  We have to face those things sometimes and not numb them away or try to run from them.  And I think I'm going to feel sad for the rest of my life.  I'll carry a sadness with me, and that can't be taken away or treated with drugs.  I have reasons to be sad.  I have to learn to accept that sadness, let it settle inside me, and not let it knock me over, again and again.

I feel better.  I feel better not taking Klonopin and not drinking.  Maybe it's the Nature Thyroid?  I'm taking half the dose my mom suggested, so maybe it's just placebo...  That's fine.  At least I know that trying to stop the sadness, led to something worse, and using crutches to hold myself up, or that special super glue that I thought I needed to hold me together, was making everything a whole lot worse.  It was wrecking me.  Wasn't it bound to?  Couldn't you have told me that?

You did.  You did.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Super Glue.

I have not felt worse than I do right now, possibly.  Mentally, I mean.  I mean in my brain, all the chemicals, and synapses, and cells are doing something wretched, like playing a joke on me and seeing if they can make me cry.  But I’m not crying.  I am just growing more and more scared of how fucking awful my thoughts and emotions are… No… how little I’m thinking at all… how little I feel… like other human feelings. 

 I feel inhuman.  I feel like I am not a person.  I am not Joanna.  I am not a mother.  I don’t know why I’m here, who these children are, what I’m doing.  I’m not even asking those questions though.  I’m just sitting numbly waiting for Klonopin to help me--I’m praying it will help me.  I feel like I’m going to die.  I feel like a person might feel who is about to die, feeling the life drain out, and there is no ability to control anything like death, because it just happens, and it’s happening to me and I see darkness and part of me doesn’t care, as long as it’s over quickly. If there was a black hole, so
deep and dark, and I could just tip over into it… just tip over and let myself go, that sounds so beautiful and perfect and less scary than sitting and staring numbly at things that should be familiar to me, and should be tangible and bring me some reality and comfort… or just a feeling of space.  If there was a black hole, so deep and dark, and I could just tip over into it… just tip over and let myself go, that sounds so beautiful and perfect and less scary than sitting and staring numbly at things that should be familiar to me, and should be tangible, and bring me some reality and comfort… or just a feeling of space.  That I exist in a space that I belong.

Over quickly.  

That’s how life is, or how people have contorted my life:  Here then gone.  Bam!  Wrists touching, then strangers.  Bam!  
Best friend disappears.  Gone.  In a moment, so quickly.  
People disappear.  
I disappear.  I come back? 
 I come back.  I am in limbo far too often, spliced with a time guillotine.  The clean cut makes it easy to press the sides back together and make me look okay.  Just run a washcloth over the thin line of blood, (wipe it right off), and the skin barely has a seam.  

It’s not worth sewing up, right now.  It’s not worth it, because it keeps happening: The dropping of the blade: swoosh, slice, clank. Klonopin and alcohol are like a super glue that keeps patching me up.  I can’t breathe and then I can.  I can at least breathe. But I know what's coming. And I can feel that the two sides of me aren't truly connected.


God. I know. I know. The seam leaks, it happens, and then I'm in two again. Don't tell me you know how to fix that.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Landfill.


Do you ever wonder if there's one time you could save someone? You have one chance. Maybe it's Someone close, maybe not... Anyone... And they are so obviously begging, but only obviously pleading to YOU, too late... Only obvious to you too late. I think about that. Am I listening? Are you? Who actually is? That person doesn't have to die... I mean you might save their soul. Their soul... Or keep them awake and present when they are fading...  Who was I supposed to save today?

***

RL   Oh gosh, 
that's a heavy weight to carry on your shoulders!
All we can do is the best we can do in any given moment, eh?
And keep getting better at being present?
And forgive yourself for what can't be changed?

Joanna Coleman That's sadly difficult for some people. I wish everyone thought as you...

Ramlah Lauritsen heart emoticon
LikeReplyOctober 15 at 11:40pm
Joanna Coleman heart emoticon. We need it. All of us, yeah?
LikeReplyOctober 15 at 11:41pm
Ramlah Lauritsen Absolutely!
LikeReplyOctober 15 at 11:42pm
Ramlah Lauritsen And guilt doesn't serve anyone.
Only kindness and the drive to keep doing better.

LikeReplyOctober 15 at 11:43pm



HD I'm listening...
LikeReplyOctober 16 at 6:46am
MJ All you can do is do what you can, when you can... And sometimes that means standing back and letting people figure out how to help themselves.
LikeReply1October 16 at 11:31pm


Comments

How selfish of me to be talking about myself.  I'm not wishing I could help other people, right now, I wonder if people know I'm going to fall, fast and suddenly, and hit the ground hard.  I am fading and...  (Wow, the song Into Dust by Mazzy Star was just playing on my iPhone and this line was almost whispered to me:  

I could possibly be fading/Or have something more to gain/I could feel myself growing colder/I could feel myself under your fate/Under your fate).  

I'm passively disappearing.  My will is gone.  I am passive in my pleas for help, even.  Facebook?  Yuck.   

I am fading and I can't tell anyone.  I can't talk to anyone, I can't say what brings me to my knees and shreds my brain with razor-sharp talons... I can't say the thoughts that haunt me and will haunt me forever.  How can I make them stop?  They never will... never be quiet.  They won't stop tearing me apart inside.  Ha.  If I were that uncomplicated and simple...  If I could just move on and forget things.  

Who could?  Who could be that way, and just forget and smile and live and laugh and ignore everything.  Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  There isn't guilt.  There is innocence in the gentle sin that made me feel human.  Guilt would be easy to swallow.  Fire and promises and betrayal don't go down as smoothly.  

I am going to disappear.  I don't know if I want to be saved.  I don't know if it's even possible.  I shouldn't ask for something so impossible that the people who love me would feel inadequate and helpless.  I don't want to make anyone feel that way.  I feel that way about myself.  I numb myself with alcohol.  Tonight it's Jack Daniels.  Sam bought it.  It goes down smoothly.  At least that always does... the alcohol.  

Do I have a problem?  I don't know.  Am I drinking to stop thinking?  Yes.  Am I drinking to survive?  Yes. 
Is that a problem?  

I was never a drinker, really, in my life.  In college, my friends and I would drink on weekends, staying out 'til 2:00 am and sleep all day afterward.  But I didn't need to drink.  It was fun.  We would dance.  We danced all night.  I loved dancing.

I don't dance when I drink now.  I sit numbly and wait for it to reach my brain and make it all fuzzy and warm.  I sit and wait for that feeling, and it always comes.  If I drink.  And I do.  Every day.  Some nights I cry, and I writhe in sorrow and emptiness and the needing and missing and I beg Sam to never let me drink, "I don't want to do this.  I don't want to do this anymore," I say.  And at the time I mean drink to cover up feelings.  But the next day, I do.  I can't survive without it.  The talons of memories and emotions and thoughts and actions are so sharp, and deep, and bloody, they need to be anesthetized.  I know they do.  I know I'm too weak, for now at least, to try.  Try.  Try what?  Someone fucking tell me.  Tell me!  

Once a whore, you're nothing more, I'm sorry that will never change.  What about forgiveness...

I'm lost.  I'm empty.  I'm fading.  Help me.  Are you listening?  Are YOU listening?  Help me.

And what a fucking jerk I am.  How many people have crisis in their lives that incapacitate them?  What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?  Nothing.  




Throw me in a landfill
Don't think
 about the consequences
Throw me in the dirt pit
Don't think about the choices that you make
Throw me in the water
Don't think about the splash I will create
Leave me at the altar
Knowing all the things you just escaped

Push me out to sea
On a little boat that you made
Out of the evergreen that you helped your father cut away
Leave me on the tracks
To wait until the morning train arrives
Don't you dare look back
Walk away
Catch up with the sunrise

'Cause this is torturous electricity
Between both of us and this is
Dangerous 'cause I want you so much
But I hate your guts
I hate you

So leave me in the cold
Wait until the snow covers me up
So I cannot move
So I'm just embedded in the frost
Then leave me in the rain
Wait until my clothes cling to my frame
Wipe away your tear stains
Thought you said you didn't feel pain

Well this is torturous electricity
Between both of us and this is
Dangerous, 'cause I want you so much
But I hate your guts. I want you so much
But I hate your guts.
Well this is torturous
Electricity between both of us
And this is dangerous 'cause I want you so much
But I hate your guts
I want you so much but I hate your guts

--Daughter