Thursday, June 30, 2016

Pinball wizard.

Any medical research and warnings that state alcohol makes PMDD, the symptoms, worse are correct. I'm obviously the authority on this subject, so I can tell you, you can believe those doctors and scientists.  Yes, you should listen to those guys.

Because, whoa...  Sometimes I lose my mind when I drink, and while in the luteal phase.  The kicker is when you are in it--in the thick of the worse darkness and sadness and you are so fucking scared--you forget what the research says, and you think, "What do they fucking know, they don't have PMDD," and you think, I should drink for sure.  There is no other way to escape. Alcohol works for the escape part.  It also makes you feel so much worse and makes you so much crazier, but if you drink enough, you don't remember any of that.  You don't remember those horrible, heart-wrenching, mindfucking feelings when you wake up the next morning.  You might think you had a great night and felt totally awesome.

I could take a shitload of Klonopin, and I have before, but that doesn't work either, I tell ya.  Klonopin doesn't work, for me, that's for sure.  I think it actually made me feel worse, but it didn't help me escape, and I would still remember the bad night.  I'd remember.  I'd also remember a time when I never wanted to take Klonopin again.  I actually had tapered off of it.  I felt better most of the time, once I didn't take it anymore.  I started taking it again, though.  It had always been prescribed to me, and I thought I needed it at that time.  I was so crazy feeling and lost...

Sigh... I remember that I don't want to take it now, and I won't take it when I'm not luteal.   But then...  I swallow the pills trying to stop my head from screaming.  I cry when I take it.  I cry because I know I've failed.

But, so, when I mix Alcohol with all of that, it makes me not remember, even if I am worse when I'm drunk... You see?  I don't realize how bad it is, and so I'm just wasted and crying, or saying crazy things, or thinking crazy stuff, but I don't know it.  Being trashed out of my mind, I don't have any feelings at all... not feelings I remember...


That's bad.  Because I sometimes end up trying to stop the feeling completely.  I try to stop thinking completely.  I took 10 mgs of Klonopin when I was drunk.  I drank because it felt like a hole had been ripped through me, and I was bleeding to death anyway. You see what I'm saying about listening to the doctors?  I'm unreliable, I suppose, at times, even if I am an expert...  Because that night, I let myself sink in the hot tub.  Sam pulled me up. He realized I was there.  I just wanted to be alone.  I remember that part.  I didn't want him to pull me up.

Listen, though.  This is important.   I know I was better during the luteal phase when I felt safe... when I wasn't drinking and taking Klonopin... I know that.

I just hit a place in my life where I became self-destructive, and every time the luteal phase was upon me when I lost that safety of a sound mind, (I mean my brain was a hormonal, chemical pinball machine... ClangpopDingdingpopdingclang.  That's I started drinking more, and I "needed" more Klonopin.  I needed to stop the damn noise.

Ha!
That darn PMDD. It sure fucks with your head.
One week you know what's real.  And it can be the very next week that reality, and what is happening in front of your face, is all skewed and terrifying, and you don't trust yourself.  You must be crazy.  You can tell everyone thinks so, so you have to believe you're crazy, too.  You have to know that must be right... That's not the truth though.

You're still in there somewhere.  And you know, there is something better in life.  You know this isn't the end of your life.  It's not an endless pinball machine.

See?  Look ahead of you. It's not all dark and empty, and you aren't hearing dingdingdingdingding... You move forward, and you feel better, and you want to do better, and be better...  Then damn it all to Hell, you are luteal and you forget... you forget.  It is all dark and empty and dingdingdingclangding!
And you just want to not remember, again...

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Into the night...

Coldest story ever told...

Ah, am I being dramatic?  I am going to walk into the night.
Everything, almost everyone I've believed in has been wrong, or I was wrong about them.  I believed in everything and everyone...  Everything was possible.  Everything was okay.  I was alright.

It's silly because it's been almost a year...  And I just didn't know...  I believed, you see?  I believed so it was real and good and possible.  I believed so faithfully.  I believed to make feelings of happiness truth.  I believed to make love and goodness in people in true.  I tried to do that, at least.

But not knowing, and just believing blindly and faithfully, just made me ignorant.   It makes me ignorant. It's not healthy to believe in a truth that doesn't exist at all...  Not for that long...  To trust in someone and something for all those months, and then find out it was not... Truth... Not real.
I was delusional?
That's worse.
Then knowing the true truth.  The actual truth.  The truth.

No one should ever let someone keep believing in anything falsely. The truth--no matter how dark, and disappointing, and scary--is what we need to hear.  We have to know.  Even if we don't want to hear any of it.  Otherwise, we are holding onto butterfly wings, and we don't even know it.

You see, those wings turn to powder, they are destroyed if you touch them, and aren't whisper gentle and holding every ounce of faith and belief in the beauty, and the flight, and respect for the fragility...  If your love isn't a loving whisper, so soft and good and true, it will be destroyed by touch, by a year of wetness... Never to fly again.
Tears.
Hope.
Tears.

I've lived in a pretend place for so long, in my mind.  It felt good, to know that beautiful place was there... It was beautiful all this time...  It was so real to me all this time.  I never didn't believe in it.  I believed with all my heart.  It was my truth.

And it became powder, it disintegrated in a moment.  And I realized I'm living with no truth at all, except that I'm a mother and my children need me.
That's my only truth now.
Nothing else.
No dreams.
No imagination of perfect places and dreams.

My children are enough.  I'll survive.  I will keep breathing.

I don't know what else to do. Nothing else makes sense.  I'm not sure if it ever will.

But maybe there was no harm in not knowing and just believing?  I don't know.  I know this feels worse.
This feels like a death.  This feels like a shattering of truth.  Maybe it's better to just believe, and not know the truth?  Maybe it's better to have something to hold onto.  Maybe it's better to believe, and hope.  Even if it's just pretend... Maybe for someone like me, it's better to just pretend.

Maybe it's better not to even try to fly, anyway...

Saturday, June 25, 2016

F to the L.

The feeling that slams me suddenly, even when I know it's coming:  I'm going to try to explain it in terms, (or with an analogy), that someone who will never feel it himself or herself may be able to grasp.
I'll try to explain it to a person who will never truly know it or understand it.

It's a feeling that stays with me for all the luteal days.  Sometimes I can push it away from me, to the back of my thoughts or feelings, but it haunts me still...

It's the constant, brain nauseating feeling that you've forgotten something very important--Something critical to living.  And not just your own living, but the lives of everyone you love--yet no matter what you do, you can't figure out what it is; your brain shorts out, but inside the deepest reaches, you feel sick and horrible knowing that you can't remember...  You know you can't remember.  You know you've lost something.  You know you're in trouble.


You know something terrible is going to happen because you forgot it, 

or because you don't know, 
or you don't understand, 
or no one would tell you what the fuck is happening.

That's what it feels like.
Sort of...

But worse.


And the craziest times are when there really is something terrible, on top of being luteal... Something you miss... something that you can't touch or find anymore... that you just know...  I knew... I could feel it... I could feel it.

Nothing.  Could.  Feel.  Worse.
Not right now, in my crazy head.


Wednesday, June 22, 2016

My sister speaks of rivers...

So, I have a little sister.  She is my very best friend.  She is 10 years younger than me.  She is 28, I am 38.  She was 8 when I was 18.  She was 18 when I was 28.  I was 10 when she was born.  Get it?

She's full of life.  She's adventurous.  She has always jumped into the lake.
She jumped into Walden Pond.
She jumped into the Connecticut River.
She can be spontaneous.
She doesn't hesitate by the water's edge and think, "Should I?  Is the water temperature to my liking?"
"Oh, but I am wearing all my clothes."
She just does it.
She dives in first, then laughs coming back to shore.

I hesitate and think too much.  I'm not sure if I've always been an over-thinker, but it must be true.  I mean, I think so.  My sister jumps in.  She just does it.  She can do anything.

I'm in awe of her, sometimes.  I want to jump.

I also understand my life is different than hers.  I could have jumped into lakes and rivers when I was 28... Well, maybe a bit before then... When I was 28 I had newborn twins.  They were sucking milk out of me every two hours.

But...I was the kind of girl that could jump into the water. I would think too much first, but I would eventually stop thinking and just do it.  I'd just do it.  Jump.  I knew I could do anything.  I just had to make a plan first.  Or, at least, I think about it a lot afterward.

I jumped.  I've jumped in my life, closing my eyes and just feeling my body slide into the water, and realizing I had to breathe, then knowing I could swim, that I was safe.  I was fine.  I was exhilarated.  I jumped and I wanted to jump.  If I had let my overthinking take over my life, I wouldn't have been able to do it.  I wanted to jump.  I needed to jump.  I knew it.  Sometimes we get in trouble for jumping in.

But fuck that.  I've been in trouble for a while now for splashing in, and laughing, and feeling.  I'm in trouble for being "impulsive," when I've never felt happier than when I didn't think too much, and I just did what I wanted... what I needed...  At least what I felt I needed and wanted.

It's not...  Okay, to do what we think we need or want, sometimes.  You know?

Being impulsive is not a positive personal quality for an adult...  I think.

Right?

Yet... I still watch her come out of the water, laughing.  And I wish it was me.



I Follow Rivers

Oh, I beg you: can I follow?
Oh, I ask you: why not always?
Be the ocean, where I unravel.
Be my only, be the water where I'm wading.

You're my river running high.
Run deep. Run wild

[Chorus]
I, I follow, I follow you
Deep sea, baby, I follow you
I, I follow, I follow you,
Dark doom, honey. I follow you

He a message; I'm the runner.
He's the rebel; I'm the daughter waiting for you.

You're my river running high.
Run deep. Run wild

[Chorus]
I, I follow, I follow you
Deep sea, baby, I follow you
I, I follow, I follow you,
Dark doom, honey. I follow you

You're my river running high.
Run deep. Run wild

[Chorus 2x]
I, I follow, I follow you
Deep sea, baby, I follow you
I, I follow, I follow you,
Dark doom, honey. I follow you

[Repeat until end]
I, I follow, I follow you deep sea, baby,
I follow you
I, I follow, I follow you, dark doom, honey,
I follow you

-Lykke Li



Monday, June 6, 2016

Ah, and it was going to be a good one...

I had something really important and poignant to say two nights ago.  I wanted my computer, a notebook, my journal to write it down before I forgot.  I was so PMDD...  So PMDD...  And I knew I had to remember the feeling I was experiencing, the thoughts I was having...

But I forgot...

Ah, that happens to "writers"--I use quotations titling myself so pretentiously--but I knew it was something very serious.  And I couldn't stand the idea of it disappearing into the oblivion my brain can become...  But there you go...  No, there you don't go...  I got nothin'.  I don't know what felt so important to write.

I can think of things now:  Hmmmm, was it that I feel like a failure?  I feel like I'm a terrible sister, wife...  A crap mother?  I don't think those were it.  I think it was something more substantial.

I'll close my eyes and think for uno momento...  Let's see...  Something... It was something...  Darn it.  Okay, now I'll really close my eyes and not write any more until I remember...

...

Gosh, I'm just thinking of all the things I've already written so many times...

Maybe that was it.  I'm hurtful when I'm at my worse.  See, I feel hurt and scared and attacked and I freak the fuck out...  But my perceptions aren't always real.  And the way I react in my confusion hurts people beyond the 12 days I am in a state of mind-fuckedness.  I come out of it...  I can breathe again, but the people around me still have hurt feelings.  For how long?  Forever?  I can't remember even what I said or did many times; I just become defensive and...

I don't think that was what I was going to write about.
I can't remember.
I know I feel alone.  Now...

I wanted to write about my sister being here, for weeks!  It was so fun but so exhausting:  we talked all night, not even realizing the time.  I don't know...  Gawd, who else do I really talk to?  In person... Facial expressions not hidable?  Who do I talk to so openly, and so deeply about things I don't even know if I'm allowed to say...  Out loud...  No one.  Just my sis.

Ha.  Who else but Mikhaila, who knows me, so we
'all, can really reassure me I'm not a fucked up mess of a person?  Who else but my little sister could sit there when I say what I think are my most awful thoughts and feelings, and tell me:  "I understand."?  Because she does.  She's in my head, anyway.  She can read my flinches, my body movements, my expressions so easily.  She doesn't miss anything.  "I'm okay, really."
"No.  No, you aren't."

Ack!  I'm used to hiding.  I'm used to trying to ride out darkness by hugging my knees and hiding my face.  When someone is here--here--and doesn't let me retreat?  I'm relieved and scared as Hell.  I've had friends who could see through my writing!  What the fuck?  How?  How could they know me that freaking well, when people who are in my vicinity every day don't know a damn thing?

Am I a good friend?  And I too fucked up to be a good friend?  How many people know how much I struggle with the reality, clearly, that I have to keep being alive when I feel so clearly that I don't feel much like being alive at all.  I guess I already feel half alive.  I know I am in the worst, late Luteal phase of PMDD, and my head is all mixed up and my mind is confused, or just damn crazy, but that's at least 7 days of every month.  There's another 5-7 where I become apathetic...  Numb...  But I'm not like this... Not like these days.  I look at the calendar and put my finger on the day I get myself back.  "Oh, two more days, that's not so bad."

But it really is.  It is so bad.  It's terrifying.  And I know many people suffer horrible tragedies, but it doesn't seem fair.  How come I have this?  I don't want it.  I'll get a whole ton of my insides removed from my body if it meant I could be...  Myself...  Just me, again.  I'm not perfect.  But I was a whole lot better than this nightmare I live in...  I'm looking out of some eyes that don't belong to me...  My mind thinks things Joanna knows aren't real...  Me.  I know they aren't real.  I know I love my children. I know I'm a great mommy.  I would never want to hurt them by...  Being dead...

But right now I really think I could also put Sam's power drill in my ear to shut the voice up.  I'd sit here and like to see blood drip down my skin.  I'd like to imagine a lunatic deciding it was a good idea to shoot someone today, and I'd say, "Oh, me!"  (Then, after shooting me, they'd run away and leave my sweet babies alone, of course).

I'm thinking it would be okay to drink the chemicals I see all around me since I'm sitting in the basement... I'd like to walk out of my house since everyone else fell asleep and find a place to disappear...  That's crazy, right?!

Out of control, my brain is... my hormones are...

 See?  "Oh, only two more days..."

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Swahili.

I know you won't read this; You won't see it!  But, it's here for the whole world to see!  Isn't that strange? Oh, I don't write for me. I'm used to it.  

"I don't want to read what you write anymore.  I don't want to see all that," you said. But here it goes:

You need to stop drinking.  You need to stop drinking rum and then passing out before the kids are even asleep.  Before you can even tell me goodnight... to wish me goodnight.  

To kiss me goodnight.

That has always been rare.  But you really sounded like you wanted me here to kiss at night, and not ever be without me next to you.  Can't live without me

You don't notice when I'm not there next to you when you are drunk.  Oh, you aren't drunk, just tired. You either say that, or I'm in another room and you disappear, stop talking, become very quiet.  You pass out quickly and fully before I even know you're even in the bedroom.

And in my PMDD times, my darkest times--aren't I in them now?--you sleep and sleep.  And sleep.  No, you don't wake up when my breathing becomes labored, or I am trembling in my sleep, or sitting next to you awake, with my fingernails digging at my skin.  You sleep through it.  I am over this, so don't worry.  It used to make me feel so much worse:  More scared.  More creeped out.  Brain nausea x 2.  Like everything, I think I just learned to stop feeling?  I accepted the truth of at least one blatant reality, even when I was sure I had bugs crawling all over me, or I swallowed a different mix of pills (because I felt sad, dummy).

And I drink too. I drink whatever you buy for me, and I feel like I really need it. I need it. And for goodness sake, that just makes it worse, doesn't it? Drinking and depression? Drinking and sadness? Drinking and loneliness? Drinking and PMDD? Drinking and pills (prescribed, but still scary to me)... Yeah...

Oh. I actually wanted to get myself to the hospital, or at least my parents' house, because I could feel how fucked up I was from the pills and the alcohol. I knew enough to know it was not at all normal, and it was not at all healthy for my body... and I knew I didn't want my kids to wake up to a drunk father and a dead mommy.  And you were drunk enough to not only pass out but then wake up and be stupid enough to stop me, physically and verbally.  "Just go to bed.  Stop being stupid.  You're not going anywhere.  Get in bed and stop it."  When I laid down and clearly wasn't moving towards the door again, you fell asleep.  Or maybe you fell asleep as I was slipping out of consciousness, and didn't wait to make sure I was... asleep.  "Just sleep."

That's pretty scary, isn't it?  I wrote that in a really descriptive, and upsetting way, didn't I?  You never cared when I tried to talk to you about it.  Gotta write it, is what I say.  Write a nice letter, or message, genuine and clear.  

Here's some more honesty:  
You admitted you shouldn't drink.  You admitted it was the worst thing for you.  For me.  For us.  For our children!  You know it, and you keep doing it.  Oh shit, this is a bitchy way to talk to an addict. Am I one too?  I shouldn't be accusatory, I should be helping you.  You aren't making choices, the alcohol infected you is making choices.  You need my help.  You need help.  I'm hating my entire self for having PMDD right now.  Damn it. I should have talked to you when I was feeling better, not luteal... Oh.  I did.  

You sing the lyrics, "What goes around, comes around..."  And say, I love that song.  
My sister asks, "Justin Timberlake's song?"  
You say yes.  You like that song.  
You have told me how much you like it.  You sing along, while I stand there thinking, "This is crazy!"  You don't notice I look at you, with my read-this-book-face, and wonder how you don't see that as so ironic when it's so relevant and grotesque in consideration of our situation... our relationship...  He is drunk, already?  We're we just using power tools?  Shit.  You are drunk.  

I'm so worried about my grandmother. I need to see her. Why am I here, and not there... with her? What's important? What really is? Do you even fucking know? Do you care? You say, "You can't leave me or I'll die."
And you smile. And I say. "Oh."

"I love you," you say.
I say, "Oh... Yes."

I don't know who's talking anymore.  Voices come from my mouth that are so unfamiliar and strange and frightening.  "Oh... yes." 

I'll be the best wife my nanny always thought I would be, in the best marriage, and the best life she wanted me to experience.  I'll do that for her.

I imagine she wants to love who she knows I am, and who I am as a mother...  not just as a wife... but I worry she needs to see a Joanna wife, and a happy family, and I will let her see that until it just fucking kills me... which will be way after she is gone.  In Heaven.

I can do it.  I know it.  I know it.  I'm strong when I need to be, in the most fucked up and warped ways. You know it.  

Ha, you know it.