Birthdays!

Again, being back at my parent's house is odd on many levels.

For one, I forgot about what my mother does for birthdays.

...My mother keeps things. Like... Everything. I'm not sure if it's a security thing or what, but it means that she'll reuse decorations like a really environmentally aware crazy person, rather than just a regular crazy person.

As such, I get bombarded by every birthday I ever had upon walking into my old room.

So, I had a troll birthday once.

I really, reeaaalllly liked trolls. I had hundreds of them, but they've since all been given away. Well, not all. I kept a couple really neat ones, like my Egyptian guy.

I'm awesome.

Shut up.

So the birthday party... How old was I? I don't even remember.

I had a troll birthday ice cream cake, troll plates, decorations... Oh yeah. I was trolled up, and apparently, this one fragment survived to say hello today.

Next up was a balloon attached to the inside of my door. Meaning, a deflated balloon. My door is kind of disgusting because I used to have a lot of stuff all over it, then tore it all down when I moved, aaaaannnd it still has gunk from all that crap.

So this is what that looked like:

Real classy.

My window is now sporting a bikini, 

and there was also a banner on the stairs.

What I'm not showing you is this foldable thing that involves a cupcake with eyes. Not only was this particular item kinda creepy as a kid, but as a now 27 year old adult, it was a little funky having it at the head of my bed... lookin' at me.

I asked my mother if she minded it's removal.

She thought about it.

She got me a couple tops and an action figure of Otho to add to my Beetlejuice collection.

Otho is kind of a big deal in my brain, just as Mayor Maynot of Nightmare Before Christmas. They were both played by Glenn Shadix, who has passed on.

In any case, the figure was wrapped in metallic silvery paper. I opened it up and realized that it was the inside of another wrapping paper made for Hannukah. I thought that was a smart way to re-purpose the wrapping paper.

Actual quotes below:

My mother is actually a very intelligent woman.  

She is also a nursery school teacher and I think somewhat in denial of the entire world.  So...  There is that. 

In any case, my father gave me a cold for my birthday, and I started my morning with a nose bleed. 

As I told my friend and my mother, it was like my face was trying to participate in the festivities.

“HERE! HAVE A NOSE BLEED! LOOK! I MADE IT MYSELF!”

My mother was looking on the bright side, as always...

My eighteenth birthday was a fun one. It was a Bruce Campbell party. I had all my friends dress up as various characters of his, while I was the man himself. This meant I wore a Hawaiian shirt and glasses.

I quickly questioned my assignment of Ash to a friend of mine when she said “Oh, that costume will be easy! I'll just go to my father's workshed, get the chainsaw and-”

We even had a cake with Bruce Campbell's face printed on it. ...Yep.

Most of my cakes over the years were either ice cream cakes or actually pumpkin pies.  I have no use for normal cakes. 

By the way, I actually sort of met Bruce Campbell in person once. 

I'd say he was solidly unimpressed by me. 

Nice enough guy though, so it didn't help my fangirlness. If anything, it just made it worse, because then I could say “ZOH MUH GUH HE LOOKED AT ME FOR A MINUTE!!”

I'm sure I'll try to relate that whole story sometime. For now, back to birthdays.

Lesse...

OH!

So my 21^st birthday was a hoot. I had a vampire masquerade. We rented out a space in the firehouse for it, and my friends acted as a live band. I invited everyone I could sort of call a friend at the time. It was like Facebook but in person.

“I vaguely know you! You don't know this person... but you should! BE FRIENDS NOW.”

I still have my giant blow up grim reaper. The decorations over all were pretty freaking awesome.

My birthday last year was actually a lot of fun for me, even if it ended kind of horribly.

See Birthday Bashing

Now, there is one special birthday I should mention here.

My 19^th.

It never happened.

I'm not saying it was bad. Not at all. It was a very peaceful day. So peaceful, in fact, that I totally missed that it was my birthday.

...as did everyone else.

It was my first time really away from home, off at art school three or so hours away (depending on who was driving). I had a cellphone for the first time in my life and I didn't really know what to do with it, I had my computer... I had ways to tell the date.

I did.

But I didn't have any clue that it was November 17^th.

And neither did any of my friends or family.

I had been in a minor car accident (this seems to be a theme?) with my mother, and being over 18, the insurance guy called me to hear my side of things.

What else? Ah. My 16^th.

I called it my “Sour Sixteen” because I was a creepy goth kid even then.

A costume party, as most of mine are, I told everyone to come dead. If they didn't come in a ghost/ghoul/zombie type costume, we'd “kill” them. ... With makeup.

We had people drown, be slapped to death, strangled... It was a lot of fun.

I was thinking of not posting this right away and saving it all till tonight, because tonight is glow golf... but I'll just add an edit after the fact. 

TO BE CONTINUED 

...
EDIT: 
 Here is an image of one of my friends, to give you an idea of how the rest of the night went.  

The glow golf is at the mall around here, and we had about ten people playing.  Mom stayed for a bit and then fled... Which was fine because a couple of my buddies came home with me.  We played a couple ridiculously long games of Batman UNO, because I'm an adult and I do what I want.  

In any case, glow golf itself was a ton of fun, and I wasn't the only birthday-haver present.  A gaggle of children were seated in the little party corner, and when they started singing "Happy Birthday", I decided that they were very nice.  Well, clearly, they were totally singing for me.  

After all, I am the Empress and it was my birthday. 

The whole place is divided into two sets of golf, but it doesn't make any sense since there isn't another entrance.  You can't actually play the other one unless you've gone past the first... so the fact that it starts over at "One" is stupid. 

We all behaved rather well until that second "One" showed up.  Then it was chaos.  

It was a good chaos though.

The music was hilariously awful.  A friend (who I call Xena for probably obvious reasons) described the people in charge of the music as "a bro and three *giggles like a valley girl*"  Another friend decided later on that this made them "sises"...  

They didn't know who Queen was.  We all felt a bit old, but...  Really?  Really you don't know Queen?  

I wanted to slap their parents. 

Xena described "Under Pressure" and got it played in honor of the fact that the band played that at my 21st birthday.  Nostalgia for the win!

Even sitting on a bench afterwards and hanging out while mini Christmas trees were fisted was fun.  

Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I'm not going to elaborate. 

Time Travel As Therapy

I'm not talking in the hitch a ride on the Tardis or a hop in a Delorean and zoom off way, but in a reviewing, analyzing, and actually participating in my own life way.

I do a lot of analyzing with no purpose.  I run circles around and around to no end.  Hell, most of this blog is just that.

I never come to any new conclusion, nor do I find a new possibility for letting it all go.

Clearly, that shit ain't working.

So instead, I'm rewriting my history.

I noticed I was doing this by accident, subconsciously. 

I was proud of myself for reconnecting with people I had pushed away, but there was more to it than what I'd thought.  Beyond a sense of "Oh good, they are still here," there was a comfort that I hadn't expected.

A man I knew mostly in high school, a man I knew mostly at the art school, and a man I dated after my life was over the first time should not instantly make me more comfortable that some of my new very close friends, but they were.

I understand that my new friends are still the people to go to, but I needed to understand why talking to these old friends had the effect on me that it did.  I think I get it now.

 EDIT: On why I draw my problems as little blobs with staring eyes and sometimes tiny mouths...  It's because that is exactly what they are.  My problems just sit there and stare.  They just sit and make me feel uncomfortable with looks that say they want me to do something for them, but they never open their stupid little mouths to tell me what they want.  They just gawk and criticize silently.  They wobble slightly and are at times even silly enough to be funny... but they bother me just the same.  And in large amounts?  When they gather up and become a crowd?  There is hardly room to breathe. 

I looked around recently and noticed that I'm most comfortable sitting where the computer is in the dining room of my parent's house, rather than eating in the kitchen.  It dawned on me…
The kitchen has been completely redone in recent years.  It is no longer the kitchen from the last time I lived here…
Which was six or seven years ago, after art school.

It was a time before my Psychology courses, which I have yet to pick up again.

It was a time when I felt my life was ending and that I was helpless… 

Which I've picked up again.

I'm searching for nostalgia and comfort to be sure, but also a sense of going back in time to fix what can still be fixed.  Not everything has been an issue, and already I've fixed some of the bigger problems.

For example, my fingers and my wrists have haunted me since art school.  I've been afraid to really do the work I'm capable of because I'm afraid of the pain and the failure I may have to endure yet again.

But now, I have these fancy new braces on my ring fingers that look like Elvish jewelry and actually help minimize the discomfort.  I also know how to pace myself more than I did back then, and I've been to a doctor who could confirm what I thought about my bones.  They probably aren't going to get any worse.  They just are what they are.
More than that, it could have been MUCH worse, but it isn't.

And now, that burden is lifted.  Now I can relax enough to apply for art jobs and feel like I'm going somewhere.  I still plan on finishing the MA in Psychology, but for now, I need more things like this.

I need to weed out the ones I can take care of, and then I can accept and let go of the things I can't change.  This seems entirely logical in theory.  

...In theory.

Obviously, some things are just plain done and over.  
Some things can not ever find a proper ending, and so I'll never really have my closure.

So for the first time, it is actually convenient that I've lumped all my problems together. 

It makes things overlap and count as other things from before.

I can't get my year at art school back.  I can't make my medical leave matter or feel like I achieved anything from it. 

But I left on medical leave from my most recent graduate school, and it was going about the same way.  No one cared.  The fact that I had a doctor give a note and everything didn't matter at all. 

But it's supposed to.

And it will.

My parents and I wanted to just forget the whole thing, but that won't help.  I'll just go the rest of my life adding this to the list of shit where I had no control and my life was meaningless, terrified that it will happen a third time because I'm too disabled to live a normal life, but not disabled enough to get any real help.  Only pity.

No.

I'm going to fight.

I'm going to write letters and make phone calls, and this time, my parents will help me do that.

I'm going to make someone listen to me, even if it doesn't change anything.  The point will be that this time I actually TRIED instead of just crying and walking away. 

This will be my closure for both schools, knowing I did wind up getting that art degree. 
Maybe now, that art degree can mean something to me. 

If my brain is going to decide that they are the same school and the same situation, I may as well make use of that.  I'll trick myself into finally letting them both go at once.  
Let them drift off on the wind.

They won't matter anymore because I will say they don't matter, not because anyone else says so.

For other things, I need to go backwards before I can go forwards.

For the eating issue, I need to remember what I ate and how I enjoyed it and who I ate these things with, and I need to just do it as though I am that person still.  I need to make it habit and a want again.  I need to become who I was in my mind, until I can act and feel like that person again.

THEN I can grow and move forward and be even stronger and better than I ever was.

This time, I'll fix my past and grow up to be a person who wants to drive.

I'll change my perception and how I reacted to things.

"I got into a terrible car accident!  I could have died," will become "I survived even this terrible car accident!  I'm invincible." 

Instead of thinking of how many times I was accidentally "poisoned" by people who didn't care or realize how scary an allergy is, I'll acknowledge that I ate walnuts accidentally, took some Benadryl and YES it was scary, but NO I didn't die or even need to go to the hospital.  I was fine.
Same thing happened years before with hazelnuts. 
And, yes, I did get in trouble and swelled up with hives and vomit and shitting myself for three days because of a small bite of a macadamia nut cookie when a "friend" said there were no nuts in it...  I even asked twice.

Okay, I always ask twice.  Now I know to ask three times.

And I could have used my fucking epi-pen.  I didn't.  I could have, but I didn't.  I don't know if I'm afraid of it, or what...  But either way, the fact that I still freaking SURVIVED WITHOUT using it and I didn't go to the hospital EVEN THEN should say something.  I should feel like I'm a fucking superhero.

Moving on, my throat got hurt, but obviously it then got better.  If it happens again, I know to go to a doctor who isn't an idiot. If I get told it's acid reflux, I'll know that person is wrong, and I'll move on. 

Looking at the posts I wrote at the time, I didn't have any idea what the Hell was going on anyway, and I'm sure that was a big component of it all.  It's weird, but you can actually watch my transition from all the Fishbone bullshits all the way to Of Strength, Luck, and Crashing Down.  It's an interesting change. 

My faith in the world got rocked so far that I couldn't even fathom living in it anymore. 
Yes.  
I get that.  
So, maybe I'll be more cynical than before.  
Maybe I won't be such a pushover.

This doesn't mean I have to be mean or a quiet ball of anger like I was as a kid, but I should take everything with a grain of salt and regrow my instincts.


I used to have very good instincts, as I recall.


Guh.

I'm freaking awesome, damn it.  Time that I remembered and understood that. 

I never believed it, but if I can convince myself that somewhere in my mind, deep down, I knew it, then I can assume that it was always there.  I can "remember" it.

My memories are so muddled anyway, and I have such trouble remembering the good things, I may as well start making shit up.

I won't lie or completely fabricate nonsense, but I can pretend that I felt differently about certain situations.  
I can pretend that I let things go and simply learned from them in order to better myself.  
Maybe I can teach others and I can avoid the same mistakes again.

Fear solves nothing.

Fear will kill me and I would much rather live.

I have a lot left to do if I'm going to make this stupid world any smarter.

I can notice different parts of the scenes playing before me as I go back in time, and I can choose to pick out different parts to keep with me.  
I'll find the most helpful parts this time. 

Simply...

It is time for a rewrite. 

I have friends who can help me edit.  I'm not in this alone.

I'll look at this post and this Winter is Coming to remind me of that. 

And already, I have rekindled some friendships I had missed.  
It may have been for odd reasons, but they were people I valued and people I felt I wasn't good enough to keep. 

I am good enough.

I am fucking awesome,
and I WILL survive this.

This is my life.

This is MY story.

I will decide how the next chapter goes.

Winter is Coming

And I don't have a dragon.

So, something I've been neglecting in my “I have time to get better, and I'm getting there...” is that Winter is coming. I live in an area where when Winter hits, it HITS HARD.

This is a problem for a few reasons.

One:

Winter = cold and cold = pain for me. I have a harder time drawing and painting when it's cold, and those are the things currently keeping me sort of okay. I also avoid going outside when it's cold, so the fact that I just started wanting to actually DO things with my friends is ...Well it's bad timing, really.

Two:

I certainly get my own milder style of seasonal depression. It never gets as bad as some people have it. Still, I already have this anxious, crippling, whatever-the-fuck funk cloud constantly above my head. What the Hell is this going to turn into? Or will I not even notice?

Three:

As sad as it is, I typically have a somebody around in the Winter. This is either a boyfriend or a good friend that I can cuddle up to for warmth and talk to when things are down in order to pretend it is not a season of never ending frozen night.

Well, I've got some friends for that, both new and old. This is good because I'm currently single (the longest I've been so in a long time) and my traditional cuddle buddy is on the other side of the country.  

I've even rekindled a friendship or two out of my realizing what I really wanted and missed in my life. 

My weeding out of some of the awful influences made a nice gap for the people I was too shy about to come back.

...So it's unfortunate that I'm still a loon.

I'm lonely and I want physical affection as well as time spent with people I care about... but I'm still just as freaked out about people touching me or breathing on me as I am about eating most foods, regardless of who or what is involved.

There are very few circumstances where I'll suck it up or even relax enough to forget. I'll still panic before and after, but these calm moments of not giving a shit are precious to me these days.

And then my self esteem comes in to fuck up my day.

I wonder why anyone would want to spend time with me until I convince myself that no one really does, despite the HUGE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE to the contrary. 

 ...Even you, Sign-Pointing-Guy.  You are so not into this. 

So I picture myself as this burden, and I either shut up, afraid to say anything, or I over-share, afraid that I'll be misunderstood.

Normally, my best buddy would be getting all this crap. To a certain extent, she still does, but she is busy being an adult type person and I don't want to bother her with my insane-child shit.

...See? See, it's that logic again. The fuck.

Instead, I've been not so silently putting it on an old companion who I've dragged rather forcibly back into my life, fully aware that I'm about fifty cards short of a deck.

I find him comforting and supportive, and I know I can be the same for him.  He reminds me of who I was years ago, and also who I was in the time when he barely even knew me anymore.  

...And then I just feel guilty that he should have to put up with me at all.

Below is my depiction of the whole thing. Feel free to click on it to enlarge it in order to read my lunatic rantings.

...Right.

The man is not so much of a pushover that he couldn't just ignore me and walk the fuck away if he wanted to. None of my friends are. These are all people who actually *gasp* care about me.

Why would they?

It doesn't matter.

I should just be thankful and move on.

Mind you, in my case with him specifically, we have basically abandoned each other before on some level, though even then, it was with good intentions.  As odd as it sounds, we were trying to avoid hurting each other.  We just did it... wrong. 

Still, I now know that one phone call would have fixed it. 

I chose to assume he wanted nothing to do with me, just as he chose to assume I wouldn't miss him.  

We are the same kind of stupid.  You would think this would mean we'd each give each other the benefit of a doubt as friends.  

...

We don't. 

But, it's nice when we are just relaxed and together.  We have a history and we know each other pretty well, but we also were apart long enough that there are still things to learn.  I have other friends who would fall into this category, and they wouldn't necessarily have the added complication of my physical attraction, but on some level, I suppose I'm just thankful that I'm still capable of having said attraction to someone.  Even if it doesn't amount to anything, it's comforting to have. 

 

No expectations, just honesty and friendship, knowing we care about each other.  That's pretty freaking cool, and something I've been needing.  Being someone I've had a relationship with in the past, we also avoid that nagging "I wonder" feeling on many levels.  We already know to a certain extent, even if it didn't last very long.  There are still "what ifs" but not enough that it would hurt anything.  

This is all pretty damn cool.  

...Until I over-think it. 

...

Shit.

Of Strength, Luck and Crashing Down

I'll add illustrations to this and some passages to thin it out and make it... not as heavy.  For now, it's two AM and I just wanted to get this out there.
EDIT: Hey look!  Illustrations. 

While reading this, you will see that some things are in italics.  These were added later.  It may make for a discussion with myself, or even an argument.  You may actually read my sanity arguing with what I've become.

An appropriate quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is, "Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

I am not as strong as people think.

I don't really know what gave anyone this impression.

The fact is that when a person gets a lot of shit handed to him or her, everyone naturally assumes that person must be very brave.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The bravest person in the world could die from a bee sting or complications after a fever.  It doesn't make him or her less brave just because that person didn't survive…

So the fact that I just… kept going… shouldn't really indicate any bravery.

I didn't fight, I didn't argue, I didn't really do much except panic, hide, cry a lot, not understand and be frustrated when no one could understand me, feel alone, and pretty much hate everything, yet never ask for help above a whisper…

To never ask for help and then complain when no one assists is just plain rude.  It is no one's fault but my own.  
Yes, I did ask a few times, at random, to the wrong people.  I blindly trusted the wrong people as well, and blamed only my own judgement later on, rather than blaming the fact that I didn't try again with someone else.  I should have kept going... And now as an adult, when I ask for help, I do feel guilty.  I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time or that they must think me very stupid.  I understand in a logical sense that none of this is so terrible.  

In fact, it's not even as bad as I've already been through...  But it's affecting me and hurting me.  I'm hurting myself, and I want someone to stop me.  That isn't fair.  It's no one's job to stop me from hurting myself but my own.  
And you know what?  I am strong enough to do that.  I'm just afraid and I hate myself for being afraid of nothing.  Why would I help someone I hate?  Someone who does such stupid things...  
I'm embarrassed, and that embarrassment is crippling.  

And then I would forget and be really happy for a while. 

I wasn't brave.

I was just in denial and didn't always have much else to compare it to.

Stunned maybe.  

I survived.

This doesn't mean that I had an undying will to survive or that I pushed myself beyond the odds…

Perhaps I didn't need such a will to survive.  I didn't need to push and push and push.  Maybe a lot of people would have needed that, and I just happened to survive without it.  

It means that in all the bad luck, there were moments of good luck or at least moments of calm that were long enough to pull me through.

It means that I plain forgot to care when I reached a point where nothing mattered anymore. This isn't bravery, so much as it's a kind of depression.

And sometimes... Not always, but sometimes...  Things were not so terrible.  Sometimes things were actually quite wonderful and helped the bad not matter so very much.  Still, always the neurotic child destined to be the neurotic and shaky adult, I always had a nagging fear in the back of my mind.  

The trick was acknowledging it and then letting it sit there without it taking over everything else.  
That was the trick only because I had no idea how to let it go. 

I gave up, and then life let up a little.

I called uncle, so my situation laughed and let me go.

"Just kidding Rowyn!  Go on, off with you.  Go try to be normal now that you're shaking.  Hope no one notices."

That isn't bravery.  It isn't being strong.

My father, and many others vehemently disagree.  They say strength is just the opposite of what I feel it is.  It's having the ability to just take it all and survive.  Still, the idea that I never fought back is troubling.  The idea that I am still not fighting back, and I'm allowing myself to disintegrate into a puddle of mush resembling something I do not want is even more troubling still.

Damn it, I'm better than this!   

That being said, I was never so completely hopeless.  I just didn't have the space to think about hope one way or another.  I just dragged myself along, scraping the bottom with my toes but not quite touching my feet down to the darkest depths.   I wouldn't let myself.

I don't call this a strong will so much as being stubborn.

Which in my life, may have actually been the same thing. 

I skirted along until I washed up on shore.  I didn't search for it or find it… I accidentally tripped onto land.

And why can't I be thankful for such luck?  Do I not feel I deserve it?  

And once I was there, I had no fucking clue what to do with myself.

I had wadded for so long that my legs had atrophied, but in an attempt not to bother the people around me, I just kind of held it in.

I bottled it up and pretended I was strong and had let things go.

Again, this may be it's own kind of strength, but in the end it isn't healthy.  If I could bottle it for a while and then empty it out, sure... but I don't.  I keep it.  I keep bottles and bottles of all this terror and I keep them safe and sound in some hateful wine cellar.  I'm afraid of what I am if any bottle is emptied.  I'm afraid of what my friends would say if they saw the contents without my explanations. 

So I collect the bottles as though they are important.  I make myself believe that I need them and that they make up who I am. 

Well, they fucking do now.  But I know I'm more than this.  

…I'm not a good liar.  I never have been.

I don't let anything go.

Ever.

Everything just builds and attaches itself to other things and becomes this giant conglomerate of hate and pain and sorrow magnified a thousand times until it overshadows all that blissful denial filled joy I had once enjoyed before.

I know that the joy is there somewhere. 

Enveloped in my own stupidity and stubborn nature.

Even now in the swing of this strange semi-functional depression, I am still capable of being happy.  Every now and then, by body gets confused and fuzzes the difference between elation and terror, which is unfortunate.  Still, once I get it straightened out again, I'm very content at times.  The trick seems to then be not letting myself sink back into "This will all come crashing down again" and instead hold onto the idea that I can, in fact, be happy once in a while.  

To be content should not immediately turn to assuming I now have something great to lose, and more than that, it should not MEAN that I WILL absolutely lose that wonderful new happiness.   Provided I don't suddenly chuck the damn thing out a window for no reason, there is nothing saying that chance and fate and all that won't finally let me hold onto it.  

...So why do I throw it out, assuming I'll just lose it all anyway?  It's that stupid logic that I've argued against in relationships, so why not my own life on a day to day basis?

I am not strong.  I am a stubborn ass.

And eventually, that stubborn nature will absolutely kill me if I don't make a change soon. 

I don't have the will to fight my fears every single day.  No one does.  No one should have to.  I barely have it on good days, but I still HAVE those good days, and that means something. 

I cannot do this alone, and I know I don't have to.

I have many friends who have not only put up with my shit, but have seemed happy to do so.

Many of them have even gone through similar times.  They understand and accept me.  

So why do I feel lonely?

I'll tell you why.

Because I'm a stubborn ass.

I've decided that my life is over and that there is nothing I can do and no one can assist me.  I've decided that because I feel guilty when someone does want to help me.  I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time and that I'm not worth saving.

Stubborn and stupid, but I know better. 

And then when I DO feel better, that brings it's own guilt.  "How miserable will I make my friends and family, who are currently so happy with me, when I have a bad day again?"

Has this become a fear of success on some level?  How very sad.  I would love to be successful in many ways.  It would be a shame to sabotage myself to prove a non-existent point to no one but my own negative voice in my head.  

That being said, obviously, I'm still standing.  I haven't done anything, nor will I.  At least, I assume I won't, since I haven't yet.

I've already been through enough that could have led to such an end.

It didn't.

Out of another fear, or for someone else...?  Either way, in this case it is a good thing.

There are plenty of people who have been through more on a daily basis than I have ever gone through.

What we live through specifically doesn't matter so much as how we respond to whatever it is we have been through. 

I have not responded terribly well, and no, this is not a new thing.  I'm just not the kind of person who handles stress well... but I handle it very inwardly.

On the other hand, I went a good 26 or so years without a complete meltdown.  That's a pretty good record.  It's not like I had one big trauma that stuck out and shook me.  I've had many things happen over the years.  Each one on it's own was both terrible and something others could have just forgotten.  It depends on the person, I suppose.  

I never had time to get over each one before something else would happen.  I never let myself just sit and work through what I needed to.  Just letting go won't work.  I've tried it.  It just makes me feel like nothing mattered and nothing meant anything... When clearly it did.  

I know now that it all mattered.  Even if no one else knew that.  It still mattered.  

It's all smooshed together and therefore harder to look at clearly.  Perhaps picking each piece apart and going through them one by one would help?  

I tuck it away.

I have my moments to be sure, but how easily I give up even the things that matter most to me should matter in the "I'm not a strong person" argument here. 

I come to a wall, and I don't climb it. 

I just walk away.

I don't walk around it…

I walk away from it and continue to look back as though I couldn't have taken another route.

I'm stubborn and I'm kind of an idiot.

While I've done this in many respects, the one that really gets me still is what happened at my first college.  I never moved on.  
Art school represented my entire life to me.  I went to live my dream and be away from what was hurting me emotionally.  I had real hope.  
I got one opinion on my arm and forced myself to prove the doctor wrong.  That doctor didn't even keep me in his record.  I hurt myself for nothing, and then got kicked out.  I could have fought it.  I could have easily stayed and gotten help.  Instead, I finished my degree in a school that was not an art school and never forgave myself.  

What do I need in order to feel accomplished in this area?  What would validate my time spent there and the fact that I AM an artist, regardless of what I tell myself when I am depressed?    

I don't feel like I really exist anymore.  I'm aware that when I'm not around, there are people who miss me, so I don't mean in that sense.

Thank God.

I mean that my past is so muddled and forgotten by everyone around me…
You know...  I forget things that don't matter to me, so it makes me question how much it really mattered if everyone but me forgot.

If everyone can forget, and this means my shitty little life hasn't really been that bad… I'm just reacting incredibly poorly.

And without a past, how do I know who I am today?  What have I learned?  What HAVE I overcome?  I'm a "strong person" who has no past anyone will talk about.

But it wasn't their past.  It was mine.  It was mine to remember, respond to, interpret and grow from.  Even if it's wrong or right, it doesn't matter in that literal of a sense.  What matters is what I'm doing now with all of it and all of the meaning behind it.  

By this logic, my PTSD, my anxiety, my current health, my nightmares?  All just me responding in a stupid way and I'm not strong enough to stop it through will alone, nor am I smart enough to figure out this puzzle, nor am I brave enough to just medicate myself until I feel nothing at all anymore.

Bullshit.  Yes I am.  I'm just afraid to acknowledge that, lest I try and fail.   Failure is much easier.  I'm lazy.

I, myself, often confuse that last bit with bravery.

Ah, but if I don't want medication, even if it might help in theory, I'll just find a way to use the fact that I'm on something against myself.  I'll teeter back and forth between feeling brave for it and feeling weak.  So, lets stop that line of thinking now. 

It's just stubbornness at it's purest. 

I'm determined to get through this on my own,
to get back to how I was…
Which wasn't really all that different and may be a complete muddle of facts anyway.

It was just quieter and less in anyone else's face.  I bothered less people with it.

This is good to remember.  Once I'm back to how I was, as miserable as that often was, THEN I'll be able to move forward in a different way.  I'll conquer new fears.  I'll move forward and be stronger than ever.  But, I need to understand what it is I'm really going back to first.  That way, I won't be so disappointed in myself and get too hung up on it all.  

I'm determined to get through this on my own…
but I can't.

Some days, I really want to. 
I want a normal life.  I want the life I've never relaxed long enough to have…

And some days, it just isn't worth the struggle to me.  I get mad at myself because it shouldn't NEED to be a struggle.  It's easy for other people.  I get frustrated and then stop moving forward all together, when I should be using those moments to propel myself forward.

Yes.

What happened to the determination I ever had?  I had it for stupid things, like winning boyfriends, but it was there.  Stalker level... but determination none the less that could be utilized now if I had any idea how to conjure and harvest it.

Exactly.  So how?  Just remembering won't work if I don't trust my own memory.  How do I picture the real Rowyn Golde?  Who is she?  Maybe I can pretend to be her until it sticks.  If I'm so easily led, perhaps I can trick myself into a better life.  

I want to blame someone other than myself.

I want to think I had no choice so that I can move on without just hating myself for doing this to me.  Punch out whoever did this to me and walk away. 

I want to put my goals and my emotional stability on someone else.  I want to get better FOR someone else, because I don't think I'm worthwhile enough to bother doing so just for myself.  Myself and I have an awful, rocky, love/hate thing going on.  Real soap opera crap.  I'm just not supportive enough of me to be my own therapist, let alone friend or goal.

Imaginary friends are probably unhealthy too, as is projecting and effectively using a friend as a therapy tool. 

My denial is broken.  It doesn't work anymore.  The reality is so strange and twisted and ugly to me that I just don't want to look.  It's not that I can't.  It's that I don't want to.  I want to wake up and just not care…  But I want to care.  I want to care and love everything.  …But I don't want to push myself.

I need to remember the cup.  There is a large blue cup in my parent's house that warped in the dishwasher.  When turned a certain way, it looks like it's smiling.  
It's ugly, for a cup, but cute for an art piece showing a facsimile of a human facial expression.  

The cup is deformed, but still functions.  I have an odd love for this cup because I look at it as though it is a mirror.  It doesn't match the other ones and other people would throw it out, but it still holds liquid.  It still does the job... and when looked upon from the right angle, it doesn't look deformed at all.    
It's still good enough, and I still like it.  
Even if I feel ugly, maybe I'm just different. 

My main issue as of late: I don't want to choke or have an allergic reaction to nothing at all.

Okay.

Well, it's strange science.  No one really knows anything.  Anyone can suddenly develop an allergy at any given moment to any damn thing.  That's the problem…

I have no control over my own body and I therefore have no control over whether I live or die.

Technically, no one does, but I'm having trouble finding comfort in that. 

It used to be that taking a chance wasn't a huge deal, because anyone can die any day from pretty much anything.  ...And sometimes, I was afraid, but I sat still and dealt with it with a smile on my face for the sake of those I cared about.

I have a hard time doing anything for myself when it isn't secretly for someone else.

This could be good in a sense.  If I smarten up and prove to myself that I can be okay for a few hours when with someone, even if it is FOR that someone, I can then remember that I had gotten that far and repeat accordingly.  

I knew in my heart that this (severe allergies) was common enough, and certainly nothing compared to EVERYTHING else in my life.  ...Everything else being other situations where I felt I had no control over my body, felt I couldn't cry out for help, felt no one would try to hear me anyway...
Much like suffocating inside yourself due to eating a macadamia nut.

It's a different kind of trauma, but for me it's just yet another trauma.  Nothing more and nothing less.  The difference really is that you can SEE if someone is going to hit you.  You can HEAR a car smash into another car.

You can't actually have any idea if someone freaking touched a nut and then touched something you are about to eat.

Tiny particles of instant death are scary, and even though I have lived just fine thus far, (lived JUST FINE thus far!!) they have become the end all be all of scary shit I can't really control.  The fact that I've HAD these reactions is the problem.

I've had these reactions, this is a real thing... and then I had throat damage that caused an amazing amount of pain from... something.  Environmental allergies?  Smoke damage?  Who knows??  Could have been anything. 

I had no control.  It just happened without my knowledge.

There is something kind of... rape-like about it all.  Beyond that, I've developed a desperate need for a plan, but I haven't yet developed the "umph" needed to demand a plan.  This is silly because a lot of my friends wouldn't mind one from time to time.  I still fear being an overbearing burden.  Crap.  

...So I don't eat or only eat in very specific circumstances in order have a sense of control. 

This is inherently wrong.

Especially considering that I want to eat.  I WANT to eat.  I've been avoiding even my favorite foods from my favorite places, just in case of... something?  Something like what??  Tree nuts and chickpeas on everything!! 

I'm going to die, but I'll die by my own rules?  …But I don't want to ever commit suicide.

Right. 

…Poses a bit of a problem, doesn't it?

Circular, illogical logic that I've been grabbing onto just so I can hold onto SOMETHING that I feel won't leave me of it's own accord.

Huh.  Abandonment issues to an odd extreme, yet I avoid social gatherings with my best friends.  Kay.

How very sad.

And how very silly.

...And I know that.



I'm not the only person in the world to have a crippling bout of depression, nor am I the only one to flip shit and turn into something I don't like.  The art of other people has helped me a lot in feeling less alone.
Penanggalan's Depression on deviantart and  Adventures in Depression on Hyperbole and a Half are great examples. 

Binders Full of Women and My History With Squirrels

Just to get this image out of the way here...

Whew.
Believe me, I could make a giant book of the problems women face today and how frustrating it is that so few people really understand A. the impact these things have on women and B. how little this shit should even still be coming up in 2012.  Holy crap people.  Women can do more than pop out babies and make you a sandwich.  Jesus tits.

But, I won't.  Not yet.  Instead, I'll leave you with that illustration.



Okay, so, onto the real post.

I talk a lot about art school and the impact that had on me, but I was only there for a year.  Sure, I've got some unfinished business and I have been (as always) in need of some closure, but really it just represents a life I could still have... if I wasn't a stubborn ass.  I could reconnect with the people I knew so briefly instead of assuming they've forgotten about me, and I could get something published.  These would fix most of the problems.


Instead, I'll tell you a little tale of the school from which I actually graduated.  I did get a BA in Art, as well as one in Psychology.  Oh, poor me.  Woe is me.  I wound up with two freaking degrees, and one might actually be useful.  Oh no.  Whatever shall I do?  I'm absolutely aware that I am, in fact, an asshat.

Anyway, the squirrels.

As anyone who has lived on campus in an area with squirrels will tell you, after a while, these buggers get fearless.  Also, they get huge.

Free food and drunken kids who like fuzzy creatures makes for a very cushy, and somewhat privileged life.  The squirrels get ballsy.  Like... full of balls.  No, I won't draw that.

I'm walking to the dining hall this one fine afternoon, and I happen upon a squirrel.

Adorable as he is, I think nothing of it and continue walking forward, assuming the little guy will move.

...He didn't.

Instead, little bitch just stared me down.

 I found this a bit unnerving, but I continued forward.  I realized that he was big enough to block my way.  I questioned if he had rabies or something.  He didn't move.

In fact, he stood his goddamn ground.

Kaaaaay...  Well, fuck.  I'm not going to take shit from a rodent, right?  I'm hungry, and he's in my way.  I'm at least twice this randomly ridiculously large creature's size.  I could totally take him.

Or not.

Eventually, after what seemed like far too long of a stand off, I faltered.  

It felt like I got mugged by this squirrel.  In my head, this was how it went down:

And so I was spared: 

 

In reality, I'm such a pansy (and had no food on me, since I was going TO the cafeteria, not from it...) I just very quietly and slowly walked around to the other side of the building.  Like a wuss.  Like a giant, pansy wuss who can't take on a freaking squirrel.  

Completely unrelated because I don't know how to make this into it's whole own post: 

My Brain Needs an Electrician

Lately, as my brain has started to attempt to rewire itself, I have more good days than bad.  However, there are still days were "pushing myself" by doing things I know I should be able to do is a harrowing experience.

 I'm almost always on edge, unless I'm just too exhausted to care one way or another.

This whole turning the thoughts off thing is harder to do than I was hoping. 

It's like some chunk of my brain only understands how to function in danger.  When I'm not in some kind of trouble, this chunk just sits and rocks back and forth going "Any second.  It's going to happen any second.  I don't know WHAT but it'll be a big ol' something and it's going to ruin everything."

It sits and scowls and panics and when it spots some other area of the brain having a good time, it pipes up just to yell, "DON'T BOTHER BEING JOYOUS!  IT'LL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN AGAIN!"

At which point, it breaks out the chalk board and goes into excruciating detail about random events in the past year, and throughout my life, which could not have been avoided and CLEARLY I was just helpless and the world was always going to be constantly ending, so why bother enjoying the moments I have?

...I'm aware of how insane the logic is.  I know.  I know and that just frustrates me even more. 

Then the rest of my brain takes off their party hats and starts crying, because of Captain Party Pooper.

A good example is what just happened today.

As you may have gathered by now, I'm part of that "Boomerang Generation" and living with my parents again.  This is not to say that I lost a job or just couldn't find one.  It's that I had my second "WORLD ENDING" breakdown and wound up back home in a heap of pathetic misery. 

So, I try to be helpful wherever I can.

I was told to stir things.  I accepted without a second thought, because I'm an adult and this isn't an issue.

 

Lookit me.  Lookit me bein' all sure of myself.

There was no reason for this moment of "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" but I had it anyway.  Knowing I was just being a loon, I kept it to myself until it went away.  

Panic attacks are very rare these days (unlike the beginning of the Summer) so I can mostly just ignore them until my heart goes, "Oh, this isn't an issue?  My bad." 

 

Like I said.  Stirring.  Woo.

And then...

 

Look at me go.  That is some hot stirring action.

It was around this time that I decided it was the timing of it that was getting to me.  I was afraid that I'd forget about it.  ...Then, I thought maybe it was this overpowering sense of guilt.  

I hate feeling guilty, yet I do it to myself for almost everything.  I figured, even if I did everything right, if the food wasn't perfect, everyone would assume it was my fault (they wouldn't) and then I'd assume it was my fault, and then I'd obsess over what I could have done differently.

Right.

 

Sooo I obsess over the idea that I might wind up obsessing, just like I have been avoiding things I want to do and giving myself reason to panic JUST IN CASE so I don't ...have a... panic attack?  

What?