The Wrong Turns

Realizing that I have not yet explained how much of a pain getting my license was...

Let's do that now.

The first test went wrong for a number of reasons.  
For one, it happened that the guy looked like an almost-assailant of mine, was WAY too cocky, and in general pretty obviously hated women.  
That was fun.  

I felt remarkably unsafe. 

He was also very vague. 

Like, Dude, don't say "Sunday driver…" without specifying if I am being one, or should be. 

He claimed I was speeding and gave me a mockingly presented pop quiz at the end.  
I'm a pretty cautious driver for obvious reasons, so no, I was not speeding at any point.  
He also told me I was way too cautious.  
THAT one, I'll believe. 

He wouldn't even look at my mother, who had to basically chase him down to ask if I passed. 
His response?  "She needs work."

After about a month of me never wanting to try again, my well meaning parents sent me off with an instructor about two weekends before my second road test. 

To clarify, I did pass it on the third try.

This particular driving lesson went so poorly that it ended with my sobbing hysterically.  

Oddly enough, not at all due to driving.

Before we even started, I got a call from the driving instructor-man saying that he was looking on google, but couldn't figure out where my house was.  
I did my best to explain, to which he responded, "I KNOW the area." 

...Like, okay dude.  If you know the area, why are you having a problem? 
The houses are clearly numbered and otherwise it's kind of just us and deer, but whatever.

Anyway, he came to the house to pick me up and drove the car to the lot where he would, in theory, have me drive. 

Again, the driving was not the part that flipped me out.

In fact, the only driving he had me do initially, was weaving around parking spaces. 

I did this while he occasionally slapped my hand, not entirely explaining why, and then saying things like, "You looking to get slapped??" and "You wanna get hit, dontcha??" and then laughing, like this is a funny thing to say after I've already told him that, no, seriously, I'm a survivor of abuse and that's kinda entirely triggering, so please don't.

He tried to fix it by saying I could slap him back, and then holding out his hand and forcing me to slap it, even after I told him that it made me reeeaaaallllly uncomfortable. 
Also, fun fact, I have cartilage where there should be bone in my wrist. 
REALLY hurts when hit, even as a light slap. 

Also, grabbing my hand is a terrible plan because of that. 

Just sayin'.

Still did not cry here.

That part was all preempted by him saying, "I'm going to be a male, chauvinist pig for a second," and then just asking me really politely if I know how they train for football. 

Dude, you wouldn't have come across as a jackass if you had just asked the question or talked about the training outright, without announcing that you are, in fact, a jackass.

I must have done something right though, as he then had me go on to phase two. 
Keep in mind, the first HOUR of instruction was him driving around town mumbling things as he thought of them, calling this a "demo" like that would at all be helpful to me. 

I chalked it up to the fact that he is probably eight thousand years old.

Part two involved him making me FLOOR the gas and then wait until he told me to STOMP on the break. 

Everything about this was terrifying and extremely dangerous, yet I managed to not cry at this point. 

I did, however, consider calling someone to pick me up, or just the police, because clearly I was trapped in a car with a lunatic.

He said this was to teach me what it felt like, in case it ever happened. 
…Wouldn't I know what it felt like if I ever had to do it? 
And WHY do this for the person WHO ALREADY SAID SHE HAD BEEN IN MULTIPLE ACCIDENTS???

And yet still, I had not cried.

At this point, he decides I'm ready to drive home. 
Two hours have almost passed, and I have done NOTHING that I wanted to do, such as things that are actually on the road test.

By telling me I'm going to drive home, what he meant was that my feet would control the gas and break, but his hands would never leave the steering wheel… 

So, this old man is like, draped across my freaking lap to control the car, questioning why I'm trying to fight him when we are veering on top of the line on my side, and otherwise coasting with the wheel RIGHT next to the line… 

I'm just waiting for the left mirror to get clipped off, really.

THIS is when I start crying. 

A lot. 

He tells me not to be embarrassed, and that HE isn't scared. 
If he was scared, after all, he wouldn't have let me drive home.

…He didn't see me doing ANY driving. 
NONE. 
And I did NOT care if he was scared, nor was I embarrassed.

He also used the word "angsty" when I asked to pull over.

I explained to him that I was afraid of getting hit, and that was why I was crying. 
He told me not to be afraid, and that no one was going to rear end us. 
I explained that, no, I was afraid of HIM hitting me.

I felt unsafe IN the car.

He laughed. 
Then he said he was sorry and that he didn't mean to make fun of me. 

I don't even know what he meant by that.

By the time we got home, he decided not to let me do the parking in front of Rob's car, and to instead demo how easy it is.  

He did what could only be described as a twenty point turn, and actually backed into Rob's car.

There was no damage, though the license plate did make a satisfying pop noise, as if to say, "HA, you asshole."
EDIT: No, his license plate did actually pop off soon after.

He then proceeded to tell me that he'd be calling my mother to tell her I did a great job (I’m a grown ass woman.  I'll call my own damn mother) and he let me know that I'm totally not ready for the test and I would fail it if I took it now.

…Gee, thanks, guy-who-didn't-see-me-drive-and-instead-just-freaked-me-out.

Our interaction ended when he reminded me that we had been together for two hours and that his price is $35 an hour, but that I could pay any time, and he's not worried.

I told him I didn't think I could handle another day of that right away, and that I wanted to cancel the 9:30 for the next morning, but maybe see him for a three point turn and parallel parking sometime next weekend.

He looked at me like I was a moron, handed me a piece of paper that reads "How to parallel park for the road test" and then said he'd see me at 9:30 the next day.

I went upstairs. 

Rob was taking a nap, as he still wasn't feeling well all weekend. 
I tried to hook a right to the bedroom, and instead flopped down on the floor by the door and just started ugly-sobbing.

There was so much snot.

Rob didn't wake up, but Perry recognized the sound of hysterical tears, and so burst through his doorway with a box of tissues.

I literally cried on Perry's shoulder for a half hour. 
He's a trooper, really.

Rob woke up around then, and I had calmed down enough to be coherent about what had happened. 
This was a good thing, as Rob's instinct was to panic and think I was in some way physically hurt.

I was still hyperventilating every now and then, but not to the point of a full blown panic attack.

I contacted my parents, explained what happened, and they laughed at me, telling me to suck it up. 

Rob then called my mother (Why is everyone calling my mom for me??) to explain that we would not be seeing the man again. 

My parents then said, "OH!  We're sorry.  We just thought she was exaggerating and being dramatic.  We didn't realize she was actually upset!" because my word means nothing.

…This may explain how my life has gone the way it has, actually.

So, Rob took over helping me polish everything up, driving wise, though I was kind of a wreck all Sunday. 
Rob and Perry are both endlessly patient.

For the record, I did not pay the driving instructor man.
EDIT: My parents still paid him.

I did sort of get an apology from the driving man, through him calling my mother (he did have MY number, but whatever) and saying that he was sorry he upset me.  

He figured it was because of the gas and break exercise.

While that was stupid and dangerous, it was not at all what freaked me out. 

Which, you know… I told him.

In detail. 

Seriously. 

I swear I told him what the problem was.

Is there just something about me that completely invalidates
everything I say about my own anxieties?  Because what the Hell?

*Ahem* So.

Good times.

In any case, I was pre-freaked out for the second test based on that instructor and the first time I took the test, so I actually went SO SLOWLY that I had trouble getting up a hill. 

The third one I actually passed, and I wonder how much of that was due to the fact that
A. I just gave no shits anymore. I just wanted it done forever, and
B. the person grading was a woman about my size. 

There is something extra creepy about being a survivor and then being trapped in a car with an older man and having to take all of his orders.  
In essence, that was what the test was for me over and over. 

BUT it's done.  

So.  


Good. 

The Hubcap Massacre

Yesterday was a scary driving day. 

I still didn't do any of the things I assumed I was going to do by now…

Like hit a bird,

or get smashed by a deer,



or destroy a mailbox,



and I haven't even knocked a side-view mirror off yet! 
 

YAY!

However, it IS Winter,
and the roads look like a giant infant took a hammer to them.
 

My father had trouble with a few potholes recently, so you'd think I would have seen this coming.

NOPE. 

Mom, after the fact, said she saw it… but we're going to ignore how that would have been nice to mention BEFORE I hit it.  Mom. 

*ahem*

So, I whacked a giant hole in the ground and while it sounded scary, most of the road had sounded scary, so I didn't think much of it. 

There were also so many potholes, some of which stretched across the whole area, so it was difficult to avoid them. 

Usually I'm the only one making horrible noises while I drive, but this time Mom chimed in.
 

You know that noise Lucile Ball makes on I Love Lucy? 
It was like that.  

Every.  Time. 

Still, not nearly as bad as the noises my father makes as soon as I get behind the wheel at all.  

Seriously, I could be parked and he'll still hit the imaginary brake on his side.

Anyway, I didn't know anything was horribly wrong until I went into a "lane" over on the side, thinking a car in front of me was in a turning lane, rather than, you know, parked.

Then another car came up next to me in the correct lane. 

I figured I was trapped and Mom and I would have to eat parts of the car to survive until we were rescued from my stupidity.

The man in the other car honked, which I assumed was an angry honk. 

It was not. 
I rolled down the window and he mentioned that our hubcap (read: Mom's hubcap that I slammed off of her poor car) was by the town hall, in a snow bank. 

Thank you, Stranger-Man. 

I had this weird swell of embarrassment from having been driving around with only three hubcaps. 

I pictured getting laughed at by more fashionable drivers.

Because Mom mentioned that I need to be careful with the next potholes so as not to damage the tire, my severe lack of car-knowledge showed.  

I was under the assumption that the hubcap was usually bolted on, keeping the tire in place. 
 

I imagined the tire now flying off without it's metal seat belt, and me going to some kind of car-jail for committing tire manslaughter. 

Anyway, Mom found the hubcap after wandering around a bit. 
 



This brings up a few questions. 

Did it fly off of the car into the snowbank? 

Did the kindly neighbors take the time to get out of their car to pick it off of the road and leave it where we could find it? 

Did they follow us that whole way to tell us, or was it by chance that they happened to see a car missing a hubcap later on and fill in the blanks? 

Either way, Mom and I weren't entirely positive we could put it back on right then and there, so she just plopped it in the car. 

I was still a little shaken by "OH MY FUCK I BROKE YOUR CAR I'M SO SORRY" so I asked her to do the driving until our next errand was done. 

I've been calling that my first accident just because I want that part of my life to be over with and it didn't involve anyone else being damaged.

Let me think this. 

Shhh...

Getting Injured

I currently have a band-aid on each thumb as I type this blog entry.  

I consider myself a careful person, really... and I wouldn't call myself clumsy per se... 

But I'll let you kids decide for yourselves.  

I started young with the accidentally-hurting-myself-in-stupid-ass-ways thing.

My mother still feels guilty about an incident where I fell out of the shopping cart.  

Dude.  

Those things are, like, designed to avoid this.  
I still don't understand how I managed such a feat without breaking my legs in order to get out... 

But I clearly remember the milk isle zooming in toward my face: 

Obviously, I survived.  I probably lost a tooth though.  

I can say that, because I was generally losing teeth during these incidents.  

Considering all the oral surgery I wound up having as an adult later, it was probably for the best that I just get the baby teeth out of the way fast anyway.

I was walking along with a straw in a drink and a loose tooth to play with (do you see where this is going?) and not ONLY did I stick my loose tooth INTO the straw for fun, but then I tripped. 

This resulted in RIPPING THE TOOTH OUT OF MY FACE while also smashing the rest of me to the ground.  

Very efficient, really.

Doorknobs often had a similar effect.  See, I was "doorknob height" and wasn't always aware of my surroundings.  
I blame inner ear issues.  

Either way,

Lost at least one that way.

By now,  you've heard tales of how often I cut my hands open while carving pumpkins, or stabbing myself in the thumbs while sewing (often straight through the nail)...

But one time, I actually learned a lesson during a sewing mishap.

You know what?  I'm not gonna illustrate this one because it still ickles me.  

I tend to stick sewing needles pretty much wherever I can, with the (often very, very wrong) assumption that it will assist in my not losing them.  

So, I'm sitting on my parent's couch, sewing stuff.  

Probably making one of these: 

So cute. 

Such pain. 

And I put the needle in the couch next to me, just slightly, thinking I'll be able to pull it out by the thread later.  

Then I couldn't find it.  

...

Yep.

Cue a few days later where I'm on the same couch, trying to get something that has fallen behind said couch, getting up to sit on my knees... on the couch. 

Right. 

Our needle friend is promptly found.  

It goes up into my thigh. 

Let me clarify... 
It's not like, poking from the side into my thigh.  It's going from the top of my knee UP into my thigh-meats, along the thigh itself. 

Oh my fuck. 

There are no words to describe the combined horror, shame, pain, disgust and so on that I experienced in this moment.  

*ahem* 

Moving on.

Did I mention I've managed to STAB myself?  

Some were small, like the x-acto knife at art school.

We were snowed in, so there was a moment of, "Whelp, glad I didn't cut off my thumb.  Wouldn't have been able to get to a hospital in time to save it.  Whoops." 

Instead, I merely jammed it into the tip of my thumb.  
There's a vein at the base of my palm that had flipped out during this process.  
This happened a decade ago and it still puffs up if I'm stressed.  

...

Probably a terrible sign.  

Still, not as bad as the time I stabbed myself in the shoulder while working retail.  

See, I was diligently cutting apart and collapsing boxes for storing them in the back.  

"The back" was basically a hallway with shelves of walls filled with random crap to sell.  

Knowing we were the only two in the store, and knowing I had gone back there, I guess my work-buddy forgot.  

She didn't see me sitting in this hallway cutting boxes with the box cutter.  

She walked into me, kicking the box away.  

This was fine except: 

I remember thinking, "Oh, that didn't happen.  I'm just holding the box cutter slightly PAST my shoulder.  Here, I'll pull it awa- ...  Oh crud."  

My coworker wanted to rush me to a hospital, but, being me...  

Nope. 

I just wanted to keep on workin'. 

I still have a scar from it, but obviously I was fine.  

Well, obviously I'm fine NOW in any case.

...

Shh.





 

 

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.

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.