The Tenant's Shelf

I seem to be making a tradition of this making blog posts when I’m drowning in homework. But then, I love being completely immersed in schoolwork. It makes my mind race in a good version of how it used to. Anyway, I have two things I want to talk about today: losing control and asking for help.

I haven’t been okay lately, and I’m not sure that it’s completely good or bad, but it’s creating anxiety. I feel entirely out of control of my wishes. I get a craving out of absolutely nowhere (be it for food or a certain feeling or even the taste of my toothpaste) and it becomes the only thing that exists. It’s a really intense thing. Like an obsession but stronger. And the thing is, I’m not sure if it means I’m getting better. Does it mean the meds are finally steady and this is what life should feel like but I’ve never felt it because I’ve been depressed since before I could form memories? I don’t know what it means. I just feel like I have no control. Like I’m just on the verge of danger. It feels like those parts of a roller coaster when you’re basically in free fall. And somehow you still fear that you’re going to fall to your death. Your body’s instincts kick in.

There’s another thing I want to talk about, but I can’t go to an angry place right now. I won’t come back.

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I don’t tend to seek out help. Since childhood, I’ve just kind of accepted that I had to support myself and solve my own problems. It’s not a natural thing for me to ask other people to help me. When I moved into my college dorm, I didn’t ask my parents to help me. It felt too weird for us to all be in one room, so they left. When I moved into my first apartment, I bought almost everything we’d need. It’s partly because my brain doesn’t let other people exist, but I’m just really not used to having other people offer to do things. I’ve been running a couple organizations on campus though it wasn’t supposed to exclusively be my place, and I’ve done it without asking for help. (The fact that the organizations dropped plans when I wasn’t able to completely run them doesn’t help with that.) 

For years, I just kind of lived with my pain. I restrain myself so much from showing emotion in sad moments that I’ve somehow blocked those emotions. Freud’s got some stuff right. That shit has destroyed my subconscious. 

Maybe that’s why my brain shuts off so much. My eyes get stuck and my brain just stops. I’m stuck somewhere between absolutely nothing and a level below reality. My brain’s starting to either internalize things into the unconscious, or I’m trying to break free. I’m not sure which is happening. 

God damn it. Believe me, I didn’t want it to still be this way. I didn’t want my life to just be you and me. Together. As always. I wanted you to be as far beneath the ground as they are. 

But I guess I should have known that you’re the thread that weaves through my life. You connect everything. You’re the only thing I had consistently. Seven years old - you were there as a guiding hand out of a room I didn’t consider scary. By twelve, you were there with outstretched arms promising me that it didn’t matter how many friends I lost, you’d always be there. You offered me forgiveness when I couldn’t speak in class at fourteen without crying. You walked me across the stage at high school graduation and handed me my diploma in the crowded room afterward with a bouquet of yellow roses. You held me when the best friend in my life became my enemy and showed me once again how much you’d stay when everyone else left. I packed you in my backpack for college, unpacking you each night as a safety blanket beside the one that’s shattering beside me. 

Not to say you haven’t been forceful or scary. At fourteen, you decided to manifest yourself in human form and urge me to write my last story and follow you far, far away from here.* You woke me up in the middle of the night and tore me from my bed to throw me back into my blades without a hint of remorse. You are violent, and you are brutal. You are unforgiving and powerful. Yes, I’ll admit you have more power than I do. 

I thought that a simple needle and bag would finally cut us apart. I thought maybe throwing away blades would make you leave. I thought writing everything else in my mind would give you peace. 

What do you want now? What the hell is there left for you to take? 

When I started thinking this post up, I thought you were a source of comfort. That yea, maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible after all to bleed out. I’d just need to do it quicker. It wouldn’t just be a tiny needle in one vein. It would be a slash through as many as I could find. 

But you aren’t a source of peace. You break the ones we have loved, and you don’t stop for anything. Not time. Not love. Not happiness. Not sadness. Not grief. 

When will you be finished with me?

Dear God, make me stronger so I can fly far, far away from suicide’s grasp.

_____

Jamie - 

You taught me all the sin I know

From swears (to) chains

You made me a slave

But to whom?

----

You guided me directly into the gates of (Hell)

A place where not even the Wine can reach me.

(With) what have you shielded my soul?

----

Your worst fear was that they’d find (you) out

James Vick,

What a shame it would be for them to know

Your name

We weren’t friends. In fact, I disliked you. I hopped couches, but even that wouldn’t keep you away. I had decided long before we met that I would continue to raise myself as I had done, and I didn’t look for company. 

We shared a bed during nap time. Sometimes we slept, but other times, we wanted to be Adults. We wanted to rage against the dying of the day. Seize our hours of freedom age had somehow granted us. We watched movies and danced and talked about all the rated R movies we’d “seen.” Yeah, I was lying, too. 

Brittany,

I don’t know when it started. I don’t. Do you? Can you remember how things progressed?

I watched your face disappear behind his pillow and laughed as he let his weight fall down onto you. I laughed because he laughed. And maybe I laughed because I thought I was somehow immune to your pain. Perhaps that’s why I hate Zimbardo so much sometimes. I carry guilt I can’t release. It just keeps building and building and building like the air in your lungs that he wouldn’t let free. 

We weren’t friends. We weren’t friends, but you looked up to me. You wanted to be everything I was. I know the look. We played Sims together and watched Amber’s friends teach us about french kissing and lingerie. We tested out our new vocabulary from Jamie’s class together. We recorded moaning noises. 

And eventually, we learned enough from Jamie’s videos to have sex. I say sex, but what the hell was it? You added what you’d learned from watching your sister and her boyfriend, and I learned from Jamie’s hands. You always asked me to be the man. Eventually, after numerous sleepovers and hours more of sexual relations, you asked to stop. And I moved on.

Is sex like this for you still? Devoid of anything but mechanics? 

We weren’t friends. And maybe we won’t be friends. I remember seeing you when we finally went to the same school and thinking that there was no way we shared this memory. And maybe that’s why you stopped seeming real to me. Because We Weren’t Friends.

My head hurts so much I think I might actually start bleeding from my temples. I owe you so much more. I owe you a childhood. 

And Brittany,

We weren’t friends. 

I hate the After

I hate leaving the office with the workers’ pity

I hate driving away – knowing there won’t be the fear filled return

           But wishing still that it would be needed

I hate taking the blanket out of the backseat – still covered in fur

I hate coming home – to the quiet – no nails clipping excitedly

I hate the extra room at night – this bed’s too big

I hate the cup that’s dry already – waiting to be used to refill your water

I hate the dishes we just washed for you – still wearing your sharpie name

 And worst of all

I hate the tears that won’t fall into your fur

I hate the day we received your ashes

I even hate the plants that grow because you no longer do.

 I hated your death

But God,

I’m not really sure what to say to you or if there’s anything at all I can actually say. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to say anything. You cut me off after. Was that intentional? 

I don’t know why I’m doing it, honestly. Things are fine. I just felt compelled to do it. So I’ve been laying on the floor reading suicide notes for the past half hour or more. I’ll probably read more after. I don’t know.

Suicide notes are weird. 

Seriously, I have them stashed all over the place. I used to keep one in my copy of Gatsby. I think I have one stashed in a pile of papers back in my old bedroom. I stumble across them sometimes. I have them in journals as an epilogue. 

Suicide notes aren’t usually profound. They’re dull, honestly. 

But the only suicide notes I’ve seen with my own eyes are my own.

Levi didn’t leave one.

Mr. Ray didn’t leave one.

You didn’t leave one.

Heaven knows Josh didn’t leave one.

So I guess that’s the trick. Not writing a final statement. The narrative has to match the story. We have to go out mid sentence. 

So I’ve been suicidal for the past two weeks or more. Things aren’t abating. They’re getting more intense. I’m failing at everything that should be easy. My voice is giving out. My will to speak is fading. My will to write is overpowered by my fear of academic failure. 

I’m trapped in all the moments my father told me to “try harder next time” when I brought home a report card with 6 A’s and a B. 

Everyone else feels so far away like I can’t reach them. The closest person is my boyfriend, who I love. He knows how to hear me despite the war that rages within my head. 

Even visiting my favorite people and dog last night didn’t help much. The dog felt so far away. I don’t want to cover his fur in tears. 

I keep hearing my mother scolding me to stop crying when Spanky was on the table. I was scaring him.

I need to do homework, but I need to get this out.

Things are falling apart today - literally. I dropped a light bulb which shattered into the carpet, so I spent the last bit of my shift at work laying under my old desk picking up small shards of glass. 

Usually, when that happens, I’m aching to bury the shards in my veins. I felt more in control. It didn’t seem like the worst thing ever, but I’m not sure if I had just finally dissociated enough to break from it. 

Not long after, I broke the only straw I have for my favorite cup. I guess it’s more of a summertime cup anyway. As usual, suicide knocked at the door in response. Kind of literally - as he’s sitting at the table across from me. 

I don’t know if things are different in a safer or more dangerous way, but they are different, and that has to mean something, right?

I didn’t use the glass to self-harm at all. I know it could be because I’m moving past non-suicidal self-harm and back into the attempt stages, but also fuck that.

I want this to mean something. So it does. 

I’m working on fixing - or at least dealing with - the things I break.

I’m so afraid that I’m running out of words. 

My words haven’t changed things before. How could they now?

And another thing about words... People wonder why they didn’t leave a note. Why I didn’t leave a note the last time. Suicide is a silencing of the war. If you give air to the fire, you forfeit your last shred of ability to function. The only shred you need to kick the chair or pull the trigger. The last shred you need to cut the god damn right way for once. And deep enough.

My words didn’t change him. Any of them. They are who they were, just with more memories now. 

I carry the guilt of my misused silences in my childhood. I spoke scarcely to my abuser but never reached out to protect the ones below me. I was the oldest of the group. It was my job to raise them. At that point, no one else was. 

So yea. When I see your Facebook post about the fact that you also have PTSD from sexual abuse, I know who your abuser is. I know exactly who he is. I see his fingernails and the ever-chipping black polish. I hear his voice as if he’s still inside. We hear the same screams, the same moans. We have the same nightmares. 

But you don’t know that I’m the reason you have those nightmares. You were far too young to speak up. And I let you fall. 

And to the people who keep telling me I ought to be a mother. Who say it’s a non-negotiable part of my future. 

I’ve been a mother since I was 7. I’ve been failing at it for 13 years. 

I was the only person who could have kept those children afloat, but I guess we all have a bit of Dolores in us. 

Honestly, I’ve been too focussed on the guilt from my partner throughout this life. I hadn’t realized you’d share his legacy.

But again, I’ve stayed silent for so long. Where the hell would I even start with a suicide note? There’s too much. 

So know this, my children, I’m fighting for you by writing. I’m done failing you. I can’t take back your PTSD. I’ll take that guilt to my grave. It rests beside me in bed, I don’t see a life without it. 

I am sorry that I could not be successful in my motherhood. Just stay alive, that would be enough. The rest will come. 

Right, so two years ago this holiday was a complete disaster. I was dating a girl who treated me better than anyone else had. I actually had a fulfilling relationship, and I was okay (sometimes) about not being straight. I was self harming every couple of days or so as the fear came on about not being straight on a campus that allows nothing but heterosexual relationships. 

This year, it’s just... weird. I get incredibly suicidal any time I think about my gender identity. I wore my only button-down flannel today (fun coincidence with stereotypes), but I’ve worn this shirt throughout the gender spectrum. 

Sometimes, I don’t really identify as a girl. There are things that give me dysphoria that I know don’t really matter. Like, I’ll watch my boyfriend play video games and I’m like, ‘well fuck, I have no interest in these. I must not be boyish enough.’ I’ll study his muscle tone (especially his arms and abdomen) and cringe because mine looks and feels so different. I’ll watch the way he moves when he eats and stray from eating because I can’t make myself do it the same way. I watch him walk and try my best to move the same way. I watch the way his jaw clenches and spend hours staring in the mirror, trying to stress just the right muscles. 

It’s everything from the way he sits to his posture to the way his hands rest. He’s not the epitome of machismo - thank God for that. He has some neutral or feminine features. He’s beautiful. Seriously. (I need to stop before I full on gush about him.) I just feel far much more like I have to make up for my biological state. 

Another thing though is body image. I’ve got a binder, so my chest doesn’t worry me, but I also have an hourglass shape. Which is great for my feminine side like. Woo. Clothes are pretty much made to fit my form. But it sucks when I’m trying to pass. His torso is relatively even. Mine curves in much too far. His hips carry on the straight line; mine jut outwards. 

So with gender identity, I have no clue what I am. Or rather, I do have an idea, but I’m too afraid to face it. Rarely do I wake up after a Dan day without some new scar.

My sexuality is an entirely other thing. I’ve never had an orgasm, and I’m honestly a bit curious as to if I’m a person who physically can have one. I’ve had sex, but my brain doesn’t focus on the pleasure as much as the physical actions. It’s too scientifically focused. It’s a bit Sherlockian in that way. 

So am I ace? I don’t know. I’m too afraid to say because I’m worried it’s linked to my childhood traumas. If I go to a highly sexual place in my brain, I can feel his hands on me. I can see his disgustingly greasy hair. I can hear his voice. I can see his fingernails. 

I can see the videos he engrained in my memory. 

And then there’s the guilt around not being able to satisfy my boyfriend should I refrain from sexuality. He’s gorgeous. He’s caring. He’s gentle. He’s great for me. I don’t owe him anything, I know that. I just.. Yea. 

So yea... This is me coming out. I’m not in a good or defined place. I don’t have a flag to represent what I am. I don’t have a title. 

So I should be doing homework, but I’ve learned by now not to stop the muse from doing what it wants when it wants. I can’t get through this reading assignment without at least giving this new character some air. I can’t let another one die. 

Some backstory first...

I was a lonely teenager. By that, I mean I was lonely on a subconscious level. I didn’t have parents to talk to about deeper matters. My friends were too busy drinking, fucking, or self harming to do much else, let alone talk. My brain created people for me to communicate with. 

The best way I could explain it is as follows: My brain was a bed and breakfast. 

I didn’t invite people in. I just existed as a vacant place for people to stay and pass through. At first, I had a lot of young, white couples visit. They’d talk and smile and enjoy their time. 

I did what writers do and watched silently, paying attention to every move they made. I hate hunting, but if there’s a psychological form of it, I’m sure it would be found in the writing process. 

Diversity came as time passed. I had so many couples living inside my brain. They were all happy as long as I was able to watch and write them. My muse was anxious to provide itself any output accessible. 

... and then I started dating again. I’m not sure why things turn so violent when I start dating. Probably defense mechanisms or something. Who knows. I’m a writer; it’s how we write. 

I have to stress that I had no control over these couples. Sure, they lived in my brain, but I couldn’t reach them. I couldn’t so much as suggest a novel for them to discuss. But I couldn’t escape them, either. They were my reality. 

I distinctly remember the last couple I had visit before I made arguably my worst suicide attempt. 

They’d been visiting for a few months. I’d watched the woman grow a bit before the man came along, rugged and ready for basic training. Their relationship made me ache from its strength. God, I loved them. I watched their fears and joys as they started their family together. 

And then the man went off to war. He wasn’t even gone for long before news came back. KIA. 

My friend, one of my first creations, grieved so violently and for so long that she miscarried. So much blood... I have no clue how I went to class that day. Although, I think that’s the day I passed out walking into Spanish.

Soon after, I watched the woman hang herself. I was freezing sitting in the back of a van with my then-boyfriend. I attempted to blast music to keep her alive. If the volume could just be a little louder, maybe she’ll hear it. Maybe she’ll hang on. Yea, no. I don’t control the muse. The muse controls me. 

Anyway, I lost them. I watched every single visitor my subconscious had created for me go away. I didn’t expect them to return. 

I’m terrified of any new creations. 

Which is why I’m a bit terrified that my brain’s just conjured up a new one. He’s different than the others. He’s patient. He’s waiting to be written. He’s worried but calm enough. He’s a bit like a young Ned Vizzini - and yes, I know how that sounds. 

I can’t keep him trapped inside. I’m going to fight to keep this one alive. I’m back to constantly listening to music. It seems to help him. 

I don’t care what it takes. This one will live.

I fell in love with writing before I could physically form letters. I remember waiting impatiently every day before school started wanting to take the step I knew would set me free. I’ve always been advanced for my age, so I’m glad there were only two of us in that class; we had the opportunity to learn faster than others... much to my parents’ dismay.

Thankfully for my parents, they’d had their kids already. They had saved and stuffed tubs upon tubs of toys into the basement between workout equipment. They kept purchasing bookshelves to hold the overwhelming volumes we all loved. And just as I do now, I wrote. I wrote on everything. 

Don’t believe me? Walk through my parents’ house. If you find an object without the word “fox” scrawled in huge, poorly formed letters, I can guarantee it’s in the post-me generation of belongings. 

I didn’t have friends, but I had pets and things, so I took advantage of my resources. I had to share with the world what a magical thing it was to express ideas in shapes and symbols recognizable to so many other people!

My parents encouraged me to write like they’d never seen a child so excited. This is what I still love about writing. Everything became my muse. The world is a stage, certainly, but the show becomes your own. Maybe you can whisper a line or two to the actors on stage, but Hell be frozen if they actually listen to you. I write what I see. In short, life becomes beautiful and complex. Life enraptures the writer’s soul.

As a Kindergartener, I wrote fairly concrete stories. From scraps of old bulletins in my father’s cluttered office, I pushed out a story a day. Such exciting dramas as “The Sop Sin” can be found from that era.*

From four-paneled stories, I moved on to chapters. I climbed the five stories of stairs up to my mother’s law office and curled up in the corner with Rosie and wrote desperately about cowgirls and abandoned women finding their way home. 

I’m not proud of this stage of my writing; it was mostly anger and sadness-infused ramblings. As always, though, I wrote to communicate. I wrote to gain an audience for my fears. I didn’t care that Rosie was my audience. Dogs are the best audience one can have.

I filled my summers with an aggravating number of boys I met over the internet. I lost connections because I wouldn’t stop roleplaying as abused and physically broken women. God bless the men who stayed; their desperation for sex astounds me to this day. 

I couldn’t get my hands on enough journals. I filled a bookcase with lies about friendships I longed for, perfectly planned out steps to my death, and characters (created by yours truly) who wrote back to me pleading for me to hold on just a little bit longer. I wrote about boys and research and school. I wrote about my dogs and my fear of heaven. I plastered my brain onto paper. 

Why? Because I thought that maybe, if I could just write it down, that it would all exist. 

I started writing poetry in 3rd grade, but I didn’t immerse myself into it until 8th. From that point onwards, teachers pulled me out of state testing, out of quizzes and exams, out of lunch periods of after school programs to question my sanity and safety. Friends traced my drunken ramblings and marveled at how unhealthy I surely was.

I wrote to be free. I wrote to exist. Through their worries, I started waking up.

I wrote my story through depression. I wrote my suicide notes. (Look through my bookshelves. You’ll find tens of suicide notes jammed between books. I still have one in The Great Gatsby as a bookmark.) I wrote my abuse story. 

I don’t write because I love to hear my own voice. I write because it is my voice. I don’t write because I feel obligated to do so. I write because it’s how I breathe. 

People leave. Believe me, plenty of boyfriends left after the first instance of me sharing snippets of my writing. Dogs die. Parents neglect. But writing? Sure, the pages wither. The books lose their firm bindings. I don’t care. Writing lasts longer. 

Writing has saved my life. I wrote from darkness into safety. I wrote single words at first, and now I ramble on for pages. 

Writing has gained me scholarships. It’s gained me acceptance into special programs. It’s given me a home. It’s created a vessel through which I can express my care. 

As I face publishing my psychological research, I can’t forget this journey. Sure, I’m sharing scientific discoveries. I’m also expressing social justice aims through written word. 

As I face a writing workshop focussed on telling my abuse story, I gain back my pre-kindergarten excitement. Teach me to write! Teach me to form these words! Teach my soul to be free. 

Thank the Good Lord he’s given me more time, but I think I’ll keep writing like I’m running out of it nonetheless. 

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By the time I was 12, I was battling alcoholism. I lived in Baltimore with a friend who loved drinking nearly as much as I did. She was tiny, so I’m thankful I was the heavier drinker. We had open access to alcohol anywhere we went. Her parents kept their vodka and rum on the kitchen counter. My parents had given up being parents long before I was born and kept their alcohol anywhere it would fit. 

When I wasn’t popping pills, I was choking back alcohol. Meghan and I collected bottles and cans around our rooms like they were stuffed animals. About a year in, we stopped trying to hide things. Her parents never kept track of how much alcohol they had; they just started stocking up more regularly. They did what parents do; they fueled our fire. 

From the first drop, I knew why I was drinking. I didn’t need social lubricant. I didn’t want to feel ‘cool.’ I didn’t drink to have fun. I drank to die. I drank because I knew I was likely only X oz. away from freedom.

I couldn’t take naps, because I expected my abuser to come to my bed. I couldn’t sleep at night because his nails dug into my skin. I stopped eating. I stopped drinking. I stopped sleeping. 

I suspect things would be different if I started drinking now. For one, alcohol is even more accessible. I could hide away in an alley and drown everything in one night. 

Drinking as a young child was far different. I couldn’t drink fast enough. About an hour in, I lost control of my body. It was kind of like someone had taken me away from the control panel and placed me in front of a replica of it. I kept turning levers and pressing buttons, but not so much as a twitch returned my command. 

I lost movement before I lost consciousness. I remember laying under Meghan’s desk staring at the beer-stained carpet. The thing about alcohol (at least at this age) is that it drowns out the outside world, not the one inside. I lost contact. 

In those hours, it felt as if nothing else existed. I was on an obsidian planet by myself. Meghan stopped existing. Her house went away. The earth stopped spinning. 

I could hear my body breaking down slowly. My stomach churned cement. My brain stayed clear. 

I entered drunken rages against myself. I despised my existence. I can’t explain the extent of my despair. I’ve never felt it sober.

Eventually, alcohol became my guardian. My parents didn’t care; they had lives to live. Alcohol was there in the overwhelming silence of my house. I lost Meghan somewhere around a year in. We were no longer friends. We were just broken people who drank to unconsciousness and passed out near each other. 

I drank to get away from Jamie, but the alcohol tethered him to me. His hands groped my unmovable form. His voice resounded in my brain. His disgusting fingers found their way inside of me. 

Alcohol did absolutely nothing for me. 

I stopped drinking so heavily when we moved and replaced the missing alcohol with pills from our overflowing medicine cabinet. 

I needed this information out. I can’t edit it; I can’t spend too much time in this atmosphere. 

I just need to encourage my other prisoners to alcohol. If you’re thinking about drinking to die, don’t do it. It isn’t a quick death. It isn’t a painless or careless death. It’s a torture chamber. It is scores worse than whatever you’re fighting through.

Don’t drown yourself in the bottle. 

Keep fighting.

Keep living.

And then starting medication is worse. Because on one end, you know it’s not going to change right away, so you just try to deal with being a little nauseous and move on with your life but on the other hand, your mind is telling you constantly ‘woah wait we’re better now holy shit woo’ while it continues to send you even more vivid, unsettling dreams. It’s like the medication is seeping in to find your biggest fears and turning them against you, so why even sleep anyway? And you try to just keep working during the day so you can sleep at night, but the work never gets done. There’s too much of it. And after a while you’re doing homework over breakfast and dinner, you’re zoning out during class because your brain is rebelling, you’re doing homework in your dreams. You’re freezing and you want to just scream like you’ve always wanted to but you’re not free. Not free enough to scream. 

The depression slows down your brain to the point where you can’t participate or react to anyone. You can’t build friendships. And then your anxiety kicks in to let you know you have to participate, so you scramble. And the chair is just slightly too high and you’re always way too depressed to speak the first half of class anyway. 

This is going to be a short one. I’ve been reading this book for survivors of sexual abuse and I hate it. I hate every chapter of it. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than I hate this book.

Everything about it makes me more and more uneasy but I can’t stop. And here’s the thing. Giving this book to a survivor of sexual abuse is a terrible idea in and of itself because it can so easily become a way to self-abuse. 

I’ve titled this after the section I just read.

Truth be told, I can’t think well right now. Any time anyone opens the door to the apartment complex, I cringe with fear. I am literally filled with fear whenever anyone enters the building. I want to be alone. But no amount of alone time helps me.

Nothing acts as relief. Nothing at all. Alcohol does in the moment if I try really hard to shut everything else away. 

I don’t hate myself right now. I don’t. I just don’t feel like I’m inside my body. 

Dear God the urge to self harm is incredible. The urge to just break apart a razor or just.. Just get that huge knife from the kitchen and drag it just a little.

I can’t handle this tattoo any longer. I can’t handle the promise to always forever never self harm again.

Everything I’ve ever done has led up to this. This kind of feeling. This strength. 

Because God is there strength in the urge to self harm.

I feel anger.

Hey guys. I haven’t posted on here in a while and I can’t sleep, so I think it’s a good time to come back home.

I’m sure a few of you know I now run another public blog - Steps to Safety (which is here on Tumblr if you’re interested) which I link to Facebook. It’s supposed to be about recovering from PTSD, depression, and anxiety. I haven’t found the courage yet to share my story about my sexual traumas. That’s why I have this blog. More people actually read this one, but less people I know... So, hey guys. I’m back.

I’m currently in a class called Child Abnormal Psychology and it’s really shit sometimes. My professor is wonderful and I know he means no harm. I just actually cannot handle the class and feel that there is no escape. So... Here’s my hell week.

I became so preoccupied with the thought of how I would handle the lecture on child abuse (which will be in December) that I literally could not sleep. I was on the verge of complete breakdown, so I met with him. He was really great about it, but I’ll never get his look of pity out of my head. It drove me into a mental breakdown a couple days later. It’s basically been two weeks of mental breakdowns.

Depression has been really strong this week. I’ve basically been unable to function because depression has built up this huge brick wall between me and all my academics. Because of that, I’ve started getting B’s in my classes. I can’t do that. I can’t... I consider myself a failure with an AB. B’s are unheard of. 

But then this week’s classes happened.. We were talking about anxiety disorders and I knew it would come up. I knew PTSD would be involved; I had reviewed the material. And then it happened... Just hearing the acronym sent me into this weird state of not-being. I was somewhere in between that street with all the town homes and not existing at all. I tried to just focus on copying the letters from the screen into my notes, but the muscles in my hand stopped. I started sweating and my eyes got caught. I started shutting down. And I felt like there was no possible way I could leave the classroom - and literally all that had happened was the mention of PTSD and sexual abuse. And yea.. almost all of my trigger words were used in the space of 30 seconds... So that was unfortunate. But with words like “babysitter” and “vivid”... It’s a CHILD abnormal psych class. At least the former is going to come up often.

That was basically the last moment of clarity before all of this. So December is well.. a bit not good.

But another thing - because I can’t post this on my other blog, either. I did not realize until tonight how triggered by violence I am. At that same babysitting home, my babysitter would always have these really horrifically violent movies on. I still remember a movie that involved a lot of vomiting, a boat in which they were transferring an elephant, and this one scene... They were in the desert or something and this guy was in the middle of a circle of others. And someone swung around a rope and it decapitated him. The camera panned over to his head which continued to move for a moment or so. I’m never going to forget that. Be careful with what you show kids, yea?

I was trying to watch the new movie on Netflix with Idris Elba (didn’t actually know he was in it until he showed up but okay) and I lost it... It’s not a calm movie. There’s a lot of war violence. And it brought back all the feelings I had at daycare. 

But it was so thought provoking. So I wanted to keep watching. I just don’t want to kill myself trying.

The tattoo on my wrist begs me to never give up, but the fact that I missed not one but two dosages of my meds means I have to. I am defined by lithium, apparently. Its presence means bad days are only days in which I think about suicide but do not plan it. Bad days are days when suicide is there often, but does not beg to be chosen. 

Without Lithium, I am nothing. I am the essence of brokenness. I can create so much more without it. I can explore the depths of the valleys. I can ride the highest highs and crash to the ground soon after. Without Lithium, I am regret. I am anger. I am depression and suicidal ideation and loss.

Not even yoga has helped today. Not even Chandler can be found today. Tears cannot surface; they were frightened by their chemical jailers. 

My wrist demands that I live, but I desperately don’t want to.

For what is hope but chemicals? What are emotions but hormones? What is life but illusion and reality blended together and fermented for years before we open our eyes? 

For happiness is like drunkenness; it joins the night and leads to a painful, forgotten tomorrow.