Don't mind the bags under my eyes. Or how hollow they look when you look deep enough. Or the fact that my eyes are half glazed from medications, and half empty from pain. The pain is really bad, but it could be worse. I've been down this road before. What's hurting me this moment is my mental state, not my pain levels. I'm trying every trick I know to keep myself as present as I can be. Because everything inside me wants out today. It doesn't help today is the inauguration of Trump. I'm not someone who can pretend this guy doesn't look like a train wreck straight to hell. My friends are all scared and horrified. Except for the odd ones who support him, and confuse me to no end. How can anyone support someone who has no real respect for human life? He's an abuser. Classic behavior. I have spent my whole life trying to get away from his kind, and instead I find myself being in a country ruled by one.
But I'm Okay right?
Yeah I got nothing to worry about. Just struggling to have my dreams in a world set on crushing them before they even start. I'm crying a lot this week. For frustration, for mourning, for even having normal reactions to too much stress. I can barely survive day to day, and I'm living in a really shitty situation right now I can't fix easily because guess what: EVERYTHING COSTS MONEY. All hail the almighty Trump Dollar. I'm just over reacting...
I'm totally Okay.
I just had to take extra seroquel last night because of how manic depressive I am right now. I started hearing voices again. That's a scary place to be. So I did what you do when a flare up of your bipolar happens and it scares you: You take more drugs. Then those drugs numb you down to the core and you sleep all the time...
I think I'm Okay...
But I also think about horrible things that haunt me like ghosts. I think too much right now. On all levels. I have a laundry list of things to do and it feels like more things get tacked on then taken off. I am fighting off another nervous breakdown, because now would be a really bad time to be hospitalized again. I'm slowly trying to dig my way out of this mess I am in, but I'm not even at half battery. I'm not even sure I still have a battery to charge.
I'm not Okay.
And that's just fine. I'll take it day by day until I really am Okay again. Today is just not that day.
Today has been a horrible day after a fantastic weekend. I let my reckless desires come out and I danced among them. I fell smitten for another beautiful boy who is equally as queer as I am. I showed him my feral, chained beasties and he wanted more. He pampered me, gave me gifts, sang to me. He made me believe I could do this again. Do the poly thing and open my steel doors of my inner world. Open so completely, all the bats fly out and the demons escape from hell.
Because my heart is a wasteland. And my body is the cracked, desecrated earth my dreams lay barren on. I am a thing stitched together with madness and horror. Nothing grows in my fields.
Sometimes I hate myself so completely it takes all my scraps of willpower to not fucking blow it all up.
My heart is a wasteland from all the nukes I drop on it.
It's been a while since I wrote. And for good reason. I'm struggling to not go hollow inside. I want to succumb to my artwork, to be possessed by inspiration and creativity. I want the muses to take me and ride my skin like a battle horse.
But there is always a cost. The closer I am to magic, the more insane I become. Hanging on to reality is already a Herculean feat. And this month is like a play-by-play in my head of Kweeny's Horror Stories: The Christmas Special!
A lot of terrible shit is bubbling up from the rivers of poison in my wasteland. Flashbacks, fibro flares, nightmares, no sleep, nerve pain, panic attacks...you name it. I'm a fucked up Kweenybeast right now. I'm fragmenting too. Dissociation is a bitch. Been reaching out to trusted folks for anchors in the storm. I feel like I cant stuff it all back in once I open the puzzle box. The demons inside wait for me to drop my guard before they tear my world apart.
I dont think I could date anyone who cant ride some storms with me and hold my hand while we crash against the rocks. I need my lovers to be just as fierce as me, so when I test them unfairly for the ghosts who tried to destroy me, they dont run for the hills. So when I finally drop my armor because I cant be the strong one all the time, they dont trash my bleeding heart with carelessness.
I'm fighting the urge to nuke this new, budding relationship I've started. And it was me who asked him. Though he might have been thinking the same thing towards me. But my mental illness won't let me trust even that.
Things have been rough around here, especially financially. Moving to Seattle took a lot of out of us, and we have very little family support to boot. Living in our tiny apartment costs more than it's worth. Debt collectors keep calling me to remind me I owe them money for being in the hospital last year, our car needs repairs, I need a job that pays at least 800 dollars a week, but I can only work from home due to the pain levels I am in, and I am opening my very own online shop with things I make with my own hands.
Life has been rather stressful you might say.
In a fair world I could just make art for a living and live off that. But I'm not stupid. I know I need to find something real soon, because things cannot go on this way. Having people nag me about it only makes me angry and gets nothing solved. I know what's going on. I'm not blind to it. I know somehow we need money, and I don't want to end up in the hospital again because I tried to do a job in the outside world. I can't get disability in this country because I have never had a job here. I spent my working years in Canada. I live in the weirdest grey area you can get, trying to scrounge what I can where I can. I might have to start a fundraiser, but I don't like begging for money. I want to earn it. It's why I made my business to begin with. It's something I can offer in exchange for that paper shit. I am not broken because I have chronic illness. I just have to find alternative ways to get funds. If anyone has helpful suggestions on what I can do to supplement the art gig, please let me know. Things are getting desperate.
On the positive side of things: I am happy to report I am days away from my shop Marrow Minded Crafts opening! I am nervous, because anything like this takes so much work to get off the ground, but I am happy as well. I get to do something I enjoy doing, that makes others happy! YES! I love my little shop, and I am happy with all the commissions I've made for others. Now it's time to branch out. Making things makes me feel empowered and creative. When I think of something I want to try, I just do it now, instead of agonizing about it. Maybe I am just done dreaming. Dreaming is important, but don't get stuck doing only that. Dreams take work. You need to commit to your dreams, and even if it takes years in the making, don't give up.
Things are going to get better. Because I demand it. #dontfuckwiththequeen
I'm sitting here listening to one of my favorite spoken word poets, Shane Koyzan. Every time I hear his poem To This Day, I cry.
Except today.
I'm numb to the very core of my being. It's how I can cope with the whirlwind of emotional and physical crap I am dealing with right now. I was dumb yesterday, having had a wonderful visit with a friend then trying to nap to get some spoons back. I ended up with less spoons than I started with, which was a bummer. So I totally forgot until I had to go take my dose for the evening, that I needed to get my refill on my drugs.
It happens to everyone once in a while. But when it happens to me, I get super fucked up.
My hands are trembling so bad, I feel like I am coming off of crack. This is the price I pay, among other symptoms. My life is full of warning labels and chemicals. Sometimes, they make me feel empty. I feel like that now. I had some mania this morning. I woke up earlier than normal and had a had time getting to sleep. I spent most of the day doing chores to burn off the mania, which was causing flares throughout my body because everything is connected. It really is true that if your mind isn't stable, your body wont be either. Especially if like me, you are super sensitive.
I hate that I need chemicals to function. I hate that I sometimes live in fear of the day my drugs run out. I hate that I can't just fucking be a functional human being. I had to go through a lot of mental bullshit to get to a point where I am now. I used to fear drugs of any kind. Even Tylenol was scary to me, until I started hurting in ways that make you loose all sense of dignity and pride. I do what I have to now to stay stable. My personal war keeps me fighting for my health and sanity.
But when I am numb like this, I force myself to say something, anything, and be heard. Because I need to be. I need to know I am not alone. That this shit happens to other Chronic Illness Warriors too. The loneliness gets to be too heavy. Sometimes the horrible shifting between beast and beauty leaves me with nothing left to give. I lie in the wasteland of my suppressed tears and wish something would give enough that I could feel a release of the pain. Just a little. I will take any little bit of peace right now.
Today I feel a callous on my heart. And I don't have the tools to deal with it. So I will ride it out to the bitter end, where I will probably be on my yoga mat weeping. Maybe tomorrow.
I did something really weird today. It took until now for me to get reminded what today was. I was going along having a pretty good day. I hung out with one of my best buds, I laughed over stupid memes and bad jokes with folks. I got to have a great dinner with great people. I even had some awesome animal moments with the Katface and my snakes.
I was feeling a little anxious, but I couldn't put my finger on why. Everything seemed pretty great...
Then Facebook Memories reminded me of this post: http://chronicwerewolf.blogspot.com/2015/06/dearly-departed.html
It's the anniversary of my mother's suicide....shit.
I actually forgot for a moment there. I lived my damn life and had a good time. I have been a bit numb lately, but that wasn't connected to anything. Just something that happens after a manic spiral, and I get really tired easily. Been sleeping a lot, though not restfully. It feels like chasing a dragon I can never catch...
But that is just a day in the life for me. My feelings are not connected to my mother.
And I refuse to feel bad about it.
So I forgot. I don't have to honor her. She wasn't an honorable person, and she never added anything good to this world. She doesn't NEED to be remembered all the time. I don't have to torture myself with horrible memories of how she failed me as a mother. I'm owning my shit, the same shit she threw in my face like refuse. I am loved, in ways she couldn't even fathom. I am strong, and I use the darkness she and many others beat into my soul as healing and hope for others. I don't give up. I have suicidal thoughts, even recently, and I wrestled those demon voices down. I will not be devoured by my internal hydra. I will keep cutting the heads off until there are no more voices left to destroy me.
I am glad I was distracted enough by love so I didn't dwell on hate. I'll do something special for myself later to remind myself I am worth it. I won't let the darkness take me down. Not today. Especially not today.
This has been one of my mantras for as long as I can remember. I am an independent creature, sometimes rather fiercely. I used it as one of my many coping mechanisms against a world that let me down all the time. My mother let me down, my sister, her lovers who pretended to be dads, teachers, mentors, etc. Etc...
People have let me down a lot.
But not everyone. I have had a few, very special people enter my life and stay there. No matter how far away I moved, or what crazy thing I did. They loved me, despite myself. But they weren't trying to save me. They weren't trying to cure me or manipulate me or any other bullshit of that variety. They came and stayed, even when I proudly and defiantly tell them I don't need them.
Because I don't need them. I want them in my life.
And I need myself more than anyone else.
"I'm a survivor. I am a fighter..."
Which is true. I wear my scars like medals of honor. I have seen and done shit they write battle sonnets about. I have seen the SHIT. And I live to tell the tale.
And that's what I plan to do. Tell my tales. No matter who is listening. I am more selfish about that now, and that's on purpose. I have to be a little selfish and accept that I am being so. Because otherwise I might bottle it up inside me and let it fester.
Sometimes you gotta purge. It's natural and okay. Sometimes, you have to release all those ghosts. They haunt you, and the longer you leave them, the louder they wail. Mine go from wailing into screaming real easy. So I gotta purge the darkness, so I am not consumed by it.
I don't play in the sun much, so I gotta be careful not to bake in the light.
Right now I am reflecting on what self care means, and how to reconcile it with my ideas of "warriors". To be a warrior is to be authentic in every aspect of your life. From the charming, comfy parts, to the twisted, horrific parts. Everything makes up the warrior, and the warrior makes up everything. Because my brain is a little abnormal, I dissociate and compartmentalize a lot of shit. It's how I survived.
I'm slowly getting good at teaching my inner warrior to do self care. It's not easy, because of how my warrior was shaped. That part of me was taught to be mercenary. It was taught to be nasty, ruthless, and stone cold. Hot tempered, undisciplined, and outright vicious, this is how I survived a lifetime of abuse. There is a lot of toxic masculinity in my warrior. Ideas like, "Only Bitches cry." "Fuck your excuses fat ass get up!" "It doesn't hurt that much." "You really wanna lie under blankets all day? Pussy."
Yeah, I nicknamed her the Sargent for a reason.
"I will fall, and rise above. Cuz in your hate, I find love..."
I'm slowly working to show her more positive role models. Things like warrior Queens, the power of yoga, swimming, and enjoying femininity while still being strong. It's not her fault she is like this. Someday, I might get into why, but I can't right now. Those stories are hard stories for even me to tell.
Teaching myself to learn self care, has been a challenge. But I am determined to learn it. Any time I am determined about something, it means I am serious. I am stubborn once I make up my mind to do something. I will always find a way to get it done.
And hanging around such awesome folks lately has taught me I am not doing a good job taking care of the Kweenybeast. And I should probably work on that. Monday's experience has taught me much.
So this is the general skinny of what happened Monday: I finally got to hang out with some awesome folks. I love these people. They are hilarious, kind and fun. The moment Bear and I showed up it felt like coming home, while still feeling a little weird. Just that surreal feel I get when things seem way too awesome to be real. I have built my own castle in the land of Weird, so I can handle weird. I can't handle so well feelings of Unreality. So I was a little disoriented, and then my body flared up. Oh yeah. Full on flare. It was already doing that to me for two days before this visit. I was just having a bad pain time. But I decided my loneliness was greater than my fibro, and went out anyway.
When the fibro flare it, I instantly regretted my choice. I thought, "Fuck me! Now what the fuck am I gonna do? I am so useless..." and as I am thinking this, my dear Little Sis took me by the hand and said, "Okay, we are going over here now. There's a big fluffy couch, and you can put your music on and rest."
Because of how she did it, I responded well. There was kindness in her voice, and no challenge. She didn't trigger my wounded pride, and just took me to where I could have privacy. I'm not used to someone understanding what I need, even before I figure it out. She just knew. Of course, she has fibro too, so that helps. When I am around friends who have chronic illness, they treat me better than I treat myself. All night, people took care of me. Once everyone at the party knew what was happening, I could let go. My inner warrior gets really protective when I flare. And she is a really intense presence. She will step in front without a blink if I need it.
But I am a proud creature. I don't like being vulnerable at any point in time. But I let it all go when I realized I was safe. That this was a safe place, and these were safe people. Not only that, they CARED I was in pain. They offered me blankets when I was cold, water when I was thirsty. When I started to get lonely downstairs I came and sat in the kitchen, and they put pillows under me and fed me.
They fucking spoiled me.
And that's the thing I am processing right now. Was that really them spoiling me? Or maybe I deserve this kind of treatment? Maybe I need a reminder I don't have to solider on all the time. Sometimes I loose myself in being strong. I'm afraid if I let go, I will fall apart like a house of cards. That people will see right through me to how horrible I really am. Sometimes I fear if I show weakness, I will be exploited again. I lost my last friend group over a year ago, and they never treated me like this. I had to prove myself with them. Constantly proving I was strong enough, stable enough, funny enough, creepy enough. It was tiring. And the moment I needed them they scattered like roaches.
But not these people. They were kind to me. They made me question how I self care. Because maybe I need a reminder that I can make my moments magical. That my needs are important. I don't have to prove myself. All my weirdness, all my mental and physical limitations...
I believed these words all my life. Before I ever saw Hellraiser or read Hellbound Heart. It's probably why when I read Clive Barker's book, I felt it resonated with me.
But this isn't about that. This is about Tears. Those wet, droplets of humanity that roll down our faces. Everybody cries. But not everyone cries with respect for their tears.
I have spent the last few days crying off and on. From soft, quiet tears that roll down burning cheeks to heavy, deep sobs that wrack my entire being in their power. Tears that have been plugged up for weeks, maybe even months. Tears I should let out more often.
I've had a lot of good reasons to cry. Around this time last year I was put in the hospital 3 times because my mental state was "unstable." I went through a lot, and I am working through the pain. And there is a lot of pain. Pinhead wouldn't be able to even touch the levels of pain I have endured, and I would laugh at his efforts of trying to break me.
But I was raised to fear my tears. To hate them. To feel shame when they rolled down my cheeks. Sometimes I even felt betrayed by them. A sure sign of my weakness. Of my face slipping. Of my composure breaking. It was part of my abuse. And because of that, I hated them with every fiber of my being.
When I grew up, my tears were used as a weapon. From my early years where my mother used them to beat me more, "Stop your crying or I will give you a reason to cry!" My rapists used them to dehumanize me and fetishise what they did. They'd laugh at my pain and get off on it, until I stopped crying and made them face my rage. As they held me down or forced me to do things, I'd glare at them with such venom, Jennifer from I Spit On Your Grave would fear me. Later in life when my lovers would tell me I was being "Too emotional"whenever it suited them to bail out of dealing with me, I would blame myself. Because crying always made things worse. It didn't matter the reason for crying. Tears have always been used against me.
So I tend to cry alone. I can fully feel them that way. And you really, truly need to cry sometimes. Even if you feel weak for doing it after.
I didn't cry until years later when my mother died. Not healthy, grieving tears. Sometimes angry tears slide down my face but they aren't the tears one needs to move through grief. They are a good opener, because my rage for many years was my shield against the shitty crap life threw at me. but angry tears feel like a betrayal. Any time I cry in public, I feel rage. These days, it's just shame, but I still get angry for feeling that shame. Because no one should feel bad for crying.
Crying is normal. Crying means you care. It's okay to care.
In a world where we are told conflicting things like, "I am cold and rational, therefore I am better than you...", having FEELS is a joke. Feelings are boiled down to a meme and a punch line, because no one wants to deal with them. Even people who feel too much like me. And being bipolar, I feel too much. I am on drugs to regulate my feelings, because my emotions aren't normal. I have a chemical imbalance that sometimes people use to explain me away. I can flip from complete cold asshole to raging crazy person depending on if I am manic or not. But I don't let the drugs mute me. I take what I need to stabilize, and no more. So I can have some rationality back. But I am careful to not let others tell me how to feel ether. Even my doctors. And I refuse to have my feelings belittled anymore. Boiled down to sayings like, "What are you, on your rag?"
Even if I am, I have the right to cry. My periods fucking suck thanks to PCOS. There is a reason I call it my "monstrous moontime." Everyone feels, even those who claim they are above it all.
Everyone feels. We all have chemicals in our brains that cause us to feel. Ignoring this fact does a disservice to yourself.
When you've suffered as much loss and heartache as I have, you have to fight to reclaim the parts of you they took. The parts you tossed out of yourself. Sometimes you have to reclaim those parts over and over until it sticks. The ugly tears. The raging wailing. The punching of pillows. The feelings of being small and helpless. You learn to allow yourself to feel fully. The deep pains as well as the surface stuff. You learn to forgive yourself for mistreating your tears. You learn to stop being "macho" to hide your sensitive, hellbound heart.
It's not a waste of good suffering. Tears make suffering more meaningful.
"When one has not had a good father, one must create one." - Nietzsche
I came from a broken home. And when I say it was broken, I mean the universe took the biggest hammer it could find and slammed it, over and over, into my life. The hammer hasn't really let up either, I just learned to endure it better. I'm sure Thor is getting tired of his hammer going missing.
So for me growing up, I had to make my own heroes. While girls around me drooled over the newest boy band, I was listening to Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, and David Bowie. I was reading books and comics by Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker and Stephen King. I was finding people in the entertainment industry to look up to. They would likely never meet me, but that wasn't the point. When you hear a song that sounds like a familiar place in time, it can change your life. One song, could bring a whole world of magic into your life. That's what good music does. And good is what you make of it, not what other people tell you is good.
When someone I looked up to, even in the smallest way dies, it hurts. It hurts really deep. Today they announced Allen Rickman's death. Another one bites the dust thanks to Cancer. I am getting really tired of the sound of that word. Cancer sounds like a worse curse word than Fuck at this point. I've lost so many to cancer myself, and have friends struggling with it. Watching them fight is hard, and it makes me feel so many tumultuous things. It's a terrible illness. Just chews people up and spits them all over the cosmos. The bright ones still shine long after they are gone, reminding us that we choose how to go out when the curtain calls. Bowie worked right up until the end. That was not a man planning death. That was a man squeezing the last drops out of life.
I've lost people in my own life to Cancer, and know plenty more who are fighting it. Seeing so many of our heroes in the music, film, and the horror industry die is just hard to carry. I've gone numb today because of it. But the numbness made it so I could write this post right now. I haven't been able to write anything coherent in a while.
My father left me before I was born, and from then on I had a string of men come and go. My mother's luck with men seemed rather shitty. If they weren't abusive fucks to her, they were to me. One guy even adopted me when I was 6, only to drop me like a hot rock when my sister was born. So I didn't really have a father. I looked out into the world and people like Robin Williams filled the void. Never completely, but enough that I could endure my life and not completely hate men. I grew being beaten, humiliated, degraded and raped by men. So to me, my heroes were the closest feeling to family I have ever known. And I know how sad that sounds.
Some people have what they call "Geek Husbands". People they admire and have a little lusting for. I will admit if a man is attractive to me, but I tend towards being attracted to women. That's just how I work. I think I have more Geek Wives than husbands. But I have a pantheon of Geek fathers/uncles. Men who showed me how to embrace my gender fluidity. People like Bowie who taught me through song to "Embrace the Strange." I needed that guidance. I sure as hell wasn't going to get it from the men that lived in my mothers drug house.
When there was nothing else, I looked to the stars. I didn't need a mortal, flawed father. Not as a child. Something otherworldly was needed. To teach me to embrace my strangeness. Growing up, I cared about my Geek Father's more as people than just ideas. They fleshed out and felt like old friends I had never met. They were good to me when the world was not. I'm sure living as a star isn't easy. Especially when you are dying or mentally ill. So seeing my heroes struggle like I do, actually made me connect all the more to them. Robin Williams for a long time was my biggest hero because of his living with bipolar. But when he died, it devastated me. I am still not over it. When they locked me up last year in the mental hospital, I had pictures of Robin Williams in my sketch book my husband brought for me. I had ripped them from a magazine and tucked them among the pages of my book.
You never know who is going to shape your life. And you never know how long they will be with you. Gods die. We dont want them to and we sure as hell can't believe it when it happens, but they do. They die and turn to stardust, leaving their legacy behind.
If I can leave behind even a fraction of that kind of talent and gift to the people I care about, then I've lived a good life. And I look forward to the day I can hang with my Geek Fathers again.
I have learned much since being diagnosed with both mental and physical ailments. I have had some hard, painful lessons, and some inspiring ones. I know I have become stronger, in a way I always wanted to be but couldn't. It's hard to be truly strong when you are out of control of your own life. I honor and respect old me for trying to do it all alone, but that version of me wasn't ready to heal and move on. Riding out a bipolar swing is like trying to ride a stallion horse. It's near to impossible. But I tried, and though I failed many times, I still managed to do better than when I was on the streets or living at home in the "crack house."
But my many experiences, especially this year, have shown me I do have real strength. Not just toughness and pride. I came out of a traumatic spiral and I am still me. In fact, I think I am a better me. I went through hell in that hospital, and for a bit I lashed out because of it. The people who understood just how difficult it was for me to find a new normal, stuck around. Those who didn't...well, they couldn't understand. You have have a full blown psychotic break to understand what I went through earlier this year. I forgive them. And I know I don't need them for the future.
Most of all I forgive myself. How was I expected to be able to handle emotional storms when I just got on medication for a life-long mental illness I didn't know I had? How was I expected to be the Kweeny they loved when they were now different to my eyes? Plus, I was facing my own demons down. Every hospital visit, every therapy session, every time someone told me, "Don't stop taking your pills." On top of all this, I was trying to figure out why I was in so much pain and what was wrong with me. And I was struggling with doctors who didn't believe me, people I had to fight with to get to see a specialist who DID diagnose me. I had lot on my plate. And somehow I came out of it more whole than I have ever been.
I am truly thankful that chronic illness and metal illness forced me to learn to cope better. I don't sweat the small stuff now. If I have a flare up either emotionally or physically, I use my new support network. I talk to my husband. Somehow we are even closer still, because we are aware of each others issues more. He is amazing and cares for me daily. I in turn, do the same. Hell, he's seen me on bad days still attempt to feed him, because it means a lot to me to do so. It's my way of thanking him daily.
But learning how to self care has been a hard but rewarding experience. I am getting better, everyday with coping. I know pain is a constant in my life, but I try to limit how much power pain has over me. I do whatever I need to so I can find my calm in the storm. I have even started doing things I consider "comforts" more. For example: I have a stack of tea. I love tea, but I never really make it for myself. I just horde it in my cupboard like it will not be replenished otherwise. This is a negative mindset for me. Tea reminds me of my grandfather. We had tea all the time at his house, and I miss him terribly. I think I was hoarding the tea because I thought if it was gone, he would be gone too.
Now I make tea for myself almost daily. Especially teas friends have given me. I smell it, I savor those beautiful moments with my friend and my grandpa, and I honor myself by drinking it.
It's a little thing, but it helps.
I am moving into a new stage in my life. I can feel it. I am super appreciative of the moments I can share with my friends and packmates. Every moment is precious now. Also, I am more mellow than I have ever been, and I am more at peace. There are still things that haunt me, as some shadows linger longer than others, but I am strong enough to say I need help when they appear. I am the warrior of my own heart. Because sometimes, you need to take up the sword and do your own cutting.
I've been a really moody bitch all week, and despite myself, I have set parts of my life on fire and salted the earth. It was an extreme reaction from me, and I realized my bipolar is flaring up right now. Despite the meds. Lots of stressors are pulling at me to help with the flares I am having physically and mentally, and when I saw what tomorrow was going to be, my mood the last few days has made perfect sense.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of my mother's suicide. And I am wondering which part of me is deciding this year it's going to hurt. I mean, I always remember the day they found her, not the day they buried her. I sometimes even get the months mixed up. Some years I pretend nothing happened, others I flip out and lock myself away. I'm so messed up I can't even grieve about my mother like a stable person.
But I do grieve. And I always will.
You never get over a suicide. Especially since she was one of my main abusers growing up. Growing up with her taught me you had to scream to be heard, you had to fight to make the pain stop, and you can't trust anyone. Family is a comforting delusion other people get to have. No one will take care of you but yourself. And if I stayed in her house for too long, I'd become an addict and a monster too.
My mother was 41 when she died. She had enough drugs in her to kill an elephant when they found her dead in her hotel room. She did it in a place I had fond memories of before the incident, Niagara Falls. I used to love watching the rushing water. Forces of nature are amazing to me. I recall Houdini went over the Falls in a barrel once. I try to focus on that now.
I have speculated why she did it several times, but I honestly will never get that answer. It's just another mystery, like so many things in my life, that most people don't have to deal with. And the thing that really makes grief about my mother hard is that there are no real good times to fall back on. I have a memory here or there, but I can tell you they would fit on less than 5 fingers if we counted them. Which is a sad, horrible state of affairs. My mother was not a happy person, was untreated for all sorts of mental disorders, and was usually on more drugs than she needed. I'm sure she was probably trying to self medicate, because there was shit wrong inside her body as well as her mind. When they did the autopsy on her, they found growth on her bones. She used to try to scare me and tell me, "One day Kweeny, your body will betray you too. You'll get sick like I am. And your life will be all pain."
She wasn't right often, but when she was...
When I broke my tailbone it felt like my mother's curse had come full circle. Like I couldn't escape a life of pain and madness. And when I went into the hospital this year, it shattered me. I have had a hard time returning to my core self since. I wake up in drug hazes, I go to sleep in drug hazes. I have cold sweats and nightmares. I wake up in horrible pain that makes me grit my teeth every morning. I am a pariah to some, to others, just a moment in time. I still have bipolar swings, and I am not happy with how I am coping.
So I am not okay this year.
A friend suggested I draw, but my pain about my mom might make that actually physically too much for me to bear. My mother never supported my creative pursuits. I told her I wanted to be in a band, she laughed at me and told me I was too ugly. When I drew things for her, she would only point out their flaws and tell me to quit trying...
Sometimes she literally beat the dreams out of me.
But I am going to try finishing my painting I started the other night. Even if the voices are really loud tonight and my pain is really intense. I will see how far I can get before I just cant do it anymore. The painting is emotionally relevant to what I am dealing with right now.
My husband shared an interesting observation on what he thinks Bipolar might feel like in a depressive episode.
"Have you ever lost a loved one? You know that deep, devastating soul-crushing pain that comes with that? Imagine you have that for no reason, all the time."
Well fucking said.
We watched a documentary together called, "Up/Down" which is something people who live with Bipolar and people who want to understand the condition should watch. I have been diagnosed with Bipolar 1. I had severe mania, and I was hospitalized three times because I could not stop spiraling when the meds wore off. Drugs induced a very scary episode, but I was Bipolar for years before this. I just was trying to handle it myself, and after my mother killed herself, I don't think I had ever been the same. I think I should have gotten help then, but I refused, because I am a strong willed person. I didn't want to be like my mother. She was mentally ill, and self medicated with many drugs. She got worse and worse, and I had to run away from home for my own safety. Being in her house with her growing up was a horror show. If she wasn't beating the living crap out of me, I was being raped by strangers in her house. She sold drugs on the side, and while she made lots of money, it all went back into her drugs. I grew up surrounded by crazy, I figured I could handle my own shit better than that.
But I couldn't. For years I have been struggling with many ailments. I am in chronic pain, mentally and physically. My years of struggling with conditions I hadn't wanted to deal with has worn on me. People don't realize how hard it is to live with all these things. I was touched while I slept so for years I couldn't sleep with anyone, and that includes myself. When the mania hits I used it to create art and tried desperately to make it worth something.
But I can't do that anymore. I'm as stable as I have ever been in my life. I still get moments, and my chronic pain is still very strong. At least now I don't have too many paranoid moments, I don't live in fear of the world all the time, and I can even sleep most nights. And now I know the difference between having a manic moment and having a flare up from pain. Because in the past, my mania would trigger flare ups of pain that I honestly felt like I was dying it hurt so badly. I was hospitalized once because I wrote a note in fear of dying, and they thought it was a suicide note. But I have been suicidal in the past. Many times.
I think when people hear you have conditions like Bipolar, you find out who your real friends and loved ones are. Sometimes people who said they were pack and will love you forever, leave. They can't handle being around you. Because it is a hard condition to live with, for both the person afflicted and the people in their life. People can walk away from the person in the episode, but the bipolar person CAN'T. We have to endure it, and ride it out. It reveals some scary parts of the person afflicted, and I can't remember things, and what I do remember is horrible and nightmarish. But my Bipolar isn't ME. It is something I endure. Something that is added to the list of issues I have been carrying around my whole life. I do what I can to make my life better. I take responsibility for the actions I commit while having an episode, and I believe I am more than a list of ailments. When I was in therapy my therapist told me he knew I wanted better for myself. He saw it in how I described myself. I would tell people I was an artist, a writer, an aspiring filmmaker. I told people I painted bones and such, and would give them my business card and show them pictures. THEN I talked about my issues. It gave him hope, because he knew I wasn't letting myself be defined by my illnesses. I wasn't ignoring them, because that is not helpful either, but I refuse to be only Chronic Illness.
The Highs and Lows have prices, and I am not willing to pay them anymore.
If you are curious about the documentary that spurred this can be found here. I want people to learn what this condition is really about. There is a lack of understanding and fear of the unknown. I am lucky I have some supportive people, but I still have faced stigma.
