theyvare one and the same. a double barrelled shotgun to my soul

he is she. they bith trigger me. and i think i was so desperate to make it work with him as a substitute for the eternal brokeness i share with her.

years of microaggressions have taken their toll. i fight daily to have the workd acknowledge and respect me. i come “home” and shod feel safe and acknowledged abd all of that. instead it is another battle.

weary soldier lay down your weapons and cease to fight.

don’t worry. i am ok. this is no veiled threat of causing injury or death. just spitting out the poison I have been holding in my mouth.

to go (to wordpress) or to stay

iam thinking about moving to wordpress. mainly i dislike not having an iphone app available for easy posting. even using the google broswer with the site is cumbersome.

 but I am sentimental and this place has emotional significance to me. Maybe I will just suck it up. Actually I probably will just suck it up. The darkness makes me too lazy to actually work at it .

sometimes i come here just to sit

sometimes I visit my blog, like it is not really mine, like it is some old relative that will tell the same old stories over and over again.

sometimes i come just to reassure myself that i don’t feel THAT BAD. limefeeli g bad but not that bad is some kind of victory. how ludicrous is it that the darkness has conditioned me to accept someoarts of it as simply ok?

i am hoping this is temporary. hoping it is just pms. hoping it is just the beginning of the changes.

but so ething really dark came to light during this episode. i am
hoping to have the courage to discuss it.

but right nowI just want the strength to crawl out of bed.

and so I begin again

Well you knew I would be back right?

The key question now is what will this place be? Do I feel free enough to be me and be upfront?

See lately I have once again being chastised for being me. I kind of want this to be my outlet but then I kind of fear letting it out. I could just write a private diary but let's be real -- the recognition/interaction/acknowledgement of my pain considering most times in my life I have to keep it as hidden as possible is nice. It makes me feel not so alone and makes me feel understood.

I don't know. I am truthfully tired of myself. Nothing is any different. Same old complaints/issues.

Maybe I won't begin again.

Maybe I'll just sit until this passes.

-c

boy did money do a number on me

I have been insecure about money since my grandfather died; his death left us financially vulnerable. I did not know at the time that this would happen. It was only in adulthood that I made the correlation. I do know that my mother's spending, her secrecy and her lying made me worry about money. Then there was being forced to drop out of college unexpectedly because the bill didn't get paid.

None of that curtailed my spending habits which I learned from mom. I mistook desire for need. and then I ended up in bankruptcy.

Since then I have lived a frugal existence (except for food). Part of it is that on the books I don't really make enough money. Yet it seems that mom has expendable cash and is willing to help that.

I really need to start paying attention to my look. Part of it is my weight and my desire to make myself repulsive so I don't have to deal with the inevitable Borderline explosion that happens in relationships.

I don't know... I don't know... I don't know.

in a few short hours

mom has been living with me on weekends. yeah, that woman who is at the source of most of my issues., the one person who sets of my rage in almost uncontrollable manners. so we are moving to a larger place.

she is getting older. she doesn't like living alone. i am her only child. so i will forsake my hard fought for sanity.

this apartment complex has been freedom. i left her house and the insanity it represented 14 years ago and i escaped here.

oh yeah and i finally think i may have damaged my friendship with cmh enough that he will walk away. yeah i am that good. funny thing about that... i am kind of happy. i just want to be left alone and he always reminds me that i self sabotage all of my efforts to be happy. every time i look at him or his name on the text/email screen all i am reminded of is that i am a fuck up and someone else knows it.

my truths whispered in the darkness

1. i am afraid to lose weight. my rationale is that when i am fat, there is no mistaking what you are getting even when i am fully clothed. lose the weight and you can look ok in clothing and then unwrap it. well the person standing there looking at you feels duped.
2. i am afraid to date for rejection
3. worse than the rejection, i am afraid to date that it might interfere with cmh deciding he wants to be with me. yeah i have halted my life waiting for him. even though i lie to him and myself saying i am not in love with him.
4. i don't know that i am in love with him. i fear that it is just a remnant of the desperate feelings i felt when i was young when i wanted someone, anyone to rescue me from myself and my life.
5. i am not sure i actually feel anything. sometimes i feel like i am not experiencing emotions but only applying well learned reactions to various events in my life.
6. i binge eat in secret to avoid everyone's comments on my food intake/choices.
7. i believe that i am simply committing suicide in a slow passive aggressive method by not caring about my health enough to change despite warning signs or perhaps i want the attentions and sympathies that come with suffering.
8. in my mind's eye i believe that i would fix all that i need to fix if i found the loves of my life (a mate and children) but since i won't ever have that package...
9. i suspect all of the above is crap and just cerebral reasoning to try to make sense of this fundamental truth:
   I don't think I care. Apparently I am supposed to care so I keep searching for reasons why I don't but perhaps there is no reason -- perhaps I just don't care at the fundamental core of my nature or I am simply too lazy to be bothered.

of course everyone will say it is the depression talking.  perhaps. so people will say "just do it." except if the depression is going to steal the joy and the likelihood is that the depression will be a part of me forever, then why bother? won't it hurt worse to have achieved everything and still be unhappy?

Let's go with this current state of being is dsythmia because someone will argue that it is; i am willing to accept that as a possibility)...
then I hate it more than major depression because at least in the throes of major depression the colors of darkness -- rich blacks and purples and blue blacks is more interesting than this gray.

and no I won't be upping/changing my meds. too afraid of the side effects of beginning to swing wildly again.

this is kind of like being trapped on the side of a mountain on a narrow ledge. You can't move and you can't be rescued. so you just sit there and wait...

1-8 could be dsythmia. but #9, well I feel like that even when i am happy. or maybe the true happy is so momentary that i am busy celebrating being out of the greys and then it ends before i can make any progress.

i have these weird "fantasies" i replay over and over again in my head. fantasies that create a mythic life where things go wrong in epic proportions so that i am justified in feeling as bad as i feel. no one would question that i am depressed. why do i do this?  i think i like psychologically torturing myself. it is kind of like cutting for my soul.  but an unexpected benefit is that i try not to assess my life in terms of my depression and see it thru the colored lens of depression which to me is more dangerous and harder to undo.

i have this vision of depression as a mother yelling at me "stop your crying before i give you something to cry about." see if it is biological and I am going to feel bad with no real emotional cause then depression tricks you into finding something in your life to cry about. (this does not apply to people who have experienced trauma/hurt - physically and emotionally - that they are trying to process; i have processed mine so i don't feel like it is a factor). I think perhaps a heart attack or diabetes or some other major health crisis makes the depression make sense. think of it like having excruciating phantom limb pain after an amputation. You know your leg is not there but you can't stop the pain. It is so futile and so defying of reason because how can it hurt if it is not there? That is what the biological portion of depression is like for me. I have amputated (processed) all of my stuff (my leg) but the pain remains.

this is more than i had planned to write. moving on.

Mothering vs. smothering

Mom has never mastered the difference between mothering and smothering. I have never managed to not lash out at her. She is the one person who bears the brunt of the rageful side of my borderline.

We began the holiday arguing and as she cried, I had a thought... I had always believed that killing myself would hurt her beyond anything else, but maybe, just maybe killing myself would allow her to stay in her crazy without the constant raging from me. Perhaps it would be a win-win. AND BEFORE YOU START TYPING ALL SORTS OF 'HANG IN THERE' PLATITUDES, RELAX... It is just one of those morbid thoughts that goes through my mind. No plans to act. It is just a thought and nothing more. I know that it is not logical and that my death removes any hope and possibility that she might change or i might change and it might be ok. Of course it removes the possibility that it might all get worse too. teeheehee. Yeah i am that patient who says stuff just to annoy the therapist.

I can imagine some poor therapist trying to get me to make a pros and cons list and at the end of the list the pros to suicide outweighing the cons and they are so flustered that they don't know what to do. And i am smug like i just beat a chess master. And i am even more smug because i know i don't plan on killing myself which meant their efforts were pointless in the first place. To use their emotional tools against them is kind of my own personal game because so many come off so condescending and smug themselves. I am tired of them telling me all of my logic and thoughts are flawed simply because they do not conform to the societal norm. I want the mental health establishment to simply acknowledge that living can suck acknowledge that my desire to be done with this life is an ok feeling and not necessarily related to action on my part. Driving those thoughts into a place where i cant share them is what gives them the chance to take hold in a dangerous  manner.

treading on thin ice while carrying my emotional load

I have been doing a lot of soul searching. i am trying to get myself past the hump of just being stuck, of just existing. cmh has really been "pushing" me to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. i let him in a little bit more and more. he doesn't blink and doesn't run. i still don't think he gets it. i am trying to avoid him being the person who emotionally soothes me. i need to be that person for myself. it is too much to ask of someone else. but this is hard. it's not the depression or bipolar that scare me -- the borderline terrifies me. I am afraid of the rage that addressing my issues may bring up, especially towards my mom who is still my trigger. She still bears the brunt when in my presence.

but i am still moving forward trying to make my peace with a lot...

i know that i have been harboring these dreams of having a family and that being the "fix" that makes everything else ok. I know it is unrealistic. my age, mental health, physical health -- all of these make having a baby not a good idea even with cmh. so i got an iud to ensure that there are no oopsies. I just feel like I am grieving. It is a weird sensation that i can't even begin to try to explain to anyone. and yes i know i could have it removed but unless it messes with my mood, it stays.

in thinking about this loss and the 2 failed pregnancies, i realized that my mom only has my back if my actions are not causing her any embarrassment. it is one of those weird revelations that just brings clarity - no peace, no added grief, but a little simmering anger.

i guess the issue with that is i am slowly growing weary with forcing myself to fit into "normal" society. it feels like being forced to sit in an airline seat with the arm rests down when you are plus-sized and trying desperately to not take more than your space. and when i do stop coloring within the lines and acceptance proves to be conditional i am afraid of the torrent of anger that will release.

and please don't tell me maybe things will be different. i hate hope. or rather i hate the disappointment when hope doesn't pan out, especially when logic and reason told me that it probably wouldn't. No hope and no expectations dampens disappointment. If something good does happen then it is a serendipitous turn of fortune.

a 20+ year first date

you know the nerves and anxiety that you feel on a first date? I realize I have felt that for the last 23 years when it comes to cmh.

for those of you just joining, cmh has been a friend with benefits for 23 years. I used to be madly in love/obsessed with him. all of these years later i accepted that we would never be a couple and concentrated on the friendship. don't ask me if I am still in love with him because i don't truthfully know. i don't give it any thought because it is wasted energy until that offer is on the table. i'm not sure i want that offer to be on the table; neither of us is "good" at traditional relationships.  if one of decides to try our hand at the traditional relationship with someone else, the benefits end. don't bother trying to warn me about the relationship. i have considered all of that, but the friendship means more to me. we are confidantes; we share a dislike of loads of social interaction because we find them tedious & draining; we have a severe hatred of stupidity and we try to be very supportive of each other, especially in times of crisis/upheaval. We both can be very logical and analytical. But he is super logical where I am emotional and we balance each other that way. We have had several extended absences from each other due to bumps in the road (mainly do to my nature of pushing people away or one of us being in a relationship) but when we reconnect there is no loss of time, no period of getting back to where we were; we just resume as if the hiatus had never happened except that we usualy bring some life changing knowledge that makes the friendship strengthen and allows us to reveal more of ourselves to each other.

Each time I see him it is like that 1st date where you worry about whether you look ok, smell ok, will say the right things, etc. Then for me, heap on the unrealistic anxieties like "is he a serial killer? what's wrong with him that he likes me? he must only be interested in sex." blah blah blah. Then heap on the cmh specific anxieties like "he only likes me because he wants to have a cheerleader. he only likes me for the sex. he doesn't really care about me. he always chooses to DATE some ratchet girl but never me." blah blah blah.

I think it is why sometimes i have to take a hiatus from him. it is just too overwhelming to constantly be in that state. I just pull away and don't contact him very much. I avoid his phone calls and keep things short in texts and emails if i send those at all.  He is good about them. if he is just calling to talk in a general sense his messages leave me an out to not call/contact. If he needs me, he says that and I pull myself out of whatever I am going through to be there for him. He doesn't play that card unnecessarily for which I am grateful.

This last pull back lasted almost a year rather than the typical few months and was more severe than the others. He is slowly getting the depths of my mental illness. I am slowly feeling comfortable enough to share with him a bit.

The problem is his supportiveness this time around is coming with bits of his expressing his feelings for me and that is ruining how i have compartmentalized our relationship and my life. and it is triggering my borderline reactions. and that scares me. i have walled myself of from relationships a that level to keep the monster at bay. i told him once i had borderline personality disorder. i don't think he ever looked it up or perhaps because he had never seen that side of me he dismissed it as an inaccurate diagnosis.

I am too tired to sort this out right now. typing this has drained my energy in the few hours I have been up so back to bed I go.

so i guess i am back

i need to purge. and i realize i have no one to talk to. so here i am... again... it's like deja-blu.

went to the dr's today. seems my blood pressure med is not working. so i guess i am in high blood pressure stage 1. and I'm pretty sure my blood sugar is still elevated. so when I see my PCP in a few weeks, I guess I'll be getting more meds!

as a result, i got all sort of let downs today:

• "oh we do diet prescriptions here" :)  ; "oh you can't have them because of your BP & Diabetes." :(
• "ok let's get you setup for birth control"  :)  ; "oh you can't take the pill because of the risk of clots with your age, weight, BP & sugar"  :(

Yeah brief female rant:  I'm a mentally ill, older, obese woman who probably shouldn't have kids. why the hell can't i find a birth control method that won't make me crazier or fatter?

on the upside we may have discovered that the chest discomfort is because the weight gain has made my bra too small! (hey I'll take what I can get).

so i was devastated after my appt and texted cmh. he is being really sweet these days. my anxieties and insecurities won't even let me take this at face value. i wish i could tell you how my mind is twisting everything. i am trying to compartmentalize all of that so I don't ruin our friendship. it has been the central fear that apparently has motivated both of us for the last 20+ years.

i hate what i have done to my body

Another freaking doctor's visit where I will have to listen to them tell me I am morbidly obese and all of the hell I will have to pay as a result. I will be forced to sit there in a gown that doesn't fit and all of these other rather humiliating slights. My body makes maneuvering onto tables and turning onto my side and all of that difficult. and there is no point in telling them any symptoms because everything is related to my weight apparently.

I really am trying to go with the whole body acceptance thing but damn it is hard work. I am so tired of EVERYONE watching my weight and feeling like it is ok to comment on it. I lose a few pounds and everyone is all quick to get happy; gain a few pounds and everyone gives you that look.  I have been avoiding all friends from past parts of my life. We can only hangout if we have become friends since I was 250+ lbs. Anyone who knew me before then is avoided like the plague because I hate that brief glimmer and their eye as they try to say "wow, you look fabulous; haven't changed at all" with a fucking straight face.

I am tired of plus size clothes designed for thick girls with perfect figures (big boobs, small waists, maybe a little bit of a tummy) and not fat girls with body "flaws" or any part extremely out of proportion to the rest of you. I'm tired of pants which roll over my tummy and tops not quite long enough that my stomach doesn't show if I move wrong. as sizes go up they add width but not length to account for the length I lose as my shirts go across my boobs and my belly.  you'd be amazed at the lengths I have gone to and will go through to avoid this:

• I wear only elastic waist pants and I wear them backwards. I have more stomach than I have butt so it helps.
• i wear a tank top like a tube top. tuck the arm bands under my boobs and into my bra so I have extra length. I am going to buy a pregnancy belly band for a more polished look.
• i wear panties the same color as my shirt so that if something was to show hopefully it won't be noticeable.

I swear sometimes i hate my stomach so much i could just take a freaking knife to it.

don't get me wrong. I don't hate it all enough to do something about it. life is so overwhelming that the idea of having to plan meals, track food and exercise is more than I can handle. plus food is my last comfort in some ways.

And I am aware enough to know that my weight helps me keep potential love interests away which makes dealing with my borderline nature in relationships a snap (no relationships, no craziness). Or perhaps I have rationalized this to just give myself an excuse to not do something or to perpetually feel victimized.

and I'm scared of losing weight at this point. the skin i am going to be left with is going to be as ugly to me as the fat. and i won't have the money for surgery to remove it.

Which reminds me that I am going to have to fly in November and I regret agreeing to go now because the last time I could barely get the seatbelt done and luckily the flight attendant was a very discreet man who very unnoticed to everyone else offered me the seatbelt extender.

So either i am going to be angry or weepy at the doctor's visit. Off I go. yea...

A good Poem

This Be The Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)

It's been ahwile...

So life is... it is neither a good or bad. Things just are a swirling mixture of the ok and the crap.

there are things i want to write about but i keep typing and deleting. i need to sort through some things. i probably need to go to therapy except that moment when i hit full understanding and still can't will myself to do something about the issue always leaves me more hopeless than when i started. I keep searching for some nugget of truth that maybe i overlooked thinking it will be the key.

found a couple of old drafts i never published. not sure why. so i published them now.

i can't believe i am back here again. tempted to just dig into the archives and just republish because it is the same stuff as always. why waste new words on old issues?

everything was ok, and then it wasn't

well first let me define ok -- for me ok is simply not being in the throes of a major depression. but the dysthmia had been getting worse for a little bit. but i suspect that is because my weight is out of control and i have absolutely no motivation to do anything about it including the health threats hovering right over my head.

but whatever...

so mom calls and tells me aunt #4 lost her storage units and in one of the units was my photo album. so that you understand let me give you the short version of the attached baggage:

• album was handmade by grandmother (who was my favorite person) for my birthday. it contained the only pictures I had of my childhood and only pictures i had of her.
• all my other childhood pictures were either never developped by my mother who carried over 50 rolls of undeveloped film for 15+ years or lost when my mom was forced out of the hosue where we lived because it was being sold but she had failed to move her belongings in time so we had to just abandon a room full of stuff. because she is a hoarder and disorganized pack rat, i can never even be sure of the full extent of things lost.
• Aunt #4 gambled away my grandmother's home after grandmother's death. the last time i was in the house was the day we buried her. before i could get over my grief, the house and grandma's belongings were gone. it was the only place that ever felt like home and it was stripped away from me.

so the loss of the album just suddenly ripped open a wound i had just kind of patched together. i am raging and feel so alone, vulnerable and disconnected.  My anger towards my aunt, leads me to my anger with my mom, leads me to my anger and grief over my grandmother's death, leads me to my anger/sadness over... and it just keeps going. I'm really trying to not go back there.

i don't know that i ever get over anything. i guess i just figure how to ignore it and move on.

so binge eating is now a mental illness. great, add one more label to my medical chart.

parenthood, or the lack thereof

so there has been this uncomfy situation which has opened up some deep wounds. here's the short version. "cousin" with infant was going to school and her mom was her daycare. her mom has mental breakdown. i stepped in and assisted with childcare to get cousin thru last 5 weeks of school to ensure she gets her degree.

having her baby with me, opened a bit of a pandora's box. but in the end i realized that while i wanted i wanted a baby, what i REALLY wanted was a family which in my mind was a mate and some kids. the lack of a mate who planned on sticking around in any committed to me kind of way is what made both of my pregnancies so scary.

now circumstances being what they are, i have been in my mind planning that I may need to become the guardian of my cousin's 2 kids. i could see myself raising them. i admitted to my mom that part of it was my desire now to be a mom and not be "alone." my mom very quickly burst my bubble telling me that i was in no position to raise kids.

i had to hangup on my mom. she has no idea that if she had just believed in me and had some semblance of a willingness to support me, i would not have had an abortion at 28. (i lost my first child but was planning to terminate that pregnancy as well for the same reason.) here's the kicker... my mom admits that she could not have raised me as a single mom without her village. yet she seems unwilling to be part of my village,. she is right -- i am in no position to raise a child. financially i can't do it. i would need her help. logically on paper it would not work, but women do it with less and they make it work. so why not me?

doesn't matter. she's right and i know it.

24 hours in and this year sucks

well...
mom has been here for 10 days. she has pushed every emotional trigger in me. I have responded with anger and vitriol.
and i am tired. I realized that this is what it is and this is what it will be because for all of my work on self, I was right back to where I was 12 years ago. Except that without the work in between I wouldn't be here and I can at least acknowledge that.

It's been awhile

Yeah life has been kind of, ya know -- meh. Not bad, not great, just meh. I'm okay with meh.

I found out I was pre-diabetic and given the order to lose weight. My PCP said "now this should motivate you," and then was mystified when I responded "not really."

I have made small strides.
Last week I stuck to my Weight Watchers plan and lost 6lbs. This week not so good but I'll get back on track I hope.

I cleaned & organized the kitchen and have kept it clean & organized for over a week. That's a big deal for me. Next is the bathroom.

My mom made my aunt come do all my backlogged laundry. Since then I have managed to keep up with not letting dirty laundry pile up, but for the life of me I just can't get myself to put it away. It's still in the laundry bags and piled on the dining room table.

And my boss has changed jobs so I am a bit worried, My boss was a riot. She basically had no real rules for me as long as the work got done. I'm a bit afraid of change and trying not to use some of that negative thinking because it will paralyze me.

My ind keeps wandering through my past with all of these what ifs and if onlys. I really don't want to go there because there are no do-overs.

And that's all I got.

How I have beat depression