Just thoughts.

At my family doctor’s waiting to do my mental health care plan, which hasn’t been updated for years apparently. Moments after I walk in the door I am informed I am to be weighed and my height and waist measured. I am ok with this, because they measure in kilos and centimeters so for it to even actually sink into my brain, I have to pull my phone out and do a google search for the conversion.

I don’t want to know my weight, and I don’t want to know how thick my waist is, but something in me tells me that it needs to know. So I pull up Google and when is really the results I can’t help but think she measured me wrong. I am not that big. But in reality, I know I am that big. It’s just I have gotten used to sort of squinting at myself when I look on mirrors that are not at my house. I sweat the mirrors that are at home are all trick mirrors because I think I have accepted my image that I see in them.

How can my mind be so warped as to how I feel about my body at any given moment. It’s like I can’t make up my mind about how I feel about myself. Or even make up my mind about how I feel in general.

Driving here, I felt good for the first 10 minutes. The sun shining, music playing, fresh air coming in through my window. Then something just switched in me and it was if I went into autopilot mode. 

During that autopilot mode I had some time to think about what has been going on with me. The whole darkness that is literally trying to eat me alive. 

It’s because I’m high-functioning and when there is nothing in my schedule I just don’t know how to live. Like give me things to fill my time. I need goals to achieve. I need to conquer mountains because when I don’t I feel so very low.

So maybe the solution for these breaks from school would be to set goals for myself. Not necessarily mountain sized goals, but at least something for me to set my alarm for in the morning.

In order for me to stay well, I need to feel well. In order for me to feel well, I need to be conquering my daily demons. 

Sometimes it feels like my daily demons are just putting my feet on the floor, but I know that it’s bigger than that. It’s that I need to find purpose for myself in every single day, to be able to want to put my feet to the floor. To find the courage inside of me to move forward.

Vulnerable.

There is nothing gentle about this depression. It comes storming in the front door, it sits where it pleases – whether that be on countertops or right on my chest. It demands so little of me, it reminds me of all the things that I have not done right in this life. It keeps telling me that I am too weak for this. 

I am too weak. It stands in the doorway to my bedroom and it scolds me everytime I try to get up to start my day. You have nothing to do today. So I stay here, and I try to keep my mind occupied. 

Now I am walking to the kitchen. This is the fifth time I have been out of bed today and just managed small tasks. I am letting my tea spill into my travel mug, and staring at the dishes while I write this. A sink full of dishes and yet somehow I have my tea under my arm and I am heading back to bed. 

I am the one now standing in the doorway to my bedroom and I am just staring. Between the phone and the blanket piled up on the bed. The pillows. The darkness. It wants me. It’s just so comfortable to be in the darkness. It feels safe. 

But I resist for a moment and in that split second I am able to make the decision to sit on the couch, instead of going back to bed. But it’s an uneasy decision. Because nothing feels like bed.

Because now I have to think about why I am feeling so needed and consumed by the darkness. I know it, it’s right there – but how can I be scared? I have to be strong. I can’t crash. I can’t be sad, because my book has been number 2 on the best sellers on amazon.ca under drug dependency, for a few days. But I am crashing. The darkness is eating me alive because I have never felt so vulnerable before. Not because my story is out there, but because I am scared that people won’t understand it. I am scared that I will be judged by the style of the writing in the beginning but I was basically a child – and it was my diary. 

I am crashing. I am spinning out of control into this dark place and I don’t want to be here, but something inside of me is telling me to stay. 

I know this place. I have been here before. I have never died because of this place, I have never died. But right now I feel so vulnerable, that it feels like I’m slipping away.

Life saving.

I woke up to Tally the cat screaming at me. I thought it was because she wanted breakfast, but she didn’t even touch it. I think that sometimes she just knows when I am feeling the darkness closing in on me, and that I shouldn’t be in bed anymore.

I drank my breakfast shake and tried to go back to sleep. I have been laying here for almost an hour. I just don’t know how I could even follow the past weeks worth of excitement. I think it’s not possible.

Today would have been my big brothers 38th birthday, and as always I’m feeling mixed feelings about that. I would like to put his death to rest, but I almost feel like if I do that – then he really loses his fight. 

The fight that I think lives inside me, to go to school, to step up and stand in places where people can reach out. To be available to those who need to talk. To speak my own story, because I have this fire inside of me to contribute to the smashing of the stigma of mental health. His suicide lives on through me, and I know that sounds awful but it’s not. It’s that for all my years in addiction I wanted to die. But I knew that I couldn’t because Jason had died, and my family couldn’t handle another death. So I stayed alive – just long enough to find my way and manage to get sober and clean. 

His suicide lived on through me then, and it kept me earthside. And when I changed my life, I knew that I really needed to change my life. Because I didn’t ever want to feel that empty pit of despair in my stomach again. But also I couldn’t imagine someone else suffering the same despair, and the same ending as my brother. Something had to be done.

So I speak about it. Because I can’t bring my brother back, but I can talk about all the scary dark places like the psych ward, doctors, medications, group therapy, journalling and speaking out… Because these places are actually NOT scary or dark. 

They are life saving.

Happy or manic.

These feelings are expanding beyond any comprehension of the space around me. I feel so large, I feel like I am overflowing into the places that I move through. 

The past few days I have been experiencing these grand feelings that I only normally associate with mania. I feel like a freight train couldn’t stop the feelings I am weaving through. I am going so fast, I don’t think anyone can stop me. 

When I am driving I feel like I am moving so fast through time. Like I am leaving this trail of pure joy behind me everywhere I go. I wonder if the people in the cars around me can see my joy? Can you see my joy? Can you feel it?
I am spilling. I am pouring into the streets around me and I don’t know where to put all this extra joy. It’s bubbling over and I just don’t understand what it’s like to feel so much continuous joy with no strings attached. 

Is this me? Is this my mania? See I never know who is coming to visit my body, because when she arrives she has flowers, she is singing, and her embrace is just so filling. But when she leaves, will it be just a simple see you later? Or will she try to destroy me as she walks out the door.

She comes in many different forms. She is my mania, she is my depression, she is my past, she is my darkness, she is my trauma, she is my fear. She lives so close, we are neighbours. Sometimes I can hear her scratching the paper thin walls between our two spaces. She needs me to know that she is still there. She is always there. 

And I am always here, waiting for her next visit. But where is the line between me and her? Does that paper thin wall actually mean there is a division between us? It’s literally a wall of paper. 

Where does my pure joy start and my mania end? I would love to know this, because I have to tread so lightly on what I feel is joy, but could be seen as an episode. 

I am treading so light right now, that I find myself back sitting in bed. Trying to figure out if I am happy, or if I’m manic.

Touch the clouds.

I never thought that achievement would make me feel this way. It’s like a rollercoaster that I have been riding my whole life through the use of drugs and alcohol, has suddenly slowed down and it’s just stuck at the top. I am no longer cycling through the abuse of addiction, but I am living and breathing. I am hitting all these goals that I never thought I would even see.

I am stuck here at the top and I can see everything. From the mountains, to the trees, all the people below. I can almost touch the clouds. It’s so beautiful, but I’m just stuck here.

I know the only way out is down, or to stay up this high. I feel so high. I almost can’t stay in my body for long periods of time. I find myself somewhere else, most often it’s in the middle of having conversations with people. It’s not like I go off into space, it’s more like suddenly I am shocked to be here, in this body. To feel present, but all together somewhere else. 

I can’t explain it, but it’s really uncomfortable. Like does the person I am talking to notice what’s happening. Is there a look on my face? It feels like there is two sides to me, and without the drugs and alcohol to suppress it – the other side is coming to the surface. 

I don’t like the feeling, but not enough to drug or drink. Just enough to stay hidden though. To not put myself into situations where I feel vulnerable to these episodes.

Maybe the way of understanding what’s happening is that the person I really am, is finally coming to the surface. That my brain is finally healing, and what I am experiencing is actually just real life. Maybe I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about this. Maybe I should be celebrating it. But how do I celebrate something that makes me feel so far away, so out of touch with the present.

My counsellor made me schedule in ‘grounding’ into my phone everyday, and so far I haven’t done it once. I don’t know where to start.

How can I ground myself when I can almost touch the clouds?

Lazy and self care.

Woke up this morning to check my book sales on my dashboard and it said I have only sold 3 books. Apparently they don’t mark sold until they have printed the book. This is very discouraging and I find myself feeling down from the moment I wake.

I shouldn’t though, because I am so much more than the way I feel right now. I am successful. I am living the dream right now.

But why do I just want to hide inside this dark basement suite. Spending most of my time in bed. I feel safe there. I feel at home here.

I am still clearing my throat constantly and it’s sort of become a part of me now. I have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday because I need to see a specialist. This is not normal. Even taking the medicine I have been prescribed for acid reflux, and taking probiotics everyday, is not helping me.

There is strain on my throat. It is exhausting. I don’t want to clear my throat anymore. 

It’s almost one in the afternoon and I am still in my pajamas. All I can think about is how nice it would be to go back to bed. Just to lay there. With my phone in my hand. Trying to stay connected while really it just makes me feel disconnected.

All I can think about is that I should feel different right now. I should be skipping over rainbows outside. I should be smiling non-stop. I should be so many things that I am not right now. 

Maybe I should go have a bath and study for my next final. I think that’s meeting myself half way between being lazy and self care.

Published author.

I did the scariest thing I have ever done today. I had knots in my stomach from the moment I woke. I was trying to talk myself out of moving forward. I wanted to hold onto my book, and never let it go. I wanted to be greedy with my story.

But why did I write it all down, if i didn’t want to share it? Why would I go through so much trouble of documented my fall? I think I know why. I have always known why.

Because I would recover. I would live to tell my story, and maybe if i could show one person that the road to addiction isn’t what people think it is – than maybe the effort and time that I put into the book would be worth it.

I have finally released this weight from my shoulders. The story doesn’t belong to me anymore. I feel like something is changing and growing within me. I don’t need to carry this baggage in all my hidden compartments.

I can now wear it, like a badge.

This is me. This is what happened. This is my story. It’s awkward, it’s uncomfortable. But the fact is that it’s the truth. I wrote it as it was happening, and so the memories of it are not distorted by time. I wrote a book, and today I was finally able to say that I am now a published author.

 

Mountain of gold.

I was sitting behind the counter last night at work, crying. Because I kept screwing up the secret Santa thing we are going to do this year with the kids in our family. It’s too much pressure and too expensive to have to buy for everyone, so I decided to run the idea across everyone. They really liked the idea, but I ended up ruining it by asking my brother what he wanted for Christmas. It was a dud from the start because I was the person drawing the names anyways. So he requested a redraw and I had already told everyone who they were buying for. 

So I did a redraw and everyone was not happy that they had to change the people they were buying for. I started crying. I couldn’t stop crying. It was ridiculous.

I’m trying to avoid talking to this customer that is at the counter because there is tears streaming down my face. I can’t stop. What’s wrong with me? This is ridiculous.

They leave and I still can’t stop. The phone rings and I answer it, and I’m sure the lady ordering food on the other end can hear that my sniffles are not from a cold. 

What is going on? This is ridiculous.

But I know deep down it is not. Because Christmas since 2002 has been hard on all of us. Because we have been missing Jason. And it’s even harder since my daughter stopped coming to our Christmases, a few years after that. We still hang their Christmas ornaments on the tree, every year. No fail. And it is painful, but this is life. 

And now that I actually feel my feelings – everything is different. Because I can’t just stuff them into boxes forever and ignore them. Because once I do put these feelings into a box, and put it up on the shelf right beside the box marked trauma, something happens and the feelings box falls down. The boxed marked trauma doesnt think that my feelings should be up on that shelf.

It falls down and I start crying. 

I am sitting in bed right now and I want to cry. Now because I am upset, but because I am so happy. I woke up to see that my first major paper has been graded, and my heart fluttered. This was the paper that just doing the proposal made me want to quit school. I had a nervous breakdown numerous times about it because I didn’t understand what the teacher wanted from me. I even saw a counsellor about this damn paper. The topic I wrote on was youth homelessness and it really felt so close to my heart as I was writing it, because I could see my brother Bobby the entire time I was working on it. He was such a wild child when he was younger, and now he’s a dad, and a husband, and he has really found his footing in life. I am so proud of this kid, and the leaps and bounds he had come.

Everything I do in school, reminds me of where I have been. Where my whole family has been, which is pretty close to hell and back.

So I woke this morning, and I found I have received an A on my paper. I am over the moon, I am soaring. I am elated.

All the while I am watching the progress of my book making its way from coast to coast, and anticipating it’s arrival later today. Then I get a text message saying there has been an exception. What the hell is that? So I log into my account and it says that it’s in Seattle but severe weather has caused a delay and it won’t be delivered until tomorrow. My heart sinks. So I call Tally to cat to come to bed, and we sleep.

My boyfriend called me just after 9 am to wake me up and say hi. I decided to check the status on my book’s arrival again. Somehow the status had changed back to being delivered at the end of day. So now I am sitting up in bed, with the lights on – right on the verge of crying again. Because everything is happening so fast. Everything is just moving along so perfectly in life.

I really couldn’t have asked for a better life. I might just be able to approve the final proof of my book tonight, and go live. This feeling is like nothing I have ever felt before. 

It’s like I’m standing on top of my mountain, of a lifetime of mess. The mess that I somehow dug my way out of and then the mess became something else entirely. It feels like gold to me now.

So I climbed that mountain of gold that used to be my mess. I am on top right now and I have found the perfect footing.

All over the place.

Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Stuck sitting here in bed. Waiting to go to work. Waiting, just waiting. It feels right now like I am always waiting. 

Phone stuck in hands. I’m waiting. I’m looking around corners as though I had just missed something. I’m just waiting.

I put my phone down for a minute. I pick it up again because I might miss something. Maybe someone is trying to get ahold of me. Maybe there is an update somewhere off in space that I need to read. 

So I sit here waiting. I’m waiting. I’m just waiting. 

I think it’s so quiet here that I can hear the lamp buzzing. Listen for the sounds. Try to ground myself. The fish tank, it’s so loud. I can hear bubbling. I can hear the little air machine vibrating on the stand. I can hear the trickle of the water. Cars outside. I can feel the rumble.

I can’t focus because it’s so loud. The quiet is too loud for me.

The hunger in my belly hurts. There is food in the kitchen, but somehow I am stuck here. Thinking about the absence of thoughts.

Why am I still sitting here? Why sit here if I have no intention of laying down and going to sleep. I am paralyzed.

I am stuck, sitting here with myself. The fear is paralyzing me. It wants me sick. Stay sick. Don’t get better. Don’t release your book. Don’t tell your story. Keep everything a secret. Hide your feelings. The darkness is so dark today and it wants me to fail.

I am not going to let it. I am going to listen to my heart, and not to my head. I am going to move forward. I need to remember the places that my best thinking brought me. That these thoughts now, and even the momentary absence of them – is no different than before.

I have to fight for my life. Everytime I wake up, I need to remember where the darkness brought me.

I came back from it. I lived through it. I am alive.

I am getting up now. Putting on my hot water for my tea, and making the bed. I cannot let the darkness hold me down anymore.

My voice.

Tired. Nervous. Scared. Tired. Excited. Thrilled. Crying. Happy. Tired. 

Nervous.

I was up until 1:30 this morning, hunched over my computer for 6 and a half hours straight, reviewing my book. Combing through the words looking for needles in a haystack. Running each page through a final grammar and spelling check. Then doing it again. 

I had to reformat the pages. I changed the font. I changed my name placement on the cover. 

When I said final proof, I was hoping that it would be. But it’s never the final one. Now I wait 2 more days and hopefully it will be the final final one.

Because I didn’t just check the entire book in my word processor. I also checked for correct formatting of each individual page in the virtual proofer online. Everything looked just the way it should.

I am soon going to be able to release my story, the one that has been sitting on my back for so many years. I could feel the pressure building.

And now there is a pressure building, but it’s different. Because I know that I was 18 when I started writing this book. I know that I spoke like a child, and therefore I wrote like a child. My voice matched me perfectly. That voice is the one that starts the book out. And I know as a reader, that in order for me to want to continue reading a book I have to connect with the voice within the first few pages. 

But this isn’t the case with my book. The person that I am in the beginning, middle, and end – are different. My voice is different. My entire being was different. 

For anyone to truly understand my story, I had to leave in the juvenile voice that leads the story. Because I need people to understand what I was like before I became addicted to meth. That I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to become an addict. That the road into my addiction was there. It is visible to me now, in retrospect. There was so many warnings, and I didn’t even take them seriously myself.

My story isn’t like an acquired taste where you read a bit and decide it’s not for you. It needs to be read, right until the end.

Because that voice, it changes. It becomes something else entirely.

My story, is a story that I feel deep down really needs to be heard. Because my addiction was not unique. What is unique is that I was able to write through it. To have documented my story as it was happening – to me that is like gold.