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rachg82I'm really afraid of becoming a toxic burden on people by writing too much "I'm feeling horrible; please someone be here for me"-type stuff in my journal, especially since everyone seems so absent & busy with their real lives on livejournal lately, but I really need a place to talk about how I'm feeling right now and a way to reach out to others just in case support can be given without me burdening them. But if I am becoming a burden. . .then, well, that's why this is going behind an lj cut. People can read it if they want to & skip it if they don't. No harm, no foul. Then I don't have to feel bad about making other people feel bad, but can still talk & not hold all this in. Win-win.
(As a warning though, some of this may be triggery)
I almost don't even know how to talk about how I'm feeling, because it's so all over the place. My favorite place to be this week was work, because there I'm able to distract myself to a large degree from everything else going on with my life. I'm still able to laugh with my coworkers and the other day made Nicole laugh so hard she literally cried (which conversely then depressed me a second later though, because it just reminded me of how I used to be able to sometimes make my mom laugh until she'd pee her pants when I was a kid, and almost did once with my grandma when I was like 17--she barely made it to the bathroom, literally holding onto herself as she ran--and now don't even talk to my mom and feel so distant from my grandma. But still). Meredith and I are still adding to our non-purchaser customer soundtrack, which now also includes Queen songs and Hall & Oates songs, and we are all now calling ourselves Team Meerkat (or Meerkat Manor) because I compared what we look like standing up in our cubicles to meerkats, and now we have pictures of Meerkat Manor hanging in our cubicles, which Justin then protested by hanging another picture up which said "I will not be a part of your cult." In other words, work is still a hilarious place to be.
On the other hand, I've had the kind of depression hanging in the background all week long that makes me look at the veins in my wrist when I come home at night and think to myself, "all it would take is a few small cuts to these tiny veins and it would all be over. All of it. No more pain, no more crying, no more struggle. I'd just go over there, sit in the kitchen, bleed for a while, and then go to sleep & be done. That's all." And I think about it, and I look at these few blue skinny veins that control everything--my consciousness, my life, all of it--and I think, "why not? I have basically no one left. And the only people that are left will eventually be gone too because that's how it works. That's how it always works. No one would even care that much, not for that long anyway. I'm not really needed. Are the few moments laughing at work really enough to make the rest of it worth it for the rest of my life? To make how I'm feeling right now worth it? When I could just stop so quickly & easily?" And it can be so tempting because I'm just SO TIRED of being in pain. My life has been so fucking full of it. But the thing is, I don't really want to die, not really, I just want this pain to stop and right then feel like it won't ever stop. But even in those moments I'm able to remember what I learned from my previous episodes of depression, which is "you can always put off killing yourself until later," and that you should, because there's at least a chance you'll look back later and go "thank God I didn't." But if you don't put it off, there's no chance. So you just put it off, buy yourself a little time, and keep doing that until hopefully things improve. Sometimes that's all you can do.
It's hard too though because sometimes it's not so much that I want to kill myself, I just want to do something to release the pain, and in that moment, taking a knife and hurting myself for some reason sounds like the best way to accomplish that. Which makes no sense because HELLO that would be causing myself pain, but it still sounds like it would be such an excellent way to make the pain STOP, even if I didn't die. And now I'm sounding like a crazy person, but I'm just being honest. And I know that plenty of people feel that way, and they're called self-injurers, and I know that I've fit in that category in the past because I used to dig my nails into my skin when I was younger (once to the point of leaving scars that lasted a year), but even so I always felt like I didn't REALLY fit the category because I wasn't a cutter and so it didn't really count. Even though I always thought about cutting (but never really talked about it before, though I don't know why since I've known people who did it & would've understood. I think I was just scared it would make them want to cut or something, and that since I only thought about it I didn't have the right to really talk about it). And apparently now I am thinking about it again. So I just kind of needed to talk about it, because I was hoping it would take some of the power out of it if I did. Because the urge has been kind of intense this week, and is really upsetting.
And the other thing is, something about this week, though I'm not sure what--whether it's Mother's Day, whether it was the fight my upstairs neighbors had, or whether it's just a delayed reaction to the last few months--has brought on a flood of memories & emotions for me, both positive & negative. And it is positively overwhelming. I could not stop crying all day today. Just could not stop. And I went to the movies with an old coworker/friend last night (saw "Date Night", which was actually really good, btw, and I recommend it) and it was nice and all, but as usual I couldn't talk at all about what's been going on with me because I'm always set in the role of listener & supporter with everyone. She talked afterward for probably about three hours to me about what's been going on with her, which she obviously needed because her life hasn't been great lately either, but it's like, okay, y'know what? Sometimes I need a friend who doesn't automatically change the subject back to them when I try to talk about myself for 2.5 seconds. Someone who actually has questions to ask in return about me, or wants to talk about what's going on with me. And who doesn't just want to use me as their fucking therapist, and then tell me at the end "you have the patience of a saint" or "you're an amazing listener." Yeah, I know that; it's because I've had 28 years of practice basically thrust upon me. And while it was nice to get out, it just left me feeling as alone as ever. Almost no one in my real life (minus a few exceptions) is ever there for me unless they want something from me. And she bugged me about getting a cell phone, like people always do, and I just randomly went on this rant out of nowhere, like "you know what? For the last three years or so? NO ONE ASKED ME TO DO ANYTHING OR GO ANYWHERE, yet everyone still criticized me for not having a cell phone. Yes, please let me go get a cell phone so I can have another phone NO ONE WILL CALL ME ON & can be reminded of what a social freak I am. If others want me to have a cell phone SO BAD, they can BUY ME ONE, because God knows they're so desperate to see me all the time." And it was like, wow, HI THERE BITTERNESS. But it's like, seriously, no one wants me around until they NEED ME AROUND, so they can use me. Like, ~oh, what's that~? You're depressed? Why am I surprised you suddenly want to go to a movie with me then? Oh, what's that, Amy? You broke up with your girlfriend and are unemployed? So now you're willing to hang out? Whatever. Fuck everyone.
Meanwhile, like I said above, all week? Memories. In my damn face. Everything from positive ones like the above-mentioned "making my mom pee her pants" memories (seriously happened more than once, in the car, in the apartment, it basically became my mission to cause it) to my mom teaching me to dance, to her reading to me every night, to how we used to watch Dr. Katz together on Comedy Central, or how my sister and I used to watch hours of TLC together everyday during the summer after her knee surgery and that's how we became friends instead of just sisters, and. . .yeah, now I'm crying again. Because none of it means anything. Just like my relationship with my brother meant nothing. Teaching him to draw, watching movies & playing video games with him, requesting time off from work even as a twenty-something year old so I could see them and making all the effort I did to try to have a relationship with my dad, all of it. None of it meant anything. Because none of them care about me at all. My dad hasn't spoken to me in almost a year and do you think he cares? Doubtful. My mom chose her pervert husband & pills over me. Though she still emails me everyday (don't worry, I'm still not reading them) harassing me. My sister chose her abusive husband and fucked-up life over a relationship with me, when all I asked of her was to not talk to me about him. That's all. My stepdad hasn't even once tried to talk to me since February, which is good because the thought of hearing from him makes me sick, but it's just the POINT. He texted Corinne and begged her to forgive him after what happened, asking her how he could make amends. Meanwhile he has no problem with the fact that I've cut off contact with him. I guess because he wasn't trying to get into my pants? Who knows. So there goes my family. Just like that, gone. Should I be surprised though? My best friend from 8 until 17 discovered heroin at 13 and chose it over me at 17. She was basically like a sister to me and I thought I'd be friends with her until I died. Where is she now? Exactly. The thing is, you cannot count on anyone. Not in my life anyway. Even the people I feel I have now, I get scared I'll lose eventually. And I just feel so fucking alone. And I have no doubt my decisions to set down boundaries with my sister & mom were absolutely right, because I could not continue living the way I lived, having them affect me the way they did, but that doesn't mean this doesn't hurt like SHIT, now that it's finally gotten through to me that guess what? They let me go. Regardless of my mom's harassing emails, they are moot. She still let me go, for all intents & purposes. Neither of them could do what I asked. My mom wouldn't get treatment & accept that I don't want to see or talk to Joe, and my sister won't stop making me be her therapist, not even giving a shit that it was tearing me up. They'd rather lose me. And the end result is, as I said above, what I got used to being eight years ago: me, alone again (naturally).
And while I'm finally allowing myself to mourn the loss of my family, which hurts way more than I'd realized it did or thought it would, I'm also being bombarded by an onslaught of nasty painful memories at the same time. Like I mentioned earlier this week, shit is starting to come back to me. And it hurts really bad. All of it. The positive memories, the negative memories, the whole thing. But especially the negative ones. Which is surprising because I thought I'd let so much of this stuff go a long time ago. But I guess not. It's just, there's SO MUCH SHIT, you know? As just a few examples (so I can get them out my brain): Laying out my mom's pills across the coffee table that we'd found all over the house and asking her what was in each bottle as she swayed on the couch, slurring her words; breaking out in a rash all over my body the following year when the same type of thing happened again, because I was so stressed out by it, and had to ask my grandma to take her in because I just couldn't handle even LOOKING AT HER, and my grandma--the same one who claims to not be affected by her now & says she hopes someday I'll be "mature" enough to be that way too--got so upset with her she actually hit her; watching her stumble around my apartment half-dressed and delusional when I was eleven and my friend asking me, "what's wrong with your mom?" and all I could do was just sit on my bed and cry, and she didn't know what to say other than "it'll be okay," and I still to this day don't even remember her leaving (and then years later in middle school when I ran into her again, one of the first things she innocently asked me was, "hey, is your mom still crazy?" and I had to clench my fists to keep from crying right there in class); being screamed at by her for hours as a child until all I could do was sit crouched with my hands over my ears as I hid in my room, wishing the police would come & take me away. Or being yelled at by my dad all.the.fucking.time because I was just SUCH a fucking klutz and never did anything right, to the point where the entire restaurant would be staring at me at eight years old while I cried and he'd be pointing his finger in my face and saying that he'd *give me something to cry about* if I didn't stop, and all because I spilled a glass of milk and had to get down on the floor and clean it up myself even though the waitress was right there & nervously offering to do it herself and who then kept trying to make eye-contact with me as she knelt down to try to help but which I kept avoiding because I was trying not to cry (and which is the most vivid part of the memory for me other than my dad's expression & the finger in my face & the crowd staring). And the best part was that my klutziness was always an example of how I was just like my mother. Can't forget that. Kind of like how my hands shaking reminded him of my mother & made him "worry" about me. Thanks for that one ESPECIALLY, Dad. Helped work wonders for my social anxiety later.
All that and even more? Lots o' memories from 2003. Lots & LOTS. And to those of you who remember my entries from back then. . .'nuff said. To those of you who don't, here's an example of just one day from that year:
10/1/03:
Mom picked fights with me that day like non-stop. Seriously. Every God-damned word out of my mouth. It was really bad. She was with me when I went downtown to the clinic, and you can get to my campus easily from there, so I asked her if she could drop me off there. When we got there, she started getting all mad, like "I don't even have anywhere to park!" Because, by then, she was like "I'll just wait for you, and drive home with you." So, I pointed to the right, saying "there's spots over there." You know, trying to be helpful. Big mistake. She FLIPPED OUT, like "First off, Rachael, do not speak to me when there's construction nearby! You get me mad, and we could get in an accident! I've said that to you before! And you think I don't know this campus! I know where to fucking! Park!" Like, slapping her hand on the steering wheel, and screaming at me. She then proceeded to yell at me for about ten minutes in the car, using it as just another "example" of everything that I need to "work on." Because I apparently speak before I think, and say things that I don't know. Um, okay.
Argument #2,002: In the car, on the way home. Trying, though God only knows why, to make conversation, I brought up this class she'd been talking about that the Chinese place has, because I'd been trying to figure out all day where I'd heard of it before and finally it had come to me. I know I'm spelling it wrong here, and I'd look up the proper spelling, but right. Stupid yahoo. Anyway, the way you say it, it sounds like kee-gong, except it's with a Q and all. So I was making conversation about it, seeing as it's big in China right now, and the government is not a big fan of it. She asked why, and I was just kind of thinking outloud, like "This is just a theory, I'm no expert, but I think they're afraid of anything they see as a threat. Any big movement of any sort could be seen as taking away from their secular authority. I mean, we are talking about communists here, heh." Tell me, was there something wrong with that? Because I got SCREAMED at, for it. On the highway, with her waving her hands around and ranting. "I know we're talking about communists! Why do you feel the need to remind me! Do you think I'm stupid! Do you think I can't remember!" What in the flying FUCK? I knew she knew what we were talking about. God damn.
Argument #3,005: When we got home, after she'd yelled and yelled at me, and wouldn't let me say a word, finally she randomly was like "I'll go to the DMV with you tomorrow." I hadn't asked, but she offered on her own, so I said thanks. You'd think that would be okay. You'd be wrong. I guess I said something like "you don't have to do that", and she flipped. Like I was turning myself dependent, instead of looking at it like she was going with me, I was making it like she was going for me. God, what the fuck EVER. She went on and on about how I could've looked at it as something we did "together", like an "experience" I could've learned from, and blah blah blah. She's so fucking crazy. All I did was say thank you. It was her taking me to the DMV, not a trip to Europe. Experience, my ass. Psycho.
So then I was standing in the kitchen, and I plugged my nose at first, when trying to drink the herbs, because you know how you see people do that sometimes, when something tastes really bad. It didn't really help, but I tried it at first. Whatever. It took me a minute to finish it, because I put too much water in, and I wasn't used to the taste yet. It only takes me a sec now. But she yelled at me from the other room, all nasty, like "Don't you feel like a wuss for taking so long to drink that? Grow up, Rachael! Holding your nose, don't you feel stupid?"
A little while later, I came upstairs, thinking I'd do the dishes. Thinking it would be good to do, and maybe she'd appreciate it. The second I got up there, she yelled at me to go back downstairs, because she didn't want to see me, and that I was annoying her. A few minutes later, as I was sitting downstairs and looking at the paper, she started yelling at me to come back upstairs, because I "wasn't going to sit down there all day." She started ordering me to go somewhere. I told her that I was planning on trying to register for a class or two that night, and keep looking up jobs. She flipped at me then for that, calling me a "schizophrenic", because "normal" 21 year olds don't think of staying home on a Friday night to sign up for classes. Nevermind that the fall term started on the following Monday. She yelled and yelled, for about an hour over that.
That was just one randomly picked day. I guarantee I can find many more like it. It's not even the worst day I could find from that year. Just one bad one I remember very clearly. And I don't know why the memories from times like that are coming to the surface now as opposed to a year ago, or a month ago--if it's just because of what's happened or something else--but they are. And I don't know if it's good to be looking back & facing it all, or I need to make myself stop. I don't know how to combine my feelings about those memories with the ones I have of me at four years old helping my mom memorize lines for her plays (she used to sometimes act). Or how to combine the Joe that asks for topless pictures of my sister with the Joe that used to play monopoly with me, and computer games. Or the dad who I was afraid would kill me as a child (literally, which apparently I wasn't alone with. My sister told me a few months ago she thought as a kid he would walk in & light her bed on fire as she slept), with the same dad who shares my love of music & a lot of my similar sense of humor & personality. It just hurts. All of it.
And. . .yeah, I don't even really know what I'm trying to say anymore. I really hope Mother's Day being over with after tomorrow will help, but I have the feeling now that the floodgates are open that this isn't going away anytime soon. I'm sure I'll be okay. I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to choose life & get through this, just like I have before. Because I do have things that still make me happy. I have work, I have TV, I have music, I have art, I have funny bus stories, and even if I feel alone, I can work on helping to show people what I need from them, right? And hope that others want me in their life? And hope that I won't always lose everyone, just because I have in the past? And just keep putting one foot in front of the other, trying to do things that I know might improve my life & make me happy, like I planned on? So I'll keep doing that. Which is why I called Amy today & plan to meet her in a half-hour to watch old '80s Nightmare on Elm Street movies & eat Thai food with her, because even if I still have doubts that she plans to stick around as my friend, I'm just going to act like she will & see if she does. And tomorrow will go to an Al-Anon meeting and then may go to a game night event with my Depression/Anxiety meetup group if I can carpool with people (one of the people replied to the post I left asking if anyone would meet with me on Mother's Day, letting me know of a game-night get together, so I asked if anyone could give me a ride since the buses are not great on Sunday evenings around here). So I guess my point is this: depression is kind of kicking my ass at the moment, but I won't go down without a fight. As my friend from last night is so fond of saying, "this ain't my first rodeo."
And, yeah. I need to go get ready now, so that's about all I have to say. Which is probably good because I have the feeling this entry is going to be really long. Sorry about that. But again, this one was for me, and I gave people express permission NOT to read it, so hey. I will at least say that I do feel a bit better and calmer after getting that all out, so I think I really needed this. I just hope tomorrow isn't too hard, but I guess we'll just see. I think as long as I keep busy, I'll be all right. Just so people know though, if any of you who have my phone number try to call me? It's highly doubtful my phone will be plugged in most of the day. And if it is, calls will definitely be screened. So be prepared to leave messages. Just sayin'. And there's a good chance I'll be avoiding my email, but I will be checking livejournal. So if anyone theoretically wants to get a hold of me, that'll be the best way.
(As a warning though, some of this may be triggery)
I almost don't even know how to talk about how I'm feeling, because it's so all over the place. My favorite place to be this week was work, because there I'm able to distract myself to a large degree from everything else going on with my life. I'm still able to laugh with my coworkers and the other day made Nicole laugh so hard she literally cried (which conversely then depressed me a second later though, because it just reminded me of how I used to be able to sometimes make my mom laugh until she'd pee her pants when I was a kid, and almost did once with my grandma when I was like 17--she barely made it to the bathroom, literally holding onto herself as she ran--and now don't even talk to my mom and feel so distant from my grandma. But still). Meredith and I are still adding to our non-purchaser customer soundtrack, which now also includes Queen songs and Hall & Oates songs, and we are all now calling ourselves Team Meerkat (or Meerkat Manor) because I compared what we look like standing up in our cubicles to meerkats, and now we have pictures of Meerkat Manor hanging in our cubicles, which Justin then protested by hanging another picture up which said "I will not be a part of your cult." In other words, work is still a hilarious place to be.
On the other hand, I've had the kind of depression hanging in the background all week long that makes me look at the veins in my wrist when I come home at night and think to myself, "all it would take is a few small cuts to these tiny veins and it would all be over. All of it. No more pain, no more crying, no more struggle. I'd just go over there, sit in the kitchen, bleed for a while, and then go to sleep & be done. That's all." And I think about it, and I look at these few blue skinny veins that control everything--my consciousness, my life, all of it--and I think, "why not? I have basically no one left. And the only people that are left will eventually be gone too because that's how it works. That's how it always works. No one would even care that much, not for that long anyway. I'm not really needed. Are the few moments laughing at work really enough to make the rest of it worth it for the rest of my life? To make how I'm feeling right now worth it? When I could just stop so quickly & easily?" And it can be so tempting because I'm just SO TIRED of being in pain. My life has been so fucking full of it. But the thing is, I don't really want to die, not really, I just want this pain to stop and right then feel like it won't ever stop. But even in those moments I'm able to remember what I learned from my previous episodes of depression, which is "you can always put off killing yourself until later," and that you should, because there's at least a chance you'll look back later and go "thank God I didn't." But if you don't put it off, there's no chance. So you just put it off, buy yourself a little time, and keep doing that until hopefully things improve. Sometimes that's all you can do.
It's hard too though because sometimes it's not so much that I want to kill myself, I just want to do something to release the pain, and in that moment, taking a knife and hurting myself for some reason sounds like the best way to accomplish that. Which makes no sense because HELLO that would be causing myself pain, but it still sounds like it would be such an excellent way to make the pain STOP, even if I didn't die. And now I'm sounding like a crazy person, but I'm just being honest. And I know that plenty of people feel that way, and they're called self-injurers, and I know that I've fit in that category in the past because I used to dig my nails into my skin when I was younger (once to the point of leaving scars that lasted a year), but even so I always felt like I didn't REALLY fit the category because I wasn't a cutter and so it didn't really count. Even though I always thought about cutting (but never really talked about it before, though I don't know why since I've known people who did it & would've understood. I think I was just scared it would make them want to cut or something, and that since I only thought about it I didn't have the right to really talk about it). And apparently now I am thinking about it again. So I just kind of needed to talk about it, because I was hoping it would take some of the power out of it if I did. Because the urge has been kind of intense this week, and is really upsetting.
And the other thing is, something about this week, though I'm not sure what--whether it's Mother's Day, whether it was the fight my upstairs neighbors had, or whether it's just a delayed reaction to the last few months--has brought on a flood of memories & emotions for me, both positive & negative. And it is positively overwhelming. I could not stop crying all day today. Just could not stop. And I went to the movies with an old coworker/friend last night (saw "Date Night", which was actually really good, btw, and I recommend it) and it was nice and all, but as usual I couldn't talk at all about what's been going on with me because I'm always set in the role of listener & supporter with everyone. She talked afterward for probably about three hours to me about what's been going on with her, which she obviously needed because her life hasn't been great lately either, but it's like, okay, y'know what? Sometimes I need a friend who doesn't automatically change the subject back to them when I try to talk about myself for 2.5 seconds. Someone who actually has questions to ask in return about me, or wants to talk about what's going on with me. And who doesn't just want to use me as their fucking therapist, and then tell me at the end "you have the patience of a saint" or "you're an amazing listener." Yeah, I know that; it's because I've had 28 years of practice basically thrust upon me. And while it was nice to get out, it just left me feeling as alone as ever. Almost no one in my real life (minus a few exceptions) is ever there for me unless they want something from me. And she bugged me about getting a cell phone, like people always do, and I just randomly went on this rant out of nowhere, like "you know what? For the last three years or so? NO ONE ASKED ME TO DO ANYTHING OR GO ANYWHERE, yet everyone still criticized me for not having a cell phone. Yes, please let me go get a cell phone so I can have another phone NO ONE WILL CALL ME ON & can be reminded of what a social freak I am. If others want me to have a cell phone SO BAD, they can BUY ME ONE, because God knows they're so desperate to see me all the time." And it was like, wow, HI THERE BITTERNESS. But it's like, seriously, no one wants me around until they NEED ME AROUND, so they can use me. Like, ~oh, what's that~? You're depressed? Why am I surprised you suddenly want to go to a movie with me then? Oh, what's that, Amy? You broke up with your girlfriend and are unemployed? So now you're willing to hang out? Whatever. Fuck everyone.
Meanwhile, like I said above, all week? Memories. In my damn face. Everything from positive ones like the above-mentioned "making my mom pee her pants" memories (seriously happened more than once, in the car, in the apartment, it basically became my mission to cause it) to my mom teaching me to dance, to her reading to me every night, to how we used to watch Dr. Katz together on Comedy Central, or how my sister and I used to watch hours of TLC together everyday during the summer after her knee surgery and that's how we became friends instead of just sisters, and. . .yeah, now I'm crying again. Because none of it means anything. Just like my relationship with my brother meant nothing. Teaching him to draw, watching movies & playing video games with him, requesting time off from work even as a twenty-something year old so I could see them and making all the effort I did to try to have a relationship with my dad, all of it. None of it meant anything. Because none of them care about me at all. My dad hasn't spoken to me in almost a year and do you think he cares? Doubtful. My mom chose her pervert husband & pills over me. Though she still emails me everyday (don't worry, I'm still not reading them) harassing me. My sister chose her abusive husband and fucked-up life over a relationship with me, when all I asked of her was to not talk to me about him. That's all. My stepdad hasn't even once tried to talk to me since February, which is good because the thought of hearing from him makes me sick, but it's just the POINT. He texted Corinne and begged her to forgive him after what happened, asking her how he could make amends. Meanwhile he has no problem with the fact that I've cut off contact with him. I guess because he wasn't trying to get into my pants? Who knows. So there goes my family. Just like that, gone. Should I be surprised though? My best friend from 8 until 17 discovered heroin at 13 and chose it over me at 17. She was basically like a sister to me and I thought I'd be friends with her until I died. Where is she now? Exactly. The thing is, you cannot count on anyone. Not in my life anyway. Even the people I feel I have now, I get scared I'll lose eventually. And I just feel so fucking alone. And I have no doubt my decisions to set down boundaries with my sister & mom were absolutely right, because I could not continue living the way I lived, having them affect me the way they did, but that doesn't mean this doesn't hurt like SHIT, now that it's finally gotten through to me that guess what? They let me go. Regardless of my mom's harassing emails, they are moot. She still let me go, for all intents & purposes. Neither of them could do what I asked. My mom wouldn't get treatment & accept that I don't want to see or talk to Joe, and my sister won't stop making me be her therapist, not even giving a shit that it was tearing me up. They'd rather lose me. And the end result is, as I said above, what I got used to being eight years ago: me, alone again (naturally).
And while I'm finally allowing myself to mourn the loss of my family, which hurts way more than I'd realized it did or thought it would, I'm also being bombarded by an onslaught of nasty painful memories at the same time. Like I mentioned earlier this week, shit is starting to come back to me. And it hurts really bad. All of it. The positive memories, the negative memories, the whole thing. But especially the negative ones. Which is surprising because I thought I'd let so much of this stuff go a long time ago. But I guess not. It's just, there's SO MUCH SHIT, you know? As just a few examples (so I can get them out my brain): Laying out my mom's pills across the coffee table that we'd found all over the house and asking her what was in each bottle as she swayed on the couch, slurring her words; breaking out in a rash all over my body the following year when the same type of thing happened again, because I was so stressed out by it, and had to ask my grandma to take her in because I just couldn't handle even LOOKING AT HER, and my grandma--the same one who claims to not be affected by her now & says she hopes someday I'll be "mature" enough to be that way too--got so upset with her she actually hit her; watching her stumble around my apartment half-dressed and delusional when I was eleven and my friend asking me, "what's wrong with your mom?" and all I could do was just sit on my bed and cry, and she didn't know what to say other than "it'll be okay," and I still to this day don't even remember her leaving (and then years later in middle school when I ran into her again, one of the first things she innocently asked me was, "hey, is your mom still crazy?" and I had to clench my fists to keep from crying right there in class); being screamed at by her for hours as a child until all I could do was sit crouched with my hands over my ears as I hid in my room, wishing the police would come & take me away. Or being yelled at by my dad all.the.fucking.time because I was just SUCH a fucking klutz and never did anything right, to the point where the entire restaurant would be staring at me at eight years old while I cried and he'd be pointing his finger in my face and saying that he'd *give me something to cry about* if I didn't stop, and all because I spilled a glass of milk and had to get down on the floor and clean it up myself even though the waitress was right there & nervously offering to do it herself and who then kept trying to make eye-contact with me as she knelt down to try to help but which I kept avoiding because I was trying not to cry (and which is the most vivid part of the memory for me other than my dad's expression & the finger in my face & the crowd staring). And the best part was that my klutziness was always an example of how I was just like my mother. Can't forget that. Kind of like how my hands shaking reminded him of my mother & made him "worry" about me. Thanks for that one ESPECIALLY, Dad. Helped work wonders for my social anxiety later.
All that and even more? Lots o' memories from 2003. Lots & LOTS. And to those of you who remember my entries from back then. . .'nuff said. To those of you who don't, here's an example of just one day from that year:
10/1/03:
Mom picked fights with me that day like non-stop. Seriously. Every God-damned word out of my mouth. It was really bad. She was with me when I went downtown to the clinic, and you can get to my campus easily from there, so I asked her if she could drop me off there. When we got there, she started getting all mad, like "I don't even have anywhere to park!" Because, by then, she was like "I'll just wait for you, and drive home with you." So, I pointed to the right, saying "there's spots over there." You know, trying to be helpful. Big mistake. She FLIPPED OUT, like "First off, Rachael, do not speak to me when there's construction nearby! You get me mad, and we could get in an accident! I've said that to you before! And you think I don't know this campus! I know where to fucking! Park!" Like, slapping her hand on the steering wheel, and screaming at me. She then proceeded to yell at me for about ten minutes in the car, using it as just another "example" of everything that I need to "work on." Because I apparently speak before I think, and say things that I don't know. Um, okay.
Argument #2,002: In the car, on the way home. Trying, though God only knows why, to make conversation, I brought up this class she'd been talking about that the Chinese place has, because I'd been trying to figure out all day where I'd heard of it before and finally it had come to me. I know I'm spelling it wrong here, and I'd look up the proper spelling, but right. Stupid yahoo. Anyway, the way you say it, it sounds like kee-gong, except it's with a Q and all. So I was making conversation about it, seeing as it's big in China right now, and the government is not a big fan of it. She asked why, and I was just kind of thinking outloud, like "This is just a theory, I'm no expert, but I think they're afraid of anything they see as a threat. Any big movement of any sort could be seen as taking away from their secular authority. I mean, we are talking about communists here, heh." Tell me, was there something wrong with that? Because I got SCREAMED at, for it. On the highway, with her waving her hands around and ranting. "I know we're talking about communists! Why do you feel the need to remind me! Do you think I'm stupid! Do you think I can't remember!" What in the flying FUCK? I knew she knew what we were talking about. God damn.
Argument #3,005: When we got home, after she'd yelled and yelled at me, and wouldn't let me say a word, finally she randomly was like "I'll go to the DMV with you tomorrow." I hadn't asked, but she offered on her own, so I said thanks. You'd think that would be okay. You'd be wrong. I guess I said something like "you don't have to do that", and she flipped. Like I was turning myself dependent, instead of looking at it like she was going with me, I was making it like she was going for me. God, what the fuck EVER. She went on and on about how I could've looked at it as something we did "together", like an "experience" I could've learned from, and blah blah blah. She's so fucking crazy. All I did was say thank you. It was her taking me to the DMV, not a trip to Europe. Experience, my ass. Psycho.
So then I was standing in the kitchen, and I plugged my nose at first, when trying to drink the herbs, because you know how you see people do that sometimes, when something tastes really bad. It didn't really help, but I tried it at first. Whatever. It took me a minute to finish it, because I put too much water in, and I wasn't used to the taste yet. It only takes me a sec now. But she yelled at me from the other room, all nasty, like "Don't you feel like a wuss for taking so long to drink that? Grow up, Rachael! Holding your nose, don't you feel stupid?"
A little while later, I came upstairs, thinking I'd do the dishes. Thinking it would be good to do, and maybe she'd appreciate it. The second I got up there, she yelled at me to go back downstairs, because she didn't want to see me, and that I was annoying her. A few minutes later, as I was sitting downstairs and looking at the paper, she started yelling at me to come back upstairs, because I "wasn't going to sit down there all day." She started ordering me to go somewhere. I told her that I was planning on trying to register for a class or two that night, and keep looking up jobs. She flipped at me then for that, calling me a "schizophrenic", because "normal" 21 year olds don't think of staying home on a Friday night to sign up for classes. Nevermind that the fall term started on the following Monday. She yelled and yelled, for about an hour over that.
That was just one randomly picked day. I guarantee I can find many more like it. It's not even the worst day I could find from that year. Just one bad one I remember very clearly. And I don't know why the memories from times like that are coming to the surface now as opposed to a year ago, or a month ago--if it's just because of what's happened or something else--but they are. And I don't know if it's good to be looking back & facing it all, or I need to make myself stop. I don't know how to combine my feelings about those memories with the ones I have of me at four years old helping my mom memorize lines for her plays (she used to sometimes act). Or how to combine the Joe that asks for topless pictures of my sister with the Joe that used to play monopoly with me, and computer games. Or the dad who I was afraid would kill me as a child (literally, which apparently I wasn't alone with. My sister told me a few months ago she thought as a kid he would walk in & light her bed on fire as she slept), with the same dad who shares my love of music & a lot of my similar sense of humor & personality. It just hurts. All of it.
And. . .yeah, I don't even really know what I'm trying to say anymore. I really hope Mother's Day being over with after tomorrow will help, but I have the feeling now that the floodgates are open that this isn't going away anytime soon. I'm sure I'll be okay. I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to choose life & get through this, just like I have before. Because I do have things that still make me happy. I have work, I have TV, I have music, I have art, I have funny bus stories, and even if I feel alone, I can work on helping to show people what I need from them, right? And hope that others want me in their life? And hope that I won't always lose everyone, just because I have in the past? And just keep putting one foot in front of the other, trying to do things that I know might improve my life & make me happy, like I planned on? So I'll keep doing that. Which is why I called Amy today & plan to meet her in a half-hour to watch old '80s Nightmare on Elm Street movies & eat Thai food with her, because even if I still have doubts that she plans to stick around as my friend, I'm just going to act like she will & see if she does. And tomorrow will go to an Al-Anon meeting and then may go to a game night event with my Depression/Anxiety meetup group if I can carpool with people (one of the people replied to the post I left asking if anyone would meet with me on Mother's Day, letting me know of a game-night get together, so I asked if anyone could give me a ride since the buses are not great on Sunday evenings around here). So I guess my point is this: depression is kind of kicking my ass at the moment, but I won't go down without a fight. As my friend from last night is so fond of saying, "this ain't my first rodeo."
And, yeah. I need to go get ready now, so that's about all I have to say. Which is probably good because I have the feeling this entry is going to be really long. Sorry about that. But again, this one was for me, and I gave people express permission NOT to read it, so hey. I will at least say that I do feel a bit better and calmer after getting that all out, so I think I really needed this. I just hope tomorrow isn't too hard, but I guess we'll just see. I think as long as I keep busy, I'll be all right. Just so people know though, if any of you who have my phone number try to call me? It's highly doubtful my phone will be plugged in most of the day. And if it is, calls will definitely be screened. So be prepared to leave messages. Just sayin'. And there's a good chance I'll be avoiding my email, but I will be checking livejournal. So if anyone theoretically wants to get a hold of me, that'll be the best way.
