I Am Trying

This post may be long, and not because i’m full of unexpressed creative genius. I am not full of the creativity lately. Mostly because I’m full of the random but overwhelming urge to do a multitude of self damaging and increasingly insane things.

So let’s dig in.

I cut. It happened. I did everything I could to avoid it. I really did.

One night, a few weeks ago, I had a panic attack all the way home from work.

By the time I got home, I had practically bathed in my tears, and my fingers were tingling from the over oxygenation of my blood, which occurs when your brain tells you to gasp for air with all your lung’s might because, despite the knowledge that you really are getting air (because you’d be dead by now, if not) you feel like the world has shoved a giant downy pillow in your face holes.

I’m talking the kind of tear bath where, hours later, you can run your fingers over your skin and actually feel the salt leftover once the water has gone. Crusty, gross feeling, eyeball salt.

I managed not to throw myself out of my speeding car, or crash said car into any immovable objects. I pulled into my driveway, stumbled my way into the house knowing full well I was riding the crazy bus, and grabbed the closest knife.

Then I dropped it on the counter and went upstairs where I laid in bed, and did not move, for 5 hours, except to pet the severely confused cats who came to visit me. The severely confused cats who were, in actuality, wondering why the fuck they hadn’t been fed, and may have been subconsciously waiting for me to die so they could feast upon my tear seasoned flesh.

Anyways…

I laid there until another human being was in the house. Until someone was there to kick my ass if I tried anything stupid. Because, trust me, I know it’s stupid.

And when John got home I was still leaking crazy fluids. I continued to spontaneously leak crazy fluids all night, but I didn’t cut.

Then the next day I didn’t leave the knife on the counter.

Fuck!

And for the next few days I was fine. Totally fucking fine. Except when the doctor asked if my cat had scratched me. And when I had to rummage for pants because all my dresses showed my leg.
And when my husband sighed and held me a little tighter than normal because he was scared.
And when I thought about how long I’d managed to not do that. And how I had laid in bed, unmoving, needing to pee like hell, just to not do that.

Basically, my brain was at war with my emotional state.

Brain: “Stop laughing! knock it off! you have no reason to feel good today. Feel like shit you crazy, unmedicated, self mutilating fuck up!”

Emotions: “Nah man, it’s ok. Really! See, everything’s fine.”

Brain: “Everything is not fucking fine. You carved your leg up. Look at it! Look what you did!”

Emotions: ” Dude, stop being such a prick. It’s no big deal. It’s not like I offed myself. I could’ve offed myself you know.”

Brain: “That is self defeating bullshit and you know it!”

Emotions: “Fuck you. I have Cheetos. Everything’s awesome.”

Brain: “Aren’t you on a diet?”

Emotions: “Damnit!”

And that’s how it do. Lately my brain and my emotions are never simpatico. Never. They just don’t line up. i feel like the world is crashing when everything is fine, and i have unexplained giggling fits when i should be broken. And the whole time my brain’s floating around up there going…

Dude, you are seriously fucked up.

Yeah, brain. I know. I totally and for real, completely know. There just isn’t jack shit to do about it. This body is stuck in bipolar gear right now and it ain’t moving till the engine blows.

I have stalled on any and all decision making. I can’t decide if this is good or not, because I’m not sure if I can trust my thoughts.

Am I putting decisions on hold because I know I’m unstable right now, and it’s not wise to make decisions while unstable….

Or is that actually irrational fear talking, and this is your crazy’s way of putting your life on hold?

Everything from the desire to get my hair cut, to wanting kids, to thinking maybe Pomeranians aren’t so obnoxious (side note: yes, yes they are) comes into question. There’s the possibility of a fucked up subconscious motive for everything when you’re that depressed.

Example: I want to cut my hair. Except, why would I want to do that when I’ve been trying to grow it out? Oh yeah, maybe because you feel hideous and disgusting and just want to see something different, anything different, when you look in the mirror.

Then when you give in and cut it, you beat the shit outta yourself for sabotaging your own goals.

Depression= sabotaging yourself. Get it?

Getting a haircut is a rather shallow and simplistic example, but if that sort of decision can get so magically fucked up, just imagine what happens with big ones.

Anyways, this is where I am. And if I don’t do something soon, this is where I’ll stay.

So I dug up something from my past that always made the world seem a little bit softer.

It’s a pillow pallet. A pillow pallet made of every pillow in my house, that takes up about 90% of my living room.

When I was young, before the crazy set in, before my sister and I learned the wonders of hallucinations, and just how shitty human beings really are, we built pillow pallets.

I remember.

I remember we played video games and watched movies together for hours. The floor would be covered in snack remains, and we’d have deep circles under our eyes from lack of sleep, or from squinting too hard while our characters battled on the screen.

Before video games we’d play Barbies and Polly Pockets on our pillow pallets. And my sister would construct fabulous flea homes out of shoe boxes, and I’d narrate entire melodramas for my characters, using words most kids my age had never heard of.

We’d hang sheets and prop up walls made of quilts around our pillows and we played house, and our babies (usually played by a stuffed animal, or an extremely patient pet cat stuffed in doll clothes) would lounge on the pillows with us.

Sometimes our Barbies would live in nudist colonies because my stubby fingers couldn’t get the tiny clothes on.
Sometimes our babies would hiss and run for their lives because we were wielding nail polish and lipstick.

Sometimes my sister was faking her happiness, for me, because my sister is 8 years older than me… And the darkness was already coming for her.

But she played with me.

And we laughed.

And we were safe in our pillow fortress. We were safe even though I was already having the death nightmares. We were safe even though I didn’t have friends at school. Because my best friend’s father found out I wasn’t baptized, and she wasn’t allowed to play with me anymore. We were safe, for years.

Even when the darkness came for me too, and I’d wake up to the world sounding different, and my body feeling numb. Before I learned the words to describe what was happening to me.

I remember feeling like the world was ok. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time, but I remember it. It was like magic

And I’m hoping that maybe, just a little of that magic can come back. I just have to remember how to call for it. How to let it back into my life.

I have to at least try.

I amtrying.

And i need to remember… When my brain is screaming and my emotions are beating me into dirt….

I am trying.
I am trying.
I am trying.

And that’s all I can do.