Yearly Archives: 2015

laying low

At some point, the most I could do was sit by the win­dow and face the lawn. It’s hard to say how many hours were spent look­ing out­ward, inter­rupt­ed every now and then by food I could bare­ly taste or swal­low. For a per­son who needs to stay active to cul­ti­vate a sense of worth, it was a sign I was beyond her reach, and at a point where I was no longer able to help myself.

When she began to cry, I asked what was wrong. “I did­n’t think you’d give up”, she explained, some­thing made appar­ent when I could­n’t man­age a veneer of pleas­ant­ness for the sake of being polite to friends or strangers alike. I once told her I would stick around for her sake, but in that moment we both under­stood it was a promise I could­n’t keep.

Self-portrait

I won­der if I’ll ever be able to. It’s hard to remem­ber what life was like before I was so emo­tion­al­ly exhaust­ed. Even when the exter­nal sources of stress are far away and my head is above water, it still feels like I’m drown­ing. When that gener­i­cal­ly redo­lent scent of taxi leather hit my nose, it used to mean I had a plane to catch, a flight to take me out of the coun­try, an adven­ture await­ing; now it’s a por­tent of deaf­en­ing­ly silent wait­ing rooms, and psy­chi­a­trists who know too lit­tle and talk too much.

I keep my fret­ting fin­gers trim but the cal­lus­es keep heal­ing over, cause I can’t con­cen­trate long enough to improve (also why it’s tak­en me so many months to write this). The house is a bare­ly con­tained mess. My phone is over­flow­ing with notes, texts, voice mails, things I can’t keep on top of. It’s been for­ev­er since I talked to Darren, even longer since I made a trip out of town. I’ve grown sen­si­tive to loud nois­es. I bare­ly rec­og­nize my own face.

That’s how I know I’m not ready to process parts of the past yet. Going so many years with­out a reprieve has left me drained of cop­ing resources, and when I’m bare­ly man­ag­ing my needs for safe­ty and sur­vival, there isn’t any room left for growth or improve­ment. I need more time to heal, to replace upset­ting mem­o­ries with new expe­ri­ences, to be in a sta­ble place before revis­it­ing the most trau­mat­ic parts.

Heather by the window

For the moment, that means work­ing with my nat­ur­al ener­gy pat­terns and momen­tum as I try to devel­op healthy habits. It’s left me up at odd hours, eat­ing irreg­u­lar meals, and large­ly house-bound. Heather tends to my needs and nev­er leaves my side for more than 15 min­utes. I’m for­tu­nate to have a small sup­port group help­ing me look after things — drop­ping off gro­ceries, bring­ing my car for main­te­nance, pay­ing the bills, dri­ving me to appoint­ments — small tasks that seem daunt­ing when so unsure of myself. Misun even offered to help sell the house and fly me to France so I could live under her care indef­i­nite­ly; if only one could be car­ried by the love of one’s friends alone.

It pains me to be here wait­ing, feel­ing like I’m miss­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for hap­pi­ness every day, but I’ve learned that progress can’t be rushed. Not just cause I have to tread so care­ful­ly through the past, but because I’ve been down for so long that it feels like it’ll nev­er be up again. That’s why I have to trust her when she tells me things will even­tu­al­ly be okay. Until then, I spend my time lost in the Dark Tower, appre­ci­at­ing a sobri­ety I was­n’t pre­pared for, look­ing for duels in the bor­der­lands, try­ing to feel nor­mal again.

sweet surrender

All his life he had been active, doing things about the house, look­ing after patients, think­ing, study­ing, writ­ing. How good it was to stop doing, strug­gling, think­ing, to leave it all for a time to nature, to become her thing, her con­cern, the work of her mer­ci­ful, won­der­ful, beau­ty-lav­ish­ing hands.

—Doctor Zhivago

Time is giv­ing me the chance to feel hurt with­out hate. If only the process did­n’t make the indi­vis­i­ble moments so over­whelm­ing­ly painful. The idea of being nor­mal seems like a mod­est goal, now that an act as sim­ple as wash­ing the dish­es becomes a bur­den I can’t bear. It’s the rea­son I don’t trust myself behind the wheel of a car, the rea­son song and film do noth­ing to help me retreat.

As a result, our lives have been reduced to the sim­plest means of sur­vival. I play my games like a full-time job, slow­ly pro­cess­ing things I’ve kept in the back of my head as a means of stay­ing safe from myself. We eat, we sleep, we start over again. My respon­si­bil­i­ty is to myself now, and it’s a good day if I can get one pro­duc­tive thing done, from a sim­ple show­er to a step out­side. And if even that proves too much, I’m learn­ing to be okay with that too, as time is mea­sured across expe­ri­ences and lives, not by the moments in which we stum­ble and fall.

Heather

When she sees me try­ing to shake the thoughts loose, look­ing for sup­port on cold tile, I’m told to take as much time as I need to get bet­ter, and remind­ed she won’t leave if I nev­er do. I don’t have to hide my feel­ings or moods, cause she does­n’t judge me for the depth of my sad­ness, nor hold my anger against me. Every day she grows more ten­der than the last, even as I fall and break apart, and I’m learn­ing to under­stand how, when I have such a hard time accept­ing the shade of a per­son I am right now. It’s such bound­less affec­tion that final­ly makes me feel loved because of who I am, and not what I do or offer or rep­re­sent.

After so many years liv­ing at arms-length with every­one around me, it’s a feel­ing that’s impos­si­ble for me to take for grant­ed. I can’t help but inter­nal­ize every way her grace brings me joy. Every time she thanks me for let­ting her take care of my needs and wants.

And with this foun­da­tion, I learn how to be a per­son again, as I try to write my way out of this hole.

to start with an end

The break­ing point hap­pened one night, when an acquain­tance I’ll call Thomas chid­ed me for not get­ting back to him soon­er about a din­ner invi­ta­tion. Thomas was upset enough that he need­ed some time off from hang­ing out. I did­n’t under­stand, as he nev­er expressed his con­cern, so I had no idea there was a prob­lem in the first place. I apol­o­gized for hurt­ing him, and plead­ed with him to let me know next time so it would­n’t hap­pen again. Still, the sit­u­a­tion did­n’t sit well with me; my belat­ed reply was due to the fact that I was in a dif­fi­cult place of my own, about which he nev­er asked or con­sid­ered. I was left con­fused, and sad that I’d unwit­ting­ly hurt some­one so much as to need a break.

So I called my best friend at the time, look­ing for sup­port. “Avail?” was my usu­al code-word by text, to let him know I could wait until he had tak­en care of every­thing else, as I nev­er took his time for grant­ed. But this time, I was shak­en enough that I need­ed more than just an ear, and told him, instead of ask­ing. When I final­ly got him on the phone, he dis­missed every­thing I tried to say, over­rid­ing it with, “This is what you need to do. Mark three months from now on your cal­en­dar, and call him then. He’ll for­get by that time”. I tried to explain my feel­ings over and over, that I was­n’t look­ing to make amends but try­ing to under­stand the sit­u­a­tion, and this was the most mean­ing­ful answer he could offer. I broke down when I knew I was­n’t get­ting through, when I real­ized he was­n’t an ally at a time I tru­ly need­ed it, and that he nev­er was.

Continue read­ing “to start with an end”…

in the absence of light

It’s been weeks since I left the house for any­thing but a doctor’s appoint­ment, maybe three times since November. I miss the win­ter, even though it’s right out­side my door. I miss my friends, even though they’re rarely more than a short trip away. It’s espe­cial­ly hard not being able to explain the dis­tance. All I can do is hope they trust me when I don’t feel com­fort­able explain­ing, and try not to feel inse­cure about being so out of touch.

Sometimes, the thought of being away from my safe­ty zone fills me with dread. Other times it’s just eas­i­er to not do any­thing. I bare­ly man­age the effort to wash my hair once a week, and the only rea­son I shave is to more eas­i­ly wipe off the vis­cid sad­ness that so often vis­its my face. I sus­pect I would­n’t even be eat­ing if it weren’t for the fact that Heather enjoys tak­ing care of peo­ple to ful­fill her own need for secu­ri­ty. She’s lived here a few months, and she’s already mak­ing sure the cats have their teeth brushed every day and all the bills are paid. I’ve bare­ly known her for twice that time, and I’ve nev­er been more depen­dent on any­one in my life.

It feels like I’ve tak­en two steps back, but I’m at this point cause it means I’m safe enough to start pro­cess­ing and under­stand­ing the things that led to me try­ing to hang myself from the rail­ing of my stair­case a year ago. I haven’t fig­ured out what it means to keep going, when for so long I believed my life was lead­ing up to that moment, and stick­ing around was­n’t a choice I made for myself. Just fig­ur­ing out how to write about such a large and com­plex expe­ri­ence is often too much. I’m left bro­ken when I sim­ply want to under­stand.

I’m learn­ing that recov­ery isn’t a bina­ry process, but a jour­ney with strug­gles and tri­umphs. I still suf­fer the trau­ma of being moments away from dying. I’m still haunt­ed by the guilt of sur­vival. With so many hair-trig­gers that lead to whol­ly con­sum­ing break­downs, I can’t deny I’m not the per­son I used to be. Right now, it’s hard enough just try­ing to be okay with that.