Posts in category "Thoughts"

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.

habits

July was sup­posed to be my catch-up month. The one where I con­nect­ed with a lover instead of being rushed to appre­ci­ate her at every turn; a chance to fin­ish house projects and all the clean­ing I’ve been putting off; maybe even time enough to go for a walk every day, or the patience to work on fret­ting clean­er bar­res instead of emo­tion­al doo­dling and clum­sy inter­pre­ta­tions.

chemo indica leaves

Now here I am, half way through September. Heather and I are at war with our respec­tive pasts, and wait­ing for relief. On top this comes her dad’s diag­no­sis of a metas­ta­sized can­cer of unknown ori­gin. We’re used to being strong for oth­ers, but the uncer­tain­ty of what may come makes us won­der if we’re tru­ly ready.

If only my mind was­n’t already drift­ing back to those unhealthy and all-too-famil­iar thoughts. It’s hard enough let­ting go of the sense that every­thing will fall apart at any sec­ond. The depth of my strug­gle has changed me, and I’m still get­ting used to feel­ing uncon­di­tion­al­ly loved and emo­tion­al­ly secure. Thankfully, I have a part­ner who tells me every sin­gle day that I’m a good per­son, that I’m impor­tant, and that I deserve to be hap­py. Consistent reminders are what I need, how­ev­er small, cause the recov­ery process is going to take far longer than I first thought.

Guild Wars 2

We’ve tak­en to explor­ing the mas­sive world of Tyria in Guild Wars 2 as a way of cop­ing. Even when I’m away from my com­put­er, I think of noth­ing but jour­ney­ing to new loca­tions, instead of the tiny prob­lems that seem impos­si­ble to sur­mount at even my best times. I’ve always been an obses­sive per­son, and my mind would be full of bad things right now if I was­n’t so busy find­ing the next point of inter­est, the next cham­pi­on to kill and loot.

It’s a way for me to get through the dif­fi­cult days, until they turn into a past that I can look at from afar. I know if I can turn the page on this chap­ter, I’ll have a oppor­tu­ni­ty to become the per­son I want to be every day for the rest of my life.

steps into strides

It’s nice to be at a point where I don’t suf­fer sim­ply by the act of exist­ing. With my head above water, I can pur­sue a sense of hap­pi­ness instead of con­stant­ly decid­ing whether it’s worth going on.

But I have to admit that the depth of my strug­gle is what gave me the tools to thrive now. When I was try­ing to sur­vive the most dif­fi­cult times, I learned that I could lim­it the effect of life’s inher­ent insta­bil­i­ties by being in bet­ter con­trol of myself. Through my jour­ney with social injus­tice1, I learned how to empathize with peo­ple and under­stand their expe­ri­ences. From hav­ing lost all my most fun­da­men­tal emo­tion­al bonds, I learned to be a more patient friend and deep­er lover.

It feels like I’ve been strug­gling in ado­les­cence, and am now tran­si­tion­ing to the next major phase, one that will involve as much heal­ing as grow­ing. That means I need to prac­tice using these tools, cause know­ing how to be a bet­ter per­son isn’t enough by itself; time and per­se­ver­ance are just as impor­tant for a per­son with so much dam­age.

There are still bad days, moments of weak­ness, and ground­less inse­cu­ri­ties, but they’re get­ting less fre­quent and less intense, and I have more time than I ever thought I’d have. As long as I’m on the right path, each step I take toward find­ing my stride will get me to where I want to go.

  1. And with the sup­port of Shawn and Tiana mak­ing me feel val­i­dat­ed about my feel­ings every step of the way. [↩]

make the road by walking

I can tell I’m get­ting over­whelmed cause of the mis­takes I’m mak­ing. Fruit is going bad on the counter before I have a chance to eat/cook it, a dose of med­ica­tion is for­got­ten here and there, missed pay­ments lead to inter­est fees; I’m los­ing con­trol of lit­tle details that are nor­mal­ly sim­ple mat­ters for me.

sushi

Maybe it’s cause I’m con­stant­ly try­ing to catch up. On projects I keep putting off cause of my respon­si­bil­i­ties. On life after los­ing the last two years to a depres­sion that left me cry­ing more often than not. On top of all that, I’m try­ing to jug­gle a job, a rela­tion­ship, and the ener­gy it takes for me to heal, while enjoy­ing every moment as it comes. Even though I’m in a safe and sta­ble place now, I still strug­gle to cope with how quick­ly things are chang­ing. I miss being able to record my thoughts and expe­ri­ences here, but I can’t afford the time it takes to get into that zone.1

The hard­est part is explain­ing to peo­ple why I’ve been out of touch for so long. It means going into a painful (and recent) his­to­ry, and it’s not easy to get into that emo­tion­al space, let alone think about things that are dif­fi­cult to relive, let alone open up to some­one, let alone wor­ry about how they’re going to react.

  1. I’m try­ing to accept that it’s okay to wait before writ­ing about cer­tain ideas. It took me sev­en years before I could fig­ure out how to write about my mom, and that meant a lot of grow­ing before I could under­stand the whole sit­u­a­tion and final­ly put the sub­ject to rest. There’s so much more I still have to say, about things both good and bad. It’s just hard to get used to the idea that this will become a jour­nal of the past instead of a diary of the present. [↩]