down from the ledge...postcards from the edge of suicide

Taking Stock: Where Were You 1 Year Ago?

2013-04-04T18:38:00.000-05:00

"Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday, and all is well." - John T. Tindsley

1 year ago....

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get out of bed and get to my new job every day.

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fake it well enough to get by in the company of other Homo sapiens.

Would I randomly burst into tears and humiliate myself?

Would everyone see right through to my broken insides?

Underneath it all, the overarching fear: This will all end in one more failure.

But it didn't.

As I was moving through Module 2 of my friend Therese's Unlost E-Course, I started to realize that things weren't as bad as I seemed to be telling myself they were. Therese had us compare six key dimensions of our lives from a year ago to now. What dawned on me is how the life-and-death worries that plagued me then are not even on my radar today. For the most part;)

1. Relationships

Ugh. Why not start here? For sure, for sure I have a loooooooooooong way to go in this realm. I didn't trust people a year ago, and I don't trust them now. But I'm starting to. I'm letting (some) people INTO my life, instead of cutting them all out. I'm going out instead of shutting myself in, and that's really all I can ask of myself at this point. When you've been let down, and lied to, and trampled on by so many, it's not necessarily a good thing to let any idiot into your life willy-nilly.

I'm in a happy living situtation instead of chaos-filled negativity. I have healthy boundaries between me and toxic family members. Is it perfect? No. It never WILL be. But you start somewhere, because ANYwhere is better than letting things go on the way they have.

2. Health

I lost 40 pounds this past year. That has to be the first thing I write, because it freaking amazes me. I still can't jog, and there are a lot of days I can't walk over 20 minutes without problems. But I've maintained a vegetarian lifestyle, started my days with raspberry-spinach-chia smoothies instead of processed cereal, and made other gradual changes that added up over a year's time.

And pain. I couldn't tolerate stairs or driving, nor could I sit in a chair all day last year. I wasn't sure how that was all gonna go down with a new job! I had some really, really bad times. But I made it through one day at a time. When I injured my back on top of everything else, I made "getting better" an absolute priority above all else, including this blog. I went back into Physical Therapy, started Rolfing, found an herbal anti-inflammatory that miraculously works, and took a week off work to purge built-up stress.

Shit doesn't get better on its own. Sometimes the first or second (or thirtieth) things you try don't help, and you have to dig deep to keep seeking out alternatives.

3. Career

Ouch. This was a sore subject not so long ago. Anyone who has suffered through unemployment, financial ruin, and fruitless job interviews knows how hard it is to maintain hope in the face of what's been lost. You hold on one more day because tomorrow could be the day it all turns around...and sometimes, that actually happens.

I just had my 1-year anniversary at a job that gives me a sense of purpose, along with decent pay and hours. I could still be filled with bitter resentment over the career I lost, but instead I am happy to have -A- job, because I remember what it's like to be endlessly job-hunting.

4. Financial

Let's just say I was still sleeping on an air mattress last year because I was too afraid of buying a bed and having to move it again. If that doesn't tell you everything about how precarious my financial situation was, I don't know what will!

Having a nice balance in the savings account is a huge relief. So is having a big girl bed.

5. Spiritual

This one isn't easy for me, because I can't feel the hopelessness that enveloped me a year ago. What's more, I don't want to try to remember. The simple fact that I am not in complete and utter despair every waking moment says it all.

I know what it's like to have every single one of these 6 domains come crashing down at once, and I'm sure many of you have been there as well. Grasping to find something - anything - worth getting out of bed for is a shitty place to be in.

I haven't found any answers, and I haven't found God. But I have found meaning again through helping other people who are in the place I was.

6. Personal Development/Hobbies

Thanks to A.R.T. treatments, I was able to get back on the bike a little bit last summer. I can only hope that my leg continues to progress.

And blogging...I'm writing this post, aren't I? I bought a domain, spiced up the look of DFTL, and increased my posts to an average of twice a month. Have I done all I set out to do with this space? Ab-so-lute-ly NOT! And yes, I could easily focus on how far I have yet to go. But now, just for the moment, I have to be grateful for what steps I've taken.

Think back to your biggest problems 1 year ago today....

What questions were you grappling with? Undoubtedly, some of your fears are still nagging you, many problems have since been resolved, and others .... are in process.

That's the real message here; there IS no endpoint. You may be further along than you thought you'd be, or even miles off track, but it's pretty unlikely that you're exACTLY where you were a year ago.

We all know the "life is a journey" cliches; we comprehend that "the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail." But beneath that? We secretly long for that day when we've got our shit figured out so we can sit on our rears, put our feet up, and quit worrying about every little thing.

That day is not going to come.

That being said, you'd better start giving yourself a little credit for how far you've come.

What is the point of racking up accomplishments if you never take a breath and acknowledge how effing awesome it is that you pulled it off?

Since you're never going to get "THERE" - that magic destination - what are some ways you can begin to relax into whereever you're at right now, today, and be at peace with that?

On the Suicide of Mindy McCready

2013-02-17T23:39:00.000-06:00

I hadn't really planned on posting tonight. But when it comes to suicide, the only one planning on it is the one that's gone.

As morbid proof of that very fact, one of the first news reports I saw tonight stated:

"There is cause to find that there is clear and convincing evidence that Respondent is in imminent danger of harm to herself or others, suicidal or gravely disabled....

...But just a day later McCready was released to undergo outpatient treatment instead."
-Chicago Tribune

Every day in this world, there are psychiatrists and nurses and therapists charged with the burden of determining whether someone "means it." Whether they're just looking for attention, or whether a secret plan lies behind their eyes.

I guarantee you that no one likes having to be that person. I have BEEN that person, and let me tell you, the weight of the whole world is on your shoulders for that judgment call.

And sometimes people get it wrong. Really wrong.

Sometimes the best actors are the people who are dead serious. Who have already decided, and who know what to tell the people in charge of those decisions.

Should I have been released by the crisis counselors in Nashville when I had a 3-fold plan, and had already started carrying out half the damn thing? I should think not. But I was.

Would I have said anything it took in order to avoid being locked up? I would, and I did.

And so I was driven by a police officer back to my hotel, where my luggage containing a dozen pill bottles and a shard of glass remained, the day after sending suicide notes to two people.

I put someone in the godawful position of gambling with my life. Thankfully they were right, and I was wrong.

So tonight is just a reminder that every suicide I hear about for the rest of my life will take me back to that place, and that week, and the people who made me feel that I was nothing to nobody.

And tonight is also a reminder that EVERYbody is somebody to someone. Everyone who dies by suicide is someone's best friend, or mother, or colleague, or son.

Sometimes it's somebody "special," like a celebrity. But to those left behind, it doesn't matter if you had a million fans...or just one.

I remember cleaning the house on Saturday mornings as a teenager, belting out "Have a Nice Day," my all-time favorite song of Mindy's.

Now I read the words to another of her songs, so devastating in light of today's news:

"I'm still hereThere was darkness, all around meThere were times I was sure I was drowningThere were people, who tried to reach meBut no matter how they loved me, I kept sinkingI got tired of my own hell, I reached inside and I saved myself"

Many of us will fight the battle. Some will lose.

Some will never find the love, the hope, or the strength to keep a self-destructive mind at bay.

And it doesn't matter if you're a famous blond with a beautiful voice....or a random person milling about the streets of any town.

At the end of the day, we are left with our thoughts, and our pasts, and our traumas that are ours alone to deal with.

And the truth is, until you've walked in someone's shoes, you could never possibly know the kind of pain that would push someone to that choice.

The truth is, if we all had a little more compassion - and a little less judgment - for those among us who are fading before our very eyes, we might possibly end up being the one who made all the difference.

So take a look around you at the people in your life that are still here. Who you're ignoring. Or neglecting. Who you see struggling and never know what to say, so you stop speaking to. Who are putting on a happy face for you because they know you cannot tolerate their real feelings.

You don't need. To say. Anything.

You don't need. To have. Any answers.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

~Henri Nouwen

Pain, hope, and the co-existence of the two

2013-02-10T18:23:00.000-06:00

The past 6 weeks of my life have revolved around a singular focus: pain.
(Or rather, its elimination.)

It's the first thing there when I open my eyes, the last thing I try to push out of my brain as I lay there pleading for sleep to take me out, and my constant companion throughout each and every day.

After 5 years of dealing with a chronic right hip/sciatic/SI joint condition, I'm no stranger to pain. But right around Christmas I hurt my back, and have now been dealing with muscle spasms and left hip pain on top of the "usual" pain I've grown accustomed to living with.

Most people would never know that I'm dealing with it on a daily basis. You know those life-sucking vultures who latch onto every ear they can find and whine about every ache and pain? Or the giant babies who become incapacitated by a mere headache?

Well, I can't stand them, and I have no desire to join their ranks. There are a lot of people out there suffering quietly and doing their best to cope, rather than exploiting their ailments for attention and sympathy. By no means is either category of person braver, more valiant, or superior to the other....I just don't see the point in complaining.

But this post isn't about those people, and it isn't really about my problem, either. It's about figuring out how to hold onto some tiny shred of hope when you're in the trenches with it.

When there's nothing there but you and the pain. When you can't escape it, because it IS you.

When you've tried it all, and exhausted the treatment options, and still it remains...what's next?

When every step forward is followed by two steps back, where do you look for hope?

When you're the one you can't fix...what then?

I've had my moments here lately. Moments when I just can't see it. Moments when I just want to give up, regress into the emotional fetal position, and dissolve into self-pity and helplessness.

Waking up in the middle of the night in pain and bawling for an hour straight.

Crying at my physical therapist's office.

It wasn't so much that one setback after weeks of gradual improvement; it was one more setback. One more setback on top of the hundred others. The ups, the downs, the times when you think you're finally on your way to getting better, only to wind up back where you started. It gets that much harder each and every time you have to drag yourself back up to fight another fight.

I should be a fucking professional at this by now. After all the days and weeks and years where I thought about killing myself every single blessed day, I should have the answer to pain.

But as my friend Therese at The Unlost reminds us,

"All of life, it seems,
is a process:
A process of un-learning and re-learning,
forgetting and remembering,
slumbering and waking up,
again,
and again,
and again."

So I'm trying my best to remember how to keep getting up out of bed, and keep looking for ways to cope, and keep not giving up. Because I don't get a choice. No one asked me if I wanted this pain. It just is. And I have to work with it, and breathe with it, and lie with it, and if it never gets better, maybe even die with it.

Since I can't escape from it, shouldn't I have stopped trying to by now?

Whether the pain you're dealing with is physical or emotional, there is really only one thing to do: sit with it.

"And so you sit with that feeling; you let it in. As much as you can bear it, you let it be. For a moment it encompasses you like you feared it would...but still you let it stay, even when every fiber of your being wants to run like hell...

And although the feeling is still there, it becomes smaller, less encompassing, less real. And you start to realize that it's not so life-ending, after all."

-Therese, The Unlost

I want my body back, body back, body back....

2013-01-01T23:36:00.000-06:00

I want my body back.

I want my 16-year-old body back, the hundred-thirty-pound-mass with "giant calves" and "thunder thighs." Give me THAT body back so I can try to hate it now.

I want my 18-year-old body back, the one I felt huuuuge in if the scale approached numbers like, oh, say...138. "Yeah, you're a real porpoise. Downright obese," I would tell that stupid girl who said those stupid fucking things to herself.

I want my 20-year-old body back, the one that seemed enormous in lingerie. The one that was always over-endowed in the wrong areas and lacking in all the right ones. Give me back THAT body, that I tortured into submission with all the jogging and biking and workout videos, never quite reaching perfection in.

I want my 22-year-old body back, the hundred-twenty-big-fat-pounds I strategically covered in blankets and turned off the lights to have sex in. Let me hide it and cover it in shame now, cringing in self-recrimination for my failure to measure up to my porn-addicted boyfriend's expectations.

I want my 24-year-old body back, the one guys were attracted by, but I was repulsed by. Give me back the opportunity to rebuff compliments and reject every nice thing anyone ever said about me as delusional.

I want my 26-year-old body back, the one I rode across the entire state of Iowa in on RAGBRAI, and trained for a half-marathon in. Let me remember what it's like to hate being a size 9, so I can recall the distorted thought process that minimized every accomplishment in favor of continued self-loathing.

I want my 27-year-old body back, the one my boyfriend told, "Well...there's the weight thing...but you can *change* that." I want that moment back so I can tell him to fuck the fuck off, instead of telling myself that I am not worthy of love unless I am a size....who knows what the fuck size would have pleased him.

I want THAT body back, the one I punished with relentless running after that breakup, to the point of serious injury.

Give me back the body that could run without pain, bike for hours, and recover in 24 hours, so I can remember how demented I was to abhor being healthy if no one could see my clavicle or ribcage.

I want all those days back I spent hating myself because I hated that body because I hated never feeling good enough.

I want to trade in all these years I have actually BEEN fat for all the years I just BELIEVED I was ginormous. I promise not to take it for granted this time around if I can just trade in these fat rolls no Spanx can adequately encase for the "revolting" slight protrusion of my stomach I was so disgusted by.

Yeah. I want my body back.

Recovering from your boyfriend's porn addiction

2012-12-30T07:26:00.000-06:00

When you're 16 and your boyfriend tacks pictures of naked girls above his bed, you shrug it off as typical.

You may not like it, but the culture insists it is normal, and therefore to be expected and accepted. You can't keep your hands off each other, and the sex is great, so what's a few dirty pics when he's obviously crazy about you.

A few months later when you don't want to have sex one night and he starts holding you down and forcing you, you forgive him because he did stop eventually, after all. When he sulks on the end of the bed and becomes uncommunicative, you start to feel bad for him and tell him it's alright (huh?), feeling somehow responsible for his shame.

When he turns 19 and takes a road trip to the full nudity strip joint he can now get into, you get pissed that he goes despite how you feel about it, but shove your loathing down because society says this is a rite of passage.

When you're 19 and he barely wants to have sex anymore after living together for only a year, you figure it's because he's depressed, and for sure things will get back to the way it used to be in due time.

When you have to go to bed alone with no affection every night while he stays up late and watches porn, you know it's sick that you listen at the bedroom door to hear what he's watching, but can't stop yourself from needing proof.

When you find out a bunch of your mutual friends lied to you when they said they were going out for drinks but were actually taking him to a strip club, you wonder how many other betrayals there have been, and what all has been done behind your back.

When he blocks you from leaving the room during arguments, holds you down despite your screams, and chokes you until you can't breathe, you realize how naive every girl is in thinking they have a chance of fighting off a guy. You stay because you blame yourself for your own temper, somehow believing you deserve it, despite the fact that you never once hurt HIM.

When you're told that you're a crazy psycho bitch for going through his things, 99% of you knows that people who have nothing to hide hide nothing, but your self-worth is so low that you buy into the emotional abuse.

When you're 20 and he keeps telling you he's saving up for a ring, but you come across hidden stashes of money in a box of nasty magazines, you try to tell yourself that of course glossy sex objects are not more worthwhile than marrying you, not really believing it at all.

When you're a cute 125 pound girl who jogs every day and keeps herself up for a lazy sloth who stays skinny without so much as ever working up a sweat, you start to question why you can never measure up to the images he pleasures himself to, while he walks around feeling great about his own body.

When you get so disgusted by it all one night that you box up all his treasured collections and make a trip to the recycling station, but his loser friend helps him fish the magazines out of the public recyling kiosk the next day, you realize exactly how precious this shit really is to him. You remember the night you were so sick you couldn't move from the floor outside the bathroom, and he stepped over you like some animal, refusing to bring you a blanket. You try not to get bitter that you took care of him every time he was sick and secretly feel like the most worthless human being in the world calling someone from an hour away to take you to the hospital because your own fiance doesn't give a shit about you.

When you buy a computer for school, you try not to be angry that he's now spending more time with fake women on a screen, because admitting that someone would choose to get themselves off every day rather than have a relationship with a live human being is a little too...humiliating.

When he wants you to look the way the porn actresses look and tries to make you feel like a frigid prude when you don't want to engage in painful sex acts in order to fulfill all of his fantasies, you hate his fucking guts but can't help questioning if you're so boring in bed that "normal" sex isn't good enough anymore.

When he stops going places with you in favor of staying home to touch himself, you silently fume to yourself over doing every fucking thing in the household with no help while someone values jacking off more than they value time with you.

When you swing around the block one day after leaving and quietly sneak down the hall of the apartment building only to spring in unexpected and catch him watching a revolting video, you attempt to drag him out from under the desk where he's trying to unplug the computer, but he overpowers you in his desperation to hide what he's doing.

When he lies to your face repeatedly and promises to stop but only gets more skilled at hiding his stash and clearing the cache,

you finally get that there's one thing he thinks is worth fighting for in this relationship, and it's not you.

When you find incest porn of two preteen sisters molesting each other on the computer YOU got with YOUR scholarship money, you are horrified at the thought of what kind of sicko you have been sleeping with, and can't help thinking, "For every mouse you see, there's 20 you don't."

When you finally accept that you will never respect yourself if you continue to stay with this person, you move out with the last shred of dignity you have left, embarrassed that you have to call your dad to help because he keeps throwing out all the boxes you bring home to move.

When he tells you he's addicted to porn and seeing a counselor because he wants to be a better man, you willingly play the part of the fool, trying to make it work so that the last 7 years of your life will not have been a waste.

When he puts zero effort into changing but keeps trying to make you have sex, you feel somehow guilty but still can't go through with it, because the thought of his touch now gives you the creeps.

When you stay at his place one night and find multiple personal ads and sex profiles on adult friend finder websites, you decorate his apartment with all of your findings and cut off all communication, realizing once and for all that you have to trust yourself and your own instincts above anyone else.

When you print out his sex profiles and take them to his workplace to tape up in the breakroom so that everyone can see the bastard for who he really is, you let the chick at work dissuade you (and regret it the rest of your life).

When you find out months later that he's not just a disgusting pervert, but also a thief who stole thousands from his company, you feel mortified to have spent so many years with the lowlife just because you were afraid no one else would love you.

When you spend the next 10 years struggling with your lack of self worth and end up in relationships with other emotional abusers who demean and berate you, you tell yourself that it must be something wrong with you, and give up on being loved because you never feel good enough for anyone.

When you look back at the detached way you wrote your own story as if wishing it wasn't your own, you know that most people will think it's absolutely fucking stupid to be so bothered by porn, because they haven't lost their own sex life to a bunch of videos and magazines.

When you think about the person you would be now if he had never come into your life, you vaguely recall how warm and loving you used to be before some selfish fuck treated you like shit, knowing all the while that it was your own choice to keep sticking around for more.

When you realize you've written about being undone by your boyfriend's porn addiction instead of recovering from it, you think of all the times you've heard that porn is harmless, knowing the damage is yours alone to deal with.

Self-Esteem, Self-Worth...or C) None of the Above

2012-12-11T08:49:00.000-06:00

"I'm going to ask a question that will probably shock everyone in this room that I'm asking....you know, it all sounds great on the surface, but when you look a little closer at your resume, there's a year here, a year there, and it doesn't seem like you've stayed any place for very long...can I ask why?" --Interviewer (2 weeks ago)

I have answered this question, in all its various forms, time and time again.

I have concocted versions of the truth, and flat-out lies.

I have summoned confidence I don't really possess to emphasize all the right things, instead of all the things that make me look bad.

But the truth is, it doesn't matter.

The 7 years that I *was* with the same employer....they don't matter.

Straight A's and Summa Cum Laude? Doesn't matter.

The 3 extra years I spent earning a Master's? High school dropouts make more than I do right now.

Volunteering and going the extra mile? Don't make me laugh.

It is my fault. I am the one who left the job where I was making good money in return for being treated like shit. It was my decision to stand up for myself, my decision to quit, and my decision to drive to Nashville to kill myself.

The problem, ironically, is that I didn't kill myself.

The way this has fucked up my life...well, it just makes me wish I had. Choosing to live has ruined my life. Years of unemployment and suicidal depression...the ensuing downward spiral....

Through it all, I haven't given up. Through all the dismissal and rejection, I plodded through five hundred twenty-five thousand job applications until one day - yes! - one day, it all paid off....

There is so much more dignity in being underemployed, rather than just unemployed. Even though my degree is worth twice what I am making, at least I am in the field. I can always console myself with that when I think of trash collectors making double my income.

It's not that I wasn't bitter before this job interview two weeks ago; it's that I forgot how bitter I was, being fortunate enough to have a job to go to every day. I was dumb enough to go out on a limb and apply for the position my degree tells me I am qualified for....and end up rejected once again. The irony is, I was feeling more confident than ever because I finally have 9 months of steady employment in my field with great references! So much for that.

At least I gave it a shot. Yes, it made me feel like absolute shit afterwards, but what doesn't. The important thing is that I had the self-worth to believe I deserved it...for a moment, anyway.

Lonely on Thanksgiving

2012-11-21T18:25:00.001-06:00

"There are a lot of people out there in a lot of pain." --(One of my old professors)

An obvious-sounding statement, isn't it? And yet profound. If you stop to think of all the people out there right now who are hurting, and lonely, or even desperate this (or any) time of year, the magnitude of that sadness is really astounding.

So if you are one of those who feels forgotten, abandoned, or alone this week...this post is for you.

Maybe you will be spending Thanksgiving with a house full of people, but are drowning in your own private world of sorrow. Maybe you are completely isolated and terrified that life will never change. Maybe your family is broken and your holidays are a searing reminder of the happy gatherings you no longer get to have.

Wherever life finds you, I wish you the strength to make it through the tough days like this. I can't muster any sunshine & roses speeches, because I don't feel sunny and rosy right now. There will be other people on other blogs spreading joy for you to capture if that is your wish.

There are others of us just trying to deal.

I was just reading a post over at The Introvert's Corner called "Introverts and the Loneliness Loop."

Dembling writes:

"We desire and require deep connections and would rather be lonely alone than in a crowd. But realistically, those deep connections are not easy to find, and if we get caught short and our only choice is superficial socializing or nothing, we can get lonely."

I've been feeling that way a lot lately. I either sit at home by myself, or I go out with people and still feel just as lonely afterwards. It's been a lot of years since I've had a 'best' friend or close relationship. And it's hard to feel fully yourself when no one else really knows you.

At no time is that loneliness more magnified...than during holiday season.

So if you find yourself here today, count yourself among friends.

Nashville

2012-10-20T09:41:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again.

Burnt orange leaves are my drive through Tennessee. Gray, windy days are the cold blanket around me as I walked the streets of Nashville in my own private bubble of pain.

The songs I played, the food I ate, the view from my downtown hotel: all vivid memories that start to replay when the weather turns like this.

And then there's last night, when I'm watching the new show Nashville on ABC, unprepared for each shot of the city's sights to be a trigger.

I was thinking drama...and romance...and country music...

Instead, the characters walk the Shelby Street Bridge, and I'm back on it.

I'm staring into the water wondering how many people have looked over this same ledge, wanting to end it.

So I go back, but I don't. At least, not all the way in. There's a dividing line you have to create, where you can open the door and look in the room, but not shut yourself in there. I don't want to remember what that feels like.

A few months have gone by now in which I don't think about killing myself every day. I wasn't sure life would ever surpass my secrets and my plans. Yet, here I am.

Every day I talk to people who are exactly where I was, sometimes to an eerie degree.

The other day I worked with a man who had gone from independence and a career ... to losing everything and living in chronic pain that hurts with each step he takes. He didn't see any hope for his situation to change, couldn't remember what it was like to be proud of his life.

It felt familiar.

Trapped without a way out, abandoned by your friends, betrayed by those you love...everyone thinks they're above suicide, until suddenly it becomes the most rational option you can think of.

The question is: how do we survive our own minds with the torture of constant pain?

How do we hold onto the 1/10th of 1 percent that wants to believe that the pain might someday end, when 99.99999% of our brain is trying to kill us?

Do we gamble on the unknown that is the future, or wear the certainty of death?

Thankfully, thankfully, the future is always a mystery. Thankfully, I found a way to hold on during the 1/10th.

"Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark."

-Rabindranath Tagore

Violated by my cat.

2012-09-26T22:44:00.000-05:00

My cat just licked my nipple. I then proceeded to snort toothpaste out of my nose.

Me: Innocently standing in front of the vanity brushing my teeth.

Cat: Hmm. What's this object pointed at me?

First of all, I'm pissed that she waited 4 years to tell me she was a lesbian. Did she think I would judge her?

Secondly, I'd like her to go back to her usual inappropriate behavior, like sticking her nasty cat lips on my bathroom cup or trying to lick sweat out of my belly button after a run.

Even the times she tricks me into thinking there is a hazelnut on the floor and then laughs when I scream and throw her turd across the room...even then I tell myself that this is how normal cats entertain themselves.

Or other times when she uses the carpet as toilet paper and smears a 4-foot long poop streak across the floor like Toby in the Stanley Steemer commercial...did I punt her into outer space? No I didn't. Because what else can I expect from someone with 3-inch long ass hair. Really.

You'd think I'd be happy, since nobody else has been licking my nipple in recent history.

Nope, not happy.

Creeped out.

On a positive note, it makes me feel progressive to own her, since we will probably join PFLAG to advocate for lesbian cat rights.

On the other hand, I know it's bestiality when humans molest animals, but I don't know what to call this incident when I go seek counseling for it.

Can you go around telling people your cat licked your nipple? No you can't.

So consider yourself privileged.

(Incidentally, Urban Dictionary defines turd as: "Generally, a log-shaped piece of shit. Nevertheless, they are also found in coil-shape, mushroom-cloud shape, and even loch ness monster shape.")

Cock-eyed hairy bunghole.

2012-09-03T23:03:00.000-05:00

It was so blissful to sleep through the night last night.

Not because a crying baby normally jars me from a peaceful slumber; I'm nobody's mama. Not because my cat can't figure out how to plug the power cord back into my printer so she can wake me up with the "urr-EEEEER" of her scanning out pictures of her hairy bunghole, or whatever she thinks is so goddang funny to wake me up with at 4 in the morning.

No, it was simply nice to not have to blow my nose thirty times or wake up repeatedly from my throat hurting, because that's how I got to spend the other two nights of my lovely three-day weekend.

It wasn't even a week prior I had commented on a post entitled, "Is getting sick the way you say "no?" If you can't say no, your body often starts doing it for you." The irony doesn't escape me. I could feel it coming, though. And instead of taking a day off when I knew I needed it, I let the exhaustion seep into my pores until I was so thoroughly run down that my body made the decision for me. Time off got turned into misery, followed by recovery. Yaaay, life.

The thing is, there was nothing uniquely taxing about the past month. No 5-alarm crisis at work, no mountain of tasks taunting me at home. The string of seven dentist appointments and mention of the word "root canal" on my uninsured teeth? Sure, that was a *tad* stressful. Helping my mom move the past three weekends? Not my usual downtime for relaxation.

But truly? It doesn't take much more than the normal day-to-day shit of life to wear me down. Cleaning the bathroom and buying groceries and running mundane errands: this is the crap that does me in.

The required pace of life + my introverted personality = disaster.

I'm not sure I get a choice in the matter, but unfortunately the mad rush of our society just isn't working for me. There are people that thrive on constant action - and interaction - but I'm not one of them. I figured out a long time ago that I was an introvert; unfortunately, that didn't include figuring out how to manage my own needs.

I'm starting to notice that, if I don't have at least one day a week where I don't have to go anywhere, do anything, or see anybody, I just can't function. Well...to be correct, I DO function, but in a far bitchier manner in which I resent all the time I should be unplugging from the demands of life. (This is another reason to be thankful I don't have children, because I would never get a break.)

I used to read Gone With the Wind and fantasize that one day I'd be out in the country with miles of green and my big wraparound porch, where I'd be lazing on my little wooden porch swing. Is it too late to marry a farmer?

If you'll excuse me, I have to go pretend I don't hear scratchy noises causing mi gato to stare cock-eyed at the wall for the past hour. (Note: for the love of all things holy, do not ever do a google image search on "cock-eyed.") I think the correct way to describe it would have been: with her head cocked to one side. But the process of verifying that fact has left me with a horrifying visual disturbance.

Now be quiet and don't question my title ever again.

The home that wasn't.

2012-08-13T18:36:00.000-05:00

After writing just a few short days ago about relative happiness and contentment with my life, I spent most of Sunday bursting into random, unexpected crying jags. Like an open palm smacking me dead in the chest, the reality of my broken home periodically knocked the wind out of me.

Saturday I helped my mom clear things out of the home I grew up in, the same one my dad moved out of six months ago. No matter how old you are, home is home. And you want it there to go back to.

You're never old enough to stop wishing it would all work out...somehow.

You're never old enough to stop wanting the smell of roast at Sunday dinners, the security of your old bedroom (just in case), the safety of that one place in the world where you belong no matter what.

I think about how hard each of my parents worked their whole lives, only to start over at (what should be) retirement age with half of what they had. I think about the seven-year relationship I dragged myself out of, and wondered what kind of strength one has to conjure to close the door on forty years. I think about how lonely it must feel to lose the partner you've had since you were a teenager.

Their sadness, though well-hidden, makes me sadder than my own sadness.

A divorce is the final decree on the matter of whether you get to have a happy family. Until the decision is handed down, you are free to entertain the fantasy that one day - yes, one day - resentments will be abandoned, bitterness will be overcome, and wrongs will be forgiven.

You're free to ponder the unknown because it's still unknown.

Until one day it isn't.

One day the pre-existing factions within your family quake into full-blown fault lines.  The alliances that festered through the years persist long after the dust settles on the end of a marriage, splitting your family into divided loyalties.

There was no glamorous affair, no knock-down drag-out fight, just a fading gloom that quietly disappeared into the night. Without a clear-cut reason, I sometimes find myself forgetting why it is they're not together anymore. I wonder if they know, either.

When the last box is taped shut and hauled away, you're left standing there with the reality of the situation.

What you thought was a broken home reveals itself, instead, to be an empty home.

Where there could have been joy or love or happy times...

... is the ghost of a family that used to be...

...and a home that's never going to be -home- again.

Why you should give up hope.

2012-08-10T17:57:00.000-05:00

Life is pretty damn good lately. There are times I even catch myself thinking, "Wow, I actually feel kind of okay. Is this happiness?"

Don't get me wrong: there are a lot of things I don't have - that I thought I would - at 32 years old.

I don't have a relationship.
BUT I also don't have a sh*tty relationship.

No one lies to me, makes my life miserable, or expects me to do everything for them. No emotional roller coaster, no divorce, no broken home. Could be worse. Has been worse!

I don't have a family.
BUT....I DON'T HAVE KIDS!!!

Let's face it, that's a shit-ton less work for me! I get eight - or more - hours of sleep a night. This fact alone makes me a much nicer person. I'm sure there are awesome guys out there who would actually do 50% of the housework, but none of them have proposed to me yet.

I don't have a prestigious career.
BUT I don't have a job I hate.

I don't work 70 hours a week at a job that sucks the life out of me, with no time left for the things I want to do. I have a great schedule doing work I enjoy, with people I enjoy, and relatively low stress. Having experienced the opposite, there's a lot to be said for this.

Forgiveness = giving up the hope that the past could be different than it was,

THEN

Happiness = giving up the hope that the present could be different than it is.

The moment I descend into self-flagellation over what I could be doing, or should be doing, or what everyone else is doing, I become immediately dissatisfied with my life. This is another reason why Facebook is the devil. We often feel perfectly fine with ourselves until we start comparing our lives to all these people that *seem* to have something we don't.

If I decided to wait until I had a boyfriend or a better job or financial prosperity to be happy, god only knows how long that might take. I have enough. And that's all I need. If I can't accept myself and my life and exactly the way things stand today, there's no hope for tomorrow.

For every little thing you don't have - that you think you want - is something you *DON'T* have that you should be damn thankful for!!

So seriously, give up the hope that the next person who comes into your life is going to make you happy, give up the hope that a different job would make it all better, give up the hope that your family is going to get along one day...and see if you can figure out a way to accept exactly what's in front of you. If that fails, here's a quote to live by:

"I may not be where I wanna be yet,

but I sure as hell ain't where I was!"

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Depression: The Invisible Prison

2012-07-31T22:06:00.000-05:00

I used to wish for cancer.

Pray for it, even, which is a backwards thing for an agnostic to do...but then, no godly person could get away with praying for death.

I would hear these stories of wonderful, beloved people being robbed of their futures, happily-ever-after with their partners, the chance to see their children grow up....
...and you know what I felt? Envy.

I was jealous that these people got a free ticket out of this house of horrors - and didn't even WANT it - while I was being forced to stay against my will.

I know; sickening.

And because it's such a twisted and disgusting thought process, I would feel immense guilt over it. I was ashamed to be frittering away my existence with suffering, while others who actually *wanted* their lives and their family and their friends - who could actually enjoy being here - would not be allowed to stay.

The guilt may have had less to do with my perverse death wish than the fact that I was not living the life I had been given; I was wasting it.

One day after the next, I wallowed in the cesspool of depression, rejecting life. I would walk by this poem I had pasted on my fridge: "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life" and feel horrible about how horrible my life was, because that is a depressed brain does.

I was reminded of all of this today when reading a paradoxical post by Adam Alvarado at The Last Broken Home: What a [Death Row Inmate] Can Teach You About Being Yourself -

"We can piss away one more day being angry, and vengeful, and sad – about crap that’s gone by, and passed by, and no longer a part of ourselves or our future. Another day being afraid of so much, and hurt by so much, and less than our better selves because of it."

Isn't that exactly what I did for 5 years?

I may as well have been in prison.

Hell, there IS no worse prison than our own minds. We sit there suffering day after day, waiting for someone to come let us out...only to find out one day that the door was never even locked.

A friend of mine once blogged at "The Invisible Prison" (which she has since taken down, much to my dismay). There couldn't be a more fitting metaphor for suicidal depression. From the outside, no one can glean any possible reason for this self-imposed sentence. There are no bars, no chains, no guards...

...yet we're not so much afraid that door will never open; we're afraid that it WILL, and we'll have to face the world once again.

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Shit

2012-07-26T16:46:00.001-05:00

You know all that sh*t you keep putting off, and letting slide....
until you're like, sh*t, I can't put this sh*t off anymore.

Well, that's the sh*t I tackled today.

I was all, "I'm gonna get sh*t done today."

I researched sh*t, and e-mailed sh*t, and looked up sh*t, but couldn't decide on sh*t.

In the end I didn't accomplish sh*t.

So now I have just as much sh*t to get done as I did yesterday.

Sh*t, I am sick of this sh*t.

Same sh*t happens when I go shopping.

You go to the store with this whole list of sh*t, f*cking ecstatic that you finally got off your lazy ass to go get this sh*t, and you can't find one sh*tting thing off that piece of sh*t list.

Then you gotta turn around and go get the sh*t somewhere else aNOTHER day!

Or you make the sh*t-head mistake of going clothes shopping.

You look through tons of sh*t that's too young for your old ass, and sh*t that's too tight for your FAT ass, and get so tired of trying sh*t on that you wear your same ugly sh*t back home.

This sh*t puts me in a sh*tty ass mood.

I thought, sh*t, might as well write a post cuz I ain't getting sh*t done, anyway.

I spent my whole day working on this sh*t and I don't have sh*t to show for it.

I don't know about you, but I've had it with this sh*t.

What sh*t did YOU think you were gonna get done today?

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Am I A Coward For Blogging About Suicide Anonymously?

2012-07-22T17:22:00.000-05:00

In December of 2009, I bared the first tiny bit of my soul to the universe in "This, Too Shall Pass?"

There was no place in my life where I could tell the truth about what led me down the path of suicide.

So I created one for myself. And for everyone else who didn't have a place, either.

In real life, you can't tell people to STFU when their idea of" helping" you is spouting some cliché like, "God never gives us more than we can handle."

In this blog, I can say whatever I want...because I do it anonymously. Which means I don't have to deal with stigma. And judgment. And rejection.

ANONYMOUS=GUTLESS ???

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t be shamed into silence for my feelings. I could speak openly about what I have been through, what led me to the brink, and how I found my way back. I could look forward to compassion and understanding ... instead of condemnation.

But that is not the world we live in. It is a world where people believe it is easier to die than to be looked upon with the stigma of mental illness.

It is a world where people internalize the hatred of everyone around them and pull the trigger.

BUT. Can I keep hiding forever?

All the lying and pretending that alienates me from myself as much as others … isn’t that precisely what got me into this mess to begin with???

BUT. Can I afford NOT to keep hiding?

Some, like The Bloggess, write courageously about their battles with depression. Others, like JD Schramm, have broken the silence by bravely sharing how they survived a suicide attempt.

But what about people who don't have a well-established career and hefty savings account to fall back on if honesty backfires?

So I brought my dilemma to Penelope Trunk, the authority on blogging about taboo subjects, and she asked if she could publish her advice to me in her Mailbag:

"You should blog under your own name. Of all the things that are terrible, doing something this good, that you are this devoted to - doing it anonymously is too close to a metaphor for suicide. So you have to use your name. To do it anonymously is to give up on everyone around you -- their ability to see the site and see you for who you are. Your ability to be yourself in the world and be accepted. All that stuff is really important given that the topic is suicide."

Now THAT, that made me cry.

Because I DO continue to split off (i.e. murder) the parts of myself that I can't quite own.

And I HAVE given up on every single person around me.

When I try to think of 1 co-worker, 1 friend, 1 family member who I would even THINK of telling that I write this blog, I don't anticipate acceptance as the outcome.

I know what I stand to lose: my job, my credibility, future employability, professional respect...and control. Not that I've ever HAD control over what others think of me, but I DO control which parts of myself I share.

What do I stand to gain? It's one thing to play the odds, but when it's all risk and no reward, I can't help but think I would be a fool for rolling the dice.

Fellow blogger Izzy put it to me this way:

"In regards to human nature, most people are incredibly compelled by those that are willing to be authentic. Your blog is an interesting combination because by not revealing your identity you are able to completely hide yourself ... Yet, at the same time, you completely reveal yourself."

Therein lies the conundrum.

Keep hiding…or come clean? Could you bear the exposure of people seeing into your soul?

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Top 10 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Devil

2012-07-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

Does anybody like me?

Does anyone give a flying rip what goes on in my life?

How (un)popular am I?

These are all questions we entrust Facebook to answer for us: from how cool we are (not), to how many people hang on our everyday happenings. At this point in history, our very worth as human beings comes down to that number in parenthesis after the word “Friends.”

Despite posting recently about us being “the generation with 742 Facebook friends,” my own current number is a lot closer to 7+4+2. Somewhere there is a rock in Indonesia with more FB fans than me.

For one, I have deleted my entire Friends-list more times than anyone would probably believe….behavior that was a byproduct of my “no one gives a sh*t about me” suicidal mentality.

Secondly, I end up removing nearly half of the people I add because I either:

A) accept their request out of curiosity, then spy on them for a day before deciding I don’t really know or like the person

B) decide this person doesn’t need to know my thoughts or gawk at my profile out of mentally ill paranoia

C) they’ve pissed me off and can now proceed to go f*ck themselves.

Third, I don’t participate in whatever competition the world has going to see how many acquaintences-of-acquaintances-of-acquaintences-of-friends (i.e. stuh-RANGERS!!!) I can collect in order to impress people whose opinions I could care less about.

Lastly, If 1-3 sounded like pathetic excuses for why I am a loser with no friends, I’ll just come right out and demystify the issue: I AM a loser and I DON’T really have any friends. I’ve chucked them all.

As you can tell, I simultaneously imbue Facebook with both waaaaay too much meaning and no importance whatsoever….what’s that quote to the effect of:

“You wouldn’t care so much what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.”

But then, that’s also precisely the point! No one thinks about me! I have tons of shit I want to say, and no one to say it to. Every time something hilarious or annoying or awesome or disturbing happens, I think of who I could tell and come up with – you guessed it – nobody. I could always post it on Facebook and then feel more pathetic when nobody bothers to comment on it, right?!?!

Top 10 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Devil:

It does nothing but incite envy. There will always be people with more good times in their photo albums, more smiling beer-holding friends in their pictures, and more exciting sh*t going on in their lives.
It does nothing but incite fake-ness. You invest hours concocting the perfect online persona, with carefully selected pictures and quotes and descriptions to make yourself appear happier, cooler, hotter, smarter, funnier, and more interesting than you really are.
It does nothing but incite impulsivity. In a split second you tell 375 people something you reeeeallly should’ve kept to yourself.
It does nothing but incite over-disclosure. You broadcast your least intelligent thoughts to the world. For some of us, this reveals that we are illiterate backwoods dingdongs who can’t spell or string together a coherent sentence (and by this I mean family). And I quote: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt."
It does nothing but incite jealousy. You now have the ultimate spy tool to track every fool your friends and (ex)boyfriends are in contact with and how much more attention they pay to them than you.
It does nothing but incite rage. Seriously, that bitch does something every other week with so-and-so but never has time for ME? Screw her. “Unfriend.”
It does nothing but incite picture-taking. I swear to GOD I cannot figure out how a camera is present in every conceivable life situation and WHO the hell is spending every waking moment taking pictures of the dumbest stuff imaginable.
It does nothing but incite loneliness. Despite hundreds of connections, you couldn’t possibly feel more alone.
It does nothing but incite hatred. I fucking hate Facebook, don’t YOU?
It does nothing but incite desperation. So follow downfromtheledge on Facebook. Please?

Alien-Nation, Part 2: Breaking The Habit Of YOU

2012-07-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

Ever stopped to wonder if you’re doing what you’re doing because it’s what you did yesterday (and the day before that, and the day before THAT)? What percentage of the way you interact with the world is your conscious choice, rather than your programming?

Some would say we are the sum of our habits, and Keith Clarke is one of those people. His blog Breaking The Habit of Me challenges us to take back the reigns. When Keith sat down to read my recent post Living in Alien-Nation, he decided his Representative was no longer going to run his life. He didn’t just click a link in Google Reader, peruse an article, and go back to doing exactly what he has always done. Keith instead chose to switch off the auto-pilot and wrangle with some serious questions in today’s guest post. What have YOU lost by not showing up in your own life? I hope you’ll join the conversation:

Scared To Reveal The True You?

12 Reasons To Take Charge Of Your Representative

I read two articles that have had a massive impact on me. And I wondered - could they have a similar impact on you?

I believe that these two articles outline a serious flaw in the thinking habits of many of us. This thinking comes from a fear of being our true selves because of the possibility of rejection by others.

I know you are busy and I am asking you more than maybe I should, but these are profoundly powerful insights that you should hear.

You need to read the two articles first or what follows will have no context

The articles are Living In Alien Nation and My Representative.

My response:

(I have written this as a response to the author, and it should be read in that context.)

I resonate so much with what you are saying but it freaks me out - in a good and a bad way. Firstly, whatever I say following this sentence is NOT meant to be patronizing (THAT is my representative speaking for me).

I have spent my whole life in this place.

That is why your two articles hit me so hard. Firstly, you are in no way alone [Note from my Representative: Remember earlier caveat]. Regrettably, I see this in many people, including myself.

1. Ulterior Motives

Every one of us has them, and they are not always nefarious. For example: Am I going to feel better about myself? Gain something from this? Look good in someone’s eyes? Etc. You included. We are human. We need validation. What is f#%ked up is we don't look for our own validation first (or, we don't trust it).

2. Personal Dysfunction or Societal Dysfunction?

It doesn't matter! You are self-aware enough to know the 'dysfunction' is there. That is evident. Whether you like it or not, it is up to you now. The door is already open. And yes, you are happy about it now, because it is the comfort of the known. It is the unknown that scares you.

3. Rejection

Every rejection you received externally was firstly an internal rejection that you just sought validation of externally. You expressed yourself perfectly with: "We all have this dichotomy; it’s the human condition (though of course we are convinced otherwise). What’s even worse than being unacceptable to others…is being ashamed of your own feelings, and the mask you hide behind." So I know you know this, but bear with me :)

4. Our Representative

What we hate most is that they are good at their jobs. And that disgusts us. We have this twisted admiration for them and hate them at the same time. Why? Because the better our representative is, the less we are ourselves. The name of my representative is Keith. He currently has more entitlement to my name than I do because he has been stronger and more in control than I ever have up to now!

5. Being Fake

Every time we feel we are being fake (and we know when this is) our representative gets stronger. Every time they get stronger we feel safer behind them. It is a downward spiral that the "I" needs to break before we become lost and end up inserting ourselves back fully into the Matrix. Sorry if the reference is too 'geeky,' but it is the most fitting I can find.

6. Trust

I have never truly been able to trust anyone, because I can't trust myself. I know this. As you said, I know my own M.O. now. This is merely awareness, however. It truly has to translate into action before it becomes useful. And most action - I am coming to learn - takes risk.

7. A Representative is NOT a Bad Thing

We do have to remember, though, that the Representative works for us. And we call the shots. What has happened with me is I have let the Representative become the leading entity. The creator of my identity. From now on, he’s allowed to advise, but I need to make the final decision on how he portrays me. And not how he portrays him.

8. Perceived Threats

The threats we feel every day are part of our spiritual journey, and our growth. Or else they are just another way of giving unilateral power to our Representative. But it is up to us.

9. Is Our Representative Truly Representing Us?

For some time the Gandhi quote, “One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other departments. Life is one indivisible whole” has kept coming into my head. This is where the 'representative' f#%ks us up! We get caught up in being good at what we are doing, rather than being good at who we are. Yes, our Representative can do stuff that we can't. But do we like what they are doing? Have we sanctioned it from the core of who we are?

10. Dissociation

I think we all use dissociation as a defense mechanism. I don't believe that this is a bad thing in and of itself. There are times when it is critical to our survival through periods of serious trauma. It enables us to get through, function and survive. But if it becomes a habit, and distances us too far from who we truly are, then I think we are more dangerous with our representatives than we are without them. Every heinous act in the world by a human being - I believe - is founded on the strength of that dissociation. It is a way of finding validation in something other than ourselves that gives us some kind of respite from our own fears. From our own self-doubts and self-recriminations.

11. Reality as Illusion

There are many religions that talk of the illusion of reality. And it is possible to adopt that perspective through periods of our life where it works for us. But I think the universe, the natural laws or way of things has a way of bringing us constantly back to ourselves. We cannot avoid ourselves. We have to be faced. And we have to embrace our dark side as well as our good. We have to accept the whole. Only on that acceptance, of the good and bad in us, can we see what really is illusory in our lives.

12. Accepting Ourselves

I thought long and hard about whether to start blogging under my real name, or to go anonymous, or use a pseudonym. In the end, I chose to come clean. This in no way is a judgment on you (and I understand your personal reasons for this). I decided to take the risk and crawl out of my cage (against the advice of my representative). In fact, this comment is probably more soul-baring than any of my posts so far (and I can hear my representative screaming in protest). But, if I am to let go, and to be me, then I need to push the boundaries. To shake things up (as Vishnu says).

Your final line is probably the most hard-hitting:

"What it tells me is that ‘I’ feel soooo unsafe in the world that ‘I’ can't bear to show up."

I don't know about you, but I am tired of this. Are you with me?

[Note from my Representative: Please do not take any of the comments above personally. These are the expressions of my client at this moment in time - and I am concerned at this time for his well being and understanding of how to play the game that every sane person 'should' be playing based on society's rules]

Thank you for a deeply personally inspiring couple of posts (that is ME speaking).

So, there you go. This article started out as a comment that has actually turned into a guest post.

(Thanks Bri for the opportunity to write for your inspiring blog)

Some questions for you now: Do you show up? Do you have a Representative running the show? Where are YOU in all of this? And how is that working for you?

My Representative

2012-07-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

As I was writing a guest post for The Unlost 2 weeks ago, the irony of ME writing about Alien-Nation smacked me in the face. Why’s that?

My number one pet peeve: Fake-a** people.
My number one flaw: Not being my real self the majority of the time.

A tad contradictory. There’s the me who writes this (anonymous) blog, the me I send to work, the me who interacts with friends or family, and the me I am when I’m alone. Soooo….which me is the real me? Any?! All???? Won’t the real me PLEASE stand up…

Instead of being who I actually AM, I instead feel everyone else out to see who I’m dealing with. Then, if anyone can pass my CRAZILY-high-standards-of-sincerity-test, I consider the possibility that I might not have to hide so much in front of this person. Not right away, mind you (no chance of that), but WAAAAYYY down the line, after they have convinced me over and over that they aren’t harboring ulterior motives. I pretend my little “screening process” is some sort of guarantee that said person won’t end up screwing me over. And it doesn’t escape me that I’m requiring far more authenticity from others than I am offering of myself.

In some ways this is a commentary on my personal dysfunction, which I happily (happily?) own, but moreso it’s a commentary on our society’s dysfunction. Because I didn’t get this way by accident. Time and again, people showed me – in a hundred thousand ways, big and small – that my REAL self wasn’t welcome at the party. That I was TOO serious-idealistic-intense-sarcastic-fill-in-the-blank.That I was insufficiently cool-mainstream-status-quo-upholding. That something about me (namely…..ME) was unacceptable, and I was going to be punished if I didn’t cover it up. You step one foot outside that box, and they will chop that f**ker right off.

And so, in order to even think about how I could not feel estranged from others, I have to get my head around how I became alienated from mySELF. From the parts of myself that I disown, not just in the company of others, but in the privacy of my own being…the not-me that I, myself, reject. We all have this dichotomy; it’s the human condition (though of course we are convinced otherwise). What’s even worse than being unacceptable to others…is being ashamed of your own feelings, and the mask you hide behind.

But I think I finally figured out my M.O.

How I operate in life is "I" send my representative out to talk for me. For demonstration's sake, let's call her Hobag, cuz I do hate the bitch, after all (plus, it’s just plain fun to say the word hobag). Hobag is fake-me, whereas "I" am real-me.

As words come out of my mouth, I occasionally find myself asking, WHO is this talking? It doesn't sound like me. Do I sound fake as fu*k? Cuz I sure FEEL fake as fu*k.

That's the best way I can describe what it’s like...as though I'm looking through a window into the world - out there - while "I" stay hidden deep inside. I have thus solved the mystery of our Alien-Nation, for if I am disconnected from my SELF, how could I possibly feel connected to another human being? How do I know that when I sit down with you, you're not sending your own hobag out to greet me? It’s doubtful I’m ever talking to you at all! Rather, MY representative is chatting it up with YOUR representative.

And so, in every instance where I feel threatened for some reason or another (loosely translated: every social encounter I have), out she goes. Public speaking? Get out there, Hobag. Scary group situation? Hobag. Work consultation? Ho. Chat with my friend? Sadly, probably her, too. The nice thing about her is that she can do stuff “I” can’t.

In complex psychological terms, the depersonalization of “feeling detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one's mental processes or body” falls under dissociation. Whether we're daydreaming our workday away, numbing ourselves to deaden the emotions we don't dare allow to come out, or all-out fragmenting parts of ourselves, we all use this defense mechanism at some level.

What it tells me is that "I" feel soooo unsafe in the world that "I" can't bear to show up.

I form words, and I hear them coming out of my lips, but I don't feel like I'm really -there- saying them.

Sort of like I'm sitting off in the corner watching the encounter take place. Despite the fact that I've become increasingly cognizant of the phenomenon, "I" don't seem able to shut Hobag up long enough for my real self to come out.

So here I am, a splintered human being, unable to assimilate all these different personas I’ve created just to get through life. Our individual lack of integration is causing complete societal disintegration.

Do you have a representative (and what’s his/her name)?
Leave a comment or e-mail me: downfromtheledge at yahoo dot com

Check out the follow-up post:
Alien-Nation, Part 2: Breaking the Habit of YOU

Follow Bri on Facebook.

1 AM

2012-07-04T01:31:00.000-05:00

"Like" down from the ledge on Facebook

It’s 1 AM; my sleep is fucked

Inside my bed, no longer tucked

I'm squinting at this laptop’s glare

I thought I’d blog; instead I stare

Debating on which thread to start

To spew my anger? Spill my heart?

Imbue my days with some great point

But by the end they disappoint

It isn’t love or hope I find

No peace inside this grand design

You give and give and give to all

Receiving nothing great or small

Then slosh around in bitterness

You wanted more, but you got less

Then wake up, do it all again

It’s all the same by that day’s end

So you trim down your expectations

Start making accommodations

Give doubt instead of benefit

You only give back what you get

Leaving much to be desired

Find it makes you fucking tired

At least now maybe you can sleep

Rolling in a different deep

The World’s Too Effing Small.

2012-07-03T00:51:00.000-05:00

My friends from high school married their high school boyfriends, moved into houses in the same zip codes where their parents lived, but I, I could never follow….okay, okay, that’s a Dixie Chicks song, but that doesn’t make it any less true, right down to the zip code part. They’ve never lived on their own, much less outside of the city where they grew up, and have had but 1 single relationship with a man in their entire lives. They’ve never known heartbreak, or independence, or all the other crap I used to wish I’d never know, either.

This post was written in my head Saturday evening at 5 pm as my family and I sat down to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant, only to see my ex-best-friend parade in with her husband, toddler, and infant….landing at a table 4 feet diagonal from me. This is the kind of bullsh*t that happens to me all the time. I can’t leave my house without being punished with a bitch former co-worker I never wanted to lay eyes on again, a former screwoff classmate who’s now rich while I’m poor, or basically any human that knew me before this day today. I don’t want to see any of them. I want to pretend that was all nightmares, or science-fiction-esque life memories implanted into my brain to terrorize me. But apparently I am doomed to literally run into my past at every instance I believe I’ve outrun it.

So there she was; the girl I went to summer camp with, the friend I watched SNL and Mystery Science Theater 3000 with until our stomachs practically broke from laughing so hard, my best friend from age 13 to 29…who I stopped speaking to three years ago.

In all honesty, our friendship was over long before that. When I left my fiancé at age 23, she wasn’t there for me, and I never really forgot it. She didn’t ask me what happened, or rally support, or do basically anything you would expect a friend to do at the worst moment of your life. When I quit my job and ended up unemployed for 4 years, she was nowhere to be found. When the second most important relationship of my life ended, she was mysteriously absent once again. And when I was in Nashville carrying out a plan to kill myself, she didn’t even know I was gone.

Writing all of this makes me wonder how I still considered her my “Best Friend.” Is it because she just always was, and I never thought to re-title her? Or because I was maid of honor at her nuptials? Maybe it was because I was the one she called when her baby was in the hospital with pneumonia. I don’t know what I was hanging onto for so long, but I eventually DID let go.

I let go of the idea that she was going to one day become the friend that I needed. The friend who would be there for me. The friend who is there in good times…or bad times…or either, really, cuz she sucked at both. It’s not that I didn’t give her chances. Many. It’s not that I didn’t tell her how I felt; this was my reward for doing that:

“The fact is, that like most adult friendships, I don't have a lot of time to give. I'm sorry, but my job consumes 90% of my life during the school year. What little energy I have left I have to give to my son and my husband. I feel incredibly guilty that my son spends 9 1/2 hours of his day at daycare. I want to give him every free moment I have. So, unfortunately, dinner every once in awhile is all I have to give. I don't think this is all that uncommon among adult friendships.”

And STILL I gave it one more year after THAT!!! God, I am such a doormat. The final straw had to do with Austin, the place I moved to in the first place because none of my friends back home gave two fu*ks about me. At my little going-away get-together, my 2 high school friends basically invited themselves to come stay with me over Spring Break. Come November, one backed out; whatever. Then a month before she was set to come, my ex-bestie tells me she can’t afford the trip.

Bulllllllllllllshit, is what I say. $300 bucks to come stay at my apartment for free, a luxury beyond her grasp? As she posts on Facebook about getting a mani/pedi with the friend she’s blowing thousands to go on a Hawaii couples’ vacation with, forking over hundreds to do Ferrell’s and dye her hair blond in preparation for? The same friend she goes to midnight showings of Twilight with, you know, who couldn’t be bothered for an hour dinner with me once a year?

And why am I still angry about this sh*t? I haven’t seen her in 4 years, and I would have been content for it to have been much longer. A friend-ship is like any other relation-ship: there is the person who is actually before us (who we are usually incapable of seeing), and the person we wish-want-hope would be before us. And there comes a day of reckoning when we accept that the image is hollow.

Her last e-mail to me stated, “Now you've decided to shut me out for whatever reason, but I feel I deserve one last communication.” SHE deserves? She never got that last communication.

I don’t mind being the petty one, or the stone cold bitch; I’ll be the one with the problem. Cuz you know what, I don’t have to sit around wondering why she doesn’t give a sh*t about me anymore, and she doesn’t have to come up with excuses to blow me off. Win-win.

Living in Alien-Nation

2012-06-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

Guest post at The Unlost today: Living in Alien Nation: The Disconnection of The Masses:

What are you hiding?

RIGHT NOW, in this moment, what are you shoving down inside that familiar little lockbox that no one else gets the key to?

Who are you keeping “out there,” a comfortable arm’s length away? Who’s got YOU at a safe distance, just beyond the tips of their fingers?

And I bet there’s someone you’re faking it for, too (well, not THAT kind of faking). But yeah, I’d wager there’s somebody you’re being sickeningly nice to, and it makes you want to gag. And someone you act tough around, because they sure as hell aren’t going to see you vulnerable. You probably spend half your waking hours covering up how you actually feel, speaking words that bear no resemblance to what you really think.

And so, if I don’t really know who YOU are, and you don’t get to know who I am, you might as well be a friggin’ alien to me. We’re a whole nation of aliens, covering it all up, putting on the act for each other even whilst despising it.

It’s not really that I feel compelled to reveal my deepest, darkest secrets to everyone, but moreso the relentless pressure to hide them in favor of discussing things like The Bachelorette’s choice of goobers. Never do I feel quite so alienated as after I’ve been out with friends.

“I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away— yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.“

– The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1836

If that quote hits you at ALL, you understand what I’m getting at. We go out and live it up with our friends, our smiles the very picture of connectedness, and yet we couldn’t be farther away from each other. We get back in our cars to drive home and, sh*t! There it is again, the utter alone-ness, the isolation that was supposed to have dissolved in the cocoon of camaraderie.

We feel unseen, and therefore unknown. We wanted so much more, and got so much less. We probably wouldn’t know how to construct a different experience if we tried, because the real, genuine us is buried too far beneath the appearances we must keep up.

We are the generation with 742 Facebook friends, 350 Twitter followers, 4 people who may or may not respond to an e-mail, 2 friends we grudgingly phone once in a while….and not even 1 damn person we’d dial at 3am when we’re on the bathroom floor asking the empty air why we feel so alone, so terrified, so lost.

Therese described this insane asylum we live in “where we all feel as if we’re the only ones struggling, as if we’re the only ones living a silent lie and plastering on a fake smile for the world to see,” and I can’t think of a more accurate description for it.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if we were just hiding the petty stuff. But the truth is, we’re hiding despair. And fear. “And it’s killing us all.”

Sounds like an exaggeration…but it’s not. People die of alienation. I almost did.

So, start by being more real than you were yesterday. Keep up with what’s really going on with your friends, instead of the Kardashians. Quit telling everyone you’re fine, and start telling them you can’t fake it anymore. Maybe they can’t, either.

“Tell your truth. You never know who you’ll set free.”

Check out these follow-up posts: "My Representative"
& "AlienNation, Part 2: Breaking the Habit of YOU."

Have your own story? E-mail me: downfromtheledge at yahoo dot com

Trail of Thoughts

2012-06-01T19:13:00.000-05:00

A 60 year-old man with a thick gray mustache skateboarded by me on the trail this afternoon.

I thought to myself that this was more bizarre than the ferret I saw on the trail yesterday, which turned out to be a mink.

Then I realized that I was walking my cat, so who the f*ck am I to judge an elderly skateboarder.

Then I contemplated how walking my cat was more acceptable when I lived in the city whose motto is, “Keep Austin weird.”

Then I thought about how there’s cool-weird and there’s weird-weird, and pretended not to know which category catwalking would fall into.

Then I remembered telling my best friend in Austin that I was going to start a “PussyWalkers” Meetup group and join together with fellow freaks who push their pussies around.

Then I recalled actually starting an American Idol Meetup group at Mangia Pizza in downtown Austin and having only my 2 friends and one plump old lady named Turtle show up.

Then I recollected how this Meetup group led to me being interviewed by Nic Ciccone of Fox News Austin.

Then I cringed at what a mega-dork I was (am) and vowed to never appear on camera again.

Then I asked myself why I continually do super-nerdish things despite knowing that they’re uncool.

Then I wondered if I would have more friends if I didn’t walk my cat.

Then I remembered that my friends still sucked even when I didn’t have a cat to walk.

Then I remembered that I got a cat because some new-agey chiropractor lady put colored sunglasses on me and told me that if I was lonely I should get a kitten.

Then I recalled thinking that this was the most expensive retarded advice anyone could give an abandoned unemployed suicidal person.

Then I realized that my pussy is still here with me, and not one person from the past 4-odd years of my life is still around.

Then I decided that I should hate that rich chiro bitch a little less.

Then I wondered why I spent 40 minutes straining my eyes, unable to see sh*t on this laptop outside just so I could sit on my new chaise lounge.

Then I told someone off in a really catty way and wondered if that made me a pussy.

Then I decided that my cat is the only egotistical pussy I have to accept dealing with.

And then I decided this would be my last post written at a fourth-grade level.

Is it better to have sucky friends, or no friends at all?

2012-05-20T19:28:00.001-05:00

Right now I have a "chat" open on Facebook with a "friend" I have known for years, but never been all that close with. I think I figured out why today. It started with a feeling that I was asking-asking-asking too many questions; how's this? How's that? I just read through our entire interaction, which consists of me asking or commenting about something in her life. At no point can I draw the conclusion that she is interested in anything going on in my life. Not that there's much, but that's not the point!

I find this pattern often in my life, and it irritates me. Part of me wants to personalize it and assume, damn, I am the boring-est person on the planet; no one ever asks me how I'M doing! However, I've spent my life as an observer, and concluded that - for MOST people - that stupid Toby Keith song is overly on-target: "Wanna talk about ME wanna talk about -I- wanna talk about NUMBER ONE..."

And, really: If I weren't so concerned about myself, I wouldn't feel so slighted...right?

I'm USED to my life being about other people. I grew up being the family toilet, on which everyone else dumps their proverbial crap. I know all too well the feeling of people taking all you have to give, and handing nothing back. And I think I've written a time or two about how fed up I am with that role. It's so entrenched in my personality (and my gender?) that I don't know how *not* to focus on what others need and want...and yet that little voice that asks, "What about me?" is not completely suffocated. Yet.

So is it possible to be a giver and not attract takers? Do takers ever stop sucking the life force out of you, and realize all you've done for them, suddenly overtaken with appreciation and a desire to return in kind? Ummm....doubtful. So how does the person who continually sets up this pattern change the dynamic of their relationships without changing their nature? (That is, for those of us who aren't Mother Theresa, and don't give 100% selflessly.)

I have to recognize how I'm setting it up this way. The fact that I hate talking about myself means I inherently choose to focus on others to deflect being the center of attention. There are also a great many topics I'd rather not disclose on, so people probably learn quickly not to ask. It's also difficult for people when you're not in a relationship - or seeking one - to withhold asking about your love life. Everyone wants to know who you're dating, for how long, if you're getting married, then when, how many kids you'll have once you do, and so on till Kingdom Come. So if that's not a focus in your life, they may feel at a loss as to what to talk to you about. I get it. Sometimes I wonder what I would ask myself about if I were anybody else. I could see how it might be difficult. But there are also a thousand neutral subjects you can talk to any stranger about....if you choose to make an effort.

And so, because she is doing what the rest of humankind does every hour of every day, I will try not to fault my friend for her egotism. If I start to think about all the ways in which (the few friends I have left) fail to give a sh*t about me, I'll get into the mentality I was in a few years ago. I moved across the friggin' country because no one in my life seemed to give a crap that I existed. I stopped speaking to people who never seemed to have the time of day for me, like they did for their married friends or their rich friends or their cool friends...or whatever magical quality I imagined those people possessing which made them a more appealing companion than me.

Because I can't *get* more from others, I try to *need* less. And because it's really kind of impossible to need less than any other human being does, I settle for expecting less and squashing my own needs. Or covering them up. Or substituting things that really don't fill the void of what we're supposed to be getting from other people.

"I expect more, but I get less." (Says my grandpa the other day, in the nursing home)
"Well, maybe you should try expecting less, and you'll get more!" (Responds my dad)

Therein lies the answer to all life's problems, methinks.

Life is pain, and other life lessons from House.

2012-05-17T19:43:00.001-05:00

"LIFE is pain! I wake up every morning, I'm in pain. I go to work in pain. You know how many times I wanted to just give up, how many times I've thought about ending it?" -- Dr. Gregory House

It's not common for me to cry when I watch House, but something about that scene last Monday shook me in its familiarity. I've had that rage for the greater part of four years. Truly, you don't know what pain will do to you until it seizes hold of your life.

But what enrages House in this scene is not his own despair, rather the notion that his cancer-stricken best friend is entitled to resign himself to death. Which begs the question, whose life is it? Do we owe our suffering to the people around us, if it means they can keep us around for their own benefit?

There are certainly days (and weeks, and years) that I wasn't sticking around for my own sake, which implies that a part of me DOES feel obligated to endure my own circumstances to prevent the heartbreak of my loved ones. Intellectually, however, I'm not sure that we owe anybody anything.

The show's upcoming termination sucks. Our society needed his character. The endless drip of self-affirmative "Think Positive" -esque books and shows and slogans has dulled us into fake-a** shells. Seems kind of backwards that ultra-positivity is cultivating sickness. We don't even know WHAT we feel anymore, because we're not ALLOWED to feel it. Give me some cynicism, sarcasm, and pessimism any day over plastered-on smiles.

I remember when Jon Stewart had Barbara Ehrenreich on The Daily Show to discuss her book, "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America." Ehrenreich scoffs at how you can't even get away with 'negativity' if you have cancer ... it's so true! People will demand hope of you, with an insistence that you don't wallow, but rather remain ever-optimistic, with a mind-over-matter mentality. So really, your average, ordinary breed of daily whining is intolerable.

I know I definitely feel that my actual emotions are not acceptable to others. If they were, I probably wouldn't have to write them here. I probably wouldn't have to write a blog about suicide, because I probably wouldn't have become suicidal in the first place. And I probably wouldn't have to write, period, because society would instead endorse open communication that accepts, rather than denies, all that is part of the human experience.

Welcome Back to Society

2012-05-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

No one really welcomes you back or asks why you've been gone so long. But here I am, a functioning member of the human race. Working. Helping people. Going to meetings and trainings and all that crap that makes one feel, "Ooh, I'm a professional." It's true. Just tell someone, "I have to go to a meeting" and you will instantly feel smug and important.

-Professional- now there's something I haven't felt like in a long time...I just don't think there's anything like having a Master's degree and working temp jobs (or retail or sales) to make a person feel sh*tty about themselves. You can tell someone till you're both blue in the face that happiness comes from the INside, and that you mustn't let external circumstances affect the way you feel about yourself. Well, go ahead and test the theory. Demean yourself to work at a crappy junk-pay job and try to think only positive things about your life and your future. Try being just as proud to tell people where you work, and remember not to worry about what other people think. Isn't that kind of a ridiculous expectation, anyway? If you're really so insulated from the opinions of others, you might be a sociopath. But I digress.

The point is, it was a long time coming. 4 years + 4 months, to be precise. So if you were to ask what depression has cost me, it would have to be all that time. All the wasted time. Time in which I just couldn't get it together. And yes, I get up by my alarm and I exercise and I do my hair and I brush my teeth and I go to work and I don't call in; things I haven't managed to do in all this time. Or maybe some of those things in one day but not all of them every day. I don't know how it became so hard or why it did, or even why it's not as hard now. Which brings me to the conundrum of explanations.

I have a chunk of my life I can't really explain. If I could think of a great little [err...BIG] lie that would tie it all up in a nice pretty bow, that would just be really effing awesome. But people ask random questions I'm not prepared for, and I suck at spontaneous answers. I don't want to tell people about a past I wish didn't exist, or about friends that I USED to have, or relationships I used to be in. And since I didn't just materialize out of thin air, people want to know stuff about me. I'm sick of lying; I hate it. It traps me in my past, feeling sucky about myself, because I don't even have a story to tell to cover up this mess. For it to be "NEAT" it would have to be a great big whopper that explains all the contingencies. So I tell little lies that keep me as close to the truth as possible, and avoid getting into any details.

I think I'm just angry that, even when I overcome it, I don't really. It's a stain on my life that won't wash out. I've tried OxyClean and everything.

"The truth may hurt for a little while, but a lie hurts forever."

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.