On Healing

Every ounce of delusion has passed. I guess I was right. I don't need it anymore. I can't help but wish I'd managed to dig it out of me much earlier. The need was there, though. It was a survival tactic. There are those who know some of my delusions, and maybe I should feel shame, but I don't. I've listened to enough people who were delusional and opened up about their experiences that I understand and I feel compassion for myself that some others cannot feel. One who was working as a social worker with children sticks with me the most. I hope she managed to overcome her prejudices to learn to work with those kids who might be suffering, better. I hope she learned that mental illness doesn't just switch off at adulthood for everyone - or that those of us who do need assistance into adulthood aren't frightening creatures.

Yet, I did use my intimidation tactics to keep people at arm's length. It was easier for me to let people think of me as a threat of some sort. It was like a wounded animal lashing out at others, though.

I no longer need that, either. There's no rage left in me. There's some snark and some bitterness, but no rage. The intensity of all that emotion has left. I no longer feel empty with its absence, either.

There are limits in my life. The metaphor in my head of having only so much cloth that I can use to cover all aspects of my life only goes so far. It's not as far as others' allotments. It isn't a bad stretch, but it'll never be all I want it to be. That's okay, too, though.

It's the same idea behind the way people were never passionate about being with me. I didn't inspire that level of acceptance. I was the good-enough girl. And that's fine, too. It helped me see very clearly the truth of people's intentions and personalities. I never had to suffer after finding out someone wasn't what they claimed to be. When a guy in my senior year lamented and whined about what a good guy he was, it took everything not to snort and yell, "NICE? You're a total ass to me. But then, you don't want to fuck me, so yeah, I can see how un-nice you are." I was able to retain information and spit it back out on command, though, so I looked smart. I know now, though, that too is just good-enough. And I think I'm coming to terms with that.

I've healed a lot. I've learned my limits. I've learned where I still falter. My recovery or whatever the hell you call it is nearing completion. I feel the best I have in a very long time.

BUT GODDAMNIT WHY THE FUCK DID IT HAVE TO TAKE UP HALF MY LIFE?

Middling

The words I write online serve as a way to share some of the things that go on inside my head. While it may not be often, there have been enough moments that someone tells me that what I've written helped them.

I hope this is true.

The only thing I feel I have left to offer is a shared experience. The writing I once did, in fiction or in poetry and sometimes in essays, has gone. There are few things left to say, but sometimes experiences need to be shared. These missives I send are always in the hope that someone will again tell me that they don't feel so alone and weird because they see now others are experiencing these things, too. Most people just refuse to talk or write about it.

I hope that my drops in the vast ocean help strip away some of the stigma of my illness.

I'm faring very badly. I'll never be completely healed. I see that now. I am functional, but I am not exceptionally so. I do what I can, and it is okay. I'll never be great. I get it. All the fighting I used to do to prove everyone wrong. I was wrong. It just isn't in me to be great. I'll always be just okay. I have to learn to accept that.

Someday.

Not today.

Well and Not Well

I've reached the end of my brain. It can go no further. No matter how much I know, how much I can take in, I can't make it work for me. All of it sits there, and festers. I don't grow. I just fill up with useless information. It's not like that for other people. The ability to use what they know comes easily. They have longer skeins of cloth to use than I do.

Communicating this fact is difficult. Theory of mind - the ability to know that other people have different experiences than oneself - seems to dry up as we get older. If they can do it, everyone can do it. It doesn't work like that.

I absorb a lot. That doesn't mean that I can use it, though.

And because I've used up all the "cloth" I have, I am now stuck. I lost time, yesterday. Big clue. My invisible illness has been activated.

Now, I stew and cry. I will never be anyone. I will never accomplish anything. I'm at the end. This is as far as I go. Sorry.

Rolling Along

It's been a while since I privatized everything. I was certain that this would be a way to keep anyone from using my words against me. The things I learned in June 2000, about making fun of that job on a "private" site, and the resulting disciplinary action that was taken have made me wary. The reason I was able to write before is that I felt there was nothing that could really be taken from me. Now, I feel like I have something - some things - that can be taken from me. Paranoia stems from personal, lived experience.

Honestly, though, there is probably a condition that keeps me writing and wanting to write, despite all the wary caution I feel. Hypergraphia? I don't know if that's the right word, but it fits.

The last week has been too dangerous to me. In having something that can be taken away from me, and having that held over my head has resulted in flashbacks and even a bit of dissociation. I didn't have time to use the skills I learned. Not even to breathe, touch something, taste something, smell something, etc. until I started to come back to the here and now. This was a dangerous week. I'm okay, today. I let it go. Yeah, I guess it can be taken from me, but I am letting it go.

I know that I may fall again. I may be trapped in a snare of my own head, again, if this does get rescinded. It really doesn't matter, though. Nothing actually matters.

My son has a car, which needs work, to practice driving soon. It's in my name. (I own two cars. WTH?) He has a place at NKU and a scholarship to help him through to graduation. Things have been  sorted for the moment.

See, this isn't 1995. I am not starting over again. It's just a continuation from here.

I've been charging at my life and rolling along through the bad parts on my own since I was 8. The help I had wasn't the help I needed. And none of it was offered in good faith. I made it then. I'll make it now. Somehow.