Memories & Lyrics

…I’m standing at the window, looking out at the beautiful Spring colours. How do I know they’re beautiful? From memory, because everything in my world is black and white, various shades of grey, but never, never colour. The sun sets on the beautiful scenery and I can’t see it. I’m being chased in my mind by the black dogs, and then I’m cynically laughing at the irony. My best friend is my black dog…

…Sitting on the couch, I’m staring at a spot on the wall. We have visitors. I’m sunk so deep in depression, I forget who is here right now. I can’t relate to time anymore because I’m constantly in hell. All I’m aware of is that there has been a stream of visitors in the house for a long time now. They all hug me and feed me and bring me their love and support, and I can’t get out of my fucking head to even thank them properly. I’m a horrible, horrible person…

…I’m sitting in the car waiting for my husband. It happens to be the parking lot next to the place we met, a dark and dingy pool hall. I’m staring at the sign and right below, the bench where we sat together nervously before deciding to walk home together for the first time. I miss those happier times, but I feel like our marriage is doomed sometimes. My depression ruins everything I pass by. I feel as though if I walked by a flowerbed, they would all just wilt from all the pain radiating from me. I look up at the next building over. The address is 331. His number is 33, mine is 31. We always combine them. 331 is us. I’m getting this inkling that some force is trying to give me hope, if only it would sink in…

…I watch TV, I play computer games, I read, as a last resort, I get stoned off my ass, but I can’t forget about him. My dad. I need to start serious therapy, I need to get past this shit, because I can’t survive this purgatory for much longer. And all the time I think of him, this song plays over and over in my mind, it’s the anthem to our entire relationship:

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Every step that I take is another mistake to you

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I’m becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
And every second I waste is more than I can take

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

…I’ve been in this little white room in emergency for so long, I don’t know how much longer I can stand it without having a full out panic attack. By the time my therapist comes in, I’m hiding in a corner, crying and keeping my eyes constantly on the door, shaking and terrified. She sits in front of me in a chair and as we talk, I feel myself start to relax. She asks about my black eye. I debate for a moment on whether I should tell her that I slipped and banged my face on my bedside table (this is what I’ve been telling everyone else) or whether I should tell her the truth. The words escape from my lips, and I am as shocked as she: I hit myself in the face repeatedly with a hammer. I was insane with pain and anguish and needed a release, but every time I SI’d my husband would get so angry, so I had to do something that I could pull off as an accident. I noticed a scratch there and improvised. There. It’s out. She thinks it’s a good idea for me to wait for the psychiatrist, just in case he can rearrange my meds to help me more. The doctors and nurses come and go, checking out my eye. It’s fine, which I already know. I’m not stupid enough to break bones. I have a good knowledge of anatomy and injuries and I can hurt myself to cause maximum pain without really injuring myself. I guess I’ve become kind of good at this. Hours are going by, every time my therapist has to leave (which is frequently) I start to panic again. I count the bricks in the wall. I count the letters in the titles of the posters on the wall, but I can’t stop the panic, it’s overwhelming me. I pull out my keys and run one as hard as I can across one of the burns on my arm, enough to make it flow blood, but not so much blood that I can’t clean it up with the small squares of sandpaper that they call tissue in the hospital. It’s not enough. I pick up the receiver of the phone on the table and beat myself repeatedly on the occipital bone (the one I hit originally to get my shiner). Occasionally, my Therapist comes in, and every time she enters the door, I see this angel. I see my savior. I’m nearly at the end of my tether, emotionally and mentally exhausted by the time Dr. Quack enters my tiny white prison, followed by two students – this is a teaching hospital. Over the next 20 minutes he tears the pathetic brace I had built to hold myself together with his terrible words: I am a bad person for telling my husband about my sexual abuse because it’s so hard on him. I should never tell him what I’m going through, and if I don’t start up my sex life again, we are doomed. Self harm makes me unpretty, I need to use more socially accepted ways of dealing with things. I shouldn’t be thinking about my dad at all, just forgive him. He made a mistake, he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong, and I can’t forget, but I must forgive him and move on with my life. I mention a punching bag and he encourages me to use it to work off my fat. I’m in such shock, all I know to do is get him out of here. I tell him what he wants to hear so he’ll get the fuck out. I’m reeling, I’m about to fall, and this time I’m going to fall hard. And then my angel comes in. She can’t believe what Dr. Quack said. She cries with me as his repeated words tear from my throat amid sobs. And then she leads me gently back to myself, and I feel it, I know that she is the only one who can save me…

…I’m listening to sad songs by myself, and I even though I’ve been listening to this song for years, I finally get it. It’s as though it was written to help me:

Spend all your time waiting
for that second chance
for a break that would make it okay
there’s always one reason
to feel not good enough
and it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memory seeps from my veins
let me be empty
and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

in the arms of an angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you’re in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort there

so tired of the straight line
and everywhere you turn
there’s vultures and thieves at your back
and the storm keeps on twisting
you keep on building the lie
that you make up for all that you lack
it don’t make no difference
escaping one last time
it’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

…It’s morning, I’m in bed. I’m caught in that place between sleep and consciousness. I can already feel the pain returning. Why won’t it ever stop? I can’t take it for much longer. It’s eating away at me, and someday there will be nothing left. I can see the back of my eyelids now and I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid that I’m going to wake up and live…

* Lyric Credits: Numb, Linkin Park & Angel, Sarah McLachlan, respectively.

Natural High

As I type this, I’m huffing and puffing, red cheeked and out of breath, my heart is racing, my body is aching from head to toe, I’m drenched in sweat, shuddering with fright, the Seroquil has my body almost asleep as my anxiety fights it, and my mind is in this semi-lucid euphoric state that’s penetrated with fear. Panic is starting to take over…BUT

I just walked my dog. Fuckin’ eh.

Numbed

For the last few days, I’ve been in a drugged stupor, struggling just to make my body move and get through the day. The good thing is that this leaves a lot less time for me to focus on the fucked up thoughts floating around my brain. The drugs are like a blanket that covers my depression, anxiety, fears and phobias just enough for me to function. I look at myself in the mirror and all I see is a perfectly normal looking 24 year old, with flushed cheeks and punk hair and I don’t understand how I can look so normal when I’m so fucked up inside. But if you look deep into my eyes, past the slim layer of vacancy, you can see the turmoil that lies within.

My meds were upped again last week after I arrived to see my GP in dark clothes, hiding behind sunglasses, tears streaming out the bottom of them, shaking and clutching a small leather bag full of stones that were supposed to be giving me positive energy. When he left the room for a few minutes, he left the door of the room open and this intense fear washed over me like a wave and I panicked. I was sobbing, shaking and rocking in the corner when he came back and it took several minutes for me to calm down enough to even speak to him.

For me, there’s no more positive energy that can make me better until I get to the other side of the years of abuse. The things that used to always bring me out of a depression – my Husband’s arms wrapped tight around me, my Son’s baby giggles – they don’t penetrate anymore. Or maybe they do, and it’s just that I’ve left my body and fallen into this dark pit in my mind…so far down, and the only part of me getting this loving contact is the shell of who I used to be. I take my meds and I become this numb person who walks the world, head down and missing most of what is out there. I hate this feeling too, but for now, it’s a relief from the constant pain. The drugs take the edge off just enough to keep me from crying all the time. When it’s time to take my next dose, I know because I’m already starting to crash. The pain is already returning.

Before I went to see my Dr, before my meds were increased, I was stuck in this mental purgatory every night. I would lie on the carpet sobbing my heart out and self harming for hours after my Husband went to bed. I hurt so much, I wanted to overdose. Not to kill myself. Just enough to knock myself out for a couple of days so that never ending fucking pain would stop, just for a little while. But every time I thought of reaching for that bottle, I thought of my Son. I would pull up my favourite picture of him on the computer and stare at it and tell myself that if I fuck up that way, I’ll be hospitalized. I won’t be able to see my baby whenever I want, and that to me, would be worse than death. So I never took the pills. That didn’t erase the need to escape though.

Now I sit around, dopey, listening to songs about lost love by Sarah McLachlan and stoner music by Sublime. I read Prozac Nation and identify so much with the author that I feel like this time, I really am that far gone. I can identify with the deepest, darkest feelings of a woman who went through such hell, that her account of her struggles with depression became a national bestselling book. People don’t read books about people who are just sort of depressed. They want the raw, gut wrenching, gritty realness of it. The worst possible case. They try to understand, try to identify, but most people wouldn’t be able to. Like so many things in life, you can’t truly understand unless you’ve actually gone through it yourself. The last time I read it (when I went through my first depressive episode), I was overwhelmed by the brutal nature of the pain she was going through and I couldn’t identify. My ability now to identify so completely with her scares me.

Tomorrow I start psychotherapy with my therapist. Tomorrow we begin the plunge into my deep, dark, disturbing childhood. I’m glad to be dealing with it, but I know at the same time that things are only going to get worse before they get better. That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but don’t they understand that I’m already at worse? What comes after that? Can I make it through it? That incessant spirit that usually resides within me has been extinguished like a small lit candle in a windstorm by all the overwhelming pain, grief, guilt, and whatever other fucked up feelings I have every minute of every day. Deep down, I know that this is the hardest test of character I’ve ever had to and probably will ever have to face. I’m so scared. So alone. Stripped and naked in the dark, pathetically trying to beat back the black dogs of depression. But they’re coming for me. They’ve caught the sent of blood, and they’re coming. And I don’t know what to do to stop them.

My Odyssey

Over the past several nights I’ve found myself unable to sleep and so trying to entertain myself in any way possible until I can finally pass out on the couch. I’ve taken up reading Homer’s Odyssey, and find that although I’ve read it thrice before, it is taking on much more meaning to me this time. Perhaps because I am going through my own sort of Odyssey as well. A journey full of twists and turns, my fate decided sometimes by myself, and sometimes by the Gods, where only bravery and quick wits will win in the end.

A lot of times lately, I haven’t felt up to the task. I feel lost, as though I’ll never find myself again. My family again. We aren’t what we used to be. This whole thing – this whole depression thing and everything that comes with it is screwing up my life for a second time, and all I can do is sit here and watch it fall apart around me. I’ve tried so hard to fix things, but now it’s unraveling too fast for me to keep up with and I’m so scared that I’ll lose it all.

There is no more comfort. Only pain and less pain. I weep all the time now. I weep because I am weak and afraid, and as far as I can be from the person everyone seems to think I am. I don’t know that person any more. I’ve lost her. I won’t ever get that person back. She’s changed forever. I need to accept this new woman who has suffered so much and do my best to move on with my life as fast as I can.

In the meantime, will my life hang in for me?

Showered in Success

As you may already know, I have a phobia of the shower. This was one of the places that my dad abused me when I was little and for a long time now, whenever I get near the shower, or think about having one, I panic. Even baths can be traumatic, see here.

Yesterday evening, hubby asked earlier on if I was interested in attempting a shower. He said we’d do it my way and he only wanted to help me in any way he could. I asked him to stay in the bathroom with me, but to stay fully clothed and be prepared to help me if I needed it. Before I got in the shower, I said over and over inside my head “This is MY bathroom. This is MY shower. You CANNOT hurt me here.” All in all, it wasn’t that bad – as long as my eyes were open. As soon as I closed my eyes to rinse my hair, my imagination came into play and I was sure he would be right there, naked and waiting for me when I opened me eyes. I was almost sick. I began to panic. I opened my eyes, despite my face full of soap. Of course he wasn’t there, but my eyes burned like hell for a while. I asked hubby to promise he would protect me, while I had to keep my eyes closed. Just a silly formality, but it comforted me. Of course he said he would. I felt a bit more comfortable after that. So really, my shower was a success! I have some more to work on, but at least I can have one. I’m sick of baths.

Tonight, or early this morning I should say, after weeks of sweeping my hair from my eyes, I’d finally had enough. I went into the bathroom and cut my hair in front of the mirror. I’ve only done this once before, and it turned out much better and much easier this time. Then I remembered I had some colour pulse semi-permanent hair dye, plum colour. It only took 30 minutes to set, so I did that too. In the process, I had to shower off, which I did all by myself, thank you very much, although it was quite creepy seeing all the purple water everywhere. I’m glad I didn’t get red. ;0) I’m now sporting a funky purple fauxhawk.

So now the sun has risen, not even my dog will get up yet, and I am all alone and wide awake. Not even the birds are singing for it’s raining. Maybe I’ll just stay up and take a nap this afternoon. My parents are coming this evening to help watch Munchkin while hubby goes to pool, so that should be fun. We have lots of catching up to do, even though we’ve been seeing so much of each other recently.

To my family in the Woods…I love you and will see you soon. Send me an e-mail when you get the chance. Maybe we can just chat back and forth about this and that like the good old days…

Bath Horror

Since remembering some specific things about my dad abusing me in and after the shower, I have been anxious and afraid, and unable to have a shower. No, don’t worry, I do bathe, but I use the tub or I wash in the sink. I had recently picked up a kind of special bath foam that my Mom used to use and allow me to use on special occasions. I thought this would encourage me to get back into the bath/shower mode. Last night, as a beautiful surprise, M ran me a wonderful bath with my special bath foam. I entered the bathroom alone, M was supposed to come sit and chat with me while I bathed, and said he’d be there in a few minutes.

Upon entering the bathroom and closing the door behind me, it seemed as though the place shrank around me. I panicked immediately and began ransacking the cupboards for anything sharp I could injure myself with. The best I could come up with was a dull pair of hair cutting scissors, which I opened and scraped one of the blades as hard as I could across my face. I don’t remember how many times I did this, but it left only scratches and didn’t even draw blood.

After this, I felt somewhat calmer and foolish about panicking about something as simple as a bath. I slowly got into the water bit by bit, and was doing ok. M was busy for a while longer and by the time he got into the bathroom, I was a huddled mess in the corner, sobbing and shaking. I had been having flashbacks of my showers with my dad and was in mid panic. M helped me get out of the bath, I was a shaking, blubbering mess. He wrapped a towel around me and began to dry me off, starting with my feet and calves. As he rose up to my upper thighs with the towel, I panicked. I screamed at him to stop and not to touch me.

I finished getting dressed, a mess, then M held me and I cried and cried onto his shoulder for what seemed like forever. A while later, after having calmed down a bit, I begged M to never let my dad near me again. He promised to keep me safe. We also decided what M will say if he calls again: “M does not want to talk to you, please don’t call here ever again.” then hang up.

I managed to get my anxiety over the experience down the to point where I only self harmed once. I’m very proud of that. After a horrible night full of fear and terror, I pulled through, and while I felt weak and lost and hopeless, I know that that was progress I just made, and it heartens me.

A Rock, A Hard Place & A Wedding

Yesterday was the day of the wedding that has been causing me so much anxiety this past week. Hubby had been looking forward to it for weeks, talking all about it with his relatives, and he was going to wear a suit for the first time since we’ve been together. I, on the other hand, was becoming more of a wreck with each day it grew nearer. The day before, I tried to tell hubby that I didn’t think I could do it because of my intense fear of crowds. There was to be about 200 people there, and I am in no condition to be able to handle that kind of thing right now. He maintained that we would go. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was petrified and spent time crying and rocking on the carpet and self harming. Among other things, I branded myself many times.

I felt stuck. I wanted so badly to go to the wedding for my husband, to support him as he’s been supporting me these last few weeks, that I was forcing myself to go. I knew in my heart that I couldn’t do it. God knows, I tried. I tried to gain control of myself over and over. Morning arrived, and with it, uncontrollable tremors, and still, my husband wanted to go. My parents arrived to babysit munchkin and were understandably concerned with my condition. I tried to talk to my husband, but I couldn’t force myself to ask him for what I needed: to stay at home. We made it down to the car before we figured out we weren’t going. Unfortunately, it took a lot of yelling and drama to get us to that realization.

After that, I began to relax. My parents stayed for the majority of the afternoon and I felt relaxed in their company. Last night I was able to get some sleep, although it was disturbed, despite my Seroquil.

After all the difficulties yesterday, I have finally realized that I am very sick right now. I have almost no control over my anxiety and my emotions. Over the night before the wedding and the morning of, I branded my arm a total of 12 times. I counted last night. I need more time to heal. I can’t expect so much of myself. I need to trust my family more. I need to stop trying to fix everything on my own and ask for help, because I have a wonderful group of people in my support group who would do anything to help me. It’s time I started to let down my guard and let them.

To those people: I’m sorry I have been distant. I’m sorry I have been wary of trusting. I am very vulnerable right now, and I find it extremely hard to open up for fear of getting hurt. My natural instinct, the way I lived my childhood, is to put up walls. I have to fight this every day. Every hour. Every minute. But while I may lose some battles, I am ultimately winning the war. Please be patient with me.

Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

I’m told that long ago, when I was just a toddler, my parents took me to a Santa Clause Parade and a clown came up to me, making all sorts of faces, and I was terrified and balled hysterically. This was my first experience with my fear of clowns. Now, having observed my baby’s toddler phobias, and the quick rate at which they come and go, I would say there was a good possibility that I would get over this incident and begin to like clowns.

Jump to a few years later. My Father and Stepmother took me to visit my Grandma M in Port Colborne. The adults surrounded the table and began talking – boring for a 5 year old, so naturally, they needed to give me something to keep me occupied. Grandma led me down the hall to her bedroom and patted at a spot on her bed. “You can watch a movie sweetie”, she said. As she was now in her bedroom, most of her 14 cats had come in as well. Grandma pressed play and shut out the light before leaving the room and closing the door behind her. And what came on? Stephen King’s ‘It‘. The extended 4 hour version. For the following 4 hours, I watched, horrified and transfixed, occasionally scared out of my skin by a cat jumping on the bed. When the movie finally ended, I left the room a different child, and sought my parents. They were now relaxing in the living room and I was scolded for staying up so late and told to get straight to bed. I was now convinced that clowns were evil predators who hunted children.

Another 8 years passed and I was either hosting or attending a sleepover with my girlfriends almost every weekend. We loved to turn all the lights out, get zipped up in our sleeping bags and watch scary movies. Poltergeist was always our favourite, and a must. The part where the boy checks for the clown repeatedly until he finds it’s not there, only to be suddenly strangled by it, will forever haunt me.

Now all clowns are evil. There are 3 exceptions to this rule:

1. Ronald McDonald is OK. He endorses one of the most greasy and addictive fast food chains for Christ’s sake! If I had an appetite, I would be drooling over a Big Mac right about now.
2. Lunette, the clown from children’s show ‘The Big Comfy Couch’ is all right too. She actually takes clown and makes it cute and lovable.
3. Any clown that is dead is fine with me.

Now this, as I see it, is a life-long and progressive fear of something, and that makes sense. Personally, I’m fine hating clowns. I have no desire to fix that phobia. Now allow me to introduce you to my new fears. There are very few stories behind them, they each became a part of my life one day and have only gotten worse. If I could get rid of them, I would in a heartbeat, but it takes ‘time and work’ (if I hear that phrase one more time, I will punch someone’s lights out!) to get over these kinds of things. Irrational or not, here they are:

• I’m constantly terrified that I’m going to do something wrong and they’ll take my baby away.
• Unless I’m with someone in my ‘circle of trust’, I am terrified, and for the most part, cannot go out in public. I’m beginning at times to border on agoraphobia.
• I hate waiting rooms. The more people the worse it is. I feel so vulnerable and get paranoid when I see someone looking at me. I often wear sunglasses to ‘hide’ behind. I have tried to listen to my iPod but am terrified I won’t hear something important.
• I am afraid of the shower. Every time I get near it, I get flashbacks of my dad.
• I am afraid of intimacy. I find I flinch and often lean away from my husband’s touch, even when I know that it will help me.

That’s all I can come up with right now off the top of my head. Tomorrow (or rather, Today (it’s 1:47am) I’m supposed to go to a wedding with my husband. My parents are coming to babysit, so I’m not worried about Munchkin, but I’m terrified of going to this thing and being in the crowd. The wedding is for my husband’s family, and they don’t know about my depression. They’ll be boisterous and conversational, and I’m going to be breathing from a paper bag. I want so badly to go, for my husband, but can I do it? It’s a big fear to face, and far from home and safety.