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.

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.

Fear

I’m scared. For no reason and for every reason. I don’t understand. Yesterday the sun was shining…two blue jays fluttered past my window and as I looked out, a fresh breeze swept the sweet smell of freshly mown grass into the room and I was happy. It was the first time in forever since I smiled when I was by myself.

But now. It’s gone. Whatever sunny, happy, shiny feelings I had yesterday seem to be fading at an exponential rate. My arm bleeds. I’ve ravaged my wounds again, spread them all open in pain and grief. I’ve branded. I hate myself for it, but I hated myself before I did it too, so what does it matter?

My dad. I saw his picture today. I was going through some old boxes and there was this picture of my Mom and dad and their dog Charlie in a portrait. It surprised me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him again. I was doing so well, not thinking of him, and now I’m stuck there again. I’ve been down this road. I thought I was past it, moved on and ready for the next challenge, but I find that my mind plays me like a house full of mirrors, until I don’t know which thoughts are real and which are only what could be.

I miss him. I worry about him. I still love him. And I deeply, deeply, deeply hate myself for that. I hate him for what he’s done to me, for what I have to go through now, and for what? I keep having this memory replay in my mind. I’m young and in trouble. My dad is sitting on a chair waiting for me. He tells me to come to him. To pull down my pants. To lie across his lap. Then he’s spanking me. Hitting me so hard that I cry out in pain. Eventually, I learn to stop crying. I bite my lip. But the fear is still deeply implanted…The whole ceremony of it. Sick. So why did I type in his name on facebook today just to see if he was still there? Why do I fucking care after what he did to me. It’s been long enough already, please, just let me go. Whatever it is that you have over me, please, just let that fade away to nothing.

I’m here again. Cold and alone with my thoughts and his ghost. Haunted. Hunted. I can never escape. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m not brave enough. I’m not smart enough. How can anyone be expected to deal with this overload of emotional and psychological and physical damage at once and remain sane? I don’t believe in myself anymore. I feel like a failure. I haven’t been able to pull myself together after all this time. My family needs me, and I can’t help them. Never ending time unwinds and I remain a shell. A shell who looks like a person I used to be. It fools my loved ones, but when they are gone, in the long, dark loneliness of night, I feel it. All the pain the shell has bottled up inside. And it is killing me slowly, softly, subtly under the surface.

Leaving A Life Behind

I am 18 years old again. I live on the farm. By now I have begun to rebel, and am no longer helping with the farm work. I hardly spend any time with my horse anymore. Instead, I focus on rugby, my friends at school, and any time I can get away from the farm…

***

I’m away for the weekend, coincidentally in the city I now live in, visiting my parents. We’re having dinner in some restaurant downtown and I proclaim that I’m moving in with them in two weeks to which they agree. We are all determined, but disconcerted…

***

I’m afraid. There is a constant thrill of fear in my chest. I have only a week and a half before I’m leaving the farm and I haven’t told my dad. I have to tell him, to wait any longer would be unfair. I work up the courage to. I don’t even remember what he said to me. I don’t think he believed me…

***

One week to go. My best friend won’t talk to me anymore. She’s been moved around to different schools all her life and has lost so many friends. We were going to be different, best friends forever, and now I was leaving her to live 4 hours away. It broke my heart….

***

I tell my coaches that I won’t be playing rugby or hockey anymore because I’m moving. They’re all sad to see me go, but understanding because most of them know at least a part of the atrocity that is my home situation. I’m in love with my teams. They have been my source of self esteem, of growth as a person, of pride, of friendship…for years now. I KNOW these people so well…I’ve worked so hard…I’m finally captain of the rugby team, I’ve worked so hard to earn it. All to be lost soon because I can’t live another minute on that farm….

***

I tell Her. Antichrist. She makes some nasty comment that bounces off of me because I don’t care anymore. I’m leaving, and I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Or do I? Is it possible that she may do something to me in the week before I leave? Now I’m living in even more fear than usual. My dad hasn’t even talked about it since I told him…

***

It’s the night before I leave…I’m in bed early, just waiting for the morning. I hear a knock at the door and A enters. She comes and sits on the edge of my bed as I move away from her, repulsed and scared of her. Her speech is long and eloquent. Her main point is to tell me that she believes I have depression. She is disgusted with the way I’m leaving, but that’s right. I’m leaving in the morning. She’s closing the door behind her, and I’m hugging Stitch, terrified in the dark, awake until dawn…

***

I’m mucking out stalls on the morning I leave. My stepsister comes down to the barn to say goodbye. “How could you do this to you dad. You’re killing him by doing this. Goodbye.” she says coldly and leaves. I eventually turn and continue mucking, tears falling silently to the shavings…

***

I’m in my room and I find a note on my desk from my dad. It says he can’t bear to be there when I leave and that he’s gone to work. What a selfish coward…

***

My Mom is pulling up in the van at last. We’re loading things into it. A watches as I walk by with a fan from my bedroom. “I don’t fucking think so, that fan doesn’t belong to you” she says. I put it down and pack the rest of my things. I ask Mom if I can drive. I want it to be ME who leaves this place. I’m pulling down the driveway and everything is surreal…

***

I’ve been driving for about 15 minutes now. We’re in the next town and I’m pulling over because I’m crying. And then my Mom is holding me and I’m crying my heart out. I’m crying with joy for saving myself, and I’m crying with grief for giving up the people and the things that I love. I’m crying for my dog and my horse who I’m leaving behind. But I have just accomplished the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life…

I couldn’t do it

I just branded my arm. I hate myself. I’m so weak. So fucking weak. Such a fucking failure. Why do I feel this way? Why did you do this to me dad? I loved you so much. I was daddy’s little girl, and you loved me in so many wrong ways. Why would you put that on me daddy? WHY? I just wanted to be a normal girl. I just wanted to fit in with everyone and I never did. I was missing something. I was missing my innocence. You took it from me, you stole it from me, with your honeyed tongue, and I believed every word of it because you loved me. And I loved you. I thought it was me. I thought it was my fault that you stopped. Why didn’t you explain it? Why did she hate me forever after that? Why didn’t you stop her from hurting me all those years. She tortured me! I fucking hate you. I fucking hate you more than I hate myself. I never want to see you again. I never want to talk to you again. You will never see my beautiful baby boy. You will never touch him again. He won’t even be at your funeral. You sick, twisted, pathetic excuse for a human being! I hate you so much for what you did! So why do I still love you?

Make It Stop

*THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS DETAILED CONTENT ABOUT SELF INJURY.*

*PLEASE DO NOT READ IT IF THIS WOULD BOTHER YOU.*

I feel terrible right now. Not even provoked or triggered, just general, depression/anxiety terrible. My heart is pounding, I’m terrified and on the verge of tears. At the same time, I feel as though I can’t go on anymore and just want to give up for the day. But I can’t get myself to go to bed yet either. I’m restless. I’ve wanted to self harm all evening day and have held off so far, but I’m feeling so weak and tired right now. The pain just never ends. It’s like having constant pain for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12…hours. You’re almost insane with having to stand it for so long. Only there’s no pain pills for this. Sure, I take my antidepressants and my anti-anxiety meds, but they’re just enough to get me through the day. Without them, I’d be a quivering, blubbering mess, who never bathed nor left her room. I’d be a sham of a person, hollow and without hope. I know these pills help me, but sometimes they’re not quite enough. Sometimes the only way to get rid of this terrible pain is to create pain more immediate and more terrible. I choose to brand by lighter. It hurts like hell for about 10 seconds. I have to grit my teeth and squeeze something in the hand of the arm I’m burning. I don’t cry anymore. As the pain subsides, I let all my anxiety and internal pain subside with it. I feel much better mentally. I have much more control of my emotions. It’s wrong and it’s a temporary solution, but it’s one that I will continue to use until I no longer need it. I don’t enjoy it. I loathe it. On good days, I look down at my arm and I hate myself for the scars I’ve made. For the section of my arm missing, where I burned over and over with open flame, until the burn reached third degree. I stopped then, and helped it heal as well as I could. Sometimes my husband and I joke about it. The lighter brands make horseshoe-like scars and we joke that it looks as if a tiny horse went crazy on my arm. Sometimes I catch myself staring at my arm, I can’t tear my eyes from the wounds. It’s as though I can’t believe it, and I’m grieving for my arm. I know only too well though, that by the time you get to the point of Self Injuring yourself, you are well beyond caring about scars. Sure, have it in your head to keep it somewhere you can cover up, but you need the release. Your body needs it, your mind needs it, your soul needs it. If this helps me to get through the horror that is working through sexual abuse at the hands of my father, then I know that I won’t care some day down the road when I’m playing with my Son and I look down and see those scars. They are my battle wounds. I will carry them proudly because I will have beaten depression.

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.

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.

Cut and Dry

When I made the decision to cut my dad out of my life just recently, I felt better.  I had a sense that I could finally move on.  Like I once more had a starting point.  Of course, I expected a lot of guilt, perhaps some grief to set in when I deleted the last e-mails, the last phone numbers, addresses, connections and ties.  But it has yet to come.  I feel, in many ways, relieved.

My dad has so far respected my wishes and no longer contacted me, after I sent him an e-mail asking for him to give me space, but we’ll see how long that lasts, and I only hope that I am at a better place when he begins to bombard me with calls and e-mails and accusations again, and that I will be able to handle it accordingly.

My main point, is that people often say that things are never just cut and dry.  There’s always shades of grey.  But sometimes, even for a brief moment, or a brief period of your life, something can be cut and dry.  Something can be or not be and that is all there is to it.  My dad is no longer in my life.  There are no shades of grey in that, and there is no regret.

At one of the highest points of self consciousness in my life, I had dedicated myself to The Four Agreements, and one of the things that helped me that most at that time was to cut out the bad in my life.  To disassociate myself with the negative around me as much as possible.  I have often thought since then of cutting out the negativity of my home town.  Of the farm house, in which I suffered so much pain and anguish.  And now I have.  I have surrounded myself with positivity (for the most part) and nurturing relationships.  I know that is the only way for me to move forward.

As a footnote: I’d like to refer to my previous post with a quick note to say that my husband curbed his madness within a record 45 minutes, and came back to save the day.  You truly never know the amazing things one can accomplish when given proper motivation.  I love you hubby, and I’m so proud of you.

Comfortably Numb

After last week’s traumatic events, my anxiety medications were both upped in dosage to get me through this weekend and the coming week.  While I’m extremely relieved that they’ve taken away the worst of my anxiety, and for the most part, my urges to self harm, I feel…dopey.  All the time.  I feel as though I’m stumbling through the day half awake.  Half the time, I can’t remember if I’ve taken my pills.  I have yet to decide whether this is a good or a bad thing, but for now, I’m just thankful for the lack of nightmares.  A few hours of peace each night go a long way to making me stronger.  In the meantime, I might as well sit back on my over medicated ass and enjoy the vapor trails and pretty colours.

P.s While I was comfortably numb today, I deleted my dad.  No more phone numbers, no longer in my contacts, every single e-mail between us gone.  No more reminders.  And you know what?  I felt good for the rest of the day.  However, we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings.  I’m guessing a wave of guilt that will nearly drown me.  I know I’ve made the right decision though.