Quote

"Depression causes us to narrow our view of the world around us to such an extent that reality becomes distorted."

Unrest

I can't sleep now. I don't know why. I'm not tired, bed doesn't look good. I'm crying and I want you to know, I want you to reach out to me, to make a difference, but you won't. I don't know why. I want you to step beyond your own self to make me step beyond mine. I'm out of control inside and I don't know what to do. I want to cry and cry and crawl inside of you. Please be the bigger person, just for a little while. Please just say you know what to do, even if you don't. I don't care, I just want to feel safe and I don't. I'm afraid of myself. I don't know what to do.

Nothing

I feel empty.

I know I'm not empty, but somehow just the knowledge doesn't change anything. I cannot understand this lethargy, this death within life. I do not understand it. I have done nothing today except work out for one hour and do a load of laundry and take out the trash. I have done nothing else. And when I say nothing, I mean NOTHING. How is it possible to sit in one place and do nothing for so long? Why doesn't my body revolt, and get up, and walk off? Why doesn't some piece of my brain want to do SOMETHING? How can I just sleep and sleep and sleep?

I am sad. I wish I was a tiny, tiny baby. I want to be protected, but I don't know from what. I wish I could just let out how I feel, but I can't.

I need to eat something and then brush my teeth and take my night meds and find some clean pajamas and go to bed. Just the thought of all that is overwhelming. I am pushing myself through life; me, pushing me. And I am very hard to push.

We had another snow storm last night. The snow makes me cold everywhere. Everything is dark, so dark. The darkness of night brings a panic with it that I don't understand and can't avoid. "Sundowning," they called it at Acadia. Panic when the sun goes down. This is not a good thing for a Mainer to have. I need sun all the time. I need lightness and brightness.

Right now I'm not crying all the time. I haven't cried in four whole days.

I wish I hadn't screwed up. Now I have to live with that, for a while anyway. It's amazing how long and hard it is to move forward, but how quickly one can go backward. Ziiiiip. One tiny second, one moment of unguardness, and it's all back where it started and the fight seems so unworth it. What am I fighting for? Why am I trying so hard? To please people? Or God?

I don't want to live my life trying to please people. I want to have a better reason.

A Tear Free Day

It feels so good to have reached 8:30 at night without ever having ended up crying today. There was a little while there when I thought I was going to start, but then I just let myself play Solitaire during work hours for a minute and I got control of it and was able to go on. And there's this song by that Tim Hughs sings, When Silence Falls, based on Psalm 88, my favorite psalm, that says everything my brain wants to think and so I can just play the song and it saves my brain from having to do the thinking.

I took two Klonapin and I feel a slow calm overtaking me, even though I still feel surrounded by the silent screaming storm beyond the glass. For now, anyway, I am safe, warm, and hugged. I didn't even have to ask Bill for a hug today. He just did. He thought of it all on his own. It made me feel loved and thought of and I'm clinging to that right now. I talked to Kathryn, Bill, Ellen, Bekah, Deb Cawley, and my mom all in one day. How's that for keeping up with friends? (Pats self on back.)

Now I must crawl into bed while the drugs are still working and before any tears can start to come.

A Muted World

I wish I was the person I know I could be, if only I tried hard enough. I look out on the stillness and snow and wonder what God really thinks of me. When he looks down on me, what goes through his mind? Is he proud, sad, pitying, disappointed? Am I what he wants me to be? I'm all too sure the answer is no, and the realization makes my heart ache. But an even deeper ache comes from knowing I am not willing or able to come up with enough determination and energy to do better, at least not now. Sometimes my only prayer of an entire day is, "Jesus, help me," and then my brain closes in on itself again. More often my prayer is just, "Thank you," before my head hits the pillow; thank you that I survived another day, that I got up and did what was required, if only just barely, and then went back to bed again.

My soul feels like a dry, parched place in which it never rains. It has been so long since I felt God. In fact, I can't remember the last time. Sometimes I imagine his arms holding me, surrounding me from behind, but that is only my imagination. That is something of my own creating. And I blame the lack of his presence on my own failure to seek him enough, which is probably giving myself too much credit.

The stillness all around me feels like a storm in and of itself, just a muted one. I see in my head this picture of thousands and thousands of people yelling and screaming and throwing stones at me, only it's all in slow motion and with no sound. They are trapped behind a fence, their mouths distorted and pushed into the wire, and their arms are heavy, heavy, heavy and their eyes are wild and rolling, and the rocks somehow make it through the wire but never hit me, and the screaming is so obvious yet I can't hear a sound. I see the screams, but the air is utterly still.

I have this very bad feeling that any minute now the great god of my brain will once again unmute the world.

Beached

I'm starting to think that I hear entirely different things from what other people are really saying to me. I think I must be not nearly as smart as I think, or there's a short in my brain somewhere, or something. I hear disaster, when all other people hear is a still small voice. I am programmed to expect the worst, to lose love. I need to work a lot on trust, I think.

The last three days have felt like a giant tornado, with me caught up in the middle of it and getting spun around and around and around without any magic shoes to click so I could get back to Kansas. But for tonight at least the storm is gone. I'm just really tired and drained. I feel like I need to sleep for a very long time.

I hope I can get some rest before the next wave hits, whenever that may be.

A Bit Of My Soul

Just got back from the gym. Almost no one was there this morning at 5:00, no doubt due to the Pats game last night. I found out the Pats lost. I also found out I don't care.

I had the most amazing experience last night. Someone held me for fifteen minutes and just let me cry and cry. And cry. And didn't tell me I had to stop, or what I was doing wrong, or what was making me sad, because they didn't know and they knew they didn't know. It seems like that's never happened before in my life, being held that long. I'm sure it has, many times, just probably during periods when my memory couldn't retain it. I'm sure Bekah's held me while I cried. I just try to block out that whole section of my life because I feel so guilty about how I treated her, even though I was too sick to do anything differently.

But someone last night actually did fill a little bit of the hole in my soul, a little tiny bit. I didn't think it possible, but it was.

I get attacked by the sadness and uncontrollable crying at the most random times now. Eating breakfast. Updating the church bulletin. Getting my mail. Playing my horse game on the computer. Lying in bed at night. In the middle of dinner with friends. Especially in the middle of dinner with friends. It's so hard for me to know when I have to choke it down and stuff it in and pretend it isn't happening, and when it's okay to let it out and let other people find out. There's this rule burned into my head that I cannot be sad around most people. A couple, yes, but not most. They won't have me back if I'm sad. They won't be my friend if I'm sad. I'll make them uncomfortable. They won't believe me. They'll think I just want attention.

I am so angry these days. In church yesterday during the second service my whole body was sprung tight with the desire to start punching myself or the nearest person, to start screaming obscenities, to run from the room and smash out the windows. The tension inside is unreal and I don't know what to do with it. Someone suggested karate or kickboxing. Perhaps they're right. A violent sport sounds very good to me right now. But the thing is, I don't want to just pretend to attack someone, I want to actually beat them up with my fists until I'm bleeding and they're bleeding and I'm exhausted and someone comes and takes me away and it all goes black.

When I lie in bed at night, knives scissor through my brain. And I'm discovering a very disturbing thing. Even three years ago I was more afraid of destruction than I am now. Most of me has gotten more tender, but some little core piece of me has simply gotten fiercer. I don't want to hold myself in. I do, and I suppose that's a difference from three years ago, but the real difference is that now if I didn't hold myself in the results would be so much worse.

What is wrong with me?

I know the answer, but it doesn't really answer anything. Today, at this moment, in the darkness of this new morning, I don't even want a normal life or husband or kids. I don't want to struggle for something that hard. I just want to stand on a street corner and watch the cars go by until one stops.

Dear Anna

It won't always hurt this bad, my love,
it won't always hurt.
You will have days when you can't stop crying,
there will be days when it won't stop raining,
there will be months when the sun won't shine,
but you won't always hurt this bad,
you won't always cry.

You know I catch your tears in a jar
and I count them one by one,
I know exactly how many there are.
I know you've cried more than your share,
more than you think is fair,
I know you think that I'm not there,
but I know too how weak you are,
how sad and lost and frail you are,
and I forgive when I'm not asked,
I protect when I'm forgotten,
and I'll hold on when you've let go.

I thought you should know.

If You Don't Want An Answer...

Go ask Alice,
Go ask God;
Go ask Buddha
(He's a fraud).

Go ask Santa,
Go ask Mom;
Go ask Google,
Read a Psalm.

Go ask Trees,
Go ask Mountains;
Ask the Quakers
Or Water Fountains.

Go ask Smack,
Ask Cocaine;
Ask your Peace Pipe
In the rain.

Ask a Hippie,
Ask a Freak;
Ask a Yuppie
Or a Geek.

Ask the Pope
Or the UN;
Ask your Dad
Or many Men.

Ask your Sister,
Ask a Priest;
Ask a Soldier
When fighting's ceased.

Ask a Crystal,
Or a Ball;
Ask the Stars
To tell you all.

Go ask Hookers,
Go ask Shrinks;
Ask your Closet
Or Kitchen Sinks.

Ask a Hermit,
Free and wild;
Just never never
Ask a Child.

Are Dog Food And Self Esteem Linked?

I ran out of dog food the other day. I mean, literally ran out. I shook both dog food bags upside down and nothing fell out. And it was evening and the grocery store was closed. So I fed my two poms an English muffin between them and then some doggy treats (which I do have, apparently), to top it off. They seemed puzzled, but flexible.

The next morning (still before the grocery store opens, I get up at 4:30 now, poor me), I found in a back kitchen drawer a packet of wet dog food and split it between them. The instructions said to feed one to two packets per dog, but mine were on a new diet of necessity. "That's all, folks!" I told them, and ran out the door to work.

When I returned at 2:30 after work I brought them dog food, a whole $4.00 bag of it, about the size of one of them. I filled their dish and waited for their starving mouths to start stuffing their bodies with desperately needed nourishment.

You've gotta love dogs. They looked at the food, then started jumping up and down all over me and trying to lick my hands and clean out my nose and get me to sit down so they could sit on my lap and get scratched. About half an hour later they turned around and saw their food dish and went, "Oh my God, food!" and forgot about me.

Why do I tell this story? I think because I have this certain terror of running out of dog food (somewhat akin to the terror I have of forgetting to return my library books), that stems from my youth (age twelve) when I had a Newfoundland dog (hunger on a much bigger scale, quite true), and anytime I forgot to let my dad know that we were running low on dog food (or heaven forbid I actually let it run out), I got the feeling I had committed a hanging offense.

People forget things, all kinds of things, things much more important than dog food. And there was a store ten miles from us. And it wasn't like I was forgetting on purpose, or even being that negligent. But we, we only went to Bangor once every two weeks if possible.

It's always bothered me--that shame and fear and lack of confidence that could be generated in me when I was a kid over something as simple as that. I suppose if someone had bonked me on the head and said, "Hey you, you let us run out of dog food, you little puke!" I would have been okay. But the silent disgust that I felt I got instead always made me want to vanish forever and ever and ever.

But look, just look how far I've come! Now I can run out of dog food and the dogs don't even care. Perhaps someday I won't either.

Flying Apart

I am sorry my mood doesn't fit your schedule. I am sorry to be so inconvenient. I am angry but I can't keep my eyes open, so it's a pointless anger. I have been letting the sun set and then rise again on my anger. I don't know how to fix that. The anger stems not from any particular incident but rather from the accumulated occurances of everyday existence. If it is any comfort to you, I am just as angry at myself as I am at the rest of the world. I need more. I know that. But I need a break too. Can I have one month, just one month, to regroup? To draw silly little dogs and clean my apartment and sleep my life away? Can I have one month of mostly deadness before returning to the world? I am over saturated with introspection. I crave touch. I hug myself in the dark of my apartment and stroke my own hair. I press my hands to my cheeks. I feel like a science experiment. How long can the human body go on without significant human touch before it shuts down? I don't know. Maybe I'll pop apart like springs do when freed from their confines. And those springs, you can never put them back together again, no matter how hard you try. Maybe that will be me. Maybe I will fly apart dramatically and everyone can marvel at the spectacular show. I always did want to entertain.

Tonight I laughed through my tears. I was funny and involved and everything I was expected to be. I don't know how I feel about that, other than the residual anger. What does getting better consist of? Really actually feeling better inside, or only pretending to feel better on the outside? How how much duct tape is okay? How much superglue? How may pomeranians does it take to keep bad dreams away.

Two, I think. Only two. A black one and a foxy one. One for each arm.

There Was A Girl

There was a girl lying on a blanket, all wrapped up and alone. For a while the sun shone down on her and it was warm and made it hurt to open her eyes. Then the sun went behind a cloud and she opened her eyes and saw nothing but puffy whiteness everywhere above her. She sat up and the blanket fell away from her shoulders. Her tank top was white. She was cold. She looked out at the water that filled up all the space that came after the beach stopped. It was silent. She listened hard, but it did not speak. She looked down at the blanket and did not think it warm enough. She looked at her arms and saw little bumps all up and down them and for a while she picked at these bumps, until some of them had become red and more bumpy. Then she stood up and walked down the beach to where the water started. The sand was very cold and compacted with wetness. She dug her toes into it and the impression of them stayed long after she had moved them on. She took off her tank top and threw it into the water and watched it float. After a while it started to sink, but she could still see it, shimmering white beneath the green surface of the water. She squatted on the sand and with her finger wrote I AM ME, and it was true, but it didn't change anything. She thought about running as fast as she could off down the beach, but that wouldn't help because herself would be able to keep up with her. So she screamed instead, and the land all around her screamed back, but only for a moment. The silence after her scream was more of a silence than it had been before. She took off her little jean shorts and threw them into the water. They floated better than the shirt had, but once they started to sink they were harder to see. They were blue. The water was almost blue. It all looked alike. Now she wasn't wearing much and she was very cold and there were bumps everywhere on her body, and even more bumps where there had been bumps before. But she didn't pick at them. There were too many to pick at. She would never be able to get to them all. So she crossed her arms across her chest and waded out into the water, past her sinking tank top and shorts, out out out until only her chin was above the water, her chin and her head above it. Her red hair was floating, fanned out across the water behind her. Her breasts were very cold. She thought there were probably bumps on them too. She looked up at the sky and it was all still just puffy whiteness. She wanted the sun, but it wasn't there and she couldn't make it appear. She didn't know how. She didn't bother screaming again. She just put her mouth under the water and breathed through her nose. The water smelled funny, like moss, or like socks left under your bed too long. She tasted it and it tasted kind of funny too, so she didn't taste it again. She put her whole head under the water and opened her eyes and they burned, so she closed them. Now she couldn't breathe. She thought about that for awhile. If she put her head back up, she would be able to breathe, but that would be like going backwards. Every movement up until this point had seemed like forward progress, but lifting her head back out of the water would be undoing something she had already done. She needed to find another way to breathe. She would have to find another way to breathe. There wasn't one. She opened her eyes again and again they burned, but this time she kept them open. The water really was green. Her lungs were aching. Her lungs wanted her to draw in with her nose, her mouth, anything. Her lungs were going to make her pass out so that they could get what they wanted, only it wouldn't be what they wanted. Lungs weren't made to hold water. They just weren't. That would be using her lungs for something they weren't intended for. Jumping off a building was different because legs were made for jumping, but lungs weren't made for breathing water. This wasn't the way to do it. This wouldn't work.

She was going to have to go backward after all.