Sunday Morning Pensées

I don't know what to do with my heart. I want so badly to be myself, but I don't seem to know who that is. Every moment of clarity is a treasure salvaged from the car wreck of my mind. I know "finding ourselves" is a modern concept not necessarily worthy of merit, and that finding God is probably the only way to find ourselves, yet I don't know who or where I am half the time. Is it that I haven't found God yet, or have I found him and just don't know how to believe? I can say all the right things while in the same moment being sure of none of them. There is a stubborn determination in me that refuses to forsake God or Christianity, no matter how much I may doubt, and often I suspect it comes from the very God I'm questioning. The irony of my faith: the things I hate keep me alive, the things I long to love would kill me.

I am sitting on the opposite side of church from my usual, wondering who's pew I have inadvertently appropriated and feeling rather pleased with myself for having done so. I think I have landed in the senior citizen section, which could prove entertaining, provided they don't all decide to hug me during greeting time. I might end up smelling like little old lady, and that would be redundant since my apartment already smells like little old lady from the furniture I imported yesterday.

Yes, as it turns out, I rather like this section. I got only one hug, and on the positive side I got a prayer list update and the offer of clothes. Happiness.

Everyone dies because all of us are related to Adam and Adam sinned. Why he sinned I'll never know, but I know if I was him I would have sinned too. How sad. Give us this day our daily bread.

Okay, the problem with sitting in the elderly section is they wear perfume and my head doesn't like perfume. Already it is aching for the elderly. Ah well. At least today it is not aching for me.

If I could marry a Rug Doctor, I would. They are much more useful than men, easier to clean up after, and I'm not afraid of them. Also, I can put them away in the corner and they stay there.

I remind myself of the tires on Jed's trailer, which sat out in the snow all winter and went completely flat, except they didn't show it. Like them, I am being held up only by my shape.

So in order to attract the man of my dreams I am supposed to appear more open and available by making eye contact and smiling. I tried it yesterday in the grocery store and the bagger fell all over himself to help me with my gallons of milk and apple juice and the old man behind me called me hon. Both safe, nonthreatening exchanges. I wonder, if someone eligible gave me the same response would I explode? I can see myself now, pieces of me scattered all across the aisles, but still smiling, still making eye contact, and still appearing available.

Blessed be the Lord God Almighty.

So Harrison Ford doesn't feel fulfilled and wants what he doesn't have--peace. Well, you know what, Han Solo, don't expect it any time soon. It hasn't shown up at my door yet either. "Imagine no heaven above, no hell below...." What peace would that provide? If there is no heaven and no hell and no God, or even if there is and I just imagine that there isn't, then I am dead. I have just walked out of here and killed myself.

What anchors you to earth? Your spouse and kids? Yeah, mine too, only sometimes they're just too imaginary. Like a candle running out of wax, they start to sputter and flicker away. I surround them with my heart, shelter them with my body, cup them in my hands, but still they threaten to fade. Keep the lights burning, Abby. How do you relight your candle? Is God the eternal wax? If I fix my wick in him will I go on burning forever? Strange metaphors, little one. Perhaps you should stick to painting.

The irony of life: when I am finally ready for a therapist, she will not take me on.

For my birthday I want to go to a movie with those two and sit between them eating popcorn like a little kid. How odd.

We have a thief in our midst. Why do I feel the need to defend God? I'm sure he can take care of himself, yet I find myself wanting to stake out the joint, lightening bolt grasped in my fist, ready to strike.

Man made peace? I didn't know there was any such thing. My emotional peace is a house of cards in a wind storm. "Flee immediately; all is discovered."

I should be focused on God. I am, after all, sitting in church listening to a sermon. (Yes, I CAN write in a journal and listen at the same time, shut up.) But what really draws me to God? Probably my mental pain is the only thing that keeps me focused on him--the very thing that makes me dissatisfied with his care. How he uses my weaknesses to his, and therefore my, advantage. And I think if I just felt well enough I could serve him so much better. How I deceive myself into dissatisfaction!

Read II Corinthians.

Live like I were dying? I AM dying.

Are all the stars angels? When a star explodes, has an angel blown up?

I think I'm beginning to understand why I get hurt so easily. It's this pesky thing called being Borderline. I used to think it wasn't real, but I'm starting to believe. The depression comes and goes without cause or reason and responds to the pills they give me, but the Borderline comes and goes with obvious cause--relational confrontation, confusion, or distress--and is not impressed at all by medications or alcohol or more sunlight. The only thing that seems to tame it is pain, primarily cutting. Sometimes I feel like the only adequate solution to this Borderline problem is complete isolation from all other human beings, but even that I know would not end the loneliness. Being alone is often the best answer, but only if no perceived hurt has happened to me in the past few days. If it has, then alone time is just spent churning and stewing and agonizing. Otherwise, being alone frees me of the possibility of relational wounding, thus allowing me to function as a robot. I step back from myself, cock my removed head to one side, and observe my behavior from the outside much as one might regard a laboratory specimen--interesting, but totally separate, guarded from contamination by the test tube of disassociation. This I know cannot be healthy, but it works, and it leaves no outward scars. Cutting is an obvious mutilation. Splitting on the other hand remains an invisible form of self harm, although my behavior inevitably gives it away, as soon as I allow relationships to infect my disease. Though people cannot physically see my emotional imbalance, they feel it in everything I say and do and they know that something is wrong, something is poisoned and broken, and that something is me, and so in an effort to change my actions or figure out what is going on they provide me with the confrontation and confusion and stress that causes my splitting in the first place. Thus, in actuality I am the cause of my own torment, making it impossible for me to heal myself.

Dear God, how do I break this cycle?

Youth Group

Blood on the mountain. How far can a man run? Youth group. Escaping the clutches of filmmakers out into the darkening parking lot. A woman, straggling up from the side of the road, disheveled, wanting a ride to get drugs for her brother, or son. Drugs. Would we take her? Drugs. We rolled up the windows, kept our hands inside the vehicle, locked the doors. Seth talked through the top few inches of his window. We drove away, into the dark, and home. It was midnight. I remember, quite clearly, the terror. I wanted my mother. She was asleep. I didn't know how to wake her when I needed her. I sat forever in my room, clutching myself, in absolute terror. What was I afraid of? I still don't know.

Now I wander the streets, mostly when disheveled, but I don't stop children leaving churches to ask for rides to get drugs. One time Seth found something stuck behind his tire, some sort of device, and pulled it out. He arrived home white faced and shaking. Dad went back with him to church to look for the thing, but was gone. What was it? What was supposed to happen when he backed up over it? How did he happen to see it, stuck under his tire like that? Who took it away?

It seems to me that church out there was always scary, was always making me afraid. I do not remember laughter and good times and light. I remember going door to door after dark and knocking on doors, only to be greeted by men in their underwear. I remember nights in Mexico, hiding behind roofless Mexican churches, vomiting. I remember a boy and girl dancing back to back with their butts glued together at the youth pastor's house. I remember Crystal, with her death makeup. I remember bringing knives home from Mexico for no good reason, and seeing a man in handcuffs for the first time. We speculated on his crime, and felt overwhelming relieved as we drove away, free, even after a lime jumped out of our van during inspection while returning to the United States. (Limes are a fruit, therefore contraband.) I remember drunken men staggering out of bars with offers to buy us girls from the pastor. What did they want us for? I'm not sure I knew then, not really.

Why can't I remember happy times? Weren't there any? Why is that part of my life so totally black that I can hardly see into it? Why I have I forgotten so much?

Dining In China

My mind is calm and still and clear this morning. So odd. Where is Anna and what have you done with her brain? For maybe three minutes this morning after waking up I had complete freedom from all of this, my thoughts focused entirely on the dream I'd been having. And then, of course, my truckload of emotions hit me again, no doubt unavoidably, sort of like they do after someone you love has died and you wake up and for a second or two forget that they are gone. But I loved those couple minutes--afterwards, when I realized they were special. I had flown to China to have lunch, a spur of the moment thing. I was dressed up pretty. I was happy. China was a great place to find Chinese restaurants. And I was with the people I wanted to be with. And there was no sense of time.

I think today I would like to fly to Paris for dinner. Want to come?

Pools Of Self Pity

Sometimes I cannot stand myself, the things I write. I want to be strong, to be brave, to be an example and a pioneer, but really I think I might be just a kid walking around in a grownup suit without any real clue of what I'm doing. I scribble things because for a little while it makes me feel better to have written it, but what I write has no meaning. What are these words but indulgences, little pools of self pity and self loathing and blame shifting? I am not the woman I could be. I probably never will be. I hope what I am will be good enough, because it's all I've got. I know God doesn't care, but some how I do. After all these years, fifteen of them without a real reprieve, somehow I still care. At this moment, I can't remember why.

Hello World

I am getting the mother of all headaches. My dogs have the runs (both of them at the same time, which makes me think this using other dog food until I can buy their usual brand again idea of mine was not such a great plan). Everyone is departing this weekend. The Johnsons to New Hampshire. Ellen also to New Hampshire, although to a different place. I am going to promote my art and win $0.01 auctions on eBay. I feel strangely calm now, lulled, despite the headache. Rain is tapping on my window. Everything has slowed almost to a stop and I can feel it swaying gently, as if in a breeze. Small things make me happy, like a journal I can scribble in every time I have a thought. I am getting sleepy and unfocused. This entry's point and purpose has escaped me. The dogs aren't smelling good. I don't smell so great myself. Three trips to the gym and no shower. Probably, I should shower tomorrow too. And buy groceries. I drank a gallon of apple juice this week and ate most of a jar of peanut butter. Somehow, that filled me up completely. I need to eat more. I need vegetables. I need to kick and punch my way back to the surface of the world and get my head above water, into the air, and breathe. Yes, I need to breathe. I need a violent shock to my system. I am now staring at this screen without total comprehension (unlikely, that). Hello, world.

Mind Games

It is painfully beautiful out this morning. I left for the gym at 4:50 am to make sure I was there when it opened but I got caught behind a very long train that was moving very slowly, so I had to sit in the falling snow and watch the headlights of passing cars on the road beyond, and it was all so still except for the train and the plash of flakes on my windshield, and I kept thinking, "This is not real, this moment in time is not real, it is just a dream." And then the train was gone, and I was right. The moment of being protected from the future by an immovable barrier was gone. I had to move on.

Because of his surgery, Tony was late opening the gym, so it turns out I could have left my apartment fifteen minutes later anyway. While we waited for him, the six or seven of us stood by our cars in the snow and discussed whether or not we thought he really was coming. Very cute, Heather said when she drove up, almost romantic, us standing in the glare of our headlights and the snow. Think of us, I told Tony as he left. He just laughed.

It's much harder than you might think, keeping your mind focused on something positive all the time, every time. You should try it sometime. I lay in bed last night for three hours before I fell asleep, trying to keep my mind off everything that felt like it was tearing me apart. First, I had a hell of a time thinking of positive things, and then I once I found something it took all my concentration to get my thoughts to stay there and not stray back to all the things gnawing at me. Three hours of battling. I'm not sure I ever really slept. I'm paying for taking those six sleeping pills all in one night, because now I have five nights without any. But I'm not sorry I took them. I'm just sorry I couldn't take more. I'm not interested in overdosing, but I am interested in not cutting.

So here are the positive things: The feel of a horse, my horse game, riding a rollercoaster, searching for bargains in a thrift store, lying safe in someone's arms, running along the beach, getting lost in one of my paintings, Benny & Joon, any book on tape. People, I find, I cannot think about, as sooner or later they always lead me back to chaos. The Bible too seems a path much to quick to steer me back into despair. This troubles me, and yet makes since. The Bible is tied up so much with people in my mind, people I know. I cannot separate the two.

And so I try to feel the horse, and the wind, and the sand beneath my feet, and the sun on my face, and I try to feel a dog in my arms, and I try to hear a story in my head while my fingers move pastels across paper in an ever widening slash of red. You see? You see how quickly I return? The pain inside is quite literally pain. If it were not so physical, it would not be so bad.

Safe Pastures

I am so disillusioned. I am dead inside my head. I am listening to the wrong kind of book and it's not helping. I'm writing whatever's coming from my head, whatever music is playing there. There is no tone, no chords, no lyrics, just noise. These thoughts only have the power I give them, I can block them out if I split my mind and send part of my mind to a safe place and think from only there. Safe thoughts where there is no panic and no fear and no desire to hurt or be hurt. I can stay there if I focus, if I fix my mind on one thing and only one. I can't interact, I can't speak, I can't see the world, but I can clear my mind. One thing, just one thing, I have to think of just one thing. There is no past, no present, no future, just one thing. I cannot laugh or play or sing, but I can create a calm, a zone around my head, and live in it, as long as I can focus, as long as I can split. I can forget all the horror, leave behind all the sharp things, the knives and razors and desires, and walk in pastures green and lush, by waters still and calm. There is no other place, just a stream and a pasture and my mind, a created calm, a false peace, and for which I will exchange the world.

Shattered

It never fails to stop me short, to take me by surprise, how quickly my world can shatter. I have no emotional armor and it's as if there's a magnifying glass held up to every emotion that does come along, making it ten times more intense. I am blinded and bound by my impotence to protect myself. I just stand and watch everything come at me like a deer in the headlights. And I don't realize until I've been hit that anything was coming. There just aren't enough bandaids to hold me together. My stomach muscles are sore from crying so hard and so much.

I guess that's one way of exercising.

Stitches

My fury surprises me. I have always known I was capable of overwhelming anger, but the little hurt parts of me are aflame with rage. Words flow thick and fast from my lips; thank God I am alone. My face is hot, my eyes blaze. I want to tell the world what it's really like. There's no way I can, but I feel like I'll explode if I don't. There is so much wrong with this picture, this world, this universe, there is so much that must be fixed before I will ever be okay. Heaven is the only place I have any hope for. I don't have any idea what it will be like, I just hope I get to rest in someone's arms for a very long time. Death seems such an easy way out, such a cop-out in a way, missing all the hard stuff to float off to Jesus. I can't kill myself, but there are times when I can't help wishing something else would.

And then I remember all the people who's lives would be temporarily shattered were I to die, and I realize that's not an option either. There are no options, just walls without windows. I must live, but I don't know how or why. I must hold myself together with stitches of my own devising. Who can really be there in this pain? No one. That's what makes it so awful. If there was any way someone could share it with me, then it wouldn't be this pain. It would be bearable.

At least tonight I am not popping pills and champagne and sobbing on my bed with a knife clamped in my fist. At least tonight I am sitting here drinking apple juice and feeling numb. I don't like the numbness because I know what it's hiding, but at least it lets my mind slow down. I have eaten almost nothing today. I am in no way hungry. The adrenaline of rage prevents me from eating.

I will stitch myself together like I always do and life will go on like it always does. But I feel as if I've been severed in two, and it's going to take an awful lot of stitches. And midnight wandering.

Comfort Zones

I still can't make it stop. I talk, and nothing I say is nothing I mean. I am so angry I do not know how to be nice. I played raquetteball by myself this morning, slamming it into walls. I couldn't just stay on a treadmill and run. I had to move, to keep moving. I tried punching those silly bags on stands, but they didn't help. So I slammed balls into walls for an hour and then sat in a corner and held my head until Tony thought I was gone and came to turn the lights off.

I don't know how to make this stop. I don't know how. I feel so gutted. I want to drink myself into oblivion. I can't imagine ever painting a picture again. I can't imagine ever laughing again, or smiling, or caring. I want to scream, to get this anger out, to make someone pay. I want to hurt someone badly. I want to scream, "I have no pity for you, you have everything I want, I have no sympathy."

The sun is out. There's a whole world out there. Last night I almost got in the car and started driving down the interstate toward the unknown. I want to go where no one knows me, where no one can hurt me, where life is just a blank. It hurts far too much to care. I want to be done caring. I want to stop trying. I want this giant ball of pain in my throat to dissolve somehow and go away so I can talk again, so I can smile. I cannot distract my brain for long enough. I try to fix my mind on one neutral thing, like the book I've been listening to on tape, or like buying clothing, but only moments later my mind is back to fixating on that which I can't fix, can't change, and can't live with.

This isn't funny. This isn't okay. My comfort zone would be a group home with someone watching over me daily and no responsibilities. I am always out of my comfort zone, my friend, always. I have no pity for you.

Numb

There is one good thing about having this many chemicals coursing through my brain at one time--I am unable to become cold. I think I could run around naked in the snow and feel nothing. Nothing.

Why Won't You Take Me?

The pain is ripping me open. I don't know what to do with it. I've taken six sleeping pills so far tonight and I can't touch it, I can't make it stop, I can't even begin to slow it down. I've walked myself over to the church at 10:30 at night and I'm typing this from there, unable to drive the demons away. I don't know what to do. Cutting seems like the only solution, and overwhelming need. There is nothing sharp here. I can sit in the darkness of this building and there is nothing sharp next to me, but I am so lonely I want to chew my hand off. I cannot begin to explain this pain. I can't numb it. I can't faze it. I can't fall asleep in it. Drugs don't touch it. Alcohol doesn't touch it. I have so much pain stampeding through my veins that I don't even know what part of me is in control anymore.

Piece of me wants to think this is the end of life. I beg God, "Why won't you take me?" even as I know the answer. But it would be so much better if he would. Please God, let me sleep, let me sleep, let me sleep. She said she would call me back. I waited by the phone for three hours. She never called. I wander Pittsfield and it is so empty. I almost want someone to attack me, so then I will have something to sob about that everyone else will understand too. No one can understand the kind of pain I have now, it's just not possible. I feel like my guts have been pulled out of my body and are lying about on the floor in piles and yet I am still breathing, still inhaling, still surviving from one moment to the next, without my own permission or volition.

Why can't it stop? Why won't it stop? How long can I cry before I've run out of tears? Where will I go after church stops being a solace? I want to be held. I want somebody so badly but I don't know who to get. It is too late at night to get anyone. I am alone, I can't change that. There are no more pills to take, unless I really want to overdose. I don't know what else to do. Cutting would fix this, cutting would help. But please dear God I don't want to keep going back there, I want to be able to live with myself in the morning.

Why do I feel like my life is over before it ever started? I can't do this. I can't make it. I can't keep smiling. I am wiped out from the pain and yet it goes on and on and on and I have run out of options.

Dear God, why don't you just take me? Why?

STUPID

I am so stupid. I am stupid to want to belong anywhere, I am stupid to care. I am a fool to think there is an end to loneliness and that if I just try hard enough I can find it. I am a fool to let anyone close, anyone in, anyone near. I am stupid to think it is worth it. People are like knives, only the pain they cause doesn't make me feel any better. They just gash me open and let all the blood drain out and then I go on and on bleeding and I don't know how to stop. I am so stupid to think I am strong enough for this world, that if I just fight hard enough I can make it through. I am a fool to think people will make it better. There are three types of attachment, huh? And I'm one type? Well, just watch me be the other, just watch. I don't care. I don't give a damn. Caring hurts way too much and I am so sick of caring. Leave me alone and go, just go, just GO.

I want to be.

Done.

Landscapes!

Two landscapes are listed on eBay and my house is clean. And I painted another landscape and a half today with Amanda. As long as I keep myself busy and without time to think, I am mostly okay. Yesterday was Easter. There was this underlying pain inside me all day even when I wasn't thinking about it at all, but it was still a good day. I wished I didn't have to go home. I wished I could be with people forever.

I Like

I am surviving on the edge of discontent, dodging awareness of being alone while others are together. I want to smell fresh cut grass and run along the beach until I can run no more. These are the things I like:

Exercise
The Ocean
Cutting
Movies
Playing Dutch Blitz
Being Held
Car Rides With No Purpose
Clothes
Acting
Painting
Vising Art Galleries
Horseback Riding
Rollercoasters
Being Scared
Being The Youngest
Making Money
Pajamas
Poetry
Babies
Puppies
Candles
Sleeping Late
Mania

Flames

I line up rows and rows of candles and then I set them all on fire. Dozens of licks of flame worshiping the sky. I can feel their heat even across the room. Sometimes I burn things in them, little things. There is a pistachio shell permanently embedded in the wax of one candle. It did not smell good. I watch the flames and wonder if just staring at them for too long will burn holes in my eyes, like the sun. There is a ball of flame in our sky that is too hot to look at, a ball of flame that wants to burn us all alive. And we run around like ants under a microscope, trying to get cool.

Can't Find My Way Home by Blind Faith

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone.
Somebody must change.
You are the reason I've been waiting so long.
Somebody holds the key.

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home.

Come down on your own and leave your body alone.
Somebody must change.
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years.
Somebody holds the key.

Chorus

But I can't find my way home.
But I can't find my way home.
But I can't find my way home.
But I can't find my way home.
Still I can't find my way home,
And I ain't done nothing wrong,
But I can't find my way home.

Change

What was necessary to yesterday's survival has become today's weight, holding me back. Why does this always happen? The same things never comfort over and over.

Restless

Never stopped moving today, but I'm less tired than I was a couple weeks ago. I no longer want to sleep away every afternoon. Ellen and the dogs went with me to Kathryn's tonight. Didn't get any painting done but I can paint tomorrow as much as I want and then try to enjoy Easter somehow and forget myself and make it be okay to be okay. Somehow. I'm listening to the strangest book on tape, kind of supernatural horror, but it does keep my mind distracted from myself which is the point, even if it's strange. When I find myself thinking about it instead of my own head, then I get happy. I want to be obsessed with anything other than obsession. Got some new and really cheap clothes too. That always makes me happy. Why do women like clothes so much? I don't understand it, but it's funny. Am I really a girly girl? I don't think so. I don't want to think so.

Then I Could Go

I wish I was ugly. I wish I was an ugly boy. I wish I was scarred. I wish I was fifteen.

Landscapes

Painted two and a half landscapes this afternoon and had a good time doing it--which is the first time in a long time I've had a good time doing any art. At first I didn't think they were good enough to sell, but after a few hours away from them I'm starting to forget how easy they were to make and thinking I could get a few bucks for them, which would be good. Hopefully tomorrow I can get them listed on eBay. And make some more.

Didn't take any meds today. The afternoon was so much better without them, but the morning sucked. Sigh.

Me, Myself, And I

What are we waiting for, all of us? What do we think is going to happen? My heart is burning and I want to scream and scream and scream. Why does every window have glass on it? Who are we keeping out? Or are we just keeping ourselves in?

I don't want to be here. I wish I had a choice. I feel so constrained, so inhibited, so trapped in convention. I want to just be me. I'm tired of being socially acceptable. I want to wear stripes and plaids together and chop my hair off. I want to be me without caring what other people say. I am tired of caring. I am sick of being good. And I am sick of thinking about myself. I wish the struggle inside my head would focus on someone else for awhile. I wish stress didn't make me worse. I would go throw myself into some African missions trip if I thought it would get me away from myself, but I would only crumble and fall. I can't run, I can't hide.

I'm stuck with me.

And The Day Goes On

There's something in my heart, but I don't know how to let it out. I am tired of eating alone. I am tired of waking up alone. I am tired of having no one to say good night too. I am tired of having no one to fight with over stupid things like socks thrown on the floor. I am tired of never finding anyone else's things in my shower. And I am especially tired of dried up roses.

I light candles. I play movies constantly in the background. I listen to scary books on tape. I hold my dogs. I talk to myself--a lot. I wrap my arms around my own body. I am tired of being halfway between here and there, and finding myself nowhere.

I am tired of wanting to cut all the time and knowing it would make me feel better and yet not being able to do it. I want to do something so reckless, so scary, that I will be yanked out of myself, if only for a moment. I want to feel raw immediate terror. I want to stand on the train tracks and jump off only just in time. I want to get in my car and drive and drive until I run out of gas, and then just sit there on the side of the road until something happens. I want to throw myself at danger stupidly. I used to walk around this town at 2:00 in the morning, but that didn't turn out to be very dangerous.

I want everything to stop, to freeze perfectly still, until I find my way again.

In Need Of A Reason

Went shopping with Amanda today and got new gym shoes. Now I have no excuse not to work out tomorrow morning. Oh well. The shoes were a really good deal. I didn't get much else done, but at least I took my meds--something I didn't do Saturday or Sunday, for some reason. I have a really hard time taking them on weekends, probably because my schedule gets mixed up. Now I need to go to bed but I don't want to, which is strange because in the morning I won't want to get up. I want something to look forward to. I've been trying to think of any such thing, but nothing comes to mind except remaining curled up in bed all day, which is the sort of reward that would entirely defeat the purpose of making myself want to get up in the morning, I'm thinking. What could I do tomorrow that will make me want to get up? Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. But there must be something, I know there must. This is a huge world and it cannot--must not--be entirely void of things which I can love.

Sunday Chores

It is over, the dreaded Sunday. I am home at last. This week we have an extra service on Thursday which I am dreading also, and then all sorts of stuff on Easter, which I want to run far away from, but at least today is over. Why is church becoming such a chore? Why am I starting to hate it so much? I don't know. I just know I'm overwhelmed and want a break. I can no longer separate church from God. I want to be able to think about Him without my job always getting in the way. I just don't know how to make this work anymore.

Alpha

Alpha time. I don't want to, I don't want to. Does He want me weak, is that His point? To prove to me that nothing good that comes from this is me? I wish He didn't work through people all the time. I wish He would just come down and teach this Himself. "Jesus, be my guide, and hold me to Your side..." What is a guide? Where is the path? Where are my feet?

Let Me Go

They are practicing the praise songs. I am supposedly listening. I am trying not to. The emptiness is alive and crawling inside me, blowing up, stuffing every crevace. I am not alive; I am only pretending to be. I do not care, I do not care, I do not care. Let the leaves bud or fall, let the waters flow or dry, I do not care. Births, weddings, deaths, all over again. Just let me be. Just let me be. Stop laughing, all of you. Stop laughing. It is not funny. Nothing is funny. Why are you laughing? You don't sound happy, you sound like you're forcing it, like none of you really want to be here either. Why?

Let me go, let me go. Stop trying to hang onto me, all of you. Just let me go.

Giving Up

Sometimes I shun them, fear them even, the burning red scars, but other times I can't help but embrace that one physical expression of my inward torment. When people meet me and I'm wearing short sleeves they stare first at my arms. My face, apparently, is less expressive. The pain in my eyes must burn less, or be muted altogether by now. Eyes are normal. Almost everybody has them. Arms are normal too, but not everyone has arms like mine.

Everything is weighted today. I'm sitting in the church with Debbie, Ellen, and Mary, who are scrapbooking, and I am not, since I don't. I'm pushing colored pastels around on a piece of paper in an effort to look artistic, although in reality my brain is freezing over. Something these days has glued my creativity to the inside of my head and it can no longer escape. And I am so heavy. I want to be alone in my apartment, but I want to be invited too. I'm always afraid if I turn down one invitation I'll never be invited again. So I do a lot of things I don't want to do, in the hopes that later when I do want to do them they will still be there to do.

There is nothing that excites me, nothing. I want to look forward to something, anything, but my soul is intensely bored and apathetic. All it wants is oblivion. The circle of days just keeps going on and on and on and I want to get off. I want to quit. One day I will refuse to keep it up, this facade, this treadmill, this rat race. One day I will not get up in the morning. People can't make you live life. They can yell and threaten and push and drag, but they can't make you open your eyes, they can't make you will yourself to live, they can't make you continue to do all that is socially required to be acceptable, like speaking, eating, walking, and moving. They can't uncurl you from your ball. They can't inject you with a passion for life. They can't pump the pain from your head. They just can't.

You don't have to commit suicide to stop living. You can go right on breathing, while being dead. You just stop moving, stop responding, and what do they do? Tubes, liquids, drugs. Reasoning, yelling, consultations. And finally institutions and shocks and restraints.

I could go there, so easily. Sometimes I can't even see the film of separation between me and a madness driven by defeat. I can't take care of myself. It's dawning on me, slowly, as I tread water here. No matter how hard I try, I'm not keeping up. I'm just not cutting it. The will inside me that has always forced me on is weakening, despite my outward bravado. I don't want to go on. I don't want to get up tomorrow and survive three church services and bell practice. And not only do I not want to, but I don't think I can.

I will snap someday. I will snap. I just want to be alone when I do. I don't want to take any piece of the world along with me. I don't want to hurt anyone but myself.

This is a cry for help, I just don't know what kind of help I need. This is a cry for sanity, for safety, for a world that stops rocking.

For a life.

What I Want

People ask me what I want. This is what I want:

I want the glass to one day be right side up. I want to see beauty in everything. I want to feel safe. I want to be able to feel one thing, just one thing, and truly feel it. I want to lie down and get up again in the same mood. I want to never cry again. I want to be held for eternity. I want someone to brush my hair. I want to go running on the beach without anything chasing me. I want to never see darkness again. I want to always be wrapped in a comforter. I want to feel warm. I want to be inside my own body.

I want to be in love.

Little Things

It's cold inside my head this morning, and down the back of my neck too. Someone has left a small, gray, leather, round mouse on my desk, and I am adopting him. As yet he is nameless, but today I shall take him home. I have left him here for two weeks in case someone came back to claim him, but no one has so now I will. I attach myself to small things and they become ridiculously important, all kinds of things--from smiles and socks to teddy bears and blankets to movies and lunches to hugs and clothing. I do not tolerate change. Not at all. All those little things must always be there or I forget how to cope. I melt into a useless lump of tears that nothing can fix.

I am sore in various odd places today, due to playing racquetball at 5:00 yesterday morning. After twenty minutes I thought I was going to die, so I escaped to the treadmill. Today I lifted weights and tortured my abs. I've lost weight, but I don't know if it's due to the exercise or the speed, which makes me forget all about eating. I reach the end of the day and realise that since breakfast I have eaten nothing, nor have I felt hungry. I didn't take it today. I didn't take any meds, I confess. I am just waiting to get through work so I can go to bed. And I am writing this while at work to keep from melting down. Melted down, I am of no use to anyone, especially not myself.

I tried talking to God last night. I think I fell asleep in the middle. I just tried telling him all the ways that I felt about everything and all the stupid stuff that was tormenting me. I wonder what he does with all that junk. How can he stand to not smite us off the face of the earth? I would not make a good God. I would make way too much use of lightening.

I seldom take off my coat these days. I am always cold.

Tormented Head

Oh for a numbness that would take away the world. It's as if I have no emotional skin to protect me. Everything that comes my way runs straight into raw flesh, open and bleeding and wounded. Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?

I want joy, but right now I find no pleasure in anything. I want to feel drawn to paint, or draw, or write, or play the piano, or anything. There is nothing I want to do.

I do not like being me. I do not like the minute by minute struggle of existance. I do not like the hours I spend locked in the prison of a tormented head. I want to run free, barefoot, over the sands of peace, but I am sinking in some kind of mud and I can't find a rope.

The hurt extinguishes me. For a fleeting moment I will feel young and pretty and desireable, but only for a moment. I stare and stare and there is nothing there, not a thing in front of my eyes.

I am alone. There is a moat about me. Who can cross? Existance is a wonderful yet equally terrible thing. I wish I could feel absolutely nothing all the time. Then it would be okay. I wish I could stop caring. I didn't used to care, and it was easier. Yet harder. It was hell, wasn't it?

I can feel the drugs inside my head churning. They change things slowly, but way too fast. One minute my ship is rocking, the next it is streaking forward, the next it is perfectly still and silent. And then it starts to move, but backwards. Everything flies by me in the wrong direction. I don't know what to do with this.

Speed

I cannot sleep these days. I wander around my apartment with my palms pressed out, my eyes constantly turning. There is no moonlight. I wish there was moonlight. I press my face into the top of my knees, curled up on the couch, and stare into the future, and it is not there.

Today, they have put me on speed. I am not supposed to crush, snort, sell, or otherwise distribute or abuse this controlled substance. I have signed a paper to that effect. You, you must steal or kill for your drugs. The government pays for mine.

Crazy

I'm having a Boo Radley moment. More like a Boo Radley day. I sucked at bells practice today. I couldn't play any notes where I was supposed to and worse I didn't really care. I like playing the bells a lot; I hate it when I don't care. Christin invited me to the house after for supper and gave me soup and Nico helped me eat it. Then I read a trashy magazine about Britney's hair crisis and Lindsay's lack of recovery despite all the money spent on her rehab.

Quelle Horreur!

Now I have had my Benny & Joon fix and it is time for bed. I freeze the screen and I just stare and stare and stare at her room. I don't know why. I have four pillows too. I have a teddy bear. Somebody gave it to me when I was in Acadia. Another patient, I mean. They had it brought in for me. I hadn't really named him until the cops wanted to know what his name was and then I said "Tyler." I don't know why. Tyler has no meaning. The cops put him in a box behind the desk at the police station and gave him a number. Forty something, I think it was. Or twenty. They gave me a blanket. I want a blanket now. I want someone to tuck me in. I want someone to tell me to brush my teeth and hair and then tuck me into bed.

I did not sleep at all today. I ran errands. I drove the trolls out of my house and cleaned up the mess they left behind. I painted a picture with my fingers and it is finished. I don't like it. It's not complicated enough. It didn't require planning. But Ellen says it's beautiful. So maybe it is.

I had this blog offline for awhile. I may take it back off, I don't know. I feel like the world is crouched, just waiting to gobble me up. No matter how fast I spin in circles I never can see all around me at the same time, so there is always an unprotected part to me, like the cars that drive up behind me on the road. Sometimes I have this insane urge to flee from them as fast as possible, go 90 MPH just to get away. I almost did on the way to Amanda's once but I stopped myself, right by those big oaks by the road. I thought, "You're acting crazy," and I stopped. Is acting crazy being crazy? I'm not crazy. I'm just awfully tired of being grown up.

I Wish

Note to self: Pandora's Box is not meant to be opened.

I wander without seeing. I put my hands over my ears but that doesn't keep the inside noise out. I want to talk, but my language doesn't have words.

If I make my mind blank enough, nothing gets through it. I watch myself from another world, watch my body in this world go through its actions every day, watch it but without feeling a thing. There is so much inside my head that can't get out, I think it might blow up someday.

I wish I could flee the country, that country being myself. I wish my life was not a play. I wish I could stop acting.

I wish that when I blew out candles they would smoke forever.

I wish I could crawl inside you, because I'm not big enough for myself.

I wish there was a Get Out Of Life Free card.