Confessions

Warning: This post will contain triggers for former cutters, and people with mental illness, and likely people who have suffered abuse. Read at your own  risk. You have been warned.




Thinking about writing this post made me feel better. I had everything planned out, what I would say, what I would talk about, the words I would use. Then I started to feel embarrassed about how I feel, and putting it out there. I don't expect anyone to ever read this, but it is out in the digital world, so there is that chance. But, the excesses of emotion I want to spew and vomit embarrassed me. I don't do well with emotion. I often want to just shut it down. I work hard at trying to feel what other people feel, and trying to act like other people do. It's exhausting. I tend to want to push all that negative emotion down, because it just makes my life more difficult. I don't like dealing with it, so I stuff it down until it just explodes and I can't deal with it. It's my borderline personality disorder. This is the criteria I have to meet. According to the highly unscientific test I just took, I rate as severe. Look at the criteria, and apply it to the rest of this post, and see how well it applies to me. They may as well put my picture in the DSM-V.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's what I was planning on originally

I am a recovering cutter. I think of it as being the same as a recovering alcoholic. All it will take is just one blade put to skin, one little slice, one just bit of pain, and it will all come back. I will carve on myself, and hope no one notices. One cut is too many, and 100 isn't enough. But there isn't a 12 step program for cutters. Cutters don't talk about it. Hearing someone else's story can be a trigger. Try to imagine a room full of cutters hearing other people talk about it. It would be a great school. And I guarantee after every meeting, someone would fall back into habits.

But I digress, maybe. You, dear reader, if you exist, can decide that.

Hi, my name is Me, and I am a cutter.

I used to cut. It got rid of the pain. It got rid of the anxiety. It got rid of the anger. It filled the horrible empty hole that exists inside of me. One glorious bit of pain. That sharp draw of pain, bright and silvery and sharp. Then behind it came the wonderful warm and gooeyness. I felt fabulous after it. Stressed out at school? Cut myself. Can't deal with what's going on with my house? Burn my arm. Can't get the adults to do anything about the abuse in my house? Slice open my fingers. Bored? Carve a name into my arm.

Now, I am still a cutter, no matter what. I'm just a recovering cutter. And when I saw cutter, I really mean that I had self-injurious behavior. I have a burn mark on my arm where I had repeatedly burned my arm with a curling iron. It was the time of big hair, so I used the curling iron often. The first burn was an accident. But there was a period of time where I had a constant burn there. As soon as it started healing, I would "accidentally" burn myself. No one would notice. No one ever notices. You know, that's part of what cutters count on. That's part of the pain they are trying to deal with. No one noticing. See, for me, the thing was that sometimes I cut to feel something. I was so empty inside, I couldn't feel anything. That bright shiny pain made me feel something. I could be there and be real. But sometimes, I cut myself because I hurt too much. I would cut myself, and let the pain inside flow out with the blood. Even now, sometimes I want to just cut myself so that people can see how much I actually hurt.

Now, it's been over 2 decades since I purposely hurt myself. Unless you count pulling out my hair or eyebrows. I don't. But, probably it does count. There was a time when I had very short hair because I was ripping it out. I do still pull my eyebrows. I don't count that. Again, someone probably does, but fuck them.

See, here's the thing. I don't feel things like other people feel things. I'm empty inside. I try really hard to feel the same way normal people do. I try to act the way normal people do. Sometimes I even succeed. I can actually look normal to people for a long time. Hell, I've fooled my husband for months, I think. I amy be wrong there, but I don't think so. I work really hard to try to feel the good emotions. I try to stuff the bad emotions down so that I don't feel them. I hide them in a little box in the closet in my soul. I imagine it and visualize it even. I see a teeny tiny box and I feel myself stuffing that anger and rage and hate and pain into that little box, and shove it into the overflowing closet. It's like one of those cartoon closets, where stuff comes spilling out when you open it. I try not to deal with any of that until the door can no longer hold, and everything explodes out.

But still, I often feel empty. It's a coping technique. I learned it when I was being abused. If you can't feel anything because you are empty inside, then it can't hurt. Eventually all that' was left was anger and rage and a big gaping empty spot in my soul. Or maybe a big gaping spot where my soul used to be. I don't know if I have one or not.   I'm not sure that I care most of the time.

And I often think of hurting myself. Not a week goes by when I don't think of it. Sometimes it's all day long, every day. Other times it's just a passing glimpse. I know that if start again, I won't start. But the thought of boiling a big pan of water and sticking my arm into it, or turning the oven on, and sticking my arm on the heating element. It gets hotter than the stove. Or taking a knife and cutting myself. The idea sings in my head. It's like the Siren's song. It just sounds so good. I want to do it so much. That bright silver shivery sliver of pain, and then the warm gushy stuff that comes after and fills me up. It makes me think that it would fill me up and make me feel not empty.

I want to feel not empty. I don't want to live in my head anymore. I hate being in my head. I want to think that other people are real. They aren't always real to me. My family is mostly real, but other people just doesn't really exist for me. Apparently I'm a little sociopathic on top of the bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Just because I don't have enough of a shit sandwich with that. I've reached the point where I can't control it anymore. I can pretend to be a normal person for a while, but it's exhausting to do. At some point I have to stop. It's amazing how many people think I am a normal person, and not one who thinks about what it would be like to fall down the stairs, or run a knife across my stomach. That's not what normal people think about. That's not what they do.

While writing this post, and it took hours, I decided that it was time to call and get a therapist again. I hate doing it. I don't want to talk about any of this. It's hard, and people want me to feel stuff. I don't like feeling stuff. But, that's the problem. I need to feel things. Fuck it. I hate doing te work they want me to do. I know how to do it. I don't like it. It's going to be hard and painful and terrible. Maybe, at some point, I won't feel empty any more. I'm so tired of feeling so fucking empty. I want for those happy feelings that I feel occasionally to stay more often, and not just be there for a little bit. I want to not be this. Living in my head right now isn't good.

I hope I didn't trigger anyone. I doubt that anyone is there, I'm just talking out into the open aether of the Internet. This is just a small taste of my head. This is part of what my life is like. It's not edited. so forgive my errors, which I am sure there are some of. I feel better for getting it out. I've never told anyone in my life what it's like in my head. I think if I were to say everything, it would scare people.

Two things I try to remember: mental illness lies, and one fucking day at a time. I didn't cut myself today. Hopefully I won't do it tomorrow. One fucking day, hour, minute at a time.

My hair

This is me, July 2012. From the back at least. What you might not be able to tell well from this picture is that I have just about hip length hair. That's a lot of hair. It's fine and on the thinnish side. But, it's still a lot of hair. I wear it in a ponytail or braided most of the time. But, I'm getting bored with that, and decided that if I am going to keep all this hair, and I'm planning on it, then I should learn how to do something with it.




So, I did what any self-respecting Internet addict would do, I turned to Youtube. I found a whole bunch of videos for different hairstyles for long hair. A lot of them were ones that I could myself, others were ones that   showed you how to do things to other people's hair.

After looking at a whole bunch of videos, I found one channel that had loads of lovely styles, was easy to follow, and fun to watch. My new favorite hair porn, TorrinPaine on Youtube. She has loads of lovely styles, many of them start from a ponytail, which is great. And most of her videos start "Hello my lovelies" which is just so friendly.

So far, here is one of my faves of hers that I have managed to do to my hair.






This is the Arya Stark from Game of Thrones season 1. It's from when they are at Winterfell. It looks really complex, but it is pretty easy, actually.  










When I can manage to get everything else off my iPod and get my computer to cooperate all at the same time, I will post more. It should happen in a day or two.

Note: Yes, there is a reason that I am posting links and not pictures or videos, I don't want to mess up anyone's copyright.

Sometimes

Sometimes it's OK to breakdown a little bit when you are going through the really hard times. Sometimes that little bit of breakdown gives you the relief that you need, lets you bleed off some of the stress and lets you be able to pick everything back up and lets you go on. It's not the breakdowns that define us. It's what you do next.

The things that matter to me today.

Today I'm going to post about things that I am really enjoying, or really upset about, etc. I have a post coming about Amtrak and my husband's adventures with them, but that will get written tomorrow. Today is about other things.

I have a family member with Down Syndrome. I have known many people with various disabilities all my life.  That's why I use people first language and I don't use the word retard, hereafter know as the R-word. The movie The Change-up has a passage where one of the characters uses the R-word and "downsy" to describe a child. This really upset me, but Rob at Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords said it better than me.

To get more information about what you can do to end the use of the R-word as a insult, punchline or to describe something as lesser than, check out Spread the Word to End the Word

This is their PSA.

Jen from Cakewrecks and Epbot usually makes me laugh. This post that she posted about her grandfather made me cry. And if you knew how much I hate to cry you would know why that's  a big deal. Go read it. Even if you hate to cry. You will be glad that you did.


I love to read. That's why I got myself a Nook for my birthday. I love to read mysteries and books with strong female characters. The Mary Russell books, written by Laurie R. King meet both of those criteria. There is a blog and Twitter, @mary_russell, that are "written" by the character.  The premise of the series is that Mary Russell meets Sherlock Holmes when she is a girl of 15 and he is in his 50s (I think it is). He takes her in as an apprentice, and they eventually marry. The books take place in the early 1900s, from the time of WWI, and into the 20s. There's a new one coming out soon, and a Twitter tea party. Check them out.

These are a few of the things that matter to me today. There are a lot of political things, but I'm done ranting today. Feel free to continue to visit me and share some things that matter to you. If you like me, let me know. I love validation. If you don't then just lie to me.

You can follow me on Twitter if you want, I'm occasionally witty there. @tetisheri1972

Oh wow! I have had 32 hits in the past day. That's the most I have ever had in a 24 hours period. I'm guessing that it's because I've commented on some blogs and a few other things lately. Well, hello to all you people. I hope that you stay, which of course means that I need to get back into the habit of posting more than once a month or two.

I'm just going to blame it on summer break. The Boy has been home since June. School starts back again in a couple weeks. I'm just thrilled about it. I love having him home, but the last couple weeks of summer are just stressful. We all start picking at each other. I joke around that I love my son more when school in session. It's kind of a joke, and kind of night. Getting space from each other helps The Boy and me breathe for a minute or two. We are too much  alike, right down to our primary diagnoses.

In other news, we're driving down to Boston today to pick up DH at the train station. I sent him back to Indiana for a couple of weeks vacation. I am too smart to visit IN in August, and frankly I have no desire to visit his friends. Anyone I would have wanted to see doesn't live in that section of the state anyway. So, I stayed home. I got a break from him, which was nice.

I hate driving in Boston. I hate driving *to* Boston. I've managed to avoid it for 8 years up until 2 weeks ago, and here I am doing it 2x in 1 month. Sigh. Oh well. He's ready to come home, and I'm ready to see him. He had to get on the bus at 1 am. He will pull into Boston at 9 pm.

The Boy and I are going to drive down. I'll take my music, he'll use my laptop and watch movies all the way down and back. That will make the whole trip so much easier.

So, I'll work on remembering to post more often. Hopefully some of you people will stay around, and read my blog. If you like me let me know. I love validation. If you don't like me, lie. :)

Journeys Through the Interwebz

I pretty much live on the Internet. I cruise it, I work on it, I play it. I often joke with DH that if we lived in a cyberpunk world I would be a serious net junkie. I would just be jacked in all the time. I do actually get away now and again. I read books. I play video games. The Boy complains now and again about how much time I spend on the net. I think mostly because if I'm on the net he can't ask to use my computer.

I love the Internet is basically what I'm saying. I'm also a huge geek. I love Firefly, scifi, the Muppets, Star Wars (Han shot first!) and all the classic geek kind of things. There are a lot of blogs that I follow, something like 50 or so. Maybe more. I've never counted them.

Today, instead of being a negative Nellie, like I often am, I decided that I would share some of my favorite things.

I had never read Game of Thrones, although DH had, before the show came out. We watched the entire season, and I love it. Which is why I love this! Muppets Game of Thrones.

This is one of my favorite blogs ever. Well it's actually two blogs written by the same people. Jen and her husband originally started with Cake Wrecks, and then she decided to share her inner geekgirl with Epbot. If you love Steampunk and Disney and other fun geek stuff, this is the place to go.

I love the scifi convention world, even if I haven't been to a con in a while. But, you always see female warriors, or warrior wannabes, in chain mail bikinis. Yeah, that's how they are often pictured in comic books and illustrations and such. So I loved this a lot.





I think that's enough for today.

WTG New York!

New York is the latest state to allow gay marriage. 6 down, 44 to go, including my state of Maine, where it was legal for one brief shining moment, until the peoples' veto changed that. But it will be again.

Anyway, Mazel Tov!

Everything old is new again

Or: Didn't we just do this?

This is the first full week of summer break. I hate summer break. I am a strong proponent for year round school. The first couple of weeks are always tough as we try to find a routine to fall into. Meanwhile I am really happy I don't have to wake up at 6 anymore. Yay! Not a morning person, not at all. But that's not really the this we are doing again.

So Monday DH tells me that he is having an anxious day. OK, it happens. He can't settle into a book or TV. Still, whatever, it happens. Then he decided to call the crisis line at 8:45 pm. They tell him they will have someone out to evaluate him but not until 11 pm. OK. So that time comes and goes. He calls them back, oh wait they won't have anyone until 1 am at the earliest. He told them he would call back in the morning.

Tuesday morning he calls back because he isn't feeling any better. So they come and evaluate him. First they tell him that they have a bed in a crisis house about 25 miles away. That means a nice break for me. But wait! They have one here in town. That means he keeps pressuring me to visit him. I don't want to. I hate hospital visits and things like that. They only way I can manage the hospital is that they have WiFi and I have a laptop. He can watch TV and we really don't have to talk. It's all good. But at the crisis house we sit in a room where anyone can walk in and out and if other people have visitors they are there too. He sits and stares at me, which can I just say for the record how much I hate that? I have to talk to him and entertain him, or he just sits there and stares at me. I don't think I emphasized before exactly how much I hate that. So, I keep having excuses why I can't go visit him a mile away. Because I think if I tell him I just really don't want to that it will hurt him. OK, he gets a break, so I get a break.

On the plus side this little break convinced him that ECT is good and he's going to go back to taking it in August. Good.

Meanwhile he hasn't gotten a go home date from the crisis house. They are a short term facility. No more than 7 days, and 3-5 is their usual. His time will be up Tuesday. If they don't think he should go home then we are looking at another hospital stay. Then we really will be back where we were.

Fun times. Fun. Times.

Monday I am going to go see what is wrong with my left shoulder. That ought to be interesting