Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Fault in our Stars

Posted on by

I was lucky that Brittney agreed to go to the movie with me. It might have destroyed me if I were alone.

Most of the movie passed with a self aware detachment. I couldn’t lose myself in the characters, I could only see them as a gimmick, a plaything of the writer made to manipulate.

However, the pre-funeral was a powerful moment. There was a symphony of whimpers echoing across the theater and I remembered my own experience writing eulogies. I held out from crying for longer than most, I think. Mine didn’t come until the grief for Grandma came scrabbling up my throat, an amorphous black hole trying to claw its way out of my chest.

I think I’m building castles around that hole. I know nothing can, or even should, fill it. But something tells me that I need to let the people that I love and that love me close to it. To let them touch it, even though it burns like antiseptic, and bring it a little healing. Awareness. Comfort.

I hole up in this whole house, hiding that little black hole and letting it suck me in. I’m so tied to this place. It was the first place I felt truly wanted. It was the first place I craved as home.

The howling that I do when I think of leaving it might be my own, or it might just belong to my demons. Welding myself into this brick box might just be what’s suffocating me.

This is the first time I’ve felt like I might need to leave. A shiver is climbing down my throat. It’s made of fear and hope and rum.

The things you find

Posted on by

I was looking for a spool of jewelry chain. See, I had an idea for a sculpture, actual inspiration! I’ve been so lacking in inspiration lately, it’s seeped away and taken my motivation for living with it. I knew, I just knew, that I owned a spool of fine aluminum chain that would be perfect for prototyping my idea. Trick is finding it among the scattered remains of 3 household and 5 buildings that my life is divided between. I looked through stacks and boxes and tubs and piles and simply could not find my bin of craft supplies that I would have expected the chain to end up in.

But I found a lot more along the way. I gave up on finding the chain and resigned myself to buying a length of chain at the hardware store. I stopped by the freezer to grab a pizza for lunch, and my eyes landed on one last box- a box out of place, out of order. I set the pizza on the punching bag and started rifling through the box.

There was lots of stuff in there. Pounding board for leateherworking, a number of books, a ream of paper, paintbrushes, a computer monitor, an unopened package of lip glosses that had been a gift, and one item that ended up being the greatest girt the box had to offer. No, it wasn’t the spool of chain.

It was a sketchbook, unblemished except for one page. I have this tendency to hoard art supplies but then never use them. Before they are used, they are nice and clean and have the utmost of potential. They could turn into anything. After I touch them, they tend to have turned into trash. At least in my head. However, this sketchbook had a To-do list written on it.

Start load of laundry

Finish load of laundry

Bucket to compost heap

Get over yourself

Get over yourself.

GET OVER YOURSELF!

Do NOT take a pill

Bucket back to house

Throw away booze

Put seeds in pile

Fucking plant them

Throw shit away

Cough drops back downstairs

This was probably the last thing I had written before spending three weeks of May 2012 in a mental institution. I was living in squalor and shame, I was trying to stop drinking a fifth a day and had chosen to get anxiety meds to help in that goal. I just needed to get to my first counseling appointment on Sunday with my parents, I just needed to make it til them. Ativan, twice a day, no booze. Seems like easy enough instructions, but I had failed to tell the nurse practitioner how entrenched I was in the drinking.  I remember him asking if I felt I could take the pills as prescribed. I didn’t know. Did I live alone? No, I had my grandma. She was in the waiting room.

Of all the appointments that I brought grandma too, this was the only one for me. I was nervous and I wanted her with me, I don’t know if that was selfish, at the time she was fighting some persistent infections and was fairly weak. I sometimes wonder what she was thinking that day, as she waited for me in  my appointment. As she was called in to consult about holding my medications for me, I remember thinking that she wasn’t the right person for the job. She was having a hard time remembering what she had done in the morning by lunchtime, it would be too easy to lie to her.

We went home, freshly re-diagnosed with depression with anxiety and I felt victorious over my baser instincts. Here I was, choosing the medically sound way to start handling my demons, instead of drinking to forget. Surely this was the path towards pulling myself up and out.

It’s too bad it wasn’t.

Reconsidering CR

Posted on by

I’m starting to think that Celebrate Recovery might not be the right fit for me. I mean, I’ve suspected that the whole time, but it seems to be becoming more clear. It’s filled with humorless people that have no concept of mental illness or theology and yet claims to be good for both. It feels like an environment for zealots to grow.

The initiation of each meeting must seem cult like to newbies, as we recite our principles and steps and bible verses. The whole thing is getting repetitive, redundant, and obnoxious. Several of the people just seems stupid. I feel bad about writing all of this stuff, because I know it has the potential to do good things for people, and the leaders are all very kind. But it doesn’t feel like the program it should be. At the same time, it’s both too structured and not structured enough.

There’s great gaps in approach and theology that is the natural occurrence of bringing together people with different backgrounds, so I can’t fault it, but some coherence would be nice. The person that I have the most respect for is Dan, but I can’t ever seem to have a conversation with him.

I briefly mentioned wanting to leave to Trudy as we were leaving. She apparently felt the same way, saying that she’s been having some of those thoughts as well. As we hugged goodbye, she mumbled “If you quit Celebrate Recovery, can we still be friends?” I said “Of course.” She’s the highlight of my evening there.

While I’m on the topic of CR, I might as well mention one mildly related thing that keeps sticking to the back of my brain. I had mentioned the program in one of my journals that I had read at writers group, and afterward while I was hanging out with some people, one of the guys turned to me and asked me how I was coping with Grandma passing. I said what I usually do when people ask me that.

“I’m not. Not well.”

“Coping, not doping, right?”

Do I just look like a drug addict? I was thoroughly confused at that moment and it must have shown on my face.

“You mentioned Celebrate Recovery. That’s not usually a program that people just research about, you’ve gotta be on the inside.”

I don’t think we had any more conversation than that, or at least I don’t recall it.

But it’s interesting to hear that perspective about the program. It seems to me that most people going through CR are struggling with codependency or divorce or pornography addiction. I went for depression, I figured it was a free resource and my neighbor spoke highly of her own experiences there. Maybe the location that I go to is an oddball one. He said “coping not doping” like it was a very regular phrase that gets kicked around a lot. It seemed odd to me.

I think it might be time for me to stop going on Mondays. I’ll continue to give the step study a chance.

Fatness

Posted on by

The assurances of the genuinely fat are not adequate, it seems, to tell the trim yet insecure to stop hating their bodies.

 

Of course, they aren’t alone in that. I hate my body.

 

 

There’s no insecurity that I don’t already possess. If someone says something thoughtless(or deliberately hurtful, though that’s not so common), it’s not a new thought they bring up. It’s an old one, a very old one. Just a reminder. I’ve got enough insecurities that I sometimes need that little help remembering them all.

 

I already know that I’m fat.

 

And I have oddly tiny ears.

 

And a bulbous nose.

 

And uncontrollable hair.

 

Hearing about them does seem to give them more power, but that’s only for a moment. It’s like it’s saying “Oh yeah, all the things that I believe about myself are right.” I’m reaffirmed in my beliefs.

 

But sidelong glances don’t MAKE new insecurities. It just validates them.

 

 

For now I remind myself that my body does amazing things for me, and I call that good enough. I’m picking my battles.