Just to clarify...

Just so we're all absolutely, crystal clear; I am not now, nor have I ever been, suicidal. My last post was not a cry for help, or a plea for attention. As a society, we have an incredibly bad tendency to fear that which we cannot see, or understand. Mental health is one of those invisible things that make some so terribly, terribly, nervous. I have a problem with this. I am tired of the shame and embarrassment that seems to go hand in hand with mental illness. My goal in my last post was to try to alleviate some of those feelings. I was thinking about how much better I would have felt if I had of known that there was someone out there that was feeling the same way I was. I was thinking that if something I shared could make even one person not feel so bad, or lonely, or scared, or (gasp!) crazy, then it was worth spilling the beans. My beans. My most terrible moments. With you. Because even if you're fine, and fit as a fiddle, maybe you know someone who isn't. Maybe my blog will be mentioned in passing, and your words, which may have been benign to you, could be the push someone needs to ask for help. I've learned that there is this great power that comes with vulnerability. If you let your walls down, and allow people to see your messy bits, it somehow gives them permission to do the same. Helps people to not be so ashamed of their scars. Both the physical and the emotional. And that's why I told you all my story. My incredibly painful, awful story. So you wouldn't be alone. So that maybe, just maybe, you can hold your breath, and close your eyes, and admit to yourself, that you cannot carry the weight of the world all alone, on your tiny shoulders. So maybe you will remember that people need people, and the universe needs you, and you are so much greater than you give yourself credit for, and so much more important than you may ever truly understand. A great many things have happened in my life; some really good, and some really bad. But everything that has happened, that I've done, that I've survived, has brought me here, has made this woman who stands exposed before you, has made me a better version of me.

A prisoner in my own body...

Okay people, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, I've lost my shit. I don't mean right now, but around this time in 2012, I was a disaster.  A complete and total, utterly unrecognizable as myself, hiding under the covers, mess. With the assistance of many a medical professional, the general consensus, is that I have major depression combined with an anxiety disorder. The losing of my shit was what those oh so educated medical professionals call, a major depressive episode. It was awful. I've lost my shit before, but never like this. I couldn't leave the house, or the tub for that matter. I had to work up all day to have a shower, and was the worst chain smoking asthmatic person the world had ever seen. I didn't know what to do. It hurt so much, I didn't know what to do. I had to get it out. But nothing worked. All the sex, booze, nicotine, or food in the world wasn't making this chick feel any better. And believe me, I tried. Then came the climax of my little hell. I NEEDED to get the hurt out. So I tried to cut my heart out with a kitchen knife. Not the best course of action I assure you. And  in walks rock bottom. This is where the pills start. Cyprolex, Seroquil, Mertazapine, Clomasapam, Wellbutrin, Zopiclone; needless to say, I was highly medicated. Thanks to those wonderful little things that we all know as "side effects," I gained 60 pounds in two months. I went from a perfectly reasonable 135 pounds, to a jaw dropping, heart stopping, will to live depleting, 195. Really not helping the urge to crawl into a whole and die. As you may well be able to imagine, this period of my existence was not particularly pretty. But I pulled through. I persevered. I got my shit together. The stigma associated with mental health, and the acceptance and understanding, or lack there of as the case may be, is a topic I'll address at a later date, but the point is I made it through. Did I want to die? Yes. Did I think about ending it? Yes. Did my fucked up brain have me convinced that the world in general, and specifically those I love, would be better off without me. Yes. Did I do it? No. Why you ask? Because I'm not that much of an asshole. Because my uncle tried it and it didn't take, and he lost everything because of it. Because I saw a commercial after Kurt Cobain died saying that its a "permanent solution to a temporary problem." All the reasons I had for NOT offing myself are mute, what counts is that I didn't. The reason this matters is because I'm still here. And the reason that matters, is because, if I can't imagine my life without those I love, how can I expect them to imagine
a world without me? I'm taking a really long way to get at what I'm getting at, the scenic route if you will, but the point is, is that after all this, after over a year of total and complete misery, I rejoined the land of the living. I decided what I wanted to do with my life. And on September 24, 2012, I went back to school. It was great! Exhausting, but great! Not only was I learning exactly what I wanted to learn, but I was good at it! 4.3 GPA good at it! And then it happened. November 21, 2012 was the day. The day I almost died. After waking up, the lengthy process of the incision healing, and remaining more or less 100% positive throughout the entire experience, I finally fell apart. I almost lost my life. I almost lost everyone I love. I did lose school, albeit temporally, but for the moment, lost is lost. The problem now is, that yet again, I have an illness no one can see. I find it really hard to get my head around the fact that if you tell someone there is 300 trillion stars in our galaxy, they have absolutely no problem believing you, but if you tell them that the chemicals in your brain aren't mixing properly, your crazy. The infection attacked my cells, so very literally, every cell in my body needs to Repair. Every. Single. One. Have you any idea the amount of cells in the human body? In my body? About 100 trillion. How long do you think it would take for every single one of those to
fix themselves? Think about how long it takes a paper cut to heal, a broken bone to mend, a cold to
go away. And here's the rub. I'm so fucking sick of being sick. And tired of being tired. And absolutely no one has a solution. Or a time frame for that matter. I understand limbo. It blows. You know that scene in Jurassic Park where Timmy's stuck in the car, and the tyranasarus pushes the car over the barrier into the tree,Then Dr. Grant coaxes Timmy out of the tree, and when they get to the bottom the car falls on them, then Timmy says "well, we're back, in the car again"?? That's exactly how I feel. It was shit, I got out, and its shit again. I'm back in the car again. And the real pissoff? I'm working my ass off to get back to being a functioning member of society, and to society, all I look
like is lazy.