coming out of it

I've been thinking a lot lately. I used to fear becoming my mother. I used to worry that admitting I had cycles of depression meant that I was in danger of becoming her... but watching my own life for the past 3 weeks, and all the positivity that has been in it, I think it's something else.

I think I have post traumatic stress disorder. I think I've been suffering under it for 6 years. Why else would I now feel so in control? So happy and joyous and hopeful? This is the place where I used to wonder if it was a manic phase. If it was the other half of the shoe that kept cycling up and down with the depression. But this feels different this time. As if I've forgiven something and moved on, and reclaiming the little pieces of myself that have been missing for so long.

Maybe I don't need some kind of label on the last few years. I should just enjoy this, and keep working on it. But there is a feeling of freedom in my heart that I can't remember having in a very, very long time. I love this feeling more than I could ever describe in words.

joyous.

i am so sorry for the long hiatus. my imac has finally been returned to me with a new hard drive, thanks to the crew at apple. i was going through withdrawal! there's been so much i wanted to write about. the past few weeks have been so eventful, wonderful, but concerning all at the same time... 

2011 continues to be my year for personal growth. every week that has gone by gets better than the last... and not because my mother is in the hospital, or on medication. but because i feel like i'm healing more and more. this could all be in my head. but i don't think so. i have noticed small changes in my daily routine that were never there before. my eating habits are the simplest example. once upon a time, i ate out for almost every meal. fast food and take out were my standbys, my usuals... home cooked meals were few and far between, and most of the time, something i could microwave. slowly but surely, i've been making my own breakfast. this is HUGE for me. i wish i could convey the feeling i get in the morning now - like i have purpose, drive, and CONTROL over what i'm eating. no shame. no wishing i could take back my last choice of food, because of the inevitable stomachache or wave of nausea over consuming something that is killing me slowly.

VICTORY. that's what it feels like. victory over lack of control.

i've been celebrating by posting pictures of my dinner creations for friends and family on facebook. it makes me feel strong.

i also took a week off, and went with my closest friend to california for a week. there were too many amazing experiences to list. but the ease of living, and that wonderful feeling of the absence of anxiety have inspired me so much. i want to keep that feeling every day of my life.

the best part of this vacation, if you can call it a positive thing, is that i completely forgot my mother's 60th birthday. i mean, wow. i have dreaded every birthday and every mother's day for 6 years now. i have made it through them in the past with alcohol, or waves of guilt that i couldn't shake. but this year? this huge birthday year for my mother? i didn't even remember until my father reminded me days later. miracle. complete and utter miracle. 

this strength of character is starting to remind me of who i used to be. perhaps that's why i'm considering a career change, as well as the big move down south... maybe i'm feeling like i don't have to hide away from my life by working all the time. maybe this is the beginning of starting my life... at the tender age of almost-29. it also occurred to me that i am now less than 2 years away from the age when my mother had me... and how far i am from experiencing that same joy. i want a future. i want a happy future. i want to have my own family, my own children...

wow. it feels good to send that out into the void. i feel... joyous. full of hope. full of bravery. (for once.)

Compliments are hard to hear.

This work thing is throwing me off more than anything. I was given a compliment by someone today that really meant something. I respect the hell out of this person, and she said something that almost made me cry.

When did the approval of others come to mean more than my own opinion? It seems that lately, all I ever do is require others to validate me. Make me feel more together. Put me back together. My self confidence and anxiety is bordering on crippling. It makes me needy, constantly seeking attention from others just to feel ok... What an annoyance I feel like sometimes. Like I'm abusing my friendships. Like I'm tooting my own horn all the time, just to get someone to say "awesome job," or "you're the best."

I don't know when it really started. But I do now that without this validation - this current need for positive affirmation - I spiral uncontrollably into a litany of self-hatred and loathing. Anxiety. Failure. And then I self-destruct.

So when this woman said this amazing compliment - unprovoked, unhinted for - it caught me completely off guard, and completely uncomfortable. Embarrassed even. Like I wanted to shout back, "no, please don't say that. It's not true." But I want it to be true.

Am I alone in this?

I wish that I hadn't been programmed so early to be a ridiculous overachiever. It would have helped, I think.

Oh c'mon...!

I'm trying to figure out what happened. I was feeling secure. I was feeling ready to tackle the world. And then some stuff came up this week. My ex came to town. My computer broke. And my company restructured, resulting in my "demotion". What the eff?

Let's start with my ex. I've loved him since I was 12. Always have. Always will. I ran away to an all-girls college just to make sure no one broke my heart the way he did. He moved away after college, but he comes home to his mom every year. In a sloppy drunken mess of a night this weekend, I told his mom that I still love her son. Her answer broke my heart. "Don't you think I tried??", she said. I hugged her. It's hopeless. But I drank all that Jameson just to deal with the evening. Healthy reaction, right?

My computer broke. I don't have the money for a new one. Thank god I have an iPad. But it's a poor substitute for a real keypad.

And I lost my title at work. Everyone at my "level" got moved to the pool below but didn't lose any pay, and were told we are still next in line for promotions. I am heartbroken. For the first time in forever, I am suddenly doubting the company I have loved for so long. I feel like all the work I did was for nothing. That it meant nothing. That I am irrelevant.

In my heart I know that I am. But it still hurts. And it makes me feel like shit.

All of this makes my decision go move closer to my brother seem that much more important, and the right choice. I need to detach from work. I need to work on my happiness outside of work. I need to put my needs first because obviously, my company doesn't really appreciate me at all. I still seek validation from outside forces, instead of from within.

And I received another letter from mom. She said she's coming to my front door. Best part? She signed it, "regards, 'mother'"! Hahahah. At least I can laugh at that now.

Oy. I need a vacation.

can't sleep

and couldn't tell you why. i'm all anxious over absolutely nothing and excited about everything. it's as if letting my wishes and dreams out into the void has suddenly made me... impatient. i don't want to wait a year to move. i wish i wasn't a slave to my job. i'd leave next week.

quiet happiness.

i'm here. somewhere. this summer has been a quiet happy place, and i don't want it to end. normally i can't wait for fall - the leaves, the weather, the holidays... but i have found so much strength over the past two months, i'm almost afraid that the end of the season would mean the end of this regrowth.

i received another letter from mom this week. it was forgotten almost as soon as it was read, and thrown out like yesterday's news. cannot tell you how much it means to me that i can move past her words that much more quickly than i used to.

i went to visit my brother and sister-in-law the other weekend down south. i decided while i was there that what i really want in this life now is to live closer to them. my entire energy for the next year is going to focus on getting myself moved to atlanta. i feel like this is the time - this is the moment for change. planned change, not just change that happens, or hits me by surprise. i feel like i am shouting out to the world what i actually want, as opposed to what i think i should want. does that make sense? i don't want to live here just to keep my father company, and wait for my grandmother to pass. i want to live, live, live, my own life. and i know in my heart that i don't want to live far away from my brother for any more time than necessary.

its hard to believe i could smile this much.

helluva week.

i'm sorry it's been a while. i am trying to write more often, because my life usually seems to need some perspective.

but writing this week would have been almost inadvisable. it was filled with so much tragedy and sadness. my friend's brother went missing last weekend while surfing. it took 5 days to find his body 20 miles away. the whole thing was so unbelievably awful. he was the nicest person. only married a few years. genuinely wonderful 30-something with a full life to live. i spent the entire week just refreshing information pages on the search - desperately wanting to see a headline like "miracle! found!" but in my heart, i knew that surfing accidents like that rarely turn out well.

the whole thing just affected me more than it probably should have. and after a week of reflecting, i think i know why.

all i can think about is MY brother. what i would have done if it had been my brother that went missing. if he had died. i swear to gd, all i want to do right at this moment is hug him. i cannot even begin to fathom how i would react to losing him, like my friend lost her brother this week. i think i would die inside. i think i would be unable to recover from the loss.

in my insomnia, i chose to read the past 5 years' worth of journal entries i had on another blog. probably also another bad idea. but the journals made some things very evident. and given how severe i think this week has been on my psyche, i need to record some of my clarity moments:

- that i have gone through some awful moments with my mother.

- that i still don't remember things that i wrote about. i black things out from my memory unconsciously.

- that my brother is still the most important relationship i have.

- that i am a survivor.

- that i am a fighter.

- that as bad as my life seems now, it really was worse 5 years ago.

- that i don't give myself enough credit, or enough of a break.

i want to give myself permission to feel ok. to accept that this quiet working life is still worth something. that it's ok to want something other than to work. that it's ok that i don't have my mother in my life. honestly. i'm better because of it.

i want to forgive myself for all the shit i put myself through. all the doubt. the self-flagellation. the constant self-negativity.

i just want to keep moving on, moving forward... and stop looking back to wonder what mistakes i've made. even in their darkest moments, they were never mistakes. because here i am.

come again?

received a letter from mom today. its written clearly. to the point. almost lucid. she is not coming to visit me, because her therapist has advised her not to. she understands that i have not "invited her" back into my life.

see, it's this kind of nonsense that makes me so angry all the time. i wish she would just stay in crazyland so that i know how to react. but this kind of letter makes me feel nothing but shit. guilty. horrible.

but oh so relieved.

this is... me??

so is this the happy place? the place mentally where i feel ready to take on the world and my own demons? there has been such a fundamental change in me over the past few months. the anxiety i was facing the other week has mellowed, and i've been feeling... dare i say it... content. i went to the beach on monday and went in the water for the first time in over 10 years. i have always hated my body. hated people looking at me. it's a language of self-hate that i have expressed here, and that i have spoken to myself since i was in middle school. but something on monday strengthened me to give myself permission to enjoy myself. something inside just said, "fuck everyone - go frolic like a dolphin." it was AMAZING. i was in the water for an hour, dried off laying in the sun, and finished the night with an impromptu bbq at a friend's house. all the self-love, and the enjoyment, gave me the most wonderful feeling of relaxation at work the next day. nothing could bug me.

i mean, who am i??? this isn't me talking, is it? i'm not used to this. but i'd like to be!

for the first time in a long time, i really believe that i am putting together all the little pieces of myself that were smashed to bits when my mother fell apart. i really feel like i could conquer anything that comes my way - not only conquer it, but be at peace with the way i handle it.

maybe i'm just growing up? or coming to terms with my mother's illness? either way, i truly believe that my healing is continuing.

self-flagellation never fails.

so remember i was having a "crazy" week on account of my mother's threat to show up at my door? well, as usual, i wore my heart on my sleeve at work, and my boss brought it up today.

"you're really doing great - i'm so happy you're here - but i get worried about you."

i must've looked shocked. i thought i'd been so good at hiding myself. i thought i was keeping my game face on. i should've known better. i always wear my fucking heart on my sleeve. i called my best friend for clarification - basically to ask, "do you get worried about me too?" and she gave me several points for thought, which i am going to just list here in a random order for reflection later on:

1. i need to detach from work. seriously. let go of it once i leave, and stop worrying about what i didn't get done after i'm out the door.

2. i need to monitor what i say about my private life to people who may not understand.

3. she thinks that i'm so used to being the one looked to for decisions, for the fix, for the solution to the problem, that i put myself in the role of complete responsibility in every situation. that i need to recognize that i have someone above me who is just as capable, and just as willing, to make the decisions.

4. that i shouldn't change who i am, or the emotions i show. it's why i am who i am.

5. that i am unrelentingly hard on myself. cannot forgive myself. cannot move on.

that last point seems incredibly poignant. i will reflect on this later. for now, i'm taking point #1, detaching, drinking a beer, and cleaning the bathroom. so i can take "better care of myself." (what the eff does that mean, and how do i do that??) i am seriously my own worst enemy sometimes.

good morning

i slept for ten hours and had a huge pot of coffee this morning. somehow, this makes me feel ready to tackle the world - especially my craziness from this weekend. i am stronger than this!

oddly disappointed.

my mother didn't show up. there was no hysterical episode outside of my building. the police weren't called. the desperate wish that somehow we would wind up in a hospital didn't come true.

my anxiety over the past few days has been unbearable. i haven't slept well in three days, and i dread coming home. i was a nutcase at work, and felt like i was worrying everyone. i tried to explain what this feels like. the intense fear, anger, worry... disappointment.

never thought i'd feel disappointed. the rush of relief should be what i'm feeling. i should be happy there wasn't any kind of incident. but all i feel is incomplete - like the sentence has been ended with an ellipsis. still all this uncertainty, this fear, this frustration about not knowing what exactly is going on with her. i went back on my promise to myself just to check her blog. she hasn't posted in over 2 weeks.

and the worry begins again. i wish i could turn it off like a faucet. ignore it so it went away, and haunted someone else. but this nonsensical, nonexistent closure doesn't exist, and i'm finding myself feeling like a giant "pending" folder.

i hope i'm more together tomorrow. i'm definitely more basket-case than not tonight.

this time is different.

i had a great weekend. i saw my family for a birthday celebration on saturday. i spent sunday at home, shopping, cleaning, watching movies... and today at the beach, getting toasty red and enjoying the weather. felt like a beach goddess from the 1940's in my giant straw hat and italian sunglasses. finished with watching my goddaughter in her final softball game of the year (she hit the ball, but was tagged out at first base.) came home feeling rested, ready for work, and happy.

and like clockwork, there was a letter in my mailbox from my mother just in time to fuck it up.

there's a line in bridget jones' diary that goes something like this: "it's generally known that as soon as one area of your life starts to go really well, another goes spectacularly to pieces." that's how i feel, right at this moment. i can spend two months really trying to get back into myself, and happy, and all it takes is my mother forcing herself back into the conversation to send me into a hysterical tizzy.

the letter basically says she is going to be arriving at my doorstep sometime this weekend. uninvited. very very uninvited. my mind went black, fear, fury, anger... i started coming up with reasons to be out of the house for two days ("work! you're working! and then it's father's day!" i started seeing visions of her in front of my house and felt the abject fear in my stomach of having to deal with her. i went through every single emotion in the book, but the one that kept repeating in my head was "panic, panic, panic." i called my father. no answer. so i sent my wayward brother a text. he called right back.

my brother and i have been on a weird path lately. i was mad at him for the past few months because he never calls me. he never calls anyone. if you want to know how he is, you have to make the effort, or see if he's updated on facebook. i've given him the benefit of the doubt, because after all, he's a newlywed and under a whole bunch of stress job hunting. but as a result of my embargo, i just wound up hurting myself because i missed him so much. but the conversation we had tonight was very adult. and very real. and within 10 minutes, he had not only calmed me down, but reasoned me right back into my happy place.

i will not fear that which hasn't happened yet. i will not write scenarios. i will not get hysterical over something that i have no control over right now. and i'll give the police a visit tomorrow to see if there's anything i can do if she shows up. my brother doesn't think she actually will show. i know in my heart otherwise. but at least i have the warning ahead of time, and the time to plan my response. when i explained to my brother that she just affects me so much that she alone has the power to send me right back into a depression, he offered the following advice:

"things will only affect you as much as you let them."

i don't know when it happened. but i think my brother has suddenly become much older and wiser than me, even if i have more years on him. i am so very, very lucky. and i love him more than i can ever put into words.

some good news

went to the doctor, and what i thought was true is true: the shoulder really has done a lot of healing. no surgery! so i brought home some flowers for myself, and the cats made themselves available for a photo op. it made me smile. enjoy!

summer always brings the sunshine :)

i'm sorry i've been quiet lately. i've been trying to figure out why i haven't felt the need to come blog about all the feelings that go into my every day life. there's really only two. first, i'm feeling pretty good. and two, i'm trying to avoid getting myself all upset.

the silence from my mother lately has been happily deafening. true to my word in my last post, i have NOT gone to read her blog at all. the simple truth is that i just don't want to know. i don't want to know if she's depressed, or planning on coming down to harass me in person, or if she's in danger. i want to put my trust in everything spiritual to guide her and take care of her without my intervention or interference. i know, in my heart, that she is a capable survivor, and that she will endure anything that comes her with the clever manipulation and resourcefulness she's always had.

in the meantime, my life feels suddenly full of words like "possible", "happy", "content"... my job has become heaven once again. i have an amazing boss and a store that makes me confident in myself, and excited to wake up in the morning. and at the same time, both him and the store staff are intent on keeping my time away from work sacred. no phone calls. no text messages. i don't dread my phone ringing on my weekend anymore. how did i get this lucky? i've been spending my weekends with friends, sightseeing, visiting family, or just spending time with myself. my shoulder seems to be healing.

maybe my heart is healing too. maybe that's what's going on.

in other news, i've met someone i actually feel something for. it's completely in my head, and i'm pretty sure that nothing will ever happen with this guy, but i just have to say that i've missed thinking about someone. there hasn't been a "someone" in a long, long time. the timing is all screwy for the two of us, and i know i'm still a bit of a mess inside.

but still. i like that word. "possible." possibilities and hopes aplenty.

note to self.

stop reading your mother's blog!!!! it's not good for you. it hurts. it worries you. it's not helping anything. just stop it. why do you like this feeling of pain and grief? why do you drink from it, like a parched animal? the crocodile below the surface is going to bite your head off and drown you.

enough already. it's not going to bring her back.

5 years and counting.

this is mother's day #5 without a celebration of my mother. spent it yet again in the company of my grandmother and aunt, who have spent so much of my life trying to fill a gap.

but we existed as a pair at one point, and i'm trying to remember the time that we did have.

my father said goodnight tonight by saying, "happy daughter's day." it was sweet, and i know what he meant. but i think it's ok to say happy mother's day today - because she was my mother at one point, and i am comfortable enough to celebrate that.

five years with her absence, but she's never really gone.

anger and fear.

my support meeting on wednesday was amazing. i left feeling good, empowered, and even relieved. here was one month where i could report i was doing better. it's lasted a few days until i picked my mail out of the mailbox this afternoon to find:

"my dear daughter:

i am worried at your reluctance to continue our family relationship. so i am planning to drive down to your home sometime this month and see for myself how you are doing and whether you are happy. i hope that you will accommodate your mother by permitting me to sleep on the sofa. my needs are simple and i look forward to seeing someone whom i have missed for sometime. regards, mom."

i want to rage at her. scream. throw a fucking lamp at her head. why can't she just leave me ALONE? i don't understand it. i never will. how much clearer do i need to be? so i write all this anger down, in the hopes that i calm myself enough to sleep tonight without nightmares. and then i start with the fear, the anxiety - is she really going to show up? what the hell am i going to do? should i call the police ahead of time? is there anything they can even do about it? is it enough for an order of protection?

and two days before mother's day. i want to punch her in the face.

well, world? what should i do?

soul healing.

i have been trying over the past few weeks to heal, emotionally and physically. i wouldn't say i'm there yet. but i know that i am on my way.

i have been looking forward to may 1st like you wouldn't believe. the beginning of the month means my support group meeting is coming up. i was such a mess at the last one, and i think i'm better now. i'm anxious to see them all and tell them how much better i'm coping.

i spent last night and yesterday alone, but not sitting at home on the couch. i took myself out to dinner, and then spent today wandering around a cute little town up north i had read about. spent the afternoon sitting on the porch of a french bistro, sipping vino verde and inhaling a bowl of mussels with fries on the side. it was beautiful. but still so alone. i don't know what it is that keeps me from calling my friends. sometimes i need the space. but i know today would have been more fun with someone along for the ride.

started to wonder if this is what my mother does all the time too, all alone upstate.

is this really it?

i know, it's dangerous to spy on my mother through her blog. (that's what i'm really doing.) she wrote something yesterday that summed up the harshness of my decision to cut her out of my life. "ah, but i have no loved ones left."

the child in me screamed "yes you do! i'm right here!" in my head immediately after reading this.

the rational adult in me calmly responded "you do, but they cannot be close to you."

all of this brings me back to how i feel at the moment. do i love my mother? this is the question i have felt guilty to even examine. yes, of course i love my mother. yes, it kills me almost every day to know that she is aging, alone, far away, and poor. it kills me to think that she spends her holidays with strangers and the comfort of church groups that are probably just putting up with her out of politeness. it hurts to know that she is having as much a hard time of this as i am. and the guilt - the incredible guilt that i walk around with on my shoulders. where is my compassion? where is my soul?

but this person, far away, aging, alone, and poor, is not the mother i remember from my (happier) childhood. she is the person that has the ability to turn me into jelly. make me hate myself. give me heart palpitations when she has my phone number. harass and stalk strangers. harass and stalk beloved family members. harass and stalk me where i work. this person has no internal point of reference for "crossing the line." she reduces me into a pile of ash. she paralyzes me with fear, anger, and yes, even hatred. even shame.

when i step out of myself - out of my little life, and float above - the weirdness of the relationship between me and my mother seems fictional. who could cut their mother off? why am i doing this? am i just punishing her? i don't think i can rationalize it to anyone, really. it's hard enough sometimes, like tonight, to rationalize it even to myself. what would happen if i contacted her? no, no i can't. i know the implications and the consequences. because as hard as THIS is, having her in my life is even harder.

don't i deserve happiness? don't i deserve a life lived for myself, and not for providing emotional support to a mentally ill woman that refuses to take the medications that could help her? i think i do. i think i'm worth it. damn it to hell, but yes, here i am screaming that i am being selfish. i am trying ever so hard to put myself first - before her, before my family, before my career. this effort goes against everything i've ever known. my entire life has been to care for my brother, my father, and their emotional well-being.

but putting myself first is still proving tricky. the moment i start to succeed, i knock myself down, and the self-hatred begins all over again.

and then i come here, and post all of this, and somehow feel well enough to fall asleep without crying over my mother's lamentation that she has been cut off "like an amputation - a diseased member that has to be cut off to save the body." in her blog, she was describing me and my brother as the diseased part. but i know it's both of us on each side - it's a toxic relationship that won't help either of us heal in the end.

second or third chances.

by some miracle, my shoulder is healing. it's not perfect, or 100%, but better enough to go back to work and stop sitting on my couch like a sorry sack. at my monthly support meeting, i broke down into tears confessing that i've felt more alone in this than anything else. i spent most of march hurt, ignored by friends, and cared for only by a handful of very sweet physical therapists and doctors.

while i was away, something happened at work. pretty major. and as a result, i've been transferred to another branch. i don't want to get into all of it, suffice it to say that telling your friends things about work can come to bite you in the ass. but i'm laughing all the way to the bank, because my new boss is AMAZING.

somehow, by a weird twist of fate, i'm being given another chance to have a normal work life. after all these years of crazy and unfriendly bosses that just added to my stress level, i've been given a gift of a boss.

so, within one month, i have emotionally hit rock bottom, but thrown a lifeline. i'm scared to think that this could be the start of something really big for me. maybe this really will be my year. i'm scared to hope for anything good, and even when the cops showed up at my house last week after receiving yet another letter from my mother, i'm still trying to grasp at the good stuff.

maybe i'm maturing? eh. i'm at least climbing out of the hole.

new challenge, new truths.

i'm injured. and not the kind where you can rest it with an ice pack for a few days, and bounce back. the kind where i've had an MRI and waiting to find out if i need surgery or not. in the 2 weeks that i've been dealing with this, i've had to go to doctor's visits, prescription runs, and take care of myself while hopped up on serious painkillers and muscle relaxants.

and while i'm 28, and should be able to handle all these things, i find myself absolutely yearning for someone else to take care of me. the kind of hysteria that when i left the MRI, the first thing i absolutely had to do was call my father and cry.

i hate how i have to always be strong for myself. i know that there are kids in the world that have parents that they can fall back on, and who would have been in the waiting room for them. or that there are adults like me who have a significant other to fill that void. but it hit me rather painfully that i don't have either of those things.

is it selfish to say that i'm sick of being this strong adult? all i wanted to was to climb onto my couch and have someone else make me dinner, and clean up, and wait in the waiting room at the doctor's office so everything seems less scary.

i'm scared, and i have no hands to hold, and i hate it. i almost resent it.

would i know her anymore?

this month has been incredibly positive. i am feeling great, except for a rotator cuff injury (oy!) but mentally, i'm stronger than i've been in a while.

maybe that was why i read her blog tonight. i still believe she has no idea that i know the address of it. some of the things she writes are so... out there. deep into her alternate realities and paranoid speeches. things about me, my brother, my family... things that i really don't want to read.

but in between all the paranoia and the craziness, she writes about her everyday life. taking buses to university libraries. visiting church groups. playing chess with strangers in the park.

and it makes me wonder if i know her at all. if i ever really knew her. who is "she"? it's been so long since i've had a relationship with her that i've begun to think of her as a stranger in my life. a personality rather than a person. i still have no answer to the question, do i love her? i can't say for sure that i do - because the mother i love is someone who no longer exists. how can you love a stranger that has no part in your life, other than causing pain and grief?

it goes both ways. i am sure that i am hardly the daughter she remembers. but given her writing, she still believes her daughter was murdered and covered up by her family. sigh.

families with mental illness are messy, complicated, and damaging. how do we ever recover? can we ever recover? and will i ever, ever, have some kind of closure or acceptance?

getting better, but...

it occurs to me often that i might be bipolar too.

after reading so many years' entries of the same cycles - grief-stricken despair, self-isolation and depression to optimism and joy - that maybe i am exactly like my mother after all. there is rationality in everything i do, but when i go through periods like i have in the past few months, when all i want to do is stay in bed and hide, i wonder if there isn't something bigger going on.

because these past few weeks have been so darn... wonderful.

or is it just that my self-esteem causes me to knock myself down and make up excuses any time i begin to feel like a real person again? and that my periods of depression and sadness are justified by coming to terms with being motherless and powerless to help her?

there is a happiness in my life right now that i don't want to lose, and knowing myself as well as i do, i will either talk myself out of this or figure out a way to fuck it up. better yet, my mother will fuck it up with a well-timed letter, police visit, or other annoyance to bring me down again.

it's never-ending.

i love spring.

so... continuing the progress from last month. i've decided that the month of march is ME month! i don't know why march, but i'll chalk it up to the fact that its because there are no holidays besides st patty's day.

the question: can i, in only one month, reclaim some of the things that define me OTHER THAN my mother and my job?

that's the question i want to work on.

my mother sent me a letter today. it was her usual "where is your brother? i'm going to file a missing person's report. i heard that you were living elsewhere and what you were conversing with [insert fictious person here]." my progress continues - i ripped it up, i'm recording it here, and i'm moving on. i don't have the time or the energy to get upset by it anymore. the simple fact remains that she will never change, and i can't help her. i can't continue to live my life on "pause" and forget all the things that make me special in order to hide myself away in a job that takes away all dealings with my mother. i want to reclaim myself.

first step - rejoin an orchestra. i used to be a fantastic violin player. and i think with a little brush up and some practie, i could start there.

i love spring - everything feels like rebirth and renewal.

feeling so damn good!

ok. i've been whining for months now. and i don't know how it happened, but i had a little epiphany over the weekend, which i'll share with you now:

i am getting upset by my new boss because she is changing things and doesn't like how my previous boss ran things. she chooses to communicate by blunt honesty and negative body language. what got me so upset was how she chose to communicate those feelings to me.

everything in my life has been built by myself to be in control - this is how i survived my mother. i know this now. i needed everything to be in control, planned, not too risky... have the exit plan before you go. this new boss is in control now, and the change from the previous boss, who i had finally learned to read, threw me for a loop.

so what if she wants to change everything? who cares if she thinks i've been doing a lousy job? what's important is what i know: i know i do my job well. i know that i am competent and capable. she's only been working with me for one week - so how in the world can i expect her to know that yet? why in the world am i letting this get me into a depressive funk? it's not worth it. it's just a stupid job! !!

which leads me to the next subject. my brother spent 40 minutes yelling at me on the phone last week to tell me i need to get a life. and he said it just like that. he said i'd go crazy if i kept stressing about work and had nothing else to do, even to the point of obssessing about work on my weekends (which i totally do.) why am i wired to be married to my job?

the more i think on this question, the more it goes back to survival. i survived my mother's latest break by jumping whole-heartedly into my job. working there keeps me from worrying about her. all those customers and coworkers keep my brain utterly free of thinking about my mother. my work friends became my pseudo friends, and before i knew it, the past 5 years have been nothing but work, work, work, succeed, get a promotion, work. as i've said often, this is no way to live a life.

so i'm taking my brother's advice. i'm getting a life. i'm moving on from this crap that is just in my head, and getting out of my own head. i'm going to find an orchestra to join. i'm going to take a continuing ed class. i'm going back to weight watchers and finally lose the weight that i have put on while feeling guilty/unhappy/stressed/emotional. i'm going to lose the weight, but gain myself.

i'm feeling so damn good and optimistic.

i'm not even going to think about the last will and testament that my mother forwarded to my address. i'm not going to read into it all. i cannot lose myself again. i'm more important right now.

this sucks.

my new boss is awful. not crazy like the last one, but completely unfriendly and awful. why can't i ever win?

nothing ever quite works out for me, and i'm tired of it. i know that no one has it perfect but really? not one thing can go right for me?

i'm a sad little face tonight.

admitting it.

i'm acknowledging all the feelings i'm having right now about my boss 's last day.

i am scared.

i am nervous.

but perhaps most surprisingly, i am sad. she drives me crazy, but lately, working with her has been kinda fun.

for better or for worse, this woman has been my other half professionally for the past year and a half, and that relationship has now ended. i have to get used to someone else now. someone else's preferences, habits, wording...

i really dislike change. it makes me feel out of control in the situation, and if there's one thing i learned as a child, it was to be in control. meh.

change is hard.

i'm rereading "my parent's keeper" by brown. a few things have happened in the past 24 hours to make me feel that this is a necessity.

1. i'm becoming more and more active in NAMI. they sent out a story on a high school in waukena, wisconsin that did a dance routine that mocked the mentally ill. i was so triggered by memories of myself in high school, coming to terms with my mother's hospitalization, that i sent an email to the principal of the school. i was pretty honest in my anger at the routine.

let me reiterate here that it is VERY unlike me to confront people about this kind of thing. it's easier to do through email, where life is inpersonal, and you can yell whatever you want without having to be there for the recipient's reaction. to my utter shock, the guy asked me for a phone number to have a conversation today. he even called me. the conversation was a good one, but it left me feeling even more confused by my own reaction to it than the actual dance routine situation. that school is a thousand miles away from me - it has no effect on my life. but i know there are students there who might be just as traumatized as i was, or who may be mentally ill themselves, and might need someone to advocate for them.

is this a hint as to something i feel passionate about? more passion than i do about my job? i find myself fantasizing about starting a national organization for ACMIs like myself, and taking our message to young students across the country who might be as affected as i was at their age.

2. i have two days left working with my boss. if you go back to some of my older posts, you know that she is someone with whom i feel a very weird connection. i hate working for her. she reminds me of my mother, and she has turned my working life into an echo of my personal life.

but lately, i'm starting to worry about the new boss. the situation now might suck, but at least i know what to expect and how i need to cope. i'm being thrown into something new, and it's scary as hell. i feel... nervous.

which brings me back to brown's amazing book. the excerpt i want to think about:

"in order to break through this vicious cycle of anxiety and inhibition, you need to see through your adult ways of clocking your insecurity and look into the mind and feelings of that child within you. if you can begin to do this, you'll be able to soothe yourself by seeing that there isn't nearly as much at stake in this situation as that child believes. that hungry, unloved child in you is seeking all the care you never got - and expecting all the rejection and abuse you did receive. approaching any new, unknown person in your world revives that craving and that specter once again."

continuing the isolation (?)

i was reading some of the old comments left on some of my entries. there's one that is just playing with my mind at the moment, and i have to let out everything it stirred up just now.

"Our souls came in stronger than most, we children of these parents. We are a silent type of warrior; our anger is often misplaced, our loyalty is often misplaced and our love is often left unfulfilled."

i was supposed to go home to my friends today to watch the superbowl. somehow, i wound up at work instead. i spent the entire day feeling bad for myself that there would be no one to watch the game with anyway. and true to form, i left at 6 pm, just for kickoff, to sit and watch the game with the cats. i suppose i could have gone all the way to my hometown as planned - drive the hour and see who was around and where. but i didn't really want to bother.

i have to make some friends around here, or this is never gonna stop.

i went to visit my brother and his wife last weekend, and i'd be lying if i didn't admit that i've been thinking of just jumping ship entirely and moving down there near them. given that the rent there is half what is here, i could probably pay my way just finding some odd job and starting all over again. but i am sooo c l o s e to promotion again. is money all that will make me happy? will moving somewhere else make me any more happy than i am here?

one thing is for sure - all of the future plans i had for myself seem to matter less and less lately. when i switched careers four years ago, i convinced myself that this company was the only one i wanted to work for. that i wanted to retire from it. that i wouldn't be satisfied until i was first in command, and entitled to all those yearly bonuses. lately, however, i'm starting to wonder if i really want to do this even in ten years. my job takes me away from everything good in life, like normal weekends, normal hours, family time, regular holidays off... and i've dealt with it so well, i believe, because my job took my mind away from the personal junk going on in my head. i could lose myself in 10,000 customers a week and 300 employees to manage and being really, really good at it. but the cost is becoming clear. my lifestyle is unhealthy. my heart is empty. i'm living an hour away from my family and friends simply for the privilege of being #2.

wouldn't it be nice to just say "fuck it" and leave? i've started from scratch before. i could do it again. and this time, my brother would be there to save ME.

"our loyalty is often misplaced" - has my loyalty been to job and company, before family and self? all i ever wanted was some normalcy and a retirement package. is it worth it? is it really "normal"?

running away won't change the hurt. it won't fix me magically. it won't fix my mother. but it sounds so good right now. sigh.

nightmares.

i've been sick with the flu. it's really not fun. being sick on your own just sucks. no parents to bring home the cough drops. no roommates to ask to get stuff to make soup. you have to suck it up and do it on your own, while feeling like utter crap. i will say that being sick on my own is perhaps the worst feeling i can think of - except for having nightmares.

i'm not sure what the trigger is, but something from my childhood obviously stuck with me - i can't watch scary movies. or movies with grotesque violence. i can't watch anything with depictions of violent crimes, guts being spilled, big sharks eating people, aliens eating people. there is something about them that profoundly freaks me the 'eff out. i can give three examples of me trying to watch them: 1) as a senior in high school, some friends were hanging out and decided to watch "the exorcism" - i ran out of the house in tears. 2) when i saw the matrix for the first time, i had nightmares for three days straight about fields of human babies being taken care of by machines. 3) on a school trip, they played some bad movie where it's a haunted house that used to be a mental institution. a character was given electroshock and i got so upset and freaked out that they had to turn it off to keep me from getting hysterical. i couldn't stop crying. (of course, that response is completely normal, given the fact that i know my mother has had electroshock therapy twice in her life.)

i get physically uncomfortable, nervous, nauseous, anxious... i can't do it. my friends still tease me that if we go out to the movies, it better be a romance or a comedy or i won't go with them.

so why, oh why, when i already had a fever and a headache, did i choose to watch a marathon of "criminal minds" yesterday? there were episodes about rapists, serial murderers, pedophiles, and of course, shizophrenics. it's just a crime drama on tv, with mandy patinkin (who i LOVE), but for some reason, the episodes made me feel just like scary movies do. but i kept watching them. i KNOW myself better than that. and just as i would have predicted, i had nightmares all night about rapists, serial murderers, and children being hurt. i must have woken myself out of them at least 5 times throughout the night, and i am still shaking when i think about them.

i was describing this to someone this morning, complaining that i should have called my father after the first one, damn the time it was... but i couldn't do that, right? it's childish. i know it's a tv show. i know that there isn't a rapist in my house, or that a little boy is being held captive on my floor.

and as i said the words, i realized that this must be what it's like to be my mother. she lives with these kinds of visions in her head all the time. her most common delusion is that children near her are being hurt by a murderer, or that she must save children being abused - frequently, her visions are that her own children were murdered and that the ones currently alive (me and my brother) are actually stand-ins or actors, put there to keep an eye on her or harm her.

if i had been a little kid, i would have told my father or mother about the nightmares, and they'd soothe me, and probably lull me back to sleep. but no one was here to lull me back to sleep. i kept falling back asleep and waking up again from another nightmare.

i'm not saying i'm like my mother. only that last night gave me a new insight into what it must be like to be my mother. i feel a lot better today. i told my friend at work about the dreams, and he laughed at them and gave me a hug, and i spent the rest of the day feeling better. i know i'll sleep a bit tonight.

but my mother doesn't ever get the "hug" and the reprieve. once again, i'm left feeling so sorry for her. and sorrier still that i cannot help her.

yes.

it's already been a better month. i'm sleeping. i'm going home from work on time. i'm keeping the house clean. i haven't hated myself as much.

ignoring my mother's blog is the right way to go.

the only minor hiccup was 3 police officers coming to the store i manage. my first thought was, "shit. she found me. or she's dead." but all they wanted to know was whether there was a video security system in place for something that happened in the parking lot. giant sigh of relief.

a little more optimism.

since new year's, i've been sensing another change in myself. what's the saying, that you reinvent yourself every 7 years? it's probably about that time. my tone and words have been a stale record on repeat for about that long. most likely longer.

i want to think of this as the year of me. 2010 was not my year. it really wasn't any kind of year. it was a hollow, shallow, empty sort of life filled with regrets, despair, depression, and self-imposed loneliness.

it has been years now since my break with my mother. i should really try to forgive myself over parts of it. i should make that effort in an attempt at self-rescue. continuing to punish and hide myself as i have been is simply not working, and more importantly, impressively self-destructive. hiding myself away and playing to the back room is only making me feel more alone, more isolated, and more emotionally stunted than i had ever planned.

this entry feels ridiculously honest.

no. what is really holding me back from breaking free of this mental prison i have made for myself? where i hole up and read my mother's blog for absolution, for forgiveness, for any sign of her regret or indication of help? why do i continue to hold on to the hope that she will make herself well? that this will still end happily? that she will miraculously go to a hospital and come back as some small shadow of herself?

because this is comfortable. this fortress of self-hatred is so, so, very comfortable. if i had to actually work on any of these feelings, i might feel myself shift. or something shift. and who would know what feelings i would uncover then? maybe i'd forgive her. maybe i'd forget her. maybe i'd just move on with my life and stop the self-flagellation.

so i'm making this commitment here. to the people who matter. to the nameless faces of other children of the mentally ill who find something about my story familiar:

i will not read my mother's blog for the next month. at all.

i will not read my mother's blog in the hopes of seeing my name.

i will not search google for some tidings of her whereabouts.

i will throw out any letters i receive.

i will block out any emails i receive.

i will live this next month for myself, with myself, and by myself, without her voice in my head or her memory blinding my rationality.

maybe i'm being harsh, but i think it's warranted. i don't want to continue living my life as i have been. i don't want to continue beating myself up. hating myself. yelling at myself for an illness i can't fix, or a person that i can't save.

i'm breaking free this year. for my own self-worth.

happy new year...

...to all of you out there! i know someone's reading from my page count. i hope you all know that you are not alone out there.

i cannot express how much it means to me that i am not alone. that there are other people in the world who know EXACTLY what it means when you have a paranoid schizo for a mother. and who have some echo of the feelings i'm putting out there.

let this year be a good year for us - a year of healing. a year of self-help. a year of wonderful possibility and new memories. a year of peace.

that's my only resolution. a really, really positive year.