#and in hindsight went back to work way too early and caused myself more psychological damage | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skyl-xr · 3 years

Text

Honestly, truly... I’m still thankful for you C. I’m still grateful that we gave it a shot because I know that my mind would always get caught up in the what if’s if we hadn’t. Loving you helped open up a lot of doors. You have always believed in me and have always encouraged me in all that I do. Except Tik Tok (lmao). I will never ever forget the way your voice raises a few ovtaves when you laugh and how contagious it was. Or the way that your hand fit in mine. The late nights and never early mornings. But I also won’t forget about your shortcomings. I knew going into this that you had issues... issues that were rooted far beyond my reach. Issues that made you hesitant to get into a relationship in the first place, out of the fear of hurting me. Nevertheless I convinced you to give it a shot anyways. After all, I am the baddest bitch in the game. If I couldn’t help you, change you, help you see how beautiful love can be, nobody ever will. That makes my soul ache for you since you are such a good person deep down. You’re just so scared to love, you hold people at arms length so that they never quite reach you. Even though we both agree that I’m different, it still wasn’t enough. How tragic...

I have truly always thought I was psychic. Like not in a huge way, but when I create soul bonds with people, it is almost like I have a telepathic connection with them and those that I love. It is this way with my best friends, past lovers, and all the smaller and temporary souls mates I have had in the past. So when I was studying on my balcony, content in the cool November air, and the thought of doubt popped into my head out of NOWHERE.... I knew to be scared. Literally I was completely zoned in studying and the thought “you and C are going to break up. This isn’t right for you” POPPED INTO MY HEAD OUT OF NOWHERE. Hindsight 2020, it was God throwing me a bone. The physical anxiety attack I had told me all I needed to know. My gut was picking up on something my brain was too afraid to face and my heart was too blissfully ignorant to acknowledge. Up until that moment at least. When I called you and you came to pick me up, you were shocked at my uncertainty and you reassured me that everything was fine. You said you were so sorry if there was anything you had done to make me feel this way. And truly, there wasn’t, except for your lack of communication. But that was normal. I didn’t need to text you all day every day to be happy. But after that conversation in the car, I really started to look at things introspectively - we weren’t anywhere near where we should be for a couple coming up on one year. As I slowly came to terms with my own feelings, I could feel you pulling away. I could sense the minimal things you did to distance yourself. I started to notice that our relationship had dwindled down to intamicy restricted to the bounds of sexual interaction and limited to non-existing vulnerability. I knew, in my heart, that we would never be more than best friends. It took me weeks to finally admit that to myself. Even though I had been feeling it, I hadn’t deduced it. So when I told you I needed to talk, I was terrified. Call it tuition, call it my self-proclaimed psychic abilities - I knew what was coming. As I vocalized my deepest fears to my closest friends, they all told me I was overreacting and over reading into things. They told me your obliviousness had been causing me pain and it just needed to be solved with the conversation. At first, I masked my pain by saying this, but as the days drew nearer to the dreaded conversation, I knew in my heart what would happen.

I told you I wanted to talk. We had to postpone it for 2 awkward and silence filled days. Fuck finals. Also fuck going for not waiting until mine were over. Then when the time finally came, I was ready. I told me roommates “hopefully I won’t be coming back tonight. Hopefully you won’t be seeing me until after Christmas,” ... but that wasn’t the case. So on Tuesday night at 4:45PM, with my car packed, I drove to 108 and I came to pick you up. I needed help putting air in my tires and the 20 min that took were filled with forced conversation and uncomfortability.

As we pulled up, you said “I know you’ve been wanting to talk to me, but I’ve been wanting to talk to you too... I’m not sure if it’s about the same thing, but”

I cut you off and said “well you go first”

After a slight hesitation, and cough, and a voice adjustment, you said “well... I’ve just been thinking lately, and I think I’ve felt this for a little while, but I think me and you work better as best friends.” Even though this is the last thing I wanted to hear come out of your mouth, I knew you were right. What a horrible feeling, to get validation about something you prayed wouldn’t be true...

I responded with “yeah that’s the exact conversation I wanted to have”

Neither of us could make eye contact with each other but out of the corner of my eye I saw the tears welling in your eyes. This was the first time I’ve ever seen you emotional. You said “you know this is so hard for me because... I care about you a lot, my sister looks up to you, and you’re apart of my friend group... but it’s just not fair for me to continue this for you in the long run. I know you have options and .... I just don’t want to be selfish when i can’t see this as something I could commit to during grad school.”

Truly, thank GOD this was something I had already addressed in my own mind. Thank God I had written my speech to you regarding this exact same conversation over a week prior. Thank for I practiced reciting it to all of my friends to get their opinions. Because in that moment, I knew exactly what I wanted and needed to say - “well yeah this is the exact conversation I wanted to have with you. Ya know it just feels like we’ve been best friends more than anything for a while. Like our relationship is just way too casual and it just doesn’t even make you feel like my boyfriend really. And you know we’ve been dating for 5 months today, and we’ve been together for over a year now, and so I’ve really been thinking about what our relationship should look like at this point and I just can’t be satisfied with where we are. And I wanted to talk to you about it to see if it WAS something that you could fix. Because I do care a lot about you and I wanted to make this work but if this is just the way you innately are, then I don’t want to be pursuing something that won’t pursue me in the end. Do you know anything about attachment styles?”

I had been wanting to mention the attachment styles thing for a long time. Even though you had no clue, I knew that was the root of all of your problems, all of our problems. Your scarred past left you emotionally unavailable and cautious about anyone who gives a damn about you. I knew that this was something I wanted you to be aware of, for your own success. Because even if we didn’t get our happy ending, I still want you to have one of you can. And until you address these issues, you will never ever get there. And you said said no, you didn’t know what I was talking about. So I said “okay well I have to take a lot of psychology classes so I know a lot about this stuff. Attachment styles basically go back to your childhood or whatever but it’s basically the way that you work in relationships. You should do research over it and it’s really interesting. Also I think it will be very useful for you to be aware of for your future relationships (proud for saything this.) But anyways, I knew going into this that you were dismissive avoidant. And I always tried to be very respectful of that and the way that I knew you approached things. Like for example, it kinda hurt my feelings when you went to winstar and didn’t say anything to me. But I looked at things objectively and had to understand that you know it didn’t have anything to do with me and it didn’t have any reflection on us, that was just the way that you were. And I wanted to give you space to come to terms with your emotions, because we DID have that conversation where you said you had dated a few people since (the bad one) but you had subconsciously distanced yourself and to the point where you never let yourself get emotionally attached. And I don’t want to be just another person that that happens to, so... obviously this isn’t the endgame I was hoping for but it seems as if we are on the same page and it is more mutual than anything else. We both know what needs to happen”

And he said “oh my god skyler (in a nice way) this literally has nothing to do with you... you gave me so much space to deal with my shit. You literally are the best, I just... and I wouldn’t even say it’s a question about attachment, because I’m definitely attached.

“I know, it’s okay” I said

I had been keeping my computer so well. I spoke with confidence and ease and my voice never waivered. My sunglasses shielded my eyes and helped the facade but I would never let you know that you hurt me. Saving face was my biggest concern. So the long silence that came next was very difficult. I noticed you were still tear. As my hand nervously clenched the gear shift, you grabbed my hand and we sat in a heart wrenching and still kind of quiet.

To keep myself from losing it, I said “well shit... are we still going to be friends”

You responded and said “well yeah I really hope so” with a confidence in your heart that makes me believe you.

“okay good”

then you gave me a hug, and held my head. You whispered “I’m so sorry” and I barely got out an “it’s okay”. “I’m really glad we gave this a shot I just..” and I said “oh yeah me too. It’s sad, but I wouldn’t take it back.” You said “please understand that if you need anything, I want you to tell me, you can always call me.”

And then you got out of the car and we talked about maybe getting lunch over the break. And that was that....

I waited until I got down the street to start crying. Waited until I passed bray and ave’s houses, I didn’t want anyone to see me. It felt like someone had stolen all of the air out of the room. I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t see. I’m not sure how I made it home. But I did. As I walked back into my house, I tried to hold it together. My roommates faces dropped when they saw me and I choked the story up. I couldn’t talk to anyone for the rest of the night about it. I couldn’t say it. I went to Jules and I got so high I couldn’t feel a damn thing. But somehow the tears were still falling from my face. It was literally uncontrollable.

That night, you texted me. I knew you would. Again, my intuition has entered the chat. You said “Hey I just wanted to say I’m really sorry. I hate that I keep doing this to you...You really just deserve someone more committed. I hope we can still be friends because we truly are friends.” I saw the message and I just could not respond yet. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t respond. I typed it up and locked my phone. Then I would read it again, and lock my phone again. Again, again, again. Then about the 5th time and 2 hours since the OG text, either the telepathic connection was working or you saw my dots typing because about 30 seconds after I locked me phone you said “:(“ and I responded “It’s okay. I don’t regret it because now we won’t wonder what if. It’s sad but I think it was for the best... I’m definitely going to need to some to process everything and separate things... but I meant what I said. We are best friends more than anything else at this point. And I don’t want to lose that friendship”. You loved the message. I hoped you got the point and understood that I had no desire in speaking. I need time. That was 5 days ago and I still haven’t spoken to you so I think you got the message.

I hate that you are the way that you are. But like I said, I wouldn’t take it back. When we ended things for the breif few weeks in February, it never felt like it was over. It never felt like it was truly done because we would always wonder “what if.” But this is different. This kills me to say but it is. My walls are Down and I feel like I have the closure and clarity that I need to move on. Honestly this is the best breakup I’ve ever had because since I do have closure right off the bat, I’m hoping it won’t take as long to get over you. I love you connor, I really do. I just couldn’t be in love with you. That in itself breaks my heart. But I will survive because I have endured much worse. I know how to recover, I know my worth, and I know what I deserve will come to me one day when I am least expecting it. I am thankful for the things you taught me, the people you introduced me to, the fact that you lowkey turned me into a stoner, and for so so much more. I have a lot of love for you, even though I can’t stand to look at your face or see your name right now. I hope that our paths haven’t severed, and I hope that I will see you and continue that friendship when I am ready. But for now, I will focus on myself. I will keep off social media so that I won’t be tempted to be tracking your every move and I also will not be postin. This way, we can both get some distance we you can’t keep tabs on me. I think this is best, because then it will make you wonder what I’m doing, if you even still for a shit. That fact that I sent you a tweet over a week ago, you read it that say we broke up, and jus reacted to it tells me that it IS working. But please, I don’t need a reminder of your presence when it quite literally lives rent free in my head. A year ago today, exactly, was when we hooked up for the first time. So consider this my official goodbye. I love you connor and I wish you the best

I know that this story was so long and if nobody else reads it, at least I will remember. Next, I need to speak about Jacob’s part in the whole situation. This ones a doozy. I stg I should have my own reality show at this point... anyways, this took like 45 min and so it will be all for now. Talk tomorrow....

0 notes

lord-rosenth0rne · 7 years

Text

The Outbreak, Pt. 1

I thought about this while at work last week and though I’d start working on a short story/novelle for it.

Kinda Zombie Apocalypse, virus outbreak sort of deal in the first person. Enjoy!

Rated: Teen at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone thought he was a paranoid nutcase, myself included. That was one of the few things I knew about my father.

“Shit is about to go down, Elena. I’m coming down to get you and the kid and we’re headed up into the mountains. I have a bunker. It’s fully stocked for this purpose. There are enough supplies to last at least a decade for three people.”

That’s what he said during the ‘end of the world’ a couple of years back. He wouldn’t tell us where it was but harped on how important it was to get us up there and for us to get guns and learn to shoot. I had younger siblings I couldn’t abandon. There was no way I was going to get into a bunker with a man I only met once in my life and leave them high and dry if something horrible did happen. If they couldn’t go, I wasn’t going and I made it clear. And I didn’t really trust myself with a gun at that time. He wasn’t very happy hearing that but I was firm on the subject. The ‘end of the world’ came and went and all was well. No rapture. No machines turning against us. Nothing. He was wrong, big surprise.

Years later, however, he turned out to be right and I regret not heeding his warnings. He didn’t predict exactly this, but it had the same outcome. He was wrong countless times before, who could blame me? Who knew he’d be right this time or at all? Only this time was different. This time he was dead when everything went down. He had died of a sudden heart attack a week before the first attack even happened but he made sure to document each and every day of his life since the ‘end of the world’ incident on his laptop which was given to me the day of his funeral. He was cremated and was to be buried in a military plot in the middle of nowhere, among the many ivory headstones of other fallen heroes. He was a Marine in his youth. His experiences took a severe toll on his mental health.

At first, I just tossed his laptop aside. I was curious but I was also upset at his sudden passing. I was upset that he and I never really got to know each other. My family thought it was for the best. He and I were just too different. That didn’t stop him from telling everyone about me though, that he was proud of me despite not knowing who I was. I heard it from the people at his funeral and it hurt. He was proud of the idea that he had a child, it didn’t matter who.

I decided to take a look at the laptop around the time the first attacked happen states away. We really didn’t think much other than it being an isolated incident. Bath salts or some new psychological drug that could have caused someone to start to eat another person or whatever. I can’t really remember the details nor do I wish to.

Anyway, I started to look through the dinosaur of a laptop. It had to be every bit of twelve years old. I found he was an urban explorer in his spare time and at one point tried to download Photoshop or some picture editing software that was too modern. The laptop only had so little space and even if it had enough space, it clearly could not handle it. I combed through his archives, finding old pictures of his family, pictures of himself as he progressed through a biker and mobster phase with urban exploration photos mixed in, various tasteless opinions of the political power of that time, and a couple of videos he had done to update everyone on a stroke he had months prior to his death. The videos broke my heart.

As I searched through the archive, I found a ‘hidden’ folder. It wasn’t actually hidden to the point that I had to ‘show all files’ but it was under a folder labeled something different. For the life of me, I cannot remember what it was. It may have been military lingo or an inside joke for all I knew. I just remember opening it and finding a word file with coordinates, a list of ready supplies, and an aerial view of the mountains up north with a red circle over a patch of trees. It looked like he had taken a picture of the actual map and uploaded it that way. At the bottom of the page was a reminder to himself not to go looking for the physical map, that he had burned it while out urban exploring. I could only guess that he had memory issues.

Under that was another word document that was at least a hundred pages long, giving me a play by play of what his life was like. It was boring and full of paranoid ramblings, how other humans couldn’t be trusted and that he somehow knew the FBI and CIA were stalking him and so on. I was intrigued enough with everything but the ramblings to transfer the file over to my own up-to-date laptop, promising myself to one day get out there to look around. What struck me as odd is he repeated ‘Trust no one’ in his ramblings, yet he was willing to bunk with two people he barely knew. It seemed like he hadn’t gotten over my mother after they split.

I should have made my way out there sooner. At least then I could have saved my family and friends.

It turned out that whatever was happening, it was happening quicker than everyone realized. Those involved in that single incident started to turn on those around them and attack, chomping into whatever part of the body they could get to first. Attacks were popping up all across the country, even overseas in some places. The infection or disease seemed to be spread by biting.

The first attack in my small town happened at my place of work, of all places. It figured. I couldn’t tell if Murphy’s Law loved or hated me but it was sure there when all of this started. I was in the back of the retail store, unloading merchandise from a truck we just had received when screaming erupted in the front of the store. I rushed out to see that one of our regulars, an older gentleman, had attacked another customer, a younger man. It took several people to get the regular off the customer only for another to get bitten by the regular. It wasn’t until the cops showed up that the incident was resolved. Both victims were transported to the hospital while the regular was arrested and taken away. Guess who had to clean up that bloodied mess? Not any of us, that’s for sure. There was no way in hell that I or any of the other associates was going to touch it. The company allowed us to close the store four hours early so they could get a clean-up crew in. Blood is a bio-hazard no matter if you’re clear of diseases or not. There was even talk about sending the associates to therapy if needed. It was usually done for a robbery but this was an exception. Thankfully, I had a strong stomach and a morbid mind already so what I witnessed really didn’t bother me. It was surreal nonetheless.

The number of attacks grew. Before we knew it, our police force was gone and the hospital wasn’t a safe place to send the sick anymore. Whatever was changing people into these… things had infiltrated places that were supposed to be there to help you in an emergency. In hindsight, it was to be expected but as the saying goes: Hindsight is 20/20.

This… virus, for a lack of a better term, was destroying people’s minds and causing them to become animalistic. Their behavior matches something off the silver screen but they don’t look infected with anything. The news claimed that those infected weren’t dead, many of them still had pulses and heartbeats and color in their cheeks but they weren’t alive either. They looked… normal? Or at least, in the beginning, they did. Over the course of a single week, the people infected started to have pieces of them fall off, skin, fingers, and limbs, you name it, and they smelled horrible. The southern heat wasn’t making things any better. It made them stink to high heaven but let them move around easier.

Small communities started to come together to try to protect themselves. My area was no exception. The mayor appointed a group of able bodies, including myself, officers to help quell fears, retrieve stragglers, and forage for food as those who were handy with tools built a fortified wall around the small downtown. Shops were turned into homes, more were built in empty fields left over by historic hurricanes, and everyone just pitched in to help make things work out. There were a lot of elderly shut-ins in our area so I, along with a couple of others, would go out and retrieve them on a daily basis. That is if they were still ‘living’. A lot of our elders didn’t make the initial run and a handful of them was very stubborn. They would not leave their house no matter what. It reminded me of my own late grandmother.

The handful of doctors and nurses who took refuge with us screened everyone who came in once we knew what to look for. It wasn’t easy watching them turn away people who had symptoms of… whatever this was but was cognitive enough to know they were being rejected. This caused a lot of families to be separated. I was one of the lucky ones. I had my entire family with me along with a couple of friends. Looking back though, I don’t know if you could call that lucky knowing what came next.

A lot of people trusted our mayor. He was a good man before all this started but I think the uncertainty of everything and the pressure to make split decisions had taken a toll on him. No one thinks they’re going to be in this kind of position when the world decides it wants to go to hell with itself. He was as scared as the rest of us. Fear makes people do crazy and unpredictable things. If I had anything to say about what he did, despite what he did, I would say he cared very much about his people. Almost too much.

The mayor proposed a small autumn party for the survivors to ‘lift spirits and keep the faith alive’. I really wasn’t feeling very festive with everything going on but at the time I thought it was a good thing, especially for my younger siblings. I wanted them to feel like everything was going to be okay, all this was going to blow over and a sense of normalcy would return sooner than they thought. The kids in our community deserved to have a party to let them forget about the world for a while. A lot of them were having night terrors, afraid that the ‘monsters’ would come through the walls and eat them. As an officer, I did get a bit of satisfaction by telling them I would protect them from the monsters.

As much as I wanted to see the kids happy, I decided to skip out on the party with three others without the heads of the community knowing and head out to see what we could salvage from the nearby abandoned marketplace. Not that we really needed to, though. We had already gone through it a handful of times before but there was nothing really stopping us from going there to hang out. We donned our Kevlar armor, which proved faithful when it came to warding off bites, stun guns and gas masks in case of a raid and headed out. We had a couple of rogue groups come by during the community building who raised some Cain but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be handled. We didn’t aim to kill any survivors either.

We were gone for maybe a couple of hours, screwing around in the large, empty building before heading back. It was the most fun I have had in a long time, since before the outbreak. We didn’t run into any of the infected either. It wasn’t until we made our way back that we felt something was seriously wrong. We didn’t see anything to indicate it. Music played in the distance at our camp. Nothing sounded or smelled out of the ordinary. We each confirmed that we felt this horrible knot in the pit of our stomachs that wouldn’t loosen up. Something bad had happened and we didn’t even know what. We rushed back as quickly as possible.

I will never forget what we walked in on.

#Short story #Pt 1 #Before I hit the hay #Zombies #Walkers #Infected #Apocalypse #First person #Just in time for Halloween #Part 2 coming soon #Now to bed

5 notes · View notes

gaiatheorist · 4 years

Text

‘Daddy Issues.’

Now, I’d always associated ‘Daddy Issues’ with approval-seeking behaviour, and projecting a desire for protection, but, during the recent therapy sessions, I did catch myself muttering ‘Thanks, Dad’ in relation to some of my behaviour patterns and coping mechanisms. Much like many of the screws in flat-pack furniture, my need-to-please is rattling around at the back of a drawer somewhere, that’ll be another reason I’m not particularly stable, my skewed coping mechanisms are the human equivalent of that cupboard door, where there’s a knack to opening and closing it.

I’d sent my Dad a message, about the Autism diagnosis, my family dynamic is odd, and my tangential risk-avoidance mechanism kicked in. I’d already messaged my Mum, then it dawned on me that my brother has contact with both of our parents. It was possible, but not particularly probable that my mother might mention the diagnosis to my brother, who might mention it to my father. Unacceptable risk of Dad turning up unannounced to check I hadn’t put my trousers on my head, or taken to swallowing live goldfish. I sent a very detailed message to Dad, and then a short-and-to-the-point message to my brother. ‘Heads up, Dad might ask you to check on me.’

I’d sort of anticipated a laborious hunt-and-peck reply from Dad, you know the ones, where the electronic ellipsis is on the screen for ages, so you expect War And Peace, but end up with ‘OK’, or that damned ‘thumb’ on Facebook. Nope, at some point between two and three yesterday afternoon, my Dad knocked on my door. He’s only known where I live for two out of the last twenty years. Less than ideal, the house is in that particular ‘Oh, Gods, did they take much?’ state, with my son back from uni. We have two of everything, because I set him up for everything, two sets of cutlery, two sets of crockery, two coffee presses, two pestle and mortars, you get the idea. I probably looked like I’d try to fight off the imaginary burglars, and that I might have been eating my dinner at the time, my top-jumper has dropped food, and all manner of dubious ‘matter’ on it, and I was in leggings and fake Ugg boots. Classy.

“Right, I saw your message. What’s all this about? I didn’t read all of it.”

Hmm, if he’d read all of it, he’d know what it was about. People function in different ways. I have a tendency to type all salient points into a text-message, quite frequently with ‘Information only, no action required’, hit ‘send’ and it’s done. I’m a cow for ‘as per my previous’.

“Come in, Dad.” (Mad panic, shifting my son’s disgusting desk, so Dad could sit down.)

“I will, just a minute.” (Dad goes back to his car, which is on the road at the end of my empty drive.) “I brought you these, a sort of early Christmas present.” ‘These’ were gin, my Dad can be the very worst Tommy-top-it,self-aggrandising, delusions of grandeur type, but, hey, free gin.

I explained the process that had led to the diagnosis, how I’d always found some ‘normal’ things incredibly difficult, but thought it was just me being useless, as everyone else seemed to cope, when I just wanted to hide behind the curtains. I elaborated, about how much conscious-cognitive effort that had taken, and that the brain injuries massively diminished my ability to filter/screen/mask. I was a little barbed with him when I mentioned that high-functioning females with ASD are often missed, because we’re conditioned differently, small, polite, quiet, ‘good girl’ material. It gets tricky here, because I remember being shouted at, and clouted for ‘having a long face’, and not ‘joining in’. I explained that I’d always found those things exceptionally difficult, and now, with the brain injuries, I wasn’t able to suppress the sensory overload. (See, I’m not ‘just’ being an arse when I decline invitations to family gatherings and such.)

Last year, or possibly the year before, I had a no-holds-barred conversation with my Mother. We agreed that, with hindsight, we’d both made some dubious judgements, but that we couldn’t go back and change anything. I don’t physically look like either of my parents, but I AM similar in some behaviour-patterns and psychological aspects. The ‘keep going’ pit-pony element is from my mother, I used to run at everything full-tilt, now, I’m more of the tenacious water-on-a-rock. Princess-wing-it is entirely my father, he’s a chancer, and a grifter, lobbing himself head-first into things, without planning how to get out. Perfect storm, I have my father’s bravado, and my mother’s resilience. Both parents have acknowledged that they married too young, and didn’t have a clue what they were doing. In response to me making the same disclosure first. I ‘played house’ for a decade, then the metaphorical rot set in. Relentless, like my mother, and headstrong, like my father, I ‘kept trying’, to show everyone who said my marriage wouldn’t last that I was right, and they were wrong. There was an amusing incident with dad yesterday, where I word-slipped, the word I couldn’t remember was ‘rehabilitation’, I bumbled around the edged of it, recovery, repair, re-adjustment, dad couldn’t find the word, either.

“That happens a lot, Dad, my mind knows the word, my brain can’t find it, and my mouth throws out the next-best-fit word, and hopes for the best.”

“Well, yes, I understand what you’re saying, and I know I get it wrong sometimes. Actually, no, I don’t.”

We spoke over each other, he said he was last-wrong in 1968, and I said I was wrong in 1983. Little-Miss-Can’t-Be-Wrong.

I was their pancake-baby. You know how it goes, you make the batter, heat the pan, take one of the connectors off the battery in the smoke alarm, and make a start. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first pancake is always shit, it’s the dog-pancake, it either burns because the pan is too hot, or soaks up oil like a disgusting gluten-sponge. Subsequent pancakes improve in quality, and, just as you’ve absolutely cracked it, you run out of batter. I was the dog-pancake, and my half-sister, 6ft tall, with a Masters Degree from Oxford, AND conventionally gorgeous was the last pancake from the batch, the perfect pancake. She’s about 24, world at her feet, considering continuing her studies with a doctorate. I have 10 GCSEs, and 4 A-levels, I am the bad pancake.

I don’t have Daddy Issues in terms of seeking approval or affirmation from others. I don’t have Daddy Issues in terms of looking for a protector, I can catch my own spiders, and change my own light-bulbs and fuses. My Daddy Issues, like most things about me, are slightly skewed. As much as I was conditioned-female, as much as I spent most of my formative years being ‘nice’ and ‘quiet’, and ‘good’, because I was terrified of what would happen if I stepped out of line, I’m not scared of him any more, and I’d rather be productive than ‘nice.’ He’s 68, and he’s frail. I’m as tall as him, as age has taken its toll, I’m heavier than him by 2st, he’s not a physical threat to me, and I severed all emotional ties decades ago. He can’t intellectually intimidate me, because his ‘specialist subject’ is rabbits and chickens, and I have neither, that knowledge is not relevant to me. (I did have chickens, he rambled through an anecdote of one of the well-to-do-Oxford-parents seeking him out, to pose poultry predicaments. I imagine he was sought out as a novelty, he’s an odd looking object. The ‘very posh’ lady had sought him out, he rambled on a bit, before getting to the point, she’d bought eggs to hatch on eBay. “Really, that would never be my first choice, Dad.” “Precisely my point.” “You’d have no idea of the lineage, even if they did hatch, and survive the first 14 weeks, they’d likely keel over and die as soon as they reached adulthood.” He went a bit quiet, and then started telling me how my half-sister ‘worked the computer’ while my step-mother performed veterinary surgery.)

That man caused me physical, emotional, and psychological damage that I live with to this day. I was never-enough, and when I was-enough, I was a try-hard, doomed to fail when my incompetence was uncovered. He told me I was ugly, stupid, useless, but I don’t believe that any more. I don’t ‘need’ my Dad, I don’t want to ‘be’ my Dad, much less marry him. I spent far too many years trying to ‘beat’ him, but all that did was exacerbate the self-doubt he’d instilled in me.

He came from a different time, for all his personal issues, he tried, he had better results from his younger daughter than he did with me, there’s almost 20 years between the two of us. Not ‘better’ results, different ones. She’s amazing because she was a late, very-much-wanted child, with a stable mother, and a father who was at a different point in his life. I wish them all well, but I’m not part of their lives. Unless they’re bringing me gin.

0 notes

bipolarblurbz-blog · 7 years

Text

Where Would I Be if I Were Born 25 Years Later?

I wish I had known a long time ago about my mental illness. As the saying goes, “hindsight is 20/20” and my life played out as it should have, but I believe I would be “further along” intellectually, emotionally, and professionally had I been born 25 years later. I speak from an education perspective, because I believe that school is critical to a child’s neurodevelopmental, social growth, academic success, and ultimately their professional career. Today it appears that parents have a much better sense of their child’s character and surroundings, an awareness of potential psychological disorders and, perhaps most important, a closer relationship with their child’s teacher than years past. Teachers are privy to a child’s daily behavior and their associated developmental and learning disorders, and are often the first to recognize the need for intervention. Either way, it feels as though children are looked after and cared for in a way that I was not. And because of this, many get the support and help that they need to do their best in school, on the playground, and at home. I can still see my 3rd grade self being put in the corner for acting out. It was not until recently that I realized that I wasn’t a bad or misbehaved kid, I just couldn’t sit in my chair for an entire lesson. Had it been known that I had ADHD, then maybe I could have had the tools and, perhaps, medication to improve my school experience, and positively influence my life’s path. I always dreaded school assignments from elementary grades through college. Some people actually get enjoyment from learning! Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. I imagine this is because it was painfully difficult for me to focus to get work done; there is nothing enjoyable about that. People with ADHD are often quite bright and, because of this, the disorder goes unnoticed until the student can no longer “keep up.” This means that I was smart enough to get the work done even though I was comprehending far less than 100% of the lesson being taught. This explains my grades; both academic and conduct. I would soar academically and drown in conduct. Talking out of turn and to classmates, and getting out of your chair disrupted the class and are significant factors that affect conduct grades. I remember doing all of that. By junior high, my grades started to slip in some classes from A’s to B’s, spoiling my chances of getting into “honors-level” courses. I fell even further behind in high school. Courses were harder and more demanding, and I just couldn’t keep up. The student advisors were useless; we’d meet 1-2 times per year and accomplish next to nothing. They should be required to assess a student who isn’t doing well, and ask questions in an attempt to identify the potential cause and demand further evaluation, so that a proper diagnosis and treatment can be prescribed. Teachers working in my school didn’t talk to students or their parents about their progress, or lack thereof. Any news that got back to my parents was simply what I was telling them; and my report card of course. Neither of which told the whole story. But my home was chaotic and my mother didn’t have the time nor energy to understand and help all four of her children. My father was never involved; he was too busy being an alcoholic. My mother was the disciplinarian and caretaker. But she wasn’t able to see my poor grades as something beyond “laziness”, “misbehavior” and “carelessness” and to get me the help I needed to thrive in the school environment; ironic because my mother, herself, was a middle school teacher for 40 years. If I complained about school being hard or making me anxious, she would tell me something to the effect, “Well, I don’t know. You’re a bright girl and have a high IQ. You have the highest IQ of your three siblings.” But that didn’t help at all, nor did it matter to me. I was crying out for help, feeling as if I was drowning at school. Unfortunately, my calls for help went unanswered. My mom didn’t have anything to give; she was spent from the turmoil that was her life. It hurts my heart when I think about high school because I know I’m smart and could’ve done well. I could’ve learned and participated more, and ENJOYED the classes, but I had untreated ADHD, and symptoms of depression coupled with anxiety that began to significantly affect my performance. I remember having anxiety as early as junior high. That followed me into high school where it got worse, eventually becoming acute anxiety. Walking from the bus to homeroom was agonizing. Homeroom to first period, agonizing. Sitting at lunch, agonizing. Getting on the bus to home, agonizing still. I had no self-esteem; common for someone with ADHD who is often forgetful and clumsy and just can’t seem to “get it together”. Self-worthlessness shared space in my head with depression and anxiety. I managed to make friends, play sports, and make it through high school despite my struggles. I felt lucky that my state university accepted me -- I swear it was God working magic! My 2.8 GPA got me into their reputable business school. I chose a major in business administration because I was strong in math, and it seemed like a more functional degree to have when looking for a job after college. I remember arriving at college feeling clueless and terrified. My anxiety was debilitating, and coupled with my ADHD, I felt paralyzed. I was scared to go to class because I knew I could not pay attention and didn’t want the professor to call on me. I could not speak in class. I was horrified to give an oral presentation and would worry from the day I received the syllabus until the date of the presentation (usually 4 months in between!). I loathed working in groups and frequently didn’t produce my piece of the pie. (As a child of an alcoholic, you hide the truth and do anything you can to appear “normal.” Relationships are difficult to foster and hard to keep, and you don’t want anyone to see your weaknesses, so you do your best to not show any.). I skipped class often and would daydream during class; missing whatever the professor was saying. I would’ve been better off sleeping or going to the gym because I would’ve done something productive. I was so unbelievably not “present” that I FAILED the introductory course to my major! In the business school, you had to take an intro class for each department to confirm that the one you chose was something that you could succeed and were interested in (i.e. Intro to Marketing, Accounting, etc.). Since I could not pay attention in class, I would often not attend and would subsequently fail the exams. Consequently, I teetered my senior year on the seesaw of graduation or failure, while working my tail off to make that class up. Hard to believe I was taking an introductory course and the more challenging classes that are required just before you graduate at the same time. This was my life – a sad young woman who was lost and fearful, always trying to clean up her mess. I am a good example of what happens when mental illness goes unnoticed and untreated, while the person suffers, but either thinks it’s normal because they don’t know better or doesn’t understand why they feel the way they do. So, IF I were born 25 years later, my life might have looked like this: My parents and teachers would’ve gotten me help in elementary school where I would’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and put on a treatment plan. This wouldn’t necessarily include medication; however, as an adult I have responded very well to stimulants. I would’ve enjoyed school more and performed better. I imagine a chain reaction, with an early diagnosis and this newfound focus being my elixir to thrive academically, socially and emotionally.

Nothing is perfect though. I did develop depression (now diagnosed bipolar disorder II), anxiety, and PTSD, and those too would’ve had to be addressed as I reached my high school years. I would have had all my diagnoses and been treated consistently from high school to college and thereafter. I believe had my mental illness been cared for sooner, I would have chased my passion for languages. I started to learn Spanish and French and adored them both, but like anyone with ADHD, you start many “projects” and have 100 going at the same time, but you can’t ever complete any. Also with self-esteem and self-worth (squashed by untreated mental illness and an unhealthy home environment), I would have applied myself in all aspects of my life and progressed more quickly professionally and in my relationships. I never had a problem making or keeping friendships, but I also didn’t show them all of me, just a few. I was the friend who quietly listened, gave the feedback that they wanted to hear and shelled out compliments like candy to avoid talking about myself. The perfect people pleaser, typical of a child of an alcoholic. But I did have a social life and friends, that wasn’t my problem. I had a terror of boys and men and didn’t have my first boyfriend until I was 23 years old and I plan to marry in my 40’s. Maybe that’s the way it was going to be regardless, but I like to think that losing trust in men at a very young was a result of fearing my alcoholic father and growing up with parents in a dead marriage. I don’t attach mental illness to hiding myself from friends or being scared of males, but anxiety definitely contributed to feeling very uncomfortable around them, platonically or not. Doesn’t mental illness, though, impede life from moving forward? Not until recently did I no longer sense an immaturity (not naivety) that I had when thinking about being an “adult” (i.e. sustaining a serious relationship, getting married, having children, etc.) It took time for me to get a proper diagnosis, which had a negative effect succeeding in romantic relationships and jobs, and may have correlated to the relapses I had from stopping my medication. To me, mental illness, lack of self-esteem and self-worth, undoubtedly stunted me emotionally and affected my growth into adulthood.

But, this was my path and I am who I am as a result. And despite the lack of mental health intervention and my many struggles, I’ve managed to find my way to create a life for myself, rich with wonderful friends and a loving fiancé, and will continue to push myself to grow emotionally and spiritually. This is why I am bravely taking on the challenge of blogging my way through mental illness and pain in pursuit of mental health, just like how I eat well and exercise for my physical health. My hope is that I won’t allow fear to stop me even though each time I sit down to write, I am slapped with paralysis. I have to remind myself to write from the heart and the words will flow. “There is no shame in your story. There is no shame in your writing.” I imagine the more I write the better my writing will become and the prouder I’ll feel about my progress. There’s only going up from here!

#depression #bipolar #anxiety #mental illness #mental health

0 notes

nickistryingtobeawriter-blog · 7 years

Text

First Piece.

So here’s a piece that I wrote for my creative writing class this past semester. It’s creative nonfiction, so all the stuff here is all me. I figured if I show you guys some personal stuff early, you might be able to connect to me more. Maybe. I dunno, here it is.

In my relatively short time on this big blue planet of ours, I’ve fallen in love exactly two and half times. The half comes from this one time I told a girl I loved her and then she cried and dumped me, so I don’t really consider it that legitimate. The other two times are...well, they’re complicated.

Let’s just go ahead and start with the first time. I fell in love with a girl back in high school, a friend of a girl that I’d been casually interested in for a couple of months. When I saw her beneath the harsh lights of that high school gym, wearing a brown leather jacket and her long brown hair blown over her eyes, I felt like I’d fallen a million stories in a matter of seconds. She smiled at me with the cutest little smirk I’d ever seen, her skin so virtuously white I’d thought I’d go blind. I was sitting there with the basketball pep band, face covered in horrific acne, wearing clothes roughly two sizes too big for me, and here was this girl that, from the moment I saw her, made me feel so inadequate for love that I felt the need to run to bathroom and change into a better outfit right then and there.

The first time we ever hung out was in a Barnes and Noble in January. We were freezing cold and so bundled up we could hardly see each other’s faces. She’d told me once that she loved bookstores, so I brought her to the only bookstore I knew. She was wearing this beautiful black parka with faded skinny jeans and a bright white tank top. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her the entire time we were there. I remember when she called me over to the psychology section and pointed out different personality match-ups. She’d taken a few guesses with mine, and she’d found out that our personalities would be perfect fits for each other. I don’t think my heart has ever beat faster than it did in that moment.

Ultimately, I loved her for about four years, give or take. It was a rollercoaster of an experience, and in a lot of ways she shaped me to be the person I am today. But it ended. After asking her to my senior prom, a cute little high school dream I’d had for years, she said yes. I was ecstatic, and my mind was jumping between the variety of outfits, pictures, dances, conversations, and everything else we could possibly have on this upcoming magical night. But then she got distant, and her excitement faded to a sad distance I couldn’t fully understand. And then, the week before the dance, she bailed. And I realized that she’d never loved me. It wasn’t really a shocker, since we’d never actually dated. I’d been a friend, a shoulder to cry on, a companion for life’s hardships. I thought I’d make a perfect boyfriend for her. But I guess she didn’t feel the same.

After that, I was in a kind of emotional freefall, my affections being directed at anything that could distract me from the intense pain I was feeling. Some girls had shown some interest, but I was either too stupid or too heartbroken to really engage in any real connection with them. Ironically, the one time I did, I came back to the dorm one night to find her making out with a friend of mine on one of the couches in the lounge. Her response to having led me on for two weeks and having me believe that I might have found a connection again? “I couldn’t help myself, but maybe if things don’t work out with him, we could give it a shot ;).” That winky face still haunts me to this day.

At this point, I’d essentially all but given up on love. It was a stupid, overly complicated emotion that was just going to cause me more heartbreak and hurt than it was going to bring me any sort of joy. Which is an unbelievably stupid attitude for a boy who was 18 years old and had only just started college. I got asked on a couple dates, but I’d just imagine that they were friendly meet-ups and quietly put them down. It was nothing personal, I just couldn’t put myself out there again.

And then came Love Number Two. Just like Love Number One, I remember the first time I saw her almost like a photograph, every small detail so vivid and unforgettable. She was short, 5’3’’, with recently cut maroon hair, the red slowly fading into the edges. She was wearing a grey beret, which I was later rather curtly told was “absolutely not a beanie,” and a navy blue one piece dress with small white dots speckling the surface. When I saw her, I almost thought that she had come out of a movie, this picturesque woman with a fashion sense and features I hadn’t even dreamed existed.

The first time I ever asked her out, I took her on a walk with me around campus. It was a chilly September night, with some leaves already starting to fall as we stepped beneath the trees. We lived on the same floor, so after 10 or 11 awkward minutes of me being a moron and not getting to the point, I figured we should just go back to the dorm. And then she asked me to keep walking with her, as if she knew that I was just being a moron and not getting to the point. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally asked her to coffee. It was in front of the Chinese place on the town square, and I remember seeing the neon lights reflected in her smile after I finally got the words out. She said yes, of course, and so our romance began.

Things started off so simple, with tiny hand brushes and the occasional bit of eye contact making me squirm from how cute she was. I was so convinced that she could never like me that I was doing my absolute best to seem like the nicest guy on the planet. She had to tutor? I’d bring her a cookie and coffee before her shift. She had a long night of homework? I’d make her a playlist and write her a note to read for a distraction. She needed to drop off a paper? I was the first person to offer to walk with her. Before long, I was just convinced that she was playing me, using me for my try-hard kindness. And then we went to the concert.

It was a mess of people, random students frantically running around in circles to the beat of the drums that were blasting through the venue. We were sitting in the back, happily watching the carnage unfold before us, occasionally laughing at the odd person that fell out of the crowd. I thought we were going to keep sitting up there, the flashing lights and loud songs our own personal symphony of madness, playing every note to be more entertaining than the last. And then she grabbed my hand. It was sudden, and she was obviously terrified. But I was swimming in euphoria from the first moment our hands touched. We spent the night holding hands and laughing, enjoying each other’s company even more now that the truth was now out in the open. A couple days later, we finally decided to date. Shocker.

A few months passed, and everything that I’d imagined a serious relationship to be was coming true before my eyes: I was meeting the family, her father was a terrifyingly muscular man who was asking me how I treated his daughter, her dog kept attacking me every time I stepped in the door. A future with her just seemed so certain, so concrete that I’d never given it a second thought. She was always so certain that I was her “Last One,” the only man she’d ever need. Her confidence was so intense, I even bought into it for a while.

And then came the compromises. They were small first, like how I hated St. Louis but she wanted to be close to her parents, or that we’d have three kids because four was too many and two wasn’t enough, or that I had to become a business major because my dreams didn’t seem concrete enough for her, or that I needed to talk less because my opinions annoyed her, or that I should find new friends because she didn’t like the ones I had. To be fair, that last one was pretty understandable considering the context that it came in, but it was still a pretty tough situation to put me in. Everything about me she didn’t like was slowly being sanded away, my kinks removed to make me a “better boyfriend,” as she put it. “Love is sacrifice!” It was almost like her motto every time she pulled apart another one of my dreams so she could put in one of her own.

And yet, I was happy. I loved her like crazy, and she seemed like the only girl that understood me. Yeah, we’d fight sometimes, and occasionally my overwhelmingly stupid nature would win out and I’d do something that would piss her off for a few days. And yeah, she’d get mad if I fought her a bit on something I did that she didn’t like, but she’d always prove herself to be right in the end. All in all, life was good. I was content. If this would be my future, I’d be ok with it. Compromise.

And then the complications came in. This point in the story is usually when I lose people, because what I did was probably one of the most ruthless, stupidest, and worst things I’ve ever done. To clarify, I didn’t cheat, because even shitty men like me have some standards. But I did probably the most irredeemable thing I have ever done in my entire life: I broke her heart.

Love Number One had stepped back into my life in a friend capacity, checking in on the desolation she had left in her wake all those years ago. She was sorry about everything, and she wished she could have gone back and changed what she’d done, and she was so sorry that she’d hurt me. And I believed her. Not completely, mind you, but enough for me to reminisce on the “good old days” of my unrequited love. Even in hindsight, they were pretty shitty, all things considered. I’d been dragged along, beaten emotionally, torn down, put back up, given false hope and more for four whole years. But I hadn’t compromised. Not once. I was always me when I loved Number One.

It took me a couple of weeks, but I finally got the courage to bring it up to Love Number Two. She told me that my concerns weren’t really concerns, and that I was just looking for an excuse to fight with her. She’d compromised just as much with me, working out her future to make sure that I could be happy. St. Louis would be great for me, and I could just hang out with her more instead of spending time with my horrible friends. Absolutely nothing was wrong for her, and I was just being stupid. And it broke my heart to see how blind she was.

On the Saturday of that week, she told me she wanted to marry me. She was drunk, mind you, but I’d never seen her so determined to make something happen in her life. She smiled the biggest smile I’d ever seen when she told me. And then on the next day, I told her we needed to break up. I told her that she was pushing me towards a future I wasn’t ready for, and that I needed to live my life more before I could commit to something like that. I can still see the pain etched on her face, and the tears rolling down her cheeks and the sobs she was trying desperately to keep quiet and her hands balled up into tiny fists like boulders about to crash down on me. I remember hugging her, feeling her tears soak through my shirt and her body shake uncontrollably as she realized the gravity of what was happening. She couldn’t hold me tight enough, and I was desperately hoping she’d let go. She was wearing a red shirt and jeans. It’s like a photograph.

“Please don’t leave me.” Those were the words that broke me. I cried for hours. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. Everything reminded me of her. Telling people would get me sympathy, but it wasn’t what I needed. It didn’t help that she’d try to call me every day in hopes that I’d changed my mind, that we could have a second chance. “I love you” was like nails on a chalkboard for me, bringing tears to my eyes and a tightness to my chest that made it hard to breathe even the smallest breath. Even seeing a sidewalk that we’d walked on before tore me up, thinking back on all of the memories and joy that I was throwing away by ending things like I did.

See, that’s what people never tell you when you break up with someone you love. They say you feel so relieved, so glad that you made the right decision, so happy that you can both move on. I felt like a walking piece of shit who had just ruined the one good thing that was keeping his life together. And the worst thing was the people were trying to help me in the worst ways possible. Friends? “Let’s throw a party and get you laid.” Girls I’d known? “You want to go get some coffee sometime?” School? “Your personal life should not affect your academics in any way.” It was like I was getting the shit kicked out of me every day for doing what everyone was telling me was the right thing to do.

And that’s how love is. It’s a pain, and it’s messy, and it hurts, and it’s hard, and did I mention it really really hurts? Even after a couple of months of coping, I barely got out of the abyss that I’d thrown myself into. I had to realize that I’d made the right decision for myself, maybe not for her, and that I needed to stop compromising. My motto was a quote a friend had given me: “Maybe she was perfect, but she wasn’t perfect for now.” Looking back, it doesn’t totally make sense, but I held tighter to that wisdom than anything else in the world.

Ultimately, I guess the reason I wrote this was to be catharsis, to show what love can mean to different people. Because love for me means wanting so desperately never lose someone that I can hardly go a second without wanting them next to me. Love for you may mean just wanting to wake up next to someone that always make you smile when you see them, or maybe just being able to hold hands with someone that makes you laugh. It’s this infinitely shifting mystery, love. It never seems to be what you expect, and when it is, it comes at the strangest times.

And what about my life now, you may be wondering? After being such a terrible person to the last girl he loved, did some other poor girl fall under his spell? Actually, that’s kind of what happened, and it turned out far more surprising than I could have imagined. Because Love Number One finally came around, after 6 freaking years. We’ve been dating for 9 months now, I can honestly say I’ve never loved anyone like I love her. She challenges me, she surprises me, she leaves me breathless by simply walking into a room or smiling her gorgeous little smirk at me. I can finally see a future with another person, and I can’t go a second without thinking about how amazing a life with her would be. It’s...it’s honestly beyond words sometimes.

I remember when I finally got to see Love Number One again after being away from her for so long. It was a brisk May night, the moon shining brightly down on the lake across the street from her house. I was wearing a hoodie and shorts, the lamest combination I could have worn, and she had no idea that I was waiting outside to surprise her. I’d come home a day early, ready to shower her in the compliments and affection I’d never been able to before. My shaking hands knocked on the door, and she opened it, not prepared for what was on the other side. She was wearing a beige cardigan, some yoga pants, a spoon of ice cream, and the most shocked expression I’ve ever seen. And then she jumped in my arms and held me tighter than I’d ever been held before. I remember it like a photograph, and its the last photograph I’ll ever need.

#love #nonfiction #real #writing

0 notes