Send away.

Send away for a priceless gift
One not subtle, one not on the list
Send away for a perfect world
One not simply, so absurd
In these times of doing what you're told
You keep these feelings, no one knows
What ever happened to the young man's heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart

And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45,
Swimming through the ashes of another life
No real reason to accept the way things have changed
Staring down the barrel of a 45

Send a message to the unborn child
Keep your eyes open for a while
In a box high up on the shelf, left for you, no one else
There's a piece of a puzzle known as life
Wrapped in guilt, sealed up tight

What ever happened to the young man's heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart

[CHORUS]

Everyone's pointing their fingers
Always condemning me
And nobody knows what I believe
I believe

It's strange how I retain certain moments from my past that seem as if they have no real importance, yet they are so strong I can hear, smell and taste every flake in my brain. This song was playing one night on my iPod and it's resonating with me very strongly tonight. It was November 2004 and it was freezing outside. I remember it as if nothing else happened before this very second, as if I had just turned a DVD on in my head. I was sitting at my desk and starring out the window into the Baltimore skyline. It was night because all the lights were reflecting off my glasses and creating streams of color in my line of vision. The room reeked of smoke as I had smoked at least a pack of Marlboro Lights while contemplating ending my life. The depression had gotten to the point where it actually hurt to breathe and be alive. Every inhalation seemed as if a million needles were poking into my flesh and I wanted to end it.

I had convinced myself that I was not going to call Therapist, that either I made it on my own that night or I didn't. The anxiety became so intense that I started pacing around my apartment, wishing I could walk off the pain. Everything in the room began to look dangerous as I thought of something I could do to harm myself using whatever object I was looking at. I grabbed my iPod, threw on a pair of tennis shoes and found the warmest coat that I owned. I found gloves and a matching hat and practically ran down the 10 flights of stairs to the busy Baltimore streets. I blasted the most angry and loud music I could find. I was walking so fast, begging for relief. The first song was this:

Some of the ugliest things took the longest time to make
And some of the easiest habits are the hardest one's to break
And I'm not asking for value nor the pain but I am asking
For a way out of this lie

[Chorus]
Because I can't wait for you to catch up with me
And I can't live in the past and drown myself in memories

Welcome to nowhere and finding out where it is
And fixing your problems and starting over again
Your feeding your ego with what you can see outside
And your killing yourself for not speaking your mind

In memory

[Bridge]
I wonder why you make believe you live your life straight through me
I cannot understand why you question me and then you lie
I will not justify your way's. I cannot show you an escape
I do not know you any more, I never knew you anyway

In memory

I was walking at the pace of the music and the wind was hitting me in the face to the point of being unable to tell if I was crying or if the wind was just that cold. I ended up in a really shady part of town, unafraid. I stopped and considered the possibilities for the night. I could go home and go to sleep, I could keep walking, or I could just sit on North Ave and wait for something to happen. I decided to walk towards home, at least if I decided to die no one would try to rescue me there. I kept walking past my apartment when I got there, it felt too strange and as if I didn't belong there so I kept heading south. I reached the Harbor and found comfort in the stillness. No one hangs out there in winter, especially at night. The city lights were reflecting off the water like tiny dancers, skipping over each ripple. I sat at the end of one of the sidewalks and dangled my feet into the blackness. It was erie how quiet it was, only the sounds of cars and a couple faint sirens.

There I was, sitting by the harbor, in freezing temps...blasting 45. I couldn't feel my face anymore and my thighs were numb and I was contemplating taking my life. I asked myself if I wanted to die or if I just wanted relief from the pain. I didn't really want to die, I wanted to see how life turned out but the physical pain and the emotional turmoil was torture. I thought about my fathers suicide and how fast it was. He was there, his eyes full of life and then it was snuffed out in a split second. I replayed it over and over trying to recount every detail in his face as it happened, every splatter of blood on me and it went blank. All I could recall was staring at the graduation photo of my sister on the shelf behind him. I don't know how long I sat there but it must have been a good amount of time because my iPod stopped playing and even the sounds of the traffic died down.

I came back to my body feeling the aches of the cold in my legs and feet. I realized that I was only a few blocks away from where Therapist lived at the time and I turned and began my long walk home. I was shaking not from the cold, but from the terror at what I was just considering at great length. I paged Therapist on my walk back and she returned my call as I was getting close to home. I couldn't tell her what I just went through and that I only wanted to hear her voice. I don't remember what I told her but I remember the feeling I had when she said "Hey Tempy, it's Dr _______" just like she does every time even though I already know who it is. The way she says my name, the way she gets deeper when she announces herself. I breathed a sigh of release and let her talk me through the rest of my walk.

When I entered my apartment it was uncomfortably warm as my body adjusted to the heat being on. My limbs tingled and my nose turned up to the smell of the smoke and I felt like I had just witnessed a battle...and this was the remains.

I am reflecting on this tonight because I am feeling that pain, although not as intensely but similar and I want nothing to stop it. I'll let it take over and Therapist is away this week, off getting married. I am ok with this because it's a part of my experience, no matter how much I am afraid...it'll be ok...somehow, some way.

Towers.

Things in life all pile up at once and it seems that all it will take is the event the size of a toothpick to push it over the edge into a broken pile of mess. I feel as though my life has been structured here in Georgia by toothpicks, building a tower and while beautiful and wondrous to look at, has the stability of exactly what it's made of; toothpicks. When the foundation vibrates the shock is felt all the way to the top, rocking it back and forth wildly putting the whole thing at risk for crumbling. Sometimes I'd just like to jolt it hard enough to make it happen faster, to control the destruction at a time when I am ready for it and am expecting it to happen.

Therapist tries to firm up the structure by placing duct tape on the more unstable areas, friends add some tack to the foundation and my job gives the structure purpose. If one of those things gives or changes, again it's at risk for falling apart. The past week or so the foundation has taken some pretty intense hits and the duct tape and tack is unable to support the weight of the entire thing...and I am crumbling. At this point it feels like blow after blow and nothing is steady or sure at this point. I feel like I cannot do it at this point, but what other choice is there? Anything can happen, where is the duct tape when I need it?

Rambles.

I know I need to post, I have that itching feeling to speak but I am slightly stuck on what to even talk about right now. So forgive me if this ends up pointless and rambling.

This past weekend was ripe with socialization and plans. I never book myself so busy and wow, it's really showing how tired I get right about now. Saturday I worked the afternoon/evening shift and then went to a Haunted House with some coworkers which turned out to be a lot of fun. Not the best choice for someone with trauma issues, but I really enjoyed the company and once my hypervigilance wore down I was fine. Sunday I got up early and headed out to buy the ingredients I needed to make pumpkin bread and roasted veggie lasagna. I invited some friends over to carve pumpkins and have dinner. It turned out pretty good, food wise I mean. The lasagna was great even though I had to use gluten-free noodles to accommodate my friend with celiac's disease. Pumpkin carving was a tad bit competitive, even for me but it was fun too.

On Monday, I got a much needed hair cut, worked a couple of hours, went to therapy and then met a friend that I hadn't actually met in person. Her and I had found each other in a grief recovery chat ten years ago and she lives in Colorado. Well she was in a neighboring state this week and drove out to meet me and it was awesome. Draining, but awesome. I can see her and I being really good friends if she lived closer, and she is actually considering moving to my city. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll work out.

On the downside of things, my asthma has been acting up and forced me into needing to get on the evil drug, Prednisone. I can usually handle it pretty well but the asshole Dr I saw last week put me on an insane dosage/taper. It's the highest I've been on in years and I forgot just how bad it could be. Prednisone works wonders but the side effects can be catastrophic. I already have a cataract from long term use and my joints have all suffered from it. The worst part it seems to be the psychological side effects that I have. If I stay under 60mgs I have found that I am not effected, but anything higher and I freak out. Currently my Dr has me on 120mgs. WOW. It comes in stages though, within the first 4-6 hours I get very hot and sweaty...after that my joints begin to ache until no position is comfortable and then shortly after the psych side effects occur. I have terrible hallucinations and paranoia. Last night was my first night on it and I could feel it starting so I took my nightly benadryl and hoped it would kick in before they got bad, but no such luck. At some point I lost the ability to tell reality from hallucinations and it got very dangerous very quickly. I hurt myself and I had to wake my roommate to take me to the ER. They dosed me up with some anti-psychotics and gave me a prescription of them to take while I remain on the prednisone which they also determined I HAD to stay on for at least a week.

So here I am. Therapist is overly concerned and I am supposed to go in tomorrow to see her because of what happened last night. She has never really understood this stuff and has little patience for it. I dunno.....

Ho-Hum

What oh what am I doing? It's terribly difficult to tell what is up and what is down, what is right and what is wrong. It's like things are slipping from my grasp and I am just standing there trying to hold on with nothing strong enough to keep it in my hands. My isolation is so strong these days that half of the time I forget that people outside of me are existing. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but for example I had to remind myself today that I have a sister and that I haven't spoken to her in a few days. I think because I am so numb that anything outside of my 4-wall routine I forget about. I am unsure of what any of this means except that lately, especially yesterday and today I know that I am not ok.

Therapy yesterday was similar to Monday only I left in a panic and wanted to go running back. I speak about my therapy sessions generally in a sarcastic way to defend against any real feelings I may have experienced, only this time I will admit that I was terrified and the world seemed so big ans scary when I left that I was dying to go running back to Therapist's office just to sit on the floor and be safe. Each therapy session we talk and talk and talk but the last two there has been little talking and a lot of sitting, listening and just being. No correct answers, no guessing, just being and as easy as that seems in my head its been two of the more difficult sessions I've ever had. What's strange is that I couldn't get stuck in my head because I had this piece of paper in front of me that required I be attentive and connected. Something about drawing, I cannot dissociate when I do it, I HAVE to be aware of myself. The hardest part is being so aware and sensing this presence next to me on the floor, moving, humming, drawing and glancing over at me and knowing that person is someone I am choosing to be there with me, that I am allowing into such a private place for me and being ok with that and allowing her to respond to me.

Art for me is something I generally do in private and I dislike sharing it with people, sort of like music but that is another post entirely. Let me see if I can articulate this. When there is a crayon/pencil/marker in my hand and I use it, it makes marks that prove to me that my movements have impact. What I see in my head becomes tangible and reactive and it gives me a voice that I usually cannot find. I enjoy the feeling of different art mediums and generally choose different ones based on my moods. When I am more logical I like paint to get my out of my head and when my voice is completely lost I prefer colored pencils because they are so precise and when I just want to have fun I enjoy markers because of their intensity. When my own images frighten me collages are better because they are ready-made images that I don't own and less scary. So to do this with Therapist right there sometimes makes me feel more vulnerable.

Being in an art space also tends to make my crazy less easy to hide. I become antsy and overwhelmed by blank spaces that I feel I need to fill. I despise blank paper and either need to fill it or make it smaller. I feel like an ass when I cannot contain this anxiety and it's all over the place. Then my anxiety increases as I can feel the awareness of the actual human sitting beside me on the floor, separate. I felt like an alien observing for a bit, too afraid to ask questions but completely mesmerized by her behavior. I mean, she was ok, nothing bad was happening, she was humming to music...so I must be ok right? Confusing as hell. I guess at some point during all this thinking I stopped my drawing and zoned out or freaked out, I am unsure of the details but Therapist must have been calling my name or something and I wasn't responding...so she tapped my arm. You could be thinking one of two things; 'OH my god, she touched you?' or 'And?' which isn't my point in telling this either. My reaction went something like this in my head:

"Oh my god, oh my god, I'm real. I'm real. Oh crap, I am actually here, ouch ouch ouch, don't leave, I need to leave, oh crap."

A fury of emotion and intensity wiped over me and I haven't been right sense. But as quickly as I felt the real-ness, it left and I am wondering if it was real.

In other news, I have not spoken to my mother in a week. Why? you ask? Because I am determined to prove to Therapist that I will give her up if she lets me have my eating disorder...which I already know isn't an option but it's important for me to build ammunition to make my case. This a BAD idea to cut the Mom-world off without first discussing the internal ramifications and all the problems that this could cause without first talking to Therapist. I know she'd be elated to hear that I am not talking to Mom, but at the same time I can sense her fury for making this decision alone and for all the wrong reasons thus leaving her with all the traumatized/angry/acting out parts that will surely ensue. But I am determined to have my eating disorder even though I can feel it killing me a little more each day.

My days now completely revolve around my scale, how long I can go without eating something, and then rewarding myself with something that is unhealthy because I have done so well not eating, then feeling guilty for allowing it and starting over the next day. I currently look like I've been in a bad fight with so many bruises all over my legs and my eyes look like someone has punched them both several times. I am pretty sure my digestive system no longer knows what the hell it is doing and it's like rolling the dice when I do eat, unsure of which digestive pain I will endure as it tries to figure out what to do with the foreign body I have consumed. It's stupid, I hate it, but I will die without it (and somehow with it too). It's a true addiction.

The worst part of it is how emotional I get and how much work I have to do to numb it out. All this therapy stuff has be bawling one second, laughing hysterically the next. One second I am content and ok, the next I am ready to jump off a ledge. Which the ledge is where I am spending more and more of my time. I am needing Therapist more and more yet unable to justify it and instead I am trying to push it out of my head which in turn makes me more depressed and isolated.

I dunno...I wish I was more positive and upbeat it's just difficult right now.

OCD?

Is it just me or does the term OCD get thrown around often these days? People casually state that so-and-so is OCD because they like things to be neat and orderly at their office or they are super picky about the way they organize their sock drawer. Everyone has habits in their lives that give them comfort or a happy feeling when objects are placed in a certain way making their lives easier, less complicated. This doesn't necessarily mean that they have OCD. I have been diagnosed on multiple occasions ranging from high end treatment centers to low grade ass-hole social workers as suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and never really understood why. Sure, I organize my closet by color, sleeve length and shirts v. pants. I often have to have things in my room in a certain order to be able to fall asleep. I have tons of habits and such, but I had always believed they were just habits and if I didn't want to do them then I could stop.

Oh, how I was so very wrong.

This all came to a head last night when a coworker was goofing off and taking tons of little quick-time movies with his camera. Over the 9 hours I worked yesterday he had about 25 different snippets of the day. After about five videos in yesterday everyone stopped caring that he was filming and ignored the cameras presence and went about their day, including myself. It never once occurred to me that he would save the videos for our viewing pleasure or that I would even care to look at them. I was sitting at my desk last night ordering supplies for the center when I saw the message on my desktop that 25 files were just added to a document folder and I decided to investigate. I started to watch them because at first they were terribly funny but then I became intrigued watching my actions throughout each movie. I could see myself in the background engaging in tons of little behaviors that I engage in each day, and as I continued I realized just how annoying I was. Doing the same things over and over, careless of whether my actions were interfering with those around me or for Christ's Sake even necessary! Countless minutes of me checking and re-checking, reordering the displays on the counters and generally being annoying because it wasn't even my own desk space I was re-organizing!

Then came the video where several us were eating dinner together. I hate working second shift because they tend to take meal breaks together. Most people on first shift don't even take a lunch and working a mid-shift means you generally cover everyone else's meals. Because I am the manager it doesn't really matter when I take my lunch/dinner on second shift and last night three of us ate together. I hadn't brought anything and one of the minions bought me a meal because they were so thankful to have me there. I seriously dislike when people buy me food because then I obligated to eat it. Fast-forward, my impression of how dinner went was drastically different from the way it appeared on the video. I thought we all talked about the same thing, enjoyed our meal and it was nothing out of the ordinary. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I was provided a sandwich, a small side of potato salad, a drink and a cookie. You should have seen the look of terror on my face. You see me unwrap everything and put it in a certain order in front of me and you see me wringing my hands in anxiety. Nothing that out of the ordinary for someone with an eating disorder. But then the fun begins. I began with the potato salad, which in most peoples minds you just take bite after bite. Nope, not me. I actually go through it and dig out pieces of whatever in order of their color, leaving only the potato in the bowl. I literally cut the potato pieces in fours. (in fours??????????) After all that I finally eat the potatoes. I left everything else. Then I move to the sandwich. Everything comes OFF the sandwich so that I can neatly organize it and slice it up into fours. It's a freaking sandwich, BITE IT. Through all of this you watch me take a drink after every two bites. During all of this I am not participating in the conversational banter nor am I even looking at them. By the time I get to the cookie I am so stuffed from all the fluid that I abandon all hope of getting it down and offer it to a coworker that has a look of disbelief of what he just witnessed. Then you see me leave the breakroom which I know was to purge. After all that meticulous work you'd think I'd keep it. The last sound on the video was my coworker saying:

"Daaaaamn." as I left the room.

I was stunned. So then I began to think of all the millions of other things that I do each day because I tell myself I prefer to do them a certain way. I have a strong belief that if I do these things I will have a good day. For instance, I drive the same way to work each day and I don't just mean the same roads. I HAVE to stay in a certain lane until I get to a certain sign or I believe my day will suck. I smoke a cigarette at certain points in my drive even if I don't feel like smoking, because I have to do it to have a good day. I believe that if I see a series of certain numbers that something terrible is going to happen financially and the only way to stop it is to double check my bank account. This is only a glimpse of it too.

I then considered that I actually do have OCD and researched the best methods of treating the symptoms. Most say medication is key because anxiety reduction decreases the need to engage in the behaviors. Yeah, that isn't going to happen. A lot of research talks about CBT and teaching breathing exercises to reduce anxiety and such, but nothing I didn't already know. Others recommend simply stopping the behaviors and then processing the feelings around how it made you feel to not do them. Yeah, that won't happen either because I truly believe without these things I will perish. I just don't know, I'm stunned.