24 March 2021

My body peaked at age four. I weighed 33 pounds. I had dropped ten pounds like it was nothing. Sure, I was on the verge of being diagnosed with diabetes, and one of the symptoms happens to be weight loss. I was cranky and peed the bed, also symptoms associated with my new disease. It’s the first and only time a doctor told me I was underweight.

I’ve met people who tell me they have trouble gaining or maintaining weight. I stare at these people with my mouth agape. I’ve never had this problem. Well, except for that one time when I was in preschool. If I even think about a piece of chocolate cake my pants tighten. I’m always bewildered when someone tells me they forgot to eat.  Forgot to eat? It’s too much for me to comprehend. How is that possible? No matter how “busy” I may be, I’ve never missed a meal.

For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with food. Even as a kid I’m pretty sure I was always the most excited when snack time or a meal rolled around. I didn’t pick at my food. I enjoyed each bite and had no problem cleaning my plate. I was never the kid who told my mom or a friend’s mom that we’d be at the table in a minute. When “dinner” left their mouth I was on the move. Playtime was over.

It’s probably due to my piece of shit pancreas that I’ve become so engrossed with food. I mean I even made a career out of it. All my meals as a child were calculated and on a timer. I had to eat at a certain time and only eat the amount of carbs either my mom or I had planned six hours before. This was before a new more efficient type of insulin was introduced when I was in high school. No flexibility or spur of the moment meal ideas were allowed. And mindless snacking was not even an option. I was a svelte child until my boobs and hips came onto the scene. And then, when the insulin improved it was game over.

When my boobs sprang to life in high school I was consumed with what to do with them. One minute there was nothing and then overnight bam! They were always in the way. I tried to downplay their size. I wasted so much time fretting over the fact that one was slightly larger than the other. Little did I know that this is common for most women. No one bothered to tell me that. Of course, I never asked and did my best to hide and constrict them. It’s absurd now when I think about the things I worried about back then regarding my tits. 

I didn’t appreciate just how perky they once were. I mean they pointed up. Now it looks like I’m hauling two flat bags of flour around on my chest. Only when they’re fastened into a well made bra do they even remotely look presentable. Now my concerns are how fast they’re moving towards my knees.  No matter how hard I try to remember to do a self breast exam each month, I can’t seem to do it. They’re a couple of sagging time bombs. Now my worries aren’t that they’ve arrived, but that because there’s so much of them, so much could go wrong. 

It’s a hard truth that once I finally got over myself and became comfortable in my own skin, everything began to turn to shit. Some days I swear my entire body is covered in cellulite and everything is sagging south. Vitality, smooth skin and perkiness are wasted on the young. When I was in my youth, I was too insecure at the time to really appreciate how amazing things actually looked.  By the time I saw the light, it was too late. But at least now I really don’t waste too much time worrying about how things look. Besides it’s reassuring to know that things will just keep drooping as time goes on. So I might as well enjoy this semi-sag phase before things really hit the ground.

The other day I saw my reflection in the mirror and did a double take. Were my ribs visible through my skin? Could it be? Wow, I thought. Upon further inspection I realized it was cellulite. There was cellulite on my sides, just south of my armpits. On both sides. God forbid, the cellulite wasn’t symmetrical. Seriously, what the actual fuck? How does cellulite sprout on the rib cage? There was no mistaking it. My skin dimpled right around my bra line. I guess if I really wanted to find a silver lining when it came to my rib cage cellulite, at least it’s in a place that is covered most of the year. Though, it’s a real stretch to find something positive about rib cage cellulite.

I’ve been in my body for 35 years now. We’ve been through a lot together. Do I always love it? Hell no. I’m tired of seeing my thick bat-wing like arms every time they’re exposed. No matter how many weighted arm repetitions I do, they won’t budge. The arms are really like the rug of the body. They tie the whole thing together. You can’t escape them when looking at the whole picture. Same with the legs. It’d be nice not to have rug burn between my legs where the friction is evident from simply walking. Or, having holes in most of pants where my thighs meet. I really should learn how to sew patches and save some money on pants. 

Some days I avoid the mirror and other days I seek it out. There’s no feeling like when you can button your jeans without taking a deep breath in. When there’s wiggle room around the waistline I feel like I should go out and buy a scratch ticket. It feels so fantastic that I’m tempted to unbutton and remove my pants and do the whole process over again.  Just the same, when it’s a struggle to button or zip something I want to pull my hair out. 

I realized I’d never inherit my mother’s legs or her ability to look like a model in every single picture when I hit 30. I’m not sure why it took three decades for me to realize that the legs I saw reflected in the mirror were mine for keeps. Or why I couldn’t take a decent photo to save my life. It was nonnegotiable. My mom’s ankles are simply bone on bone, held together with the sheerest, thinest covering of skin. It’s like the wrapper of a fresh spring roll. We’re talking so light and delicate, that you’re not sure if there’s any skin at all mixed in with those bones. They are a work of art. 

My ankles look as if they’re wrapped in bubble wrap. Bubble wrap that could inflate or deflate depending on the time of day. My dad used to tease me about my “cankles.” That is until I pointed out that I had inherited his “cankles.” Excuse you, rude man, but these are all thanks to you, I told him. So instead of mocking them, you should take responsibility for them and apologize to me for passing them along. That shut him up. 

Sometimes I can see my ankles in the morning when I first wake up, but after standing on my legs for ten hours a day they don’t exist anymore. It’s like in exchange for having to work all day, they get back at me simply by blurring the line between ankle and calf. It figures I’d have lazy ankles. To be honest though, as much as my ankle situation bothers me, if I had a choice I’d take a working pancreas over killer ankles any day. 

If my mom had been any taller, she could have been a model. The evidence is in any and all photos of her. In the seventies she was a lean, tan, effortless bombshell with a great smile. We’re the same height, but our pictures look nothing alike. In any picture of me, there’s a 95% chance my eyes are closed and I still can’t quite figure out my best angle. Plus, I am so pale, I look like a ghost. I don’t get sun-kissed. I get fried. Nothing is effortless and it’s miraculous if I take a half decent picture. If a miracle does happen, it’s a real “dear diary” moment.

I haven’t stepped on a scale in a long time. And only do so when a nurse at the doctor’s office instructs me to hop on. I’ll remove my shoes, jacket, purse and anything else that might bare weight. Then I hold my breath and step on the scale as lightly as possible. It amazes me that we give so much power to a tiny piece of equipment. The scale seems to have overstepped and taken on a much bigger role because we’ve let it. I don’t want to bother with a contraption that can make me feel utterly crappy about myself when the numbers flash before my eyes and anyone else’s eyes passing by the semi-private area where the scale is kept. It’s taken me awhile, but I refuse to let the scale dictate how I feel. It’s not a good gauge for that. It’s more about how I feel in my own skin that determines how I feel about my body overall.

Now that I’m older and a little wiser I’ve grown to appreciate all that my body does and continues to do. Maybe it takes losing the use of one organ to really appreciate everything else that is still working on and in your body. Supposedly, we only get the one body for as long as we’re here, so I figure I might as well make the most of it. We’re in this together. Whether I can appreciate what I’m seeing in the mirror that day, or not. 

While some women dream about finding a great relationship, or having a toned body, I dream about a meal I ate six months ago. Perhaps, that’s why I prefer to be alone with a little extra cushioning. The thing is though, my body is like my ride or die partner for life. Without my body I wouldn’t get anywhere and without my brain it wouldn’t know where it was going. The body is a vessel required for living. And if you can’t love the one you’re with, you might as well make the most of the one you got while you have it.

10 March 2021

I went to therapy and discovered a lot of things I don’t like about myself. I entered my therapist’s office knowing that there were numerous reasons for me to be there. But, Jesus, I didn’t quite realize just how many reasons there could be or that would arise along the way. When my therapist, then a stranger to me, asked why I had come, I didn’t know where to begin. So, verbal diarrhea poured out of my mouth. And I didn’t get to everything before I paused, and noticed the overwhelmed look on her face. Or maybe I had only imagined that look. Perhaps, I was simply mirroring how I felt in my head and projecting onto her. It’s a year later and every Tuesday I’m still looking at her from across my screen. I guess I didn’t scare her enough to suggest a different therapist. Thank god. We both keep showing up and even when talking about my issues is the last thing I want to do, she’s figured out how to coax me into sharing. And then I feel better. Well, usually.

Therapy is a lot of fucking work. Some weeks it feels like a full time job. Instead of getting paid to show up though, you’re paying to be there. I keep asking my therapist when it’ll get easier. She says to be patient, that it takes time. All I’m really looking for is an estimate. It’s like being on a slow moving ride, sometimes you feel like you’re getting nowhere and sometimes you feel like you’re riding around in circles. But when you have a moment of clarity, a breakthrough, no matter how little, you know it’s worth it to stay on the ride. If we’re being honest, I’ll probably be on this ride for years.

Things that take a lot of work usually pay off. That’s definitely true of working on yourself. Change doesn’t happen overnight, or even week to week. Sometimes the further I dig, the more shit I tap into that I didn’t know was there or still there. It feels never-ending. I’m told this feeling is normal. It sounds crazy, but then again isn’t this the reason I’m doing all this? To reign in my craziness by untangling all the depression and anger and organizing it so that it’s no longer front and center, continuously attempting to stifle me and keep me from moving forward.

Like I mentioned, I’ve been in therapy for a year and I’m wondering how long I will have to keep this up. Will I have to keep going until I’m on my death bed?  Is my therapist as frustrated about hearing the same set of issues on repeat as I am telling her about them? Why haven’t I gotten over some of this shit? Why do I keep circling back to the same issues over and over? Why does everything seem to correlate? Therapy isn’t black and white. It’s a vast canvas of gray that needs to be explored and re-explored, until you’ve explored it to death and finally you can leave it in the past where it belongs. 

This all sounds fun and easy, right? Please sign me up, said no one ever. I find it grueling to talk about myself. I’d much rather just skip over that part in any setting. It turns out that a good therapist won’t let you sit in silence for fifty minutes. Sometimes I find myself asking her questions, simply because I’m tired of the sound of my own voice. I love when it takes a few minutes for her to formulate a question. It’s like bonus time. I ask her to explain what she’s asking  because sometimes I’m not sure, but more often than not, I’m just buying myself some more silence.

In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, I am someone who really needed therapy. Is there any person who can truly say they have everything figured out? I doubt it. Everyone can benefit from talking to an unbiased person who has no real involvement in their everyday life. No matter how sane they feel. This country would be a much different place if people were not only encouraged to go to therapy, but if the majority of us could also afford to go. It’d be nice if it was universally understood as the necessity it is and made a priority for all. 

A lot of things that truly stink still exist. I think we can all agree on that. One of them is the lack of understanding of how important it is to take care of your mental health. Even finding the resources and being able to afford something that feels like a luxury, a painful luxury at times, to me shouldn’t have to feel so out of reach. It took me weeks to find a therapist that was in my preferred network for my insurance company and then it took another few weeks to track one down who was taking new clients. These weeks of searching were critical in more ways than one. My depression was all consuming that even the thought of actually finding someone I felt a connection with was tiresome. But I also understood that staying on the path of doing nothing would be the worst thing I could do, no matter how overwhelmed I felt. Luckily, when I finally found someone my insurance company approved of, I also approved of her. 

The stigma surrounding mental health is still with us. We need to undergo a serious makeover for how we talk about, think about, teach about, and treat mental illness. It’s 2021, so things aren’t as bad as they once were, but that doesn’t mean we’re where we should be. If someone claims to be normal and denies ever having felt remotely crazy, I excuse myself from the conversation immediately. This person doesn’t exist. What is actually going on with this person? It’s the craziest ones that try to hide their mental state and some of them do it really well. I should know. I used to be one of those types of crazies. 

I haven’t watched the Woody Allen and Mia Farrow documentary on HBO yet, and I know that Woody isn’t someone that we can point to and praise any longer for some very serious reasons, but he was a pioneer in regards to mental health. I can recall multiple movies where his character had a therapist, or as he referred to them, an analyst.  This was back in the 1970s. He even encouraged and paid for Diane Keaton to see her own analyst in Annie Hall. Where is this kind of boyfriend now? It’s hard for me not to look at him with a renewed skepticism and less respect, but he was way ahead of his time when it came to normalizing therapy.

Back at the beginning of my depression I could have been nominated for an Oscar for my skill of pretending. If I mentioned to people that didn’t know me well, or even some that did, that I was depressed or had been depressed in the past most of those people had trouble believing me. But you’re such a happy person they’d say. Just because depression takes up a lot of space in my life, that doesn’t mean that I can’t also experience happiness. It’s not as if you can’t have one, if you have the other. The two aren’t exclusive. Sometimes I’ve even felt both in the same moment. 

Now I can’t shut up about how depressed I am. I literally went from one extreme to the other. I was a person with an invisibility cloak covering my depression and now I have zero problem with admitting to people that I am a complete looney tune. I feel a sense of freedom now that I am flying my crazy flag in tandem with my freak flag. I mean a lot depression can be genetic. So, basically I was born this way. Shout out to genetics! And I can’t change who I am at the core, plus I don’t want to. Imagine how much work it would be to start all over again from scratch. No way in hell do I want to do that.

I can make my craziness my own little bitch now. I call the shots. The anger, anxiety and depression don’t own me. I’m the puppet master pulling at my own strings. And now with the help of therapy and prozac the strings are more in line than they’ve ever been. Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed by how exhausting and draining therapy is, I remember how drained and lifeless I felt for so many years. The depression was exhausting, but trying to pretend I was just fine was equally and sometimes more exhausting. 

Every week I cross my fingers and allow myself to believe that this will be the week that I’m cured. Just kidding. I don’t know much, but I know this crap isn’t that easy. Maybe this will be the week I’ll finally run out of things to talk about and my therapist will suggest I come less often. Well, that hasn’t happened yet and I don’t see it happening in the near future. It turns out that I always have something to talk about. Sometimes it’s the same subjects over and over again. Each time I think I have exhausted a subject I plead with all that is holy, if anything like that exists, that this time will be the last. Whatever we’ve discussed will finally stick and I can finally let some shit go. Should be any day now.

It’s one thing to know that you need to change certain behaviors, but it’s another thing to put that thinking into action. I can understand some of my issues on an intellectual level. Like I understand why I need to figure out certain patterns or ways of thinking. It’s putting the changes into practice where I get hung up. The process of actually changing takes the form of baby steps. A really young baby. One that moves mere inches at a time. It won’t happen all at once. And while I’ve learned it’s okay to be disappointed with myself when I feel like I’m moving at a snail’s pace, or backtracking, the disappointment doesn’t have to control me. When I feel like I’m back in the same place I’ve worked relentlessly to get out of, I have to remind myself that I won’t always be here in this emotional state. There’s a gate that I can see, and hopefully will eventually walk through and close on my way out. 

Anger and an aggressive panic attack is what ultimately brought me to my therapist’s door. I was a walking volcano, ready to blow at any moment. I was a nightmare in the car. My road rage was at an all time new high. I completely lost my shit when some jerk cut me off or didn’t understand the concept of staying in one lane at a time. The panic attack occurred while I was driving home one night. In an instant I felt like I was hyperventilating. I broke out in a sweat and the tears came in hot and heavy. So heavy, I had to pull over because I couldn’t see the road anymore. I sat in the car beside the road desperately trying to slow my breathing. I don’t remember how long it took to be able to feel comfortable enough to start the car again and continue driving home. 

My anger scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to be ready to blow at any moment. I didn’t want it to eat me alive or dictate how I functioned, or more importantly didn’t function. Anger can be a good thing. I learned that letting go of anger, a process all its own, doesn’t mean that you have to excuse or accept what made you feel anger in the first place. Anger itself isn’t illogical and can actually be useful. When it goes unchecked and gets buried it can fester and turn to poison. It doesn’t take a genius to know that poison of any kind isn’t good for you.

There was plenty to work on, change, and figure out when I first started therapy. That became evident quickly. I also realized I’m a lot more resilient than I knew. Everything I had done in the past, every choice of how to deal or not deal with what I was experiencing has led me to this place. It may have taken awhile for me to get here, and this is by no means the final stop of my progress, but it sure feels nice to be in this place. I can honestly say that looking at myself under a microscope each week has been worth it. You have to look at the whole picture and all the pieces that make up the whole. I can’t think of anything more up close and personal. It never fails that the pieces I desperately want to skip over are the exact things that I need to sit with and examine. When you find the right person to break yourself down and build yourself back up into a fuller, healthier version of yourself that’s half the battle. The other half is to keep showing up week after week. 

24 February 2021

A boundary is the sort of thing that makes sense and sounds good in theory, but in actuality is incredibly difficult. While it’s beyond easy to like a post about the importance of boundaries on Instagram, which there are plenty, it’s a whole hell of a lot harder to set and remain firm in holding onto a boundary in real life. Just another thing that is easier said than done.

If you had told me five years ago that the idea of the five members of my immediate family having dinner together was a distant possibility I would have laughed. How absurd.  We’d been around each other for our entire lives, since the last time my parents had unprotected sex and my brother came into the picture, which was over three decades ago. That’s a lot of shared history for five people. A lot of ups and downs, good times, sad times, and plain bad times. These people are your family whether you like them all the time or not. Sometimes it seems like I have nothing in common with these people besides shared DNA.

A sibling relationship is sacred because if you’re lucky enough to have them, these people have known you forever, but in a different way from your parents. They’re probably some of the first people you learned how to get along with, communicate with, and share inside jokes with. They were always present under the same roof whether you were best friends that day or mortal enemies. Whichever one it happened to be, it was only temporary. Because tomorrow promised a whole new day of possibilities and problems, like who would get the last best flavor of granola bar in the variety pack.

My family hasn’t been in the same room with one another in about four years. Our distance started before the pandemic hit. I left Seattle in July of 2017 with all my crap in the trunk bed of a 1984 Nissan pickup and headed to Colorado. I didn’t say goodbye to my sister. I didn’t even tell her I was leaving. At the time I didn’t want her to know where I was living and that I had moved several states away. The last words we had shared hadn’t gone well. I had voicemails from her that I could play just in case I needed a refresh on why I wasn’t saying good bye, or much of anything to her at the moment. 

To understand this story and to begin to comprehend the reasoning for why I eventually had to cut all ties with my sister, we have to go back a few years. I had just returned to Seattle after living in Portland. Within a few months of being back under my parents’ roof, all three of us kids had returned to the nest. I’m sure my parents were so proud. Here were all their fully grown adult children who had left home, gone to college, and lived in other states and countries and now we were back on their doorstep with all our belongings.  

It was a full house. This time around felt much fuller. Maybe because we all took up more space physically and emotionally. It’s as if we all enjoyed the first time around so much, we figured why not wait a bunch of years, move back in together and do the whole thing over again? I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Terrible fucking idea. 

So there we were, one big happy family trying to live our best lives, while maintaining some level of sanity. I should mention that both my brother and sister are bipolar and during this time both dipped into episodes, usually not in tandem, but it felt like one right after the other. The dates are a little fuzzy for exactly how long we were all living together again. Mainly because I have tried to desperately forget much of those few years spent in close quarters again. Sadly, I know it was at least over a year. 

It had been years since I witnessed a manic episode up close, but I sure had ample opportunity this time around. My sister is very intelligent and her work had always been a big part of her life. She quit her job and moved home, and promptly grew restless after going so long without being challenged in any real way. Besides being intelligent, she’s also one of the bravest people I know. She dropped everything and moved to foreign countries all alone multiple times and made a life for herself wherever she lived. She was pretty fearless. 

She’s five years older and even at a young age I understood that I would never quite follow in her near perfect footsteps. I’d never be the class valedictorian or excel in ballet, or be so effortlessly beautiful. Things didn’t come as easily to me, as they seemed to for her. I didn’t resent her. I admired her. Especially when she uprooted her life on a whim and moved to New York and worked her way up in one of the biggest publishing houses in existence. 

Because she’s older, we didn’t really grow close until I was in high school and then more so when I went to college. We talked regularly and had a close sister relationship. That’s not to say there weren’t any strains in the relationship even back then. I had to take a break from communicating with her a couple of times. Usually after she said something completely absurd and insensitive that I couldn’t move past right away. 

One time she insinuated I was responsible for our brother being diagnosed with bipolar, which I know isn’t how mental illness works. It stung nevertheless. She refused to relent, asking how I was handling all that guilt that I must have felt for pushing him over the edge into the murky waters of bipolar disorder and ultimately into a hospital room. It was ugly. I felt like an awful person, not to mention a horrible sister.  Even with the knowledge that I couldn’t be responsible for his diagnosis, I still felt like shit. I stopped talking to her for while after that. 

We went on a road trip several years ago from New York to Las Vegas. She had invited me on the trip, told me she’d pay for my flight, the trip, and the money I’d miss from taking time off from the restaurant I was working at then.  I agreed. Things were already looking bumpy when I drove the rental car out of New York City. It turned into the trip from hell. I sat in the staircase of a Hampton Inn Hotel in Little Rock and debated getting a taxi to the airport and flying back to Montana and not finishing the trip. It was that bad. 

Each time I told her I needed some time away from her, she never once seemed concerned with what she must have done to make me want to not have any communication with her. She knew I’d come around and drop whatever it was and move on for the sake of our relationship and the sake of simply keeping the peace within our family. And I did that. For years. She never apologized for anything she said or did and eventually I let it go. 

This pattern we found ourselves in dramatically changed after her last major episode, which began while we were all living together. This episode felt different. She would slip in and out of reality when it appeared convenient for her. Soon she was unrecognizable to me and our family. One night she woke our whole house up at 3 or 4 in the morning banging on the front door of my parents’ house. She was drunk, demanding to be let inside because she was starving and freezing. My parents told her that because it was so late she could sleep on the porch, that was the deal if she came home at that hour. 

She went into a rage. She stood on the front porch shouting and threatening to wake all the neighbors up, and go door to door asking them for money to get some food. Then she threatened to walk to the park near our house so she could just wait around to get raped. My parents let her in. I’m pretty sure all the neighbors were awake at that point. Soon all of us were in the kitchen, most of us groggy from being awakened from a dead sleep, watching as this complete stranger, who looked like my sister, opened the fridge and cupboards looking for food. Then she lashed out at all of us one at a time. She called us crazy and said we were the problem in this situation. There’s nothing you can say to a person in this state, or in a moment like this. Nothing sinks in. I left the kitchen and went back to bed.  

At the beginning of her episode she slept in the house, then the backyard, then the porch, and finally my parents refused to let her in the house. She became a vagrant in the neighborhood we grew up in. I’d see my sister on the streets, at the beach, and in every bar and restaurant within a couple mile radius. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She would scream in front of the apartment building my brother and I eventually moved into. Even when she wasn’t physically nearby, she was on my voicemail, leaving messages during all hours of the night in a voice that was filled with utter hatred. 

She was relentless. Slandering our names, especially our dad’s, going into rages, threatening us, and becoming so vile I no longer recognized her. She was kicked out of our parent’s house, out of my apartment, out of friends’ places. She called me from jail once, demanding I pay her bail, because I owed her. I said no. My parents said no. She tried to get me to pass the phone to my coworkers, who were very familiar with the situation and told me they were uncomfortable with how much shit she was talking about me to them. Honestly, jail was probably the safest place for her at the time. That’s saying something.

No request was too invasive and no demand was too grand enough for her. She dined and dashed all over town. She did it where I worked. I’d walk into work and she’d be sitting at the bar, running up a tab she knew she wouldn’t be paying, with the smile of a psychopath spreading across her face when she saw me.  

It felt like she had one purpose in life. It was to make sure I knew the part I played in being responsible for the situation she found herself. I finally deleted all the voicemails she left, telling me I was an awful person, and more pointedly an awful sister. I no longer recognized the voice of the person in those messages, but one thing was clear, I had failed her as a sister. Everything was my fault. It got so bad I seriously considered getting a restraining order.

After I moved four years ago, our communication was limited to a random text or email. Until I got a birthday card from her last year. In the card she told me she loved me and was confused why we didn’t talk anymore. Though this was hardly the first time she appeared confused as to why we were taking a break from each other, it was the first time I hadn’t given in. I hadn’t let her break down a boundary that I painstakingly built to protect myself. All the other boundaries and lines I had drawn with her were written in the sand. They weren’t set in stone, but rather vague, and not intended to survive a strong wind. How could they? I couldn’t not have a relationship with my sister? Could I? Who does that?

I sent her a letter, explaining in great detail why I felt she had gone too far, and that I needed an apology or an attempt at an apology. I needed to see a glimmer of interest from her that showed she wanted to reconcile or make amends with me and our family. Until that happened, we wouldn’t have a relationship. I basically told her that she needed to take some responsibly for herself and her actions over the last couple of years. I know she’s bipolar, but that doesn’t entitle her to a pass to treat the people in her life like shit. That doesn’t work for me. I don’t think that’s fair. Sometimes I don’t know if I was more upset with how she had treated me, or our dad. He took the brunt of her rage and I haven’t been able to let that go, no matter how much I try. 

Her reply came nine months later. It was an email. I’m not surprised by what she wrote, but after almost a year of therapy, where a great deal of time was spent discussing her and our relationship and boundaries, I was surprised by how much what she said and didn’t say affected me. Had I gotten nowhere? And finally it hit me. I set boundaries with her for a reason. I was very aware that I couldn’t let her play a role in my life because I always felt like shit when I did. I don’t want to feel that kind of guilt and sadness anymore. I can’t do it. I have plenty of other things to feel bad about. No need to add any more reasons to be depressed and anxious. I felt awful for a week after I read and reread her email. Why was I allowing myself to feel this way again when I said I wouldn’t?

The boundaries I set and abandoned in the past were fluff, because I didn’t know how to be okay with shutting the door on her for good. In the past she knew I’d eventually give in and forget about what she had done or said that bothered me enough to need some time away from her. I’ve known her all my life, except for the last four years. I don’t know anything about her day to day life now. What she’s reading. What t.v. she’s binging. Simple things. At this point she’s a stranger to me. It’s taken me a really long time to be comfortable with knowing that while my sister is alive and well, at least from what I hear, our relationship and any serious communication is dead. I’d be lying if I told you I always feel comfortable with what our relationship has become. The truth is I’m not. I may never be.

It’s not natural to cut a family member out of your life. I don’t recommend it unless you have exhausted all other options. That doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. I can’t begin to explain how it feels to have a sibling who is very much alive, but one that you can’t have any real communication with because it destroys you. I told a guy I was seeing a while back that I didn’t have a relationship with my sister. He didn’t get it. He told me he couldn’t imagine never talking to his own sister and didn’t know how I didn’t talk to mine. I didn’t know how to react. So I didn’t. What I should have said is this isn’t the result I’d strived for and the guilt I felt for keeping her at a distance felt like it was eating me alive. It took years for me to realize this was my only option if I wanted to protect myself.

I’d argue I’ve exhausted all the other options a few times over the years. Something changed for me after I received her latest email.  I couldn’t allow this person to bulldoze me again and again and then be the one that had to give in to make things peaceful. There’s a part of me that desperately wants to in order to keep my family together, or at least to be able to eat a meal together again. Each time I cut her off, or took a hiatus from her, I’d be wracked with guilt. I’d feel like a terrible person, just like she had told me I was. Maybe it’s not so bad I’d tell myself. Perhaps, it’s mostly in my head. You can only fabricate falsities like this for so long. It’s not a permanent solution. 

My family, including my parents, set boundaries with her. But those boundaries didn’t stick. Currently, the only boundary still being enforced is the one I set. I was succeeding at keeping a boundary, but I also understood that not having a relationship with my sister would be one of the greatest failures of my life. It’s hard not to think of it as a failure, but maybe that way of looking at it doesn’t help. I cut the toxic connection we had. But that can’t erase the failure I feel or the sadness that never seems to fully go away. If I give into her, I fail myself. If I hold my own, I fail my family. At least that’s what it feels like. We’re a broken family. It’s weird to accept that your family probably can’t spend an hour together without shit hitting the fan. 

I finally understood with her last email that our relationship couldn’t be resolved. At least not now. She isn’t ready. And I’m not ready to give in. I’ve come too far to let my guilt rule my decision making. I can’t keep doing the same thing over, giving in, and expecting a different result. Clearly that hasn’t worked in the past, and I finally learned to accept that it won’t work in the future. All I can do is love her and hope she’s happy and healthy from a distance. That’s good enough for now because it has to be.

10 February 2021

Insulin production in my body shut down for good in 1989. No bail out could revive it. In fact, there wasn’t a shot in hell to make my pancreas work again. The only option, if I wanted to continue living, was to outsource the insulin. At age four I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

A life of needles, insulin vials, carbohydrate counting, finger pricks, ice packs and blood sugar monitoring ensued. A lot of tears, frustration and anger also accompanied my new lifestyle. Not all at once, but throughout the three plus decades I have been lucky enough to be a diabetic. 

I wasn’t too keen on the idea of broadcasting my condition. I didn’t want to be treated differently. Or seen as inferior in any regard. That wasn’t for me.

In middle school my friend Ellie had severe asthma. When I think of Ellie now, the first thing I think about is her asthma. It defined her. The asthma was serious. She had a breathing machine she used nightly, so it was a big deal. No denying that. 

Ellie was so much more than a girl with asthma though. But it was so hard to acknowledge who she really was because the asthma dominated the headlines for three years of middle school.

I didn’t want to be known as Heidi, the diabetic, like Ellie was known as the girl with asthma. I wanted to be as detached from my disease as humanly possible. Very few people, outside of close friends and teachers, knew I was diabetic. I preferred it that way.

Ultimately I accepted, even in middle school, that this condition wasn’t a choice. That this shit would be with me forever. I made an unconscious vow to myself that I would be as responsibly detached from diabetes as I could allow. Responsibly detached, meaning I’d do just what I needed to manage it, but I refused to let it take over my life. That was too much. 

I’d learn that it’s all too easy to tilt the balance too far in either direction. If I gave it too much power then I felt suffocated by it. On the other hand if I was too loose with how seriously I dealt with it, I could set myself up for a poorly managed disease, which only leads to further stress and more complications. A real win win in other words.

At college parties I’d seek out the most sober of my friends and have them present when I gave myself my nightly shot. At this point, I was giving myself a minimum of four shots per day. One before each meal to conquer the carbohydrates I was ingesting and one each night, that provided a steady flow of insulin for a 24 hour period. 

I believe in second opinions. So at night if I was out and alcohol was involved I’d have my sober friend double check my handiwork. The right type of insulin, check, and the correct dose, another check. Then they could verify later if I forgot whether or not I’d taken my late night shot. This is a question that comes up whether I’ve had a drink or if I am stone cold sober. Probably something to do with doing the same thing all day long, every day, of every year.

To some this may seem like a lot of unnecessary risk and extra work just to have a little fun. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply refrain from partying? Well, sure. But I was still hot on the idea that I was just a regular college kid. Plus, I feared I’d wake up fifty years from now and regret never partying or experimenting with drugs. I didn’t want that.

I’ve shot up all over the place. In porter potties at festivals, in  moving cars, on planes, inside, outside, alone, with a group, in multiple states, and in several countries. I could do that shit while I’m asleep. The only time I’ve fucked up a dose was when I was sober. I continuously blurred the line between being just responsible enough to get away with abandoning the responsibility that living with a chronic disease requires.

In the back of my mind I knew that the better I managed my disease the less likely I’d have complications down the line. Doctors told me this, especially in high school. And though I never had excessive periods of time with seriously outrageous blood sugar readings, I only accepted being diabetic with a grain of salt. Of course the tighter the numbers, the less complications, but I also understood that I’d have to deal with complications no matter how exemplary I took care of myself because that’s how this disease works. It doesn’t kill you, but the longer you have it, it will wreck havoc on your eyes, kidneys, and so many other areas of the body. 

I asked my younger self, what was a few extra years if I was lucky, without complications if it meant that I didn’t really get to try anything or pretend for a few moments that my body wasn’t a ticking time bomb? I understood that ultimately there was no way of skating through this disease blemish free. That wasn’t even an option on the table. I decided to be as responsible as possible when I turned the other cheek at responsibility. 

A few years ago I walked into an outhouse at the end of a long walk from our campsite to the entrance gates of the Sasquatch Music Festival. It was a warm May day at the Gorge. I closed the door to the outhouse, looked around and began to laugh uncontrollably. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I was in there. So I let myself out and joined the group I was with. Of the ten or so of us, I think only two of us hadn’t taken acid. I was not one of the two. 

I felt amazing. Acid is like mushrooms, but on steroids. Everything is brighter, reality is distorted, and literally everything is hilarious. I was almost through the gate check area with my friend, who I called Dolphin. I had just showed the very patient attendants all the contents in my bag, telling them in great detail why I had needles, vials of insulin and ice packs. I’m pretty sure they hadn’t asked, but that didn’t stop me. I was a chatterbox. It’s like someone had put a whole roll of quarters in me all at once.

Just as I was getting my ticket scanned I reached into my bra and found a fifth of whiskey in there. Nobody asked if I was carrying anything, but I happily offered this information up. I pulled it out, completely perplexed as to how it got in there and how long it had been in there. Somehow it didn’t occur to me that I had put it in there to sneak through for my friend Dolphin. The attendant gave me a disapproving look and took the bottle from me and sent me into the festival. Dolphin, also on acid, saw the whole thing and couldn’t believe I had offered up the whiskey just like that. It wasn’t intentional I assured him. 

We found our group on the grassy hill. The band Flight of the Concords was onstage. The mood was light and the giggles were coming in droves. After Flight of the Concords left the stage, Mars Volta appeared. The mood changed drastically. I don’t recommend seeing Mars Volta on acid. They come across really angry and scary. I thought I was in trouble. I shivered in my flip flops, another big no no for diabetics. Why flip flops, you might ask? Something to do with feet and circulation problems. Although, at the time wearing the flip flops seemed like less of an offense than the acid. 

Lucky for me, Dolphin was there to distract me from the scary sounds coming from the stage. Dolphin was a funny dude anyway, but my god the kid was relentless. I couldn’t tell you how much time actually passed. I laughed so hard and then uncontrollably hard.  Soon I found myself overheated, out of breath and in severe pain. 

It felt like boulders were parked on my chest. I was confused and felt like I might be dying. Dolphin told me I just got back from being transported from the festival to the hospital because I had a heart attack. 

Holy shit. That certainly explained the heaviness I felt in my chest and the shortness of breath. He told me I had a heart attack from laughing so much, but that I had survived and now I was back to enjoy the music. Whoa. I couldn’t believe it. That was way too cool. Not only did I give myself a heart attack and survive, but then I was back at the show like nothing had even happened. That’s acid for you. The impossible is suddenly possible.

Plus Mars Volta had finished by the time I returned from my heart attack escapade, so I didn’t need to be so scared any longer. Wow, I thought. I pulled out my glucose meter and checked my sugar level, believing it had to have risen with the heart attack. To my delight, it pointed only slightly elevated. Better to be a little above, than dip low, because the way my body felt, it was like I was riding one big low wave. 

Eventually, we all felt strong enough to move locations. We found ourselves on the floor, surrounded by people dancing, laughing and celebrating with their own group of friends. My mind was blown for the millionth time that day as Wayne Cohen from the Flaming Lips rolled off the stage in a giant bubble. Was it real or was my mind playing a trick on me? He was all over the crowd, and everyone was going insane. He floated by, still singing, while the rest of the band stayed back onstage. It was incredible. 

Call me crazy but I believe that whatever a person does to their own body is entirely up to them alone. I’m the one that has to inhabit this one body for as long as I’m here. Therefore how I take care of it falls on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. People I’ve known and complete strangers have all weighed in on how I manage my disease. Sometimes the concerns are simply that, concerns. But at other times it’s pure judgement.

To my parent’s credit, they didn’t participate in any judgment or criticism. Maybe they understood that telling another person how to live with their disease, even their daughter, really wasn’t up to them. Some things, most things, you have to figure out on your own. I’m grateful for that. 

I can appreciate some of this concern that has been brought to my attention over the years. But what I wish is for some of these critical judgers to be forced to be diabetic for a week. Hell, even just for a day. Then I want them to tell me honestly if at the end of the day they don’t want to have a cocktail and pretend for the smallest moment that they don’t have to feel the weight of what being diabetic feels like. Even if that feeling is only fleeting. There are no days off, and no vacations from a chronic disease.

I’d love to tell you that now that I am older and wiser, I am the perfect little diabetic. But I can’t tell you that. No diabetic can. Maybe we haven’t all tried drugs, but is anyone really perfect? I think not. I will never be the poster girl for diabetes and that’s fine by me. That sounds pretty boring anyway.

After 31 years of frustrations, disappointments, and bad news I’ve learned to balance a little steadier between managing this disease responsibly and having as much fun as possible. It’s hard not to learn really quickly that even if you do everything right, eat healthy, exercise, and shoot up consistently, your numbers can still be off. 

I can’t begin to describe how frustrating it is to do everything you should be doing, and not doing the things you shouldn’t be, like wearing flip flops or drinking heavily, and yet still you can’t for the life of you figure out why your numbers don’t align with all the good and proper things you’re doing. It’s so fucking irritating. But, I guess that’s life. You do your best and hope it all doesn’t go to shit. 

Recently, my eye doctor found traces of diabetic retinopathy. She sent me to a retina specialist, where I was blinded, injected with dye and had a photo shoot for each retina. It was a really great experience. Was this diagnosis all my fault? Probably. Although my numbers have never been stronger and I’ve never had a tighter reign on this disease, I still had liquid leaking out of the littlest blood vessels in my eyes. I was told that because there was leaking blood vessels in my eyes, the blood vessels in other organs were also leaking. Gross. Now I was a leaky diabetic mess. 

The specialist probably should have called in sick the day I went to see him. I asked a lot of questions. I always do, especially for how much these appointments cost. I asked if tight control is the only way to avoid retinopathy? It helps he said, but it also matters how long a patient has been diabetic. I was thirty plus years in, so my kidneys or eyes could be faltering by now, even if I had been the most disciplined diabetic alive. It’s a toss up when complications and which complications take place he told me. 

I may not have been seeking validation for some of my choices over the years, but it was nice to hear from a professional that a lot of this disease was out of my control. It’s sobering when you realize you don’t have much control over your own body. No matter what you do for it, or how you tend to it, it’s out of your hands. It could be fine one minute, and betray you the next.

Now that the retinopathy has made inroads in my eyes, I’ve paused to contemplate if I’d do everything the same over again. I would. Sometimes I got too good at pretending I wasn’t diabetic, but that was worth the price of living in the moment for me. Diabetes is a disease I deal with every hour of the day, but I’ve managed not to let it rule my life. So far I’ve refused to let it define me. You have to play with the hand you’re dealt in the best way you know how without losing your sanity. At least, that’s what I’ve tried to do.

26 January 2021

My therapist asked me what my ideal relationship looked like. I told her a long distance one. She wasn’t thrilled by this response. 

I told her until general conditions regarding men improved, I didn’t want to have much to do with them. The effort usually wasn’t worth it. So why bother? Plus, I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I’m with a creep, or worse, an absolute psychopath. I’ll pass.

I have yet to feel an urgency to find a mate. Perhaps that will change but it’s been fairly consistent for three plus decades. Even as a child I was content to be alone. Sure I liked my family and friends, but when the playdate ended I was more than happy to enjoy some me time. Is this abnormal? Could be. 

One year for Christmas I received a Ken doll. He was alluring at first. Shiny and new, but I soon realized he wasn’t as cool as Barbie. His accessories and clothes were lacking. Even the clothes I made for Barbie out of paper towels looked better on Barbie than on Ken. The effort I put into making his personalty more interesting seemed tiresome as well. 

I quickly realized Barbie was more fun when she was hanging out with her friends, the other Barbies, or when she was alone. Not when she was attached to Ken. Soon Ken was less and less in the mix when it came time to play Barbie. I think my brother enjoyed playing with the Ken doll, not often, but I’m sure it was a pleasant respite from always having to be one of the Barbies.

Barbie didn’t really need Ken. I questioned his relevance and often wondered what all the fuss about being in a couple was about. Barbie and Ken were advertised as the perfect couple. In my eyes Ken didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. It only made sense to me as a small child to assume that a human boyfriend would probably fall flat just like Ken had.

Barbie wasn’t the only one with a man in her life that I couldn’t wrap my little kid head around. I read a lot of Nancy Drew growing up. Nancy is a badass, who drove a cool car, a mustang, and who could solve any mystery. She was fearless and unstoppable and really good at her job. Nancy was the embodiment of a role model.

The only problem I have with the Nancy Drew series is Ned, Nancy’s boyfriend. Talk about a dud. I didn’t understand why Ned was even in the books. To me, he just distracted from the important mystery at hand. I found him annoying, and frankly a little too needy. Nancy had a lot on her plate and Ned didn’t add anything meaningful to the story. 

I remember literally skimming over the Ned sections and jumping back in when the story got back on track. If there are any Ned supporters out there I’d love to know why. Surely, you must have your reasons. 

Looking back, I seemed to have a lot of issues with the male figures in the books I read and the toys I played with as a child. I didn’t understand what was so great about them or why they couldn’t live up to the hype. Or more importantly why their existence was so essential. 

As a kid I grasped that boys and girls were different and possessed different parts. At a young age I was taught that your privates are your business. They were off limits for show and tell. A your eyes only sort of thing.

So you could understand my confusion when I saw a penis while walking home from school one day. I did a double take. I hadn’t imagined it. It was really there in broad daylight. I saw a stranger, a grown man, with his pants down and his junk exposed leaning against a fence not far from where we stood on the sidewalk. I turned to my older sister, maybe a fifth grader at the time, and asked what the deal was. “Why is that man’s pants down?” And, “doesn’t he know that you aren’t supposed to show off your privates?”

I asked a lot of questions, using my outside voice because we were outside. I knew it wasn’t cool to let your privates out when you were outside. My mom told me that. My sister tried to shush me, but I needed answers. She was wise enough to keep me walking and talking so that we could pass the man and his exposed penis. I’m fairly certain she guided me to the other side of the street, to put a little extra distance between us and the penis that shouldn’t have been on full display. 

As we passed, I noted the man did not appear phased by us gawking at what we saw. He didn’t pull his pants back up when he heard a little girl loudly asking about his penis. He just left his dick dangling in front of him. I was seriously perplexed. 

Hadn’t anyone told this guy that it’s impolite to show your dick off to anyone who hasn’t asked to see it?  Something tells me the pervert probably knew better, but clearly couldn’t help himself from exposing himself to children.

If men lived by the rule that you only show your dick to someone when asked, we’d live in a very different world. Keep that shit in your pants fellas. It ought to be easy to leave your dick in your pants and only let it out when it receives an invitation to make an appearance. I learned early on that common sense thinking when it came to one’s penis was a little too murky to navigate for far too many men.

My first dick run in happened when I was in kindergarten. I’d learn that it would only be the beginning of living in a world with actual dicks and an abundance of dick-like behavior. Sometimes it was easy to tell if someone was a dick right away, but others were a little more nonchalant about their dick-like tendencies.

Take my former coworker Kyle. I had worked with Kyle for a while and had hung out with him and his girlfriend before they broke up. We were friends at work and outside of work. One night after work I walked to a bar with some coworkers, including Kyle. I don’t recall anything of note that happened at the bar that night. At the end of the night I walked home with my coworker Kyle.

Kyle’s house was closer to the bar than mine. So we stopped there. I figured I’d sleep on his couch and walk home in the morning. For some reason someone was already on the couch. Could have been a roommate’s friend. Kyle said I could sleep in his room. I didn’t think anything of sleeping in Kyle’s bed next to him. 

Not long after getting into bed, Kyle got a little fresh. A little too fresh. I wasn’t into Kyle. We were just friends. I told him to go to sleep. I continued to shut down his advances, but he persisted. I worried that his persistence was starting to resemble aggression. I informed him, again, we wouldn’t be sleeping together. I debated whether I should get up and walk the rest of the way home. Sure it was the middle of the night, but it wasn’t that much farther. In that moment it  seemed like a safer bet, rather than deal with Kyle.

Before I could make a decision, Kyle passed out. I didn’t sleep much and left as soon as the sun came up. I walked home thinking a lot less of Kyle. 

He apologized about it later. It seemed sincere. He admitted it wasn’t cool. We were just friends I’d told him. He said it wouldn’t happen again. Yeah, no shit I thought. Like I’d ever plan to find myself in a similar, or any situation, with him again.

Years after I’d moved away, I found myself back in town for a bachelorette party. I ran into Kyle at a brewery. I said hi and made brief small talk, planning on rejoining my ladies at a nearby table. 

In our short conversation Kyle asked how my life as a lesbian or whatever I considered myself was going. I laughed This struck me as odd. Kyle knew I wasn’t gay. If I were gay, I’d be gay. Of course there have been many times and situations I wished I was a lesbian, including that one time Kyle made me feel really uncomfortable.

Then it hit me. He was still pissed I had shut him down when he tried to have sex with me. Clearly he had not gotten over his bad behavior, but instead of owning up to it, he felt the need to blame me for what didn’t happen. Cool.

He couldn’t actually think the only reason I didn’t sleep with him was because I was a lesbian. But the truth was that me being a lesbian was a more satisfying explanation other than I simply had zero desire to be anything but the most platonic of friends with him.

What did this twerp think, that he was God’s gift to women? I beg to differ. No thank you. Move along jackass.

It’s telling because I know that he knows I’m not into women, and yet this was his lame attempt to nullify his ego. I had thought that night revealed a lot about Kyle, clearly he’s even more pathetic than I originally thought.

I wish I had some snarky remark to respond with at the time, but I just smiled and said I needed to rejoin the gaggle of women I was with. I didn’t bother to wait and see if he would ask if all the women I was with were also lesbians. I mean there were a lot of us and we seemed to be enjoying ourselves and no men were a part of the festivities.That would be all the criteria Kyle needed to go on. Plus no one in the group was showing much interest in him, so the chances of the table leaning towards the lesbian persuasion ran high according to his calculations. I walked away from him, utterly alarmed at the audacity of this asshole. 

It’s been a long time since I played with Barbie, or devoured a Nancy Drew mystery. I loathed both of their boyfriends and the need for them to have them in the first place. It felt so automatic that when you get older you needed to look for your person. We are taught to believe that there is one special person for each of us. But what if there’s not? What if you just meet a lot of unremarkable people you’d never want to spend a great deal of time with. If you are lucky enough to find someone you not only can stand, but also enjoy being with, shouldn’t that simply be a bonus and not a requirement for a successful life? 

My own experiences, especially early on, taught me that life is full of dicks. Is it worth navigating through the douche bags until you find one that doesn’t utterly revolt you? I don’t know. Maybe. But if you don’t find one worth it, no need to fret. You can rest easy because ultimately you are more than enough all on your own, whether you realize it yet, or not. 

13 January 2021

Thank you Prozac.  What a difference one pill can make. Who knew? I suppose psychiatrists and experts knew, but I had no idea. I’m a convert now.  I didn’t quite know what to expect when I decided I needed to try medication because I was tired of feeling the way I did, and had for a really long time. Not only am I depressed and riddled with anxiety at all hours of the day, but I’m also profoundly angry. I had grown used to the depression and the shadow it cast over my life, figuring it was simply normal. The anxiety would trickle in and out, more so depending on outside circumstances. Then Trump became president and the gloom set in.  The pandemic hit and shit hit the fan. I grew frustrated with the sheer volume of people who couldn’t understand either the need or the purpose of the Black Lives Matter protests and  movement sweeping across America. Soon I could barely get through a work day. Then it was during a day off that I felt as though my anxiety was strangling me. 

The depression and the anxiety were both alarming to me, and had grown in strength and size over what felt like a small period of time. The anger took on a life force all its own. Everything set me off, especially the smallest most insignificant thing. And I couldn’t let it go. The anger took up residence within me and it felt like it was going to be a permanent move. I grew angry that I was angry, which in turn fueled my newfound rage to alarming levels. A really great equation. It’s exhausting to be so angry all of the time. I tried exercise, mediation, and journaling to ease the anger. I found that these activities only abated the anger briefly, but they couldn’t combat it and forget about taming it. 

Anger found me at every turn. I found myself irrationally irate while driving, dealing with traffic and all the assholes on the road. I no longer saw other drivers as people trying to get from one place to the other, now they were simply pushy little shits getting too close, not using their turn signal and just taking up too much space on the road. I grew angry at all the small stuff, but it had started to seep over into all the bigger challenges in my life. I couldn’t let go of the anger I felt toward my sister for her behavior toward myself and the rest of our family during her last major bipolar episode. I was angry at the diabetes I had been burdened with for 30 years. My anxiety threw my blood sugar readings so out of whack that I felt I would implode at any moment. I grew angry with society and friends for constantly telling me I should date. I have no desire to date. Why put any effort into a relationship with a man? Seems like a dead end to me. Somehow I still found some men attractive, even after all the sexual harassment and abuse allegations.  I just didn’t want to have anything to do with them on an emotional level. 

I found myself under attack from a triple threat, what with the anxiety and depression and my new penchant for anger. I was sinking. I attempted antidepressants years ago while in college, but never really gave them the time needed for them to get to work. It became clear to me that I needed to give them another go. I couldn’t keep this shit up. It was already taking a toll on my body and my sanity. Enough was enough. I needed to put a stop to the chaotic state of my mind. 

So I made an appointment with a doctor and told her about my anger, the anxiety and the depression. It was a real lengthy diatribe. She wrote me a prescription for Prozac, well the generic form of prozac, which of course is some name that I cannot pronounce, so let’s just call it prozac. I popped my first pill and crossed my fingers. That night my blood sugars normalized by the morning. It was wild. I felt like I hit the jack pot, but without all the turmoil that usually comes attached to a big win. After a couple weeks I found I could move through life a little easier, no longer spending an abhorrent amount of time feeling anxious or angry. I can’t remember feeling this free, at least not in a long time.

At one time my brain was filled with endless thoughts, anxiety, and sad memories. Those things are still there, but now they’re tucked into the crevices of my brain, no longer taking up prime real estate. There’s open space now, where once there was no vacancy. All this extra room feels like a gift and an opportunity to fill my brain with new thoughts, new ideas, maybe new ways of thinking. Ultimately, the clutter that once stuffed my brain no longer holds as much power it once had, and that is truly liberating. 

My mind has a clarity and a stillness that hadn’t been present for a really long time. For years I hoped there would be an explanation for why I felt so stuck, or mentally paralyzed. I think the reason I couldn’t pursue anything, and even the thought of trying to put myself out there was so harrowing was because I needed something to quiet my mind and guide me steadily from an idea to action. I needed something to lift the dam and keep things flowing. The first time I remember feeling stuck was after I somehow managed to graduate college. I was utterly burnt out. I had a journalism degree and no ambitions to do anything with it. I made a few small attempts at finding work that involved writing, but ultimately I stuck with what felt comfortable, what I knew could I could do and what paid the bills. Restaurants were always a source of comfort to me, especially being in the kitchen. So that’s where I stayed year in and year out, across multiple states. 

I could see where I wanted to be in life but couldn’t turn that desire into reality. So I kept my head down and pushed through depression to make it through the day. It wasn’t bleak all day everyday. I could forgo the heaviness that accompanied the depression for periods of time. I knew it was possible to feel good, but these lapses in time were simply that, they weren’t a guarantee. Feeling good became fleeting, offering mere glimpses into how things could feel “normal.” Whether knowing that I could feel normal was within reach, if only I could grasp it and hold onto it, was helpful or hindering isn’t clear to me.  Is it better to know something is out there and attainable, but perhaps nearly impossible to sustain? After all these years I still don’t know the answer. Perhaps that’s no longer the question I should be asking.

Depression for me has never been completely crippling. What I mean by that is even though I could feel a constant burden of feeling like piss, I still managed to go to work, exercise and find the joy in simple things. I realize now that I put an immense amount of pressure on myself to get things done, to appear as if nothing were wrong, that ultimately it made me feel even worse. I was a high functioning depressed person. I’m sure a lot of people can relate. I very rarely allowed myself to wallow, and only on rare occasions did I throw myself a pity party. I think this maintenance that I forced myself to attain caused me to not fully understand just how much I was suffering internally, because I never sat in those feelings, never really let them see the light of day. I squashed those thoughts or memories in a corner of my brain and left them there to fester. 

It’s only just dawned on me that I really don’t need to feel this way. Once I acknowledged that I began to see things differently. I want to confront my sadness and invite it to sit with me so that I can hash it out internally, then drop it for good so that it just becomes a thing of the past. It no longer holds the power to define me. It loses significance.  I realized that in my case I couldn’t do this solely on my own, or even with the help of a therapist. I needed to bring in the big guns. What I needed was antidepressants. It’s easy to think I should have done this years ago, and believe me this thought occurs very regularly, but I’ve come to realize I must do things in my own time. We all do. I’m thankful I got to this place, even if it took me over a decade to arrive. It was worth the wait.

Parsing through your past and all the emotions that tag along can feel overwhelming. It can be daunting. Sometimes it seems like it would just be easier to push it all back down under the surface,  and bury it there. But I know firsthand, that kind of thinking and action will get me only so far. It doesn’t stay where you bury it, if you don’t dissect it first. I can’t turn back now, nor do I really want to either. I know what that state of mind feels like. Been there, done that. No thank you. It’s like I’m about to jump out of a plane, but this time I have a safety net in pill form. This time when I dig through my sadness and anxiety, I won’t be on a free fall into a depressive oblivion. I can’t get caught or trapped on the way down, because now I’m climbing up and out of the darkness. I’m moving towards the light with a little help, rather than towards a numbing sort of limbo. Next stop, a weightless state where sadness can pass through me, no longer chaining me in place. In that place anything is possible.