Tell me what your worst fears are. I bet they look a lot like mine. 
Tell me what you think about when you can’t fall asleep at night. 

Tell me that you’re struggling. Tell me that you’re scared. No, tell me that you’re terrified of life.

Tell me that it’s difficult to not think of death sometimes.

Tell me how you lost. 
Tell me how he left. Tell me how she left. 
Tell me how you lost everything that you had. 
Tell me that it isn’t ever coming back. 

Tell me about God. Tell me about love. 
Tell me that it’s all of the above.

Say you think of everything in fear.

I bet you’re not the only one that does.

i haven’t blogged in a while, and i know some important people read this, so i’m deciding to update my situation for those who care. it may not be artful or rewarding to read, but it is what it is.

i’m nearing the end of my DBT therapy and i feel a little in the dark. i don’t know what i’m going to do with myself when i don’t have an intelligent, supportive group to help me sort out my shit. assuredly i am going to go through sort of a mourning phase when the last session takes place. in terms of the actual dbt therapy, it’s been helpful, but i’m going to need loads of fucking luck to actually do what the therapy tells me to do. it’s a lot of hard work, trying to dispel beliefs that i once had about how people deal with emotions. i still can’t get over the fact that you can’t control how you feel because i grew up believing otherwise. now that i think about it, my feelings were never validated either. when i felt sad, i was told to grow up or that other people had it worse, regardless of the fact that my sadness was legitimate. in many of my past relationships my needs didn’t matter because i was told i was always irrational. its interesting to see events and patterns in my life that have taken place and acknowledging it like some horrible novel, where the ending is obvious- this person is going to end up severely compromised mentally. and that’s not to try and feel sorry for myself, but i just want people to know that what i’m going through is so very real to me. i live and breathe with my borderline personality every day. just because people can’t see the mental illness does not make it any less debilitating in comparison to any other type of illness. unfortunately in the same way, the healing is very slow and will probably take months or even years for me to really be back to good.

which raises the question: where do i want to be? what is the meaning of ‘good’ for me? well for starters, i want to be able to walk around and not feel like i’m dragging my feet every step of the way. i want to feel lighter instead of feeling like i’m carrying this heavy weight that is my heart. i want to feel the brightness in my eyes whenever i smile instead of feeling the awkwardness from a forced smile everyday. i want to be able to look up at the sky and dream of the future again, not daydreaming at tall buildings fancying death. finally, i want to feel the urge to help people because i can, instead of being bogged down with anxiety and self doubt associated with finding a job.

although sometimes this picture seems so far away, i’m trying so, so hard to get back there. i’m closer than i was even a month ago. eventually i’ll find my way back and be able to tell you that everything is (really) alright.

criteria 8: chronic feelings of emptiness.

the other night i had a dream that i was a mother.

i was walking around the shops looking impoverished, pushing a stroller with a baby that couldn’t have been more than a year old. she was hungry. i found a sack of potatoes and headed on my way home, the baby still wailing and causing a lot of angry stares from the passers-by. i started to feel so embarrassed that i stopped at jimmy john’s, my old place of employment in michigan, and i borrowed the kitchen (that doesn’t exist in real life) to boil some of the potatoes and cut them up into bite-sized pieces while my old friends M and A played with my little girl. i could hear them laughing with her, entertaining her. their giggles made everything feel lighter for me. as i watched the baby smash the potatoes i prepared for her and put the mushy pieces into her mouth, i looked at M and A. they looked back at me, and we all smiled.

i knew we all had our own dark secrets, but the thought of this untainted human being enjoying something so simple wiped away all the doubt, all the anxiety, all the mental illness. the act of watching the baby eat was so pure, and i felt so insanely happy with life at the moment. i knew everything was going to be alright.

when i inevitably woke up, i frantically squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to go back to sleep and continue the dream. of course i didn’t, and instead i lied awake at 6 am, my normal wake-up time. i obsessively reflected on the dream for about an hour. i realised that i had forgotten what it actually felt like to be happy and utterly hopeful, and i forgotten what it feels like to know that everything will be alright.

escitalopram, zopiclone, olanzapine, diazepam. this is the family of four that keeps me sane now, but at the price of being at this sort of unending emotional limbo. yes my mood swings are a little more stable. i go through the same cycle every week, with a crisis typically happening on a friday or saturday (and this week was no different). the mental preparation of this dip downwards is less intense and a little easier to manage. i am able to look at things that have acted as a trigger in the not-too-distant past and say ‘so what.’ i am able to notice my impulsive states and not act on it, because i know that path always leads to self destruction and no matter what i do i can never get ‘full.’ and i guess this ability to manage my behaviours is what i’ve always wanted.

sometimes when i have those rare windows of elation, i wonder which is truly better: this chronic feeling of emptiness and numbness, or not taking the cocktail and feeling the heat, depth and breadth of my emotions the way i’m supposed to.

someone told me once that ‘the best part of being human is feeling and reacting on the rawness of emotions.’ 

does choosing the emptiness over insane emotional instability make me less human?