My Non-Relationship Dilemma

What can logically be expected of me in a non-relationship where I clearly delineated that it was casual and I didn’t want their love? Where does the clear water become muddy and at what point am I being unfair, lo, cheating if we can name it that?

I’m exhausted from this non-relationship that with each passing day seems more and more like a real relationship, and less and less like the casual encounter I had hoped for. I’m guilty, I’ve let it happen, but now that we’ve come this far I want out. I want out from the constant arguments, and the poor sex life. I want out from this potential future that looms above me with a man that lacks any aspirations, sense of responsibility, wanderlust, or gentle understanding.

I want out from this loveless, dull, and monotone non-relationship with my friend. I want my whimsical fancies to run wild, I miss the casual sex, the excitement of meeting someone new that I vibe with, and I miss being passionately in love. I miss hoping for a future with someone instead of dreading it come to fruition.

I want out and yet, I don’t. I’m not getting any younger, and the age old, settle for what’s good for you rings loudly in my ear. This non-relationship isn’t horrible, it’s just, well, it’s monotone. But it affords me the help of another individual around the house, someone to share meals with, someone to split the bills with, someone to listen, and someone to share my life with.

So, do I want to be alone? I don’t know… I just know that thinking about what I truly want makes me miserable, because in my gut, I know I’m far from it. I’ve spent the past couple of months in total oblivion, ignoring my most basic desires in the hopes of finding stability in my otherwise unstable brain. Loving those I love hasn’t worked so I guess I figured I would try loving those that love me, but well, it’s complicated.

I feel caged up….

Grandiose Delusion That I Matter.

I realize now, that I’ve maintained the grandiose delusion that I matter more than I actually do, to my best friend. I realize now that while I’ve labeled him my best friend, the same might not be the said of me for him.

You see for days now I thought he was angry at me, but today I realized he’s not angry, at least it doesn’t seem so, rather he’s indifferent to me. I’m just there. I’m a painting hung on the wall that you’re not sure you’re particularly fond of as the years pass by. You can’t remember your living room ever not having the painting so you leave it there, but that doesn’t mean you like it. I’m like that. I’m a thing in his life that he can’t recall not having so he tolerates me more than most people, but he’s perhaps not particularly fond of me.

I thought he was angry at me, but I realize now, that perhaps he’s just tired. You know tired of everything and everyone, myself included, and he’s exhausted from work, and he just doesn’t want to have to ease my worries, because he’s tired. He’s exhausted and my emotional needs just don’t matter when he already worries about my financial and material needs, on top of working 12+ hour shifts. He told me he was tired, but my paranoid delusions have told me he’s mad at me. I realize now that I was wrong. Sometimes you really are just tired and having to explain yourself is just plain exhausting and annoying.

I thought I mattered more than I actually do, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or sad to know it. Because I think I want to matter, but I’m not even sure about that.

Physical Force – Abuse?

Two days ago, my best friend, and occasional on and off friend with benefits (oh spare me the judgement), broke my trust.

After a normal day hanging out, he asked me if I could do him a favor, to which I replied, “yeah sure what’s up?”

Well his reply was to grab my face with both hands and violently spin my head around. He then followed up this action with the question, “Can you give me some road head?” (While still holding my face in place.)

As a point of crucial interest, he pulled my head and held it with entirely too much force.

This action broke my trust. In all honesty the words that he spoke and the request he made were inconsequential to me. His physical action is what bothered me beyond reason. You see when I was 15 I was raped and then later was often sexually abused and sexually harassed by more than one man.

I grew up and I learned to do the proverbial “Forgive, Forget and Learn”. After a time, men stopped abusing me and I learned to make my needs and wants respected. However, to say my past didn’t “scar” me would be a gross understatement. I trust very few men, by that i mean, that I can be myself and feel safe around very few men. My best friend was obviously one of said men.

Now, as “fucked up” as it may be, I’m afraid of him and anxious in his presence. Because I know that regardless of his intent, he is capable of physically hurting me, and he’s already done it once. (My jaw hurt all night long after said encounter.) I don’t think he meant to hurt me, which honestly makes me feel worse, because I feel like I owe him an explanation, and like I’m not allowed to feel how I feel.

On a side note, I think society makes us feel guilty for feeling violated. Like a lack of malicious intent excuses all behaviors that may directly or indirectly harm another individual.

I told this story to my sister in law, someone who knows my friend very well, and her reply was, “He’s such a nice and respectful guy, I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you, you shouldn’t over think it, I’m sure he would never try to purposefully hurt you. I think you made a mistake, you had sex with him so he is sexually frustrated and that’s why he accidentally hurt you. If you hadn’t had sex this would never had happened”

And this reply is what’s wrong with the world.

1. His lack of malicious intent means I am not allowed to feel betrayed, I shouldn’t be afraid, and I shouldn’t be anxious, but that’s the thing I can’t control that.

1. I was “slut shamed” for having sex with someone

1. It’s my fault he hurt me, because I had sex with him. IE having sex with someone means they are allowed to physically hurt you to get what they previously had.

My brain is traumatized and has learned to react to threatening individuals before they have a chance to scar me irreparably. Due to his action my brain has subconsciously flagged him as dangerous. Since that night he has plagued my dreams with nightmares of him physically or sexually abusing me.

Others will say I’m overreacting, but I can’t help that I’m afraid of him. I’m immensely frustrated because that’s not what I want, but it’s how I feel.

I wish my body hadn’t been abused, I wish I didn’t know how awful it is for someone you trust to abuse you, but I do, With that awful first hand knowledge I can’t convince myself it’s nothing, I lack the ignorance to do so.

So here I am overreacting, as some would say, and trying hard to figure out how to build back the trust I used to have.

Just Another Narcissist

God, I want to imbue my tragically pragmatic outlook with some flare, some drama, and maybe some passionate intrigue, but the truth of the matter is that my life is just a plain Jane story. I’m the typical narcissist that likes to look down on the world, with insecurities the size of a mammoth. 

I want to be held more than anything in the world, but I of course won’t admit it, shit I run from it when ever the chance presents itself. Yes, I know what a load of crap. I like to shoot myself in the head not just the proverbial foot. 

You see, I’ve got some deep seated issues, that I’ll forever be working on. 

For one I was raped by my high school boyfriend when I was 15. I loved that asshole so very much and he betrayed every sacred element of trust. As a result, I’m skittish around the people I love, not just strangers. Because you know, how can I trust anyone when someone who “loved” me betrayed me so horribly?

Mommy and daddy were religious fanatics, so I couldn’t admit that I’d been defiled, so I kept that shit to myself when I really should have found some counseling. I lived in perpetual fear that my family would kick me out for having had sex, and that no one would ever love me because I was “dirty”. 

2nd my parents divorced my first year into college and it was messy. It was a mother fucking hurricane followed by a tsunami. I hadn’t digested half the shit going on before some new shit was dug up to grace our olfactory senses. 

3rd my dad kicked me out of the house so he could get remarried. 

4th he said I ruined his life, and that he didn’t care what I had to do to make a living as long as it was away from him. 

5th my love life has always been shit. I’m terrified of commitment, and the people I attract are also terrified of it. 

10th I fell in love with my best friend/friend with benefits. I don’t know when that shit went down, but meh, I did. He’s not the greatest male to grace my life. I know his many flaws, and he’s not what I want, but here we are. I feel like this is some Darcy and Elizabeth shit. 

Cut to Darcy declaring to Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice) “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”.

He feels like home. He feels like the quiet in the world. He NEVER makes me feel skittish. I can be myself 100% of the time, I can be vulnerable without fear. I know he will leave and part of that statement gives me peace. I don’t have to hold on, I don’t have to fear, I know the ending, I can love without possessing, because he was never mine to love. I don’t know what will happen from here until he leaves, but I don’t need to worry about fighting to keep him. 

I know he will leave like I know one day I will die. I don’t need to like it, but I can accept it, and work on what I can control, me. 

My family is a hurricane, and he is the eye of the storm. Still a storm, but some calm in the chaos. I’m just your typical broken narcissist with issues. 

Today I want to live and yesterday I wanted to die. I’m here today and gone tomorrow. 

Sometimes You

Sometimes you just want to feel miserable.

Sometimes you need to stand in the rain and cry. 

It’s okay to feel lonely and empty every once in a while. It’s okay to have feelings. Sometimes you need to be okay with not being okay. 

The more you hold it in the more it’ll hurt.

Unburden your sorrows…

Recognize this is a moment, in slow motion, but a passing one, like every other. 

Sometimes, for a second you question every decision that’s lead you to where you are.

This isn’t how life was supposed to be. The people that should have stayed, left, the ones that were supposed to go, stayed. Everything is backwards and you want to scream out in frustration. You aren’t where you thought you’d be at this point in time.

That’s me today.

My friend left, my best friend. He went home after his visit to Germany and it tore me to shreds, that I’ve knowingly chosen to live far away from my friends and family. I’ve done this to myself. I’ve broken my own damn heart.

Today, I stand in the rain and cry. Today I cry for everything that ever was and will be. I cry because this isn’t the life I’d envisioned…The neat projections of my younger self torn to shreds by adversity and reality. Life is nearly nothing like I’d imagined. Only my travels have made it through adversity and reality. Only my biggest dream and the rest has fallen away. Inconsequential ramblings of a teenager who grew up and realized none of it would be.

I want to hold on, I want to scream out “PLEASE! Don’t leave me…”, I want to hold on so tight that I forget to breath, but then we’ll both die, Sanity and happiness.

The harder you try to hold onto fire the faster you’ll smother it.

So I follow that cheap cliche, if you love someone let them go. I don’t own the people in my life, I’m simply graced with their presence when our circles of life coincide. That’s a hard pill to swallow that I can’t stop taking or I run the risk of fucking it all up. Let people be who they need to be and do what you need to do. Enjoy the moment while it lasts, another one may never come again.

At the moment, I’m miserable, but thankful, that I had this vacation time with my best friend. I’m thankful for the smiles, and the jokes, and arguments and understanding with which they help me nurse my ever broken heart.

Sometimes it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to be miserable, so long as you remember that happiness is sprinkled throughout this ever complex maze as well. Feel what you must, but remember this too shall pass, so embrace it for what it is. 

Who you want to be

I’m sitting in Starbucks, wondering why I never learned how to be a well adjusted human being.

I don’t know how to socialize, and I don’t know how to be in groups.

I had a boyfriend who thought I might be autistic. I mean, I don’t know, maybe I am? I don’t know why I can’t just be how I want.

I remember growing up, I heard: You can be whoever you want!

What if I want to be extroverted? What if I want to enjoy social situations? What if I want to go out with a group of friends? What if I want to get along with people of my own gender? What if I don’t want to be who I am?!?

I can fake it and pretend to be someone I’m not, but I can’t stop myself from feeling how I feel or force myself to feel what I don’t feel.

I want what others have. That sense of belonging to their group of friends. I want to belong. I want to laugh, joke, cry and be with my “group” my “people”, but I don’t have them. I have friends, but I’m not the kind of person to thrive in a group, so I have no “group”.

I have so much, but not what I want…

What if I want to be someone else? Where does that saying start and where does it end?

You can be whoever you want to be, if you set your mind to it.

Why? One Trigger

So today, I’m pissed. I’m pissed because the one thing I ask people not to say is the one phrase they can’t help but say, It’s all in your head.

So help me, I fucking hate that bloody sentence with a passion. My whole life I’ve heard this sentence from my parents and from friends and well everyone else as well.

It’s in your head triggers a rage inside of me like no other. When I was younger this phrase fucked me up good. I thought my struggles weren’t real. I thought I wasn’t deserving of any help. Why would I need help if it’s all in my head? I’m making it up. I’m a horrible person who is making up stories for attention. My struggles aren’t real.

Ha, yeah that phrase really fucked me up. Now that I’m older it just makes me angry beyond reason, why? Because this phrase demeans my struggle to a mere imaginary struggle.

The connotations that follow from the sentence “It’s all in your head” are not nice.

The sentence ” It’s all in your head” implies the person is making it up, being dramatic or crazy.  Either way you look it the negative connotations that come from the phrase “It’s all in your head” are not cool.

My mother says, “It’s all in your head”, so often that it doesn’t even register in her mind as offensive. To her saying “It’s all in your head” is like saying “I’m tired”. She uses this phrase for absolutely every situation I may find myself in.

Is the food too spicy for me? Are my lips on fire? Nah, according to my mom “It’s all in my head”.

Am I really cold? Is it chilly outside? Nah, It’s all in my head.

Am I tired? Nah, It’s all in my head.

Every single bloody situation in which I find myself warrants the response “It’s all in your head”.

Now, am I being overly sensitive? You bet I am, your damn right I’m being overly sensitive, but I have a good reason. This phrase broke me 10 times over growing up. It took me years to realize I needed help and that it wasn’t just in my head. This phrase implies that nothing that I feel, perceive or think is real, and to make it worse I hear this bloody phrase every damn day multiple times a day.

I’ve explained to my mother over and over that saying that phrase sets me off. I’ve explained how that phrase has harmed my mental health and how it triggers me into blind anger, and you know what? She doesn’t fucking care. The woman still says it to me all the fucking time, but she doesn’t say it to anyone else. I have never heard her say that to anyone growing up or now. It’s a phrase specifically set aside for me which only makes me that much angrier.

So, that’s it for today. I don’t have anything philosophical or wise to say, or even interesting for that matter.

Today I just wanted to share my trigger phrase.

That’s it for now folks.

New Meds- Yay Me

I’ve got some new prescriptions. Scratch Abilify, Lamcital, Geodone and Citalopram. Hello Hydroxizine and Seroquel.

According to my provider, my bipolar is very out of control; however, I would dare to say it is very much in control given my life situation has changed so drastically and I’ve been without meds for two months.

I mean give me a break, cut me some slack. I was living it up like a rich kid in Germany, I had an amazing boyfriend and we were going to move into a flat together in Frankfurt, Germany.

Then suddenly everything changes.

Next thing I know I’m knocked up, I get dumped via text, I miscarry, I get really depressed, I am nauseous so I lose 20 lbs and then I am forced to return to the USA because my work contract is over and I didn’t find a new job because I was busy being depressed.

I go back to Oregon, I hate it there, I live with drug using family members, I can’t cook the place is disgusting (even by my standards),I have to brush my teeth and wash my hands in the kitchen (the bathroom has no faucet) and I can’t go out without being questioned. I quickly gain 40+ lbs eating out and laying in bed practically all day. I get a medication, but nothing helps. I hate my living situation so I move in with different family members on the east coast. I don’t know anyone here. I gain more weight 10+lbs. I’m massively depressed, once more I can’t go anywhere or do anything without being questioned. My bipolar diagnosis is brushed to the side and I’m seen as willfully angry and bad tempered as opposed to trying my hardest. I then get a job, but this job is stressful so it flares up my already high anxiety.

So, shit, I’m alive and I haven’t tried shooting myself yet and I haven’t abandoned my responsibilities. I think I deserve more credit for my efforts.

Yes, I feel like shit, but my efforts being invalidated doesn’t help. Do you think I like being fat? I wasn’t like this 5 months ago. I also wasn’t this unhappy 6 months ago. I’m riding the wave as best I can. Unless you’re bipolar you don’t know what this shit is like.

Tomorrow I have my new crazy Dr. check me out. Therapy and all that blah blah blah. Talk therapy hasn’t done anything for me, but then again, meds haven’t helped much in the past either. We’ll see where this takes us.

Violently Struggling Within

Can I just say I fucking hate working for the man? I hate being the poor person that stuck up rich people humiliate with stupid or ridiculous requests. I hate how much their bullshit gets to me some days. I hate being made to feel so small.

Today I had a client ask me to tell them what rooms I had relayed to the hotel that they wanted. I sent them an email with the information. They responded angrily that they needed me or the hotel to state what rooms they would be getting. So…I told them again this time with complete details, and you know what? They responded angrily that they had already told me that they wanted me to state to them what I told the hotel.

Like shit. Can’t you fucking read? I just fucking told you, I told you with exact and precise details. But noooooo…. Here I am at 10pm replying to their petty ass bullshit.

Here I am so bothered and so unable to cope with reality that I am contemplating cutting myself again. Then I think really? I’m going to hurt myself because some bastard in God knows where is being an asshole to me? It’s bloody ridiculous, but you know what? I can’t fucking help that desire for release because I can feel the fucking tears about to escape my eyes. I’ve felt like that all bloody day. Violence is always involved.

Violence of emotion.

Physical Violence.

Violence Abounds.

I violently struggle with myself because I can’t cope with this fucking reality. I wish I could sleep and never wake. In my dreams I am happy. Happy like I’ve never been in reality, because in my dreams I can control my environment. In my dreams I’m not broken, my emotions are calm and my mind is balanced. How I long for those dreams to embrace me forever. Sometimes I can’t even tell if this is the nightmare and my dreams reality.

I just don’t know anymore….

Functional Depression

Here comes some Angsty Bullshit…

So… Hmm not sure what I was going to say.

I am a high functioning bipolar person going through the motions of life as my passions, desires, and dreams die a little more each day. The past three months I’ve been functionally depressive. The two months before that I was manic. I go through all the motions, I smile when the situation dictates and I work when told to work, but inside I just want to shoot myself most days. People tire me out so very much. Being around people feels like someone is sucking the blood out of me.

I can function, but it’s not sustainable. The question is when will I crack? When will I run away from life in an effort to save myself from myself? When will I set myself free of society and responsibility and abandon it all for my passions?

Who knows  *Shrug* I sure as hell don’t. I’m a game of russian roulette who knows when my mind will hit it’s number.

It’s all a matter of time. I’m just going through the motions. My entire life lacks sustainability because my emotions, thoughts, dreams, passions, and moods are unstable. Fuck everything in my life is unstable and unsustainable and I count on it. When the depression suffocates me of happiness and energy, when I find myself on the brink of abandon, I hold on to the hope that any moment now the light will turn on again and the sun will shine all day and night.  Double edged sword, I count on my illness to do it’s thing. I let it go through the motions of things. I choose my battles, I only battle to stay alive. I let eveything else run its course, “This too shall pass”.

I used to struggle with my illness, hell, sometimes I still do, but for the most part I don’t fight it anymore. Why fight the current of my life? I just go for the ride, and hold tight to who I am. I am not the illness, the paranoia, rapid cycling, suicidal tendancies etc are not me, I just give them as little power as possible.

Yes, I see the monster in the closet, the pervert who wants to rape me. Yes, I’m afraid. Yes, I want to scream out. No, he isn’t actually there. Yes, I am safe. No, my mind isn’t showing me the truth.

Yes, life seems worthless. Yes, the pain feels insurmountable. Yes, I might never be the same, but maybe I will be better. Yes, Life may be worthles now, but maybe one day it will be worthwhile. No, it isn’t worth it to end life now, maybe later it will be awesome. Yes, I’ll be a zombie in the meantime if it means I stay alive just a little longer. 

I fucking walk myself through every situation like a child. An infinite amount of Yes and No, and oversimplification. It’s okay though because at least I’m moderately functional on my off time and 100% function on my work hours. I can go through the motions until I get my day in court. One day soon I’ll crack again and I’ll be myself once again, lively, passionate, happy, interesting, complete. It’s just a matter of time.