Audrizzle

However many steps I take forward, I always end up going backward.

On Thursday I spent the day with my mother and her new boyfriend Paul. I gave her a shawl that I knitted for her, which she loved. We went to therapy, which went well. We went to lunch, she had 2 glasses of wine and so did I, but it was OK. We looked at apartments, and she thought I deserved to live in a better place than any of those that we saw. She wanted me to be happy. That night we got caught in a crowd and I hugged her and told her how much I really love her, how I used to be embarrassed by her when I went out with her but that now I was so proud of her, I was proud to be her daughter, and I was so grateful that she cared about me.

And I meant everything I said. All of it. I still do.

She said she loved me too, and I knew she did.

But still, that night while I was driving home I stopped to get gas and also bought cigarettes. I burned my left arm and right hand 5 times. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't crying, I was a little drunk but no more than I am on other nights I go out, and other nights I don't end up wanting to harm myself. Or if I do, I don't do it.

But for some reason, on Thursday night I did hurt myself. I burned myself badly.

And that really scared me because I wasn't feeling depressed, I wasn't feeling angry at myself. I was amazed at how well things went that day. Has my urge to punish myself become unconscious? How can I fight it if it's gone underground and I can't even recognize it's there?

Also, Friday night we went out to dinner with my friends and all was going well until Mom mentioned that Gordon died in March. She and Gordon dated from 2001-2006, and he was one of the few people that took my side and helped mediate when things got rough with mom. In 2008 when I was living in Florida and working at Office Max he came and visited me often, and asked how my mom was doing and how I was doing... he was such a good man. He always told me he thought I should go to Johns Hopkins University.
I couldn't believe it.

I started crying and couldn't stop (despite the fact that we were at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, so fancy it wasn't even IN town), and then I got a text from Charles saying that Snowy had died as well. Snowy was our household pet for a long time, we got her probably in 1992 or 1993. She almost died, attacked by our dog Carmen (who had actually killed our previous kitten) but then Carmen got sick and died and so Snowy lived the rest of her life as a mean, traumatized pet. When I started dating Charles in 2005, he was really in love with Snowy despite the fact that she was as mean to him as she was to anyone else. As my dad's Alzheimer's progressed, Charles took responsibility for taking care of Snowy.




In August of 2005 when I moved out to go to college, Charles continued to go to my dad's house to feed, clean up after, and attempt to play with Snowy.

Even when Charles and I split up in spring of 2006, Charles still cared for Snowy. And my dad, too, they got along well. When Charles got an apartment that summer he got his own cat, Leo, (seen here with Hilary) but still as soon as my dad would let him, Charles adopted Snowy and until a couple weeks ago I guess they were all one big happy family. Charles said Snowy was very sick the last couple of weeks, probably from her kidneys, and he had to put her down yesterday.

Anyway, if she lived to be 16 or 17 I guess that's a good lifespan for a cat.

I feel bad devoting more of this entry to Snowy than to Gordon, but I don't know all that much about Gordon. A few things about Gordon that I do know for sure: He loved me, and he loved my mother. He was funny and honest, and he believed in me and wanted to help me. He did help me, me and my mother. There are several occasions I can think of where my mother and I would have killed each other if he hadn't been there to calm us down. And we probably wouldn't have ANY relationship today if it weren't for him.

No offense, but my mother has just about as many issues as I do so one must be a saint to deal with her, and Gordon certainly was. Unfortunately, prostate cancer got him, and fast.

Obituary for Gordon Brown Jr.

A thought just came into my head. "Why did Gordon have to die? He was such a good person, I wish I could have died instead of him, I have nothing to offer the world and I'm just miserable all the time anyway." Then I caught myself. "No, I do have a lot to offer, I have a great future ahead of me, I can and do make people happy. I am happy myself very often, though some people don't see it. I enjoy my life, and I'm not giving it up."

That's progress, right? That's definitely a good thing to be thinking.

Now, if I can think like that, why did I stab myself repeatedly with lit cigarettes on Thursday night, before I heard any of this bad news? I wasn't crying when I did it, I wasn't listening to Elliott Smith or anything sad, I was just driving, listening to Beck. and I just couldn't help myself.

I couldn't help myself.

But I have to help myself... If I don't, who will?

Labels: death, family, mental illness, therapy

Something's going on, something's happened.
There's just a stillness, a silence. I'm not sure if it's peaceful or deafening.
I just feel empty. I don't know why. I can't even think of considering why. I'm empty, and I have to stay that way. I have no choice.
Something's happened.
I don't know what. I don't understand. I don't have any desires, any thoughts, any memories taunting me or the usual negative affirmations coursing through my brain.
And that's good.
Or it should be good.
I just don't care.
I feel genuinely bored, more bored than I've ever been in my life. Other times when I was bored it was because there was something else I had in mind that I wanted to be doing.
Now there's nothing.

And it's only Tuesday.
Last week flew by because I slept the whole time. So far this week is dragging because I've slept all of 7 hours in the last 72.

And I'm tired.
Believe me, I'm tired.
But I can't close my eyes. This morning at 5 they just popped open and now they won't stay shut.

I keep yawning. Physically, I'm exhausted. Mentally, I feel like my brain is just a factory. Just going through the motions of everyday function.

Except my usual non-function. Or really, I should call it "negative" or "counterproductive" function.

I can't draw, I can't write. It's so hard for me to do this. There's a pain in my thumb, it feels like a splinter or a cut but nothing's there.

The pain in my chest has spread up and eastward. It's below my armpit now, though more toward the center of my chest, and I can feel it hurting through my back too.

I don't know if any of this makes sense.

It's not that I feel weird, I just feel nothing.
I wish I could feel something in reaction to the nothing, but I can't. I'd like to be grateful to be at peace, or to be angry at the apparent disintegration of my soul, or even just to go back to feeling the misery I usually feel.

I'm trying to find the cause of this.

Yesterday in therapy we came to the realization that my episodes of self hatred are triggered by my participation in successful or positive social interaction with other people.

I had what I consider to be a successful social interaction with a friend last night. As I should have come to expect, on my way home I had a violent attack of self loathing. I cried, and I wanted to hurt myself so badly. I have never felt the urge to hurt myself that much. I wanted to get home as fast as I could and I wanted to see blood.

Then I told myself to stop. That it's okay. It's okay for other people to like me. I don't have to punish myself for who I am. I don't have to punish other people for liking me. It's okay.

I don't know why, but it worked. I calmed down. I made it home, and when I got here, I went to sleep.

So maybe I'm okay. Maybe I'm better. I mean, it seems improbable that I could be "better" instantly, but something happened and I feel very different.

Which makes me wonder, once again, what am I without my illness?

And yet, unlike in times past, I don't feel the urge to run out and create drama and bring back all the problems. I don't feel the urge to do anything.

I've never felt like this before. I don't understand it, but that's okay I guess.

Labels: apathy, mental illness, people, relationships, self-hatred, therapy, treatment

So, here I am, sitting on a crummy cot in my crummy apartment feeling pretty crummy.

I was feeling even worse last week, so I went to the Fort Sanders Hospital Emergency Room to check myself into their psych ward. Well, it turns out they don't have a psych ward there, if you need to go inpatient, you have to go to Lakeshore Mental Health Institute.

I really did need to go inpatient, so despite the fact that I was calm and cooperative, they had a police officer handcuff me, escort me to the back seat of his cruiser, and drive me to Lakeshore.

Now, Lakeshore Mental Health Institute is probably one of the worst hospitals I have been to. It's a toss up with New York Methodist Hospital. At Lakeshore, they did a complete psychiatric evaluation, which they did not at NYMH. However, NYMH did offer group therapy, and you have to be at Lakeshore for at least a week before they will allow you to do anything, even take a guided walk around the halls. Lakeshore's food was absolutely terrible; NYMH's was actually pretty good. I kind of like hospital food, because it's all pre-portioned. You have just one tiny container of butter for 1 piece of white bread in a plastic baggie, you don't have to make any decisions about what to do.

One thing that really bothered me about Lakeshore was that they didn't take me as seriously as I would have liked, and told me things to more to quiet me than to provide me with the information I was requesting.

I started writing this to point out flaws I found in their system, but rather than a list it turned into a narrative. It's gotten pretty long, though, and even though I've only finished writing about the first "day", I'm going to stop for now.

---

I signed into the Fort Sanders ER at 4:00 PM last Wednesday, so when I arrived at Lakeshore at 11:30 PM, I was hungry. I asked if they could give me anything, just a sandwich or something, and they said "As soon as you get upstairs they can give you something." I inquired as to when that would be, and they said "Oh, probably in a half hour or so."

Two hours later when I actually arrived upstairs, they said they didn't know if or when they could get me something to eat, it would have to be dealt with by Security, who were downstairs.
"Well, if they're downstairs, maybe you can call them and ask them when they'd be able to do it."
"We will once you're in your room."
This bothered me, because again, it just seemed like a dishonest attempt to placate me. Downstairs, when checking in, they had refused to let me take my notebook, even plain sheets of paper or pens upstairs. I said I needed to write, and a security guard said "They can give you paper and a pencil upstairs."

Back upstairs, I flipped through the "Patient Rights & Responsibilities" brochure that was given to me in admissions. I looked up and said "Well, you're going to have to give me a pencil and something to write on so I can take notes about the patient rights that you are violating." One of the women in the room said "We can't give you a pencil, but when you're in your room we can give you a marker and some paper."

Another woman behind a high counter picked up the telephone, dialed, and after a pause said quietly, but impatiently, "Can someone bring some food up? One of the girls is talking about writing stuff down..." I smiled at this. Obviously, my remark had proven to her that I wasn't just another brain-dead/drug-addled idiot who could be ignored without consequence, and, more importantly to her, I might be able to get her into trouble. More importantly to me, her action was an admission that she hadn't been doing her job properly, though I don't know why this gave me cause for pleasure. I found it amusing that she expected security to understand the gravity of the situation simply due to the possibility of something being written down. Were the majority of the patients illiterate? I mean, true, this is Tennessee, but I haven't really found people to be less intelligent than in New York/New England. Less arrogant, maybe, but not any less intelligent.

For some reason, they had confiscated my wristwatch as contraband, so I asked if there was a clock in my room. A woman told me that if I wanted to know what time it was, I could look through the window to see clock in the room we were presently in(which was kept locked). I pointed out that the wall clock that should have been visible was laying face down on a counter, to which she replied, "Oh, it's broken right now."

A small desk clock told me that it was 2:00 AM by the time they were ready to take me to my room. The girl who escorted me was wearing a college sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, and couldn't have been any older than 22 or 23. Rather than condescending (as the other staff members had been), this girl was actually quiet friendly. Maybe it was because unlike other patients, I was around her age. I also didn't have meth mouth. The back wall of the room had a large window, and there were twin beds with wooden frames on either side of it. Each bed had an 8-inch thick mattress covered in beige vinyl, and on top of the bed on the right were 2 thin plastic pillows next to a set of folded bedclothes and a blanket, bleach white.

"I didn't make up your bed because I didn't know which one you'd want." I wanted to laugh. I'd just been admitted into a mental institution, so I wasn't really in the state to have any kind of strong opinion on which bed to sleep in. I chose the one on the left without any deliberation or difficulty, which is incredible, considering it usually takes me over 10 minutes just to decide which toothpaste to buy.

"They said I could have paper and a marker..." I mentioned, and she replied "Oh! Sure, hang on," perky as hell. I made up the bed, and she quickly returned with a few sheets of printer paper and a pink Crayola marker. Pink.
"Here you go!"
"Thanks..."
"Do you need anything else?" Is that really a question you want to hear the answer to?
"Well, no, but I asked earlier about food..."
"Oh, someone will bring it to you when it gets here."
"Ok, thanks."
She left the room almost with an air of skipping, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her.

Something I find interesting is that even though I'm a pretty bitter, unhappy person, when I see people who seem happy it makes me feel good, rather than angry or jealous. But then I realize I'm by myself, and that I am myself, and things darken quite a bit.

I kicked off the navy blue slip-on shoes they had issued me earlier and sat on the bed, legs crossed. Amazed that the marker wasn't dry at all, I wrote for a few minutes but quit after less than half a page. My belongings were at the foot of the bed in a paper bag, and I grabbed the one non-clothing item it contained - a copy of The Fountainhead I had bought in Florida a month earlier but not yet cracked open. I decided to read but about 8 pages in I was bored and put it aside. I lay down and quickly fell asleep, despite the fluorescent lights above.

I really don't have any comments about the comfort (or discomfort) of the mattress, but this may be that I haven't consistently slept on a real bed in several years. My current mattress is inflatable.

I awoke to a quick rapping on the heavy door to my room, and someone came in and handed me a brown plastic tray with what was to be my dinner. As the person was leaving, I asked "What time is it?" From the hall, I heard the yell back "It's 3 AM."

When I opened the styrofoam container, my eyes were immediately drawn to the primary compartment: it contained big chunks of what turned out to be potatoes covered in a reddish-brown liquid dotted with ground beef and spots of grease. The first thought that came to mind when I saw this was "pre-processed diarrhea". One of the two smaller wells contained what looked like regurgitated broccoli, under a yellow-orange sauce which had the consistency of pudding (including an impressively developed skin). It was probably supposed to be cheese of some sort.
I think that in any other situation either of these foods could have been decent, even good, but here they were somehow unfathomable. Not to mention cold in places.
There was another small container with a plastic lid that contained some very feeble pear halves. These tasted okay, but their limp, degenerated softness almost made me feel even more hopeless.
To drink, they had given me two options: a carton of 2% milk, and a carton of sugar-free sweet tea. I don't drink milk, so I had some of the tea, which lived up to the title "sugar-free" more than "sweet".

Thoroughly disappointed, after finishing half of the "meal" I put the tray on the nightstand (which happened to be next to the door, across the room) and went back to sleep - lights still on.
I think I sleep with the light on for the same reason I always have a heater/fan/air conditioner turned on, it distracts me from my own isolated existence. I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of myself.

Labels: depression, mental illness, narrative, therapy, treatment

"You can't trust anyone 'cause you're untrustable
How can you trust someone you know can't trust you?"

- Built to Spill "Untrustable Part 2 (About Someone Else)"

That's a line that's stuck with me for years. Well, saying that doesn't mean much. Years is such a relative term. 5 years ago if I said something in my life had been static "for years", that would have been a major accomplishment. I was 18, and people change a lot up to that point in their lives.

But actually, looking back at it now, 5 years later, has anything really stabilized? No, no it hasn't. In high school my grades were either very good or very bad, same thing in college. I almost dropped out of high school (and would have if my parents/superiors had let me) and I ended up dropping out of college. Twice. Though it's not like I was "so close" or anything, I only had (have?) 25 credits - 9 of which are "pass" credits.

I keep moving around -not just cities, but states- and don't get me started talking about relationships.

Well, maybe I'll sneak up around the side of that subject.
In kind of a circular motion - bringing us back to the main idea of the post: Trustworthiness.

Relationships are all about trust. Am I trustworthy? Do I want to be?
More and more lately I find myself trying to do myself harm - physically and emotionally. I make myself out to be a bad person, and I feel that I want to be a bad person, and that I want people to think that I am a bad person.

At the same time, there is a strange duality. I am very afraid of losing people's respect. Which is weird, because I don't actually respect myself.
In some ways I do, I guess, especially lately with this anger I've been having. It's a good thing in a way, because the reason I am blowing up at people is because I'm not going to take their bullshit the way I used to. I've realized that the beliefs I have are important enough for me to stand up for, which is a very good thing. In a way, I really like the fact that I have become so angry.

Sadly, I have taken things a bit too far and am becoming psychotic. I yell at people over stupid little things, and what REALLY bothers me is that I can't get my wording correct.

When I used to yell at people, my syntax and vocabulary was astonishing. Admirable, really.
Now, I'm just really confused. "Why can't you just leave you alone?" "You're always trying to shit from you!" "Can't you stop bother you? "You doesn't even !!!"

It's ridiculous. I guess maybe I'm more angry than I used to be - Angelus house pretty much brainwashed me out of being angry. It's weird, because looking back at the treatment, part of their therapy was that you do need to become angry. But for some reason whenever I was angry I was "wrong" - pretty much everything I did was wrong. I'll admit that I was no angel there (no pun intended), but my rule breaking was no worse than anyone else's. Maybe I'll never know, but I don't think A.'s death was my fault. And of course, everyone SAID it wasn't my fault, but none of them ever treated me the same way after it happened.

Back to the lyric. 2007 was when I really started lying a whole lot. It started with my relationship with A., which had to be a secret. When we came out and told the truth about that, the consequences we faced were terrible. I don't want to get into it too much, but we were both punished - severely. I'm kind of in the middle of the two year anniversary of when it all happened - because it spanned a few weeks.

Brownie-type cupcakes I decorated right after A. and I were banned from seeing eachother. Yes, I was a tad bitter.

What I learned from that ordeal was that telling the truth is worse than lying. I shouldn't have told Dave the truth, and I shouldn't have told A. the truth. Or what I thought was the truth. By that point I had already been brainwashed into thinking I was a terrible person, so I told A. that that's what I was. I told him I was unhappy and that I was a deviant, and that he could never help me, he could never make me better.

If you have issues with your sexuality, the worst possible thing you can do is to go to Angelus house. Dave used to be a Catholic priest, and he will pass judgement upon you and treat your problem as YOUR problem, you're making it up, you're pretending, you're bullshitting and that's what's wrong with YOU. It's all YOU, no, it's not because you were raised in a fucked up environment, or your parents taught you warped views on sexuality, it's not because you were raped or oversexualized as a child, no, nothing like that, it's because YOU want attention, you don't REALLY have a problem, it's just your pathetic way to try and get people to pay attention to you, and YOU'RE not going to waste MY time with your pitiful attempt to be "special" and "different".

Now, THAT'S bullshit. So, if I want to have my own beliefs, Dave, you are OK with me hating myself for them? Oh, that's how you would PREFER it? Original sin, right? I don't know enough about the catholic religion to get across the point of how biased he was.

"How can you trust someone you know can't trust you?"
Part of the brainwashing at Angelus house was that I was trained to believe that I was always wrong, thus I learned that I can't trust myself. They taught me to believe that I was untrustable, and because I was in such a vulnerable position, I believed them, and then grew to live up to it.
How can I trust someone I know can't trust me? What if that someone is myself? Playing silly with words here, but to me it makes sense.

That brings up another issue: If I know I'm crazy, does that make me less crazy? And what if I'm only aware of some of my insanity? Like, when I was yelling at people today, I knew I wasn't in my right mind, but I couldn't figure out that was the case. But another thing is, part of me sees my anger as being a good thing (re: standing up for myself) - I know I take it to inappropriate levels here and there, but at the same time I'm glad it's here.

Oh well. This is the issue of sanity.

Or insanity, whatever.

Also, I have to be back in NY soon, I have an appointment there on 2/23. So wish me luck on that. And if you're in NY and want to hang out or whatever, don't hold your breath, HAH! And if you do run into me, watch out, because I may still be psychotic. Luckily I haven't started to throw things yet. Let's hope that if that begins, my laptop is far, far away.

Also, when does a quote become a quotation?

Note: I am noticing that I've become more "rambling" (Sprawling?) and am having more trouble staying on topic. This is bad, because one of the only things I think I'm good at is writing, so if I lose that, what have I got?

Labels: angelus, anger, brainwashing, built to spill, death, fault, guilt, love, lyrics, mental illness, self-hatred, therapy