You mean nothing to no one but that is nobody's fault.

"I had a lengthy discussion about The Power of Myth / With a post-modern author who didn't exist
In this fictitious world all reality twists / I was a hopeless romantic, now I'm just turning tricks"

In our last conversation she mentioned the word "empowerment" as a way to get through life

i had heard it and read it in all this therapy/recovery stuff. empowerment. It's like sometimes you skim

the words that can't apply..(which is why i always have to re-read.) It is an Action word. something you have to DO.

Move. Act. Change. Being really avoidant,...well its a problem. I'd almost rather be terrified, frozen, prepared and

ready to fight this imaginary THING. You can't see it and i almost always can't see it but I know it is there and I have to obsess and do all these THINGS to like starve, for instance, and count and place things and cover them (ocd what have you)

suddenly you drop all that and go join an Animal Rescue Program. And you are thinking that you neglecting a small dark world that

is SCREAMING and begging for you to return but you say NO. I am putting on normal clothes and brushing my teeth and going

to pay a bill. or sign up for a class. or join an acting troupe. or actually make a friend and hang out with them and drink tea and NOT

become codependent and twisty and obsessed with their past and present and soul and brain. I am being normal. this is normal. great. now i am obsessing about being normal.

So, you know, what better way to be empowered that to be an activist for this thing you are recovered FROM?

Well, you know what? It is really hard to be an activist for a condition that no one believes you have. or had.

it is really hard to be surrounded by people who say they love you but when you form words your mouth is just

numb bc you cant make words that covey the slightest accurate portrait of what is inside you.

so you draw it and you paint it and your parents can't bear too look bc the painting are painful and 

most of the time i don't even think my therapist believes me. Anxiety. i have anxiety and i have fear.

Oh. Sorry. I thought it was God. (i really did)

i don't understand how anyone can love me if they don't know me. and i don't feel known.

i don't want to die unknown, but then in another way i kinda do. just crawl up and disappear. go away as if i never was.

that kinda sounds okay sometimes. That last love, he said, "you cant leave me bc no one knows you but me"

and it sounds like some controlling bs but the thing is, he was right. It was true. So sometimes he called me crazy but sometimes he

said My god there is nothing wrong with you. he said it so much. i got angry. i stopped taking my medicine. i stopped all of it. i didn't tell anyone. after a few months my skull was a living torture chamber for my brain. I tried to tell him what was going on.

"ohmygod see this is the shit you don't need to say. to anyone. this is the shit that is gonna get you back in the hospital.and you need to stop it bc there is nothing wrong with you. i'm going to call your parents... do they know how you are"  

i got back on my meds eventually but, like, i think everyone just kinda thought i was lame for doing so. So after that i just you know shut most people out except for my few obsessions. and he moved on and all which is great bc he was an amazing human being even though the was, of course, not equipped  with the skills to handle what the hell ever ever was wrong with  me. (NOTHING)

i "recovered" i eat. i got a job. it has been years now, since i recovered from nothing.

 i look an my paintings and  cry. i am numb and no one knows who i am.

A Solitary State

Sometimes i wonder what it would be like to have like 89 people telling me how awesome and spectacular and cool i am just so like, i could make it to my measly job. I'm pretty sure, knowing me, it would get real annoying real fast and im probably spill my coffee on someone and then curse. I forget that like, most people frown on cursing. I kinda invent a new curse word every time a pencil lead breaks. So once im going on and on to my theRapist and she said something like, you never really had a real support system. and i kinda trail off like...what? My family is all knitted close like a sweater. But...there was a lot of hiding there. No one knew or knows most of what i did or do. I went to therapy and all that to deal with it. I have a friend in rehab. I am freaking out, ya know? talking to her and calling and worrying and i think how come no body ever did this shit for me?
No body ever babied me. Of course for years I held my girl friends away and was like a parasite on some dude i was demanding be my BEST FRIEND until they demanded i be a WIFE. (um oops no sorry bye) Did i push people away? do I? To engage in an eating disorder and a self injury obsession and even a magical thinking twisted up depressive episode you have to hold people BACK. bc they can't know. bc for one - You cant continue the behavior without their judgement and 2 - well it is embarrassing. Or worse no one will believe you. Most ED sufferers think they are waaaay too fat to have an E.D.
When i opened up about things, very early, it was met with awkward rejection. so i just learned to stfu ya know? I had to hold on to some sense of self - I didn't pretend to be something i wasn't i just refrained from revealing much of anything...to anyone.
until art school.
that paint brush was  a wand that did not lie.
No one understood really,but that was okay.
This was my reality. soooo confusing to critique a painting that the professors thought was abstracted reality and I thought it was ACTUAL REALITY.
I see dead people. ha,ha no really. i am dead.
I will not allow myself to ever get that depressed again.
Will I have to sacrifice my art? creativity? i don't know but when people compare mental illness and creativity like it is some novelty i get real aggravated.
bc it is hard to say if was worth it. I did some of my best work in a horrible state of
starved paranoid stoned death lust panic....
was it worth it?
i wont do it again. if i cant help it, i wont do it again.
was i healing? yes. was it cathartic? yes.
Was the suffering and fear unimaginable to the point i feel terror at the thought of going back?
yes. Am i much better now? yes and more open with people, too.
I still won't admit things that happened. to anyone. ever. hardly.
but the thing is  - i mean no one really cares anyway.
sometimes that is a good thing. the anonymity of modern life.
im okay with it ,i have a thousand gods inside me.

What I was tryin' to do...

was learn the difference between love and obsession. Gimme a break!
 I am trying to self actualize, here.
I have a less than stellar romantic history.

I have a roaring heart
and a wandering ghost.

I can't make either one
 wear a chain
of silver, metal, steel, gold or glass...

okay well maybe glass...

Worth...Can you see where i 'm not? APD Avoidant Personality Disorder

Can you see where I am not? A few lines in the book "Wasted" reminded me of this picture I made.  Marya wrote of becoming obsessed with the gaps, the space around her. I identified completely with that.

In an old sketchbook of mine I found a page where I had, at about 16 years of age, written a number. My weight at the time. Over and over I wrote that number. And below it scrawled "oh i have worked so hard for every pound that I am NOT."


How did I end up working in the negative? I am operating in the empty space. The Dead Zone. Go Away.

So yeah, I finished the book and then went searching for books on Avoidant Personality Disorder. Ha. These two events, finishing the book and searching Amazon, are a cause and effect. The twisty thought pattern connecting this cause and effect is quite stupid. And simple. and Lame.

I loved the book, it was just as wonderful as all the gushing reviews said. Yes, this Book Could Save a Life. I became preoccupied with her MANIA, though.
I never read an ED book before. ever. I avoided them. I suppose in a selfish, yes-i -am -preoccupied -with -my- self- self -self- self -way, I wanted to read a book about ME.

A book that ended with a chapter on how to Save Your own Life. Yes, that is ridiculous, I know. God, i thought., Why are there NO books by Avoidants? Why are there not even but TWO self help books on Avoidants? (i ordered them both. used.)

oh. I laugh. I imagine there are countless books by and about avoidants stuffed under mattresses and behind couches and in closets with a matching terrified owner refusing to. Just REFUSING to.
Waiting for the Emily Dickinson story to play out.

(and it won't. ever)

or maybe not. Maybe no one cares. You "chose" to avoid (did NOT) and sitting your life out is not nearly as dramatic or interesting or much ANYTHING as a Prozac Nation type smart girl mania complete with screaming fights in public and blood and starvation and suicide attempts. Nothing for the APD but... Just the comfort of ISOLATION. Refusing.

bc really, you painted yourself into this corner. You blacked out the windows. You didn't even try. You refused to fill out the forms, take the tests, change locations, go to the meeting or talk to the person in charge. You refused to eat, or explain, or even show up. Or return a phone call. So there you go. And here you are.

The best book on APD was over 60 bucks so i could not get it but i'm going to try to get it through the libarary. This cinched it
"Avoidants are not simply afraid of criticism and humiliation -- the only reason for avoidance currently identified in the official literature. They are also afraid of being flooded by feelings they cannot tolerate, and of being depleted should they express these feelings. Most importantly, they fear acceptance as much as they fear rejection because they fear losing their identity and personal freedom. 

Yes, all the literature did say fear of criticism. I refused to identify with that. You can tell me I suck all day. I may agree with you, but i most likely also think you are no better than me. You people have pegged me wrong and i wont hear it. i refuse to admit this may be my problem.