not waving but drowning*

 I am at my desk. At work. I go far away in my head and then I am gasping. Oh,yeah. Breathe, stupid. I do that when I worry..Hold my breath, that is. I twirl my thumb around my blank left ring finger and think what if?
What if i went AGAINST my gut?
Do you have any idea how HARD is for me to trust people?
No. You can't.

tell me something to change what i believe
tell me something to change me

It feels so desolate inside me...there is no one there.

I keep people at arm's length bc I do not trust most of them.
I mean it sucks, kinda.....

But my intuition is a flying roaring soaring beast
and i dare not fight her...

"this is not the time"

But really i can't win either way.....

"Not Waving but Drowning" is a poem by British poet Stevie Smith published in 1957 as part of a collection of the same title

a picture is worth 10000000 words

Who am i?

So when i was a kid, most girls talked about how when they grew up, they would get married and have a kid or 3 or 6 or whatever. The idea sounded NOT COOL to me. It sounded boring and like a lot of work and doing other people's dishes. And getting pressured and bossed around. Ima be an artist. Ima have lots of friends and paint and grow things. Right?
But still...everyone evenutally grows up and gets married, I mean it is, like, expected and shit. Plus you get a tax break. Every girl dreams of her wedding day for her whole life! right?
um....

So what the hell is WRONG with me?

Because an amazing person asked me to completely out of the freaking blue most unexpected thing ever marry them. WTF? In all my grace and total sophisticated style I.....reacted by hitting him and subsequently having a panic attack. right. smooooth. go me. I suck. can i get another beer then?
But for serious - last week I had gotten a letter from him that said "I never want to speak to you again" and then he deleted from all social networking sites.  The DELETION was a reaction to a letter I sent to him. A letter full of very difficult questions such as - Your job is strenuous; how will we handle it? and Could you ever stop doing drugs for me?
I got no answer. I got deleted. Then -
I got a marriage proposal.
In my defense and with all due respect - WTF?
I'm so confused and flustered and I just really want(ed) to take a knife to my arms.
All i kept thinking was you don't know me, you don't even know me, you don't know who i am 
so then xmas day i just cried a lot. Like, a LOT (merry merry xmas!!!) and finally talked to my parents, who were really bewildered since they have never met this person before. (this is significant only my family is super duper almost way too close)
I am pretty sure that people think I am afraid to move far from my family. No. I am dying to get the hell out of Louisiana. I just am very very wary of donating the rest of my one life to the dream of a person I don't know that well. and it sucks that everyone thinks i am being a bad person for that. So I am  very sad. Sad for good, it seems like.

And then she did....

 okay ya'll. I have done really really good in spite of the emotional distress(more about this later).But I am running of Steam. Running of fake smiles (i only has 432 and i'm down to, like, 3)One more big event..the hardest one...huge family gathering.... ima-be-just-fine***crossing fingers here ***

Merry Christmas and Happy Winter

Xmas party with my besties!! I am on right obvs, and my roommate is dressed in colorful patterns - this is worth mentioning bc she is usually in black and i am usually wearing 27 colors and 5 different patterns.

So we enjoyed a party at my parents house in the woods and it was fabulous except for when my mom started yelling bc I set my beer (shiner bock:D) in the manger scene. It was preeeeeeteeee shameful - she is like, "YOU SET IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF BABY JESUS." Okay, my parents do not drink, and only recently have I  been able to drink around them without feeling like a total jackass... and then i go and be all sacrilegious to the manger scene :( 

It was okay though; laughter ensued.

Anyway, i was really dreading the holidays this  year. Around Halloween I started getting this "ugh" feeling about it. Honestly, though, the season has been great. Really, having the friends I have .....not to brag ya know..... but for years and years I really shut everyone out. I just made out with E.D. and the team of Anxieties, ya know? and....I think part of this whole "becoming" thing involves allowing other people to SEE you....something I was always afraid to do.

Still, I only have a FEW people I get close to, but the are made with the awesome. 

So I put up a tree this year, but I did not decorate like usual  - with bones and shells and spider rings, hee hee . I do that, usually, just gather things from the year....things that had meaning. ...the shells from the beach vacation in July, and and the antlers i found on a camping trip....lotus pods...ect. But this year i let it go. I am in a new house, so i just BOUGHT some new ornaments and....I don't know...

maybe it is somewhat detached.

But for people like me, people who can cave into themselves...that can be a good thing. Detachment. Hi, normal! its me! Nice to meet you... yeah, yeah, yeah...Merry Christmas and Happy Winter!!

 (lovin the corpse bride, though!)

Summit (Thankful)

This is a pic of me and my mama, from when we went to Atlanta to visit my sister in the spring of 2008. When I start to fall, in my head, I, too try to think of things I am Thankful for. And she is most definitely one.

I am thankful for who she IS and what an awesome sweet mother she was while raising me, but one thing that is really relevant to my blog is this: I am very thankful for the way she handled my eating disorder.


At the time I was baffled and confused. Later, I was convinced she over reacted and tried to make something be WRONG with me, when i was FINE. fine fine fine fine
But Now. Now it is different. At 31, hindsight is clearer. Even though my mama INSISTED that i go inpatient and get treatment and then stick with a therapist (two hours away. we did a lot of driving) SHE NEVER LET THAT DISORDER DEFINE ME. Somehow she made a balance between getting me the help I needed, letting me know this was super serious, yet never allowing this issue to overwhelm  us or become something that everyone connected me with.
Not to say that there were NEVER screaming fits or silent treatments or glares over meals or any of that.  Oh, there was.  Never the less, our family life did not revolve around my health. I was not doted on, this sickness was not who i was and she made sure it did not overshadow any other facet of my existence. Even when she thought I may very well die, she focused on the strength of my character and the life I could ruin if I gave in. She made sure my day to day life continued as normally as possible and that I participated in life as normally as possible.

and for that i thank her. in my heart. every day.

Many E.D.s (well certainly mine) have MUCH to do with identity and about BECOMING and about not insisting that the only power you have is the power to refuse. and although I am still becoming, SHE is one of the reasons that the woman I am becoming is a person of worth and hope and love and honesty and integrity. and I am Thankful.

PLUMMET

Everytime things get difficult people always bail on me.
By people I mean Men. My girlfriends are always there with a mop and a bucket, ya know?
I keep dating men who don't want a partner, they want a FAN.
its okay its okay its okay its okay its okay
everything is going to be just fine just fine just fine just fine
I am going to be just fine.
just fine
just fine
just fine

better than fine
better than fine










 i don't i don't i don't

I do. I do exist. I do and one day, somebody is gonna tell my some pretty words and then
actually have the guts to back them up.And if they don't
and if that never happens
i am still going to be
just fine
just fine.

Pics fromajourneythroughimages

Focus in the Fog

Went walking on Sunday, a damp and foggy day.

Damp and foggy in my head, too.

jumbled and vague..i miss the strattera.

she gave me some samples for a lower dosage thatmay not kill my stomach, but of course i LOST THEM. My mom found them so I need to get them back but should i really start it again? It is not for long term use, I will just have to stop again eventually. Behavior modification is not working so well.

Here is a painting from sunday morning.
watercolor and pen and ink and pencil

Art on Arielle's blog!

Yay! I am featured on Arielle's blog,  Actively Arielle, for her Featured Art Project,  Calling All Art! Show & Tell and Giveaway.. The idea was to make recovery art- strictly recovery - (as opposed to art about Eating Disorders) that expressed your personal feelings about your path to a better you. (She has received many cool entries, you should check them out) 
Something else important about this blog is that  it is not for the faint of heart! Let me clarify - Actively is the appropriate word in her title. There is no room for the maybe-kinda-sorta-not-really-prorecovery minded. This is, of course, not to say that if you are not very far along in recovery you are not welcome - you are. It is just that her dedication to REAL RECOVERY can be felt in her writing and her voice and her words. She explores the less glamourous sides of recovery such as simply getting dressed and buying clothes (the Anxiety of Clothing is immeasurable for most ED sufferers) and answers tough questions about self love/self hate. This blog can be extremely helpful and it can make you uncomfortable - in a good way. 
After you name something, that thing becomes harder to ignore. After you recognize your dedication to recovery and size 2 (i am maintaining im fine shut up) ignoring that little OCD tendency flickering inside becomes harder. (I randomly chose size 2. Recovery can be size 0 for some, size 12 for some; everyone is a different genetic bundle) I suppose acceptance is the key word here. and Acceptance can be hard bc Life Is Not Fair! 
But Acceptance is one key to the cage, my friend!
S

Key - New Orleans, 2005, watercolor pencil, ash, mixed media

Cane RIver

I live on the Cane River and I really like living close to water. Even though I am in the middle of town, there is a whole little ecosystem out here of birds and snakes and fish and turtles (all of which i love). My lil dog and I go exploring on the river daily, and even though I have plenty of neighbors, I rarely see anyone out there. So the thing that I find confusing is why one my neighbors felt the need to dump a whole thanksgiving turkey on the riverbank. My dog was ecstatic like OMG ITS JUST FOR ME and I'm thinking "holy crap is that whole cooked turkey?" I am vegetarian so I was double horrified..and amused. Not even sure that it was a turkey - some kind of carcass. Cooked. So then I go the other way and find a huge pile of sausage gumbo. Ellie is leaping at this point...she grabbed a sausage before I pulled her away....she was acting like someone left it just for her. 

Anway random food in odd places aside, I am stopping the Strattera due to extreme gastrointestinal distress  (I will not post details about that) but altering brain chemistry is......making me feel I am in Wonderland. And giving me nightmares. And body image confusion. And it kinda sucks bc the medicine did work for me...not including the side effects from Hades.


Here is a pastel i did a few weeks ago.

I believe in a bone fragmented memory

I am 14 years old. I am thinner that I have ever been and I am in the bathtub staring down at my body with the usual feeling of intense alienation. I am full grown; I was full grown by 12. I found this repulsive so I tried to stop it. Now I’m older but smaller…and I only want even smaller. Staring at hipbones  beneath water…beneath skin. I want to see them closer. Really really see them. Are they really there? Are they white? Staring staring….It occurs to me quite suddenly that there is really NOTHING I can do to change the shape of my bones. Bones are solid, right?  ….and wide and thick and strong. They won’t be shrinking well they? I Stare. Immersed in water and complete powerlessness. I am a helpless soul trapped in this uncontrollable bone machine.  Is it true? …at some point there is nothing else you can do?….You can’t go any farther. Right? I begin fantasize about breaking bones and re constructing them. This seems horrible and I shudder and get up. And I dry off.

And I  get better

And I get worse

And at 17 I get hospitalized and diagnosed.

And at 31 I  write this.*

*This is supposed to go along with this drawing . But I can’t get all these bits and fragments of thoughts and images to add up. I know now, that Bones can be damaged to the point that they shrink, and surgeons can and do alter them. But as a kid I didn’t know it. I imagined them as steel. And it’s a good thing I did. It’s a good thing I believed in bones. 

and it isn't fair!

Lot's Wife. She looked back and BAM! God turned her into a Salt Lick. Okay, okay, a pillar of salt. Same difference. Genesis...I don't know chapter 11 or something. Anyway, in the usual tradition of Old Testament Atrocities, it seems terribly violent and horrible and eventually Lot's daughters have sex with him but this is way after  the mom is salt, so she never knows.
Anyway that story disturbed the hell out of me as a child bc I was thinking but that is not fair. - The pillar of salt part. Sunday School teachers 

conveniently left out the incest part...

Anway, so now it is 25 years later and i'm STILL so angry that things are NOT FAIR.
I'm 7 going "Omg even GOD IS NOT FAIR! seriously??"

So you get over it, I guess. and keep going. And I am mostly grown up and I try to accept that good people get laid off,  honest people will not get hired because their skin is too too dark and in most situations...there is not much I can do about it. Ignorance very often prevails. But some small part of me, when i see something so wrong, is just as indignant as little orphan annie when she witnesses the dog Sandy's abuse.
I feel like a child... I do not want to accept the corrupted, greedy, vain and shallow NORMAL.  I want to  stamp my feet and shout.

I overheard two women at work ripping apart a person who they deemed "ugly." It just seemed so completely immoral and awful to me. I can tolerate a lot of socially deviant behavior, rarely do I pass judgement on a person for a lifestyle choice that does not harm innocent people...But I can not stand the catty, mean, superficial flaky comments like that...that pass for conversation. Is it our American culture? The BRATZ pop diva phenomenon? celeb/media?  or is it specifically the southern pageant culture that i am - unfortunately  - surrounded by. Or do some people just suck at manners?
Bc really, this obsession with "pretty" is pretty gross. and unfair.
and i wanted to say "look lady, it is what is on the inside that counts!!"
but i am pretty sure no one would believe me.

gratitude

Witched and Stitched

Gotta dark spot right here on my soul, ya wanna see it? it may make you grow old la la la la
So one thing i am not afraid of is the dark. My first love is the moon, tattooed on my stomach right beside a stitch with five stripes....one for each member of my immediate family including me. This ink is not supposed to be pretty or fancy...just a symbol that I wanted... that I needed. A stellarscar had to have had a stellar stitch. i need beauty. beauty and is truth. and the truth it almost always has a black spot...that I can't ignore, or look away from. Maybe it's my chemistry, my past or this world, but please don't ask me to lie.

So one thing I am not afraid of is the light. I saw some angels floating, arms up, healed and holy.

If there is a sun (god) so bright, then how can i continue to Hug My Sadness Like An Eyeless Doll?

I need this pain.

"Oh don't be so mello-dramatic. " my T said that to me once. Yes, for real. But it was okay..like knowing her and her coolness and the timing...It was perfect. Like, it might have changed my life.

So strange those moments...that come together. Stitched in time. A seam a crease a moment that SOMETHING happened

In my head i go back, and pull them apart and see if there is anything in there. I am headed straight to that dark corner to see what is in there, straight to edge to see if anyone has fallen over and i'm headed straight to the river to see if there are any snakes....and there are.....

( i took that pic today - it is a Banded Water Snake)

usually.

Im headed under the consciousness too. Like the Jung lover I am, i want to poke around in there..terrified of what i won't look away from.

Then i get bored with myself.

So I make up someone new. Some mothlike and drawn to the light, someone who will leave the darkness alone.

someone with..an apple core star heart made just for you

Margaret Atwood: “Is it necessary to suffer in order to be a writer?” aspiring writers are in the habit of asking.  “Don’t worry about the suffering,” I have tended to say.  “The suffering will occur whether you like it or not.”

Strattera VS Prozac Part II

6 weeks of Strattera. I don't have much of an appetite, I am not eating much, i am GAINING weight.

My mouth is the sahara desert.

My stomach hurts and feels full all the time.

i'm just like wtf, man?

I have no script for life and nothing makes sense and  I feel trapped

Oh wait. Maybe my script is the pharmaceutical insert in the strattera box. :C

ON THE 'NOTHER HAND..... i have accomplished more things, my focus is better, i can do my - not-even difficult-in-the- first-place -  job without

feeling like a wild raccoon being forced to do long division for 12 hours with no breaks.

I am more depressed. not terrible, but more.

Apparently Prozac and Strattera are not friends. They block each other.

in my brain.

sigh. so whatdoido?

somebody somewhere

y      why cant i format my blog omg . so. Ahem. Yesterday one of my best friends made her facebook status update "i remember when i thought i was going to be somebody" and it kind of felt like a cold knife...her words did. I mean we tried. Really, both of us, we did everything right. After college...things just. Things are harder than you ever imagine...unless, I guess, if your family has tons of money or if you  know people....or.... is is just us? I know the whole economy is all screwed up GLOBALLY and all..Is it doubled bc of the horrible condition of our state? Most people I know are too poor to even MOVE to another state.  Do things seem so impossible because we are SINGLE? bc marriage seemed ...well kinda lame and besides there was no one to marry...but finanically I see where dyads make sense. How do you be thankful, on one hand, for running water and food and the chance to be this free and on the other hand think oh my god this is the poorest and 2nd worst (pollution & education & health) state in the UNION and i cant. get. out. and i cant STAY here.We didn't know this. We got art degrees. We followed hearts and dreams and worked really really hard at something that is not valued down here. At all. but we didn't realize..how little it mattered...bc we thought that in a SOCIETY such as ours there should be room for the poets and artists and dancers and theatres to work and survive and matter. We were taught that.....But..I can't find the room.and i sit at my desk for 8 hours a day and i work and i FOCUS and i speak and inside i am SCREAMING and slowly dying and the colors are just running down..all the painting that i am NOT DOING RIGHT NOW are freaking begging me..inmyhead...to bring them to life.and im not complaining..REALLY. im just trying to make sense of it. make sense of who i am.And how i fit into all of this.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of the most important holidays to me... I sincerely dread the winter and coming darkness, all those hours of no sunlight make it hard for my brain...I really feel Like Halloween is a time to get myself prepared for that, and to make it as festive as possible. I spent the first half of the day cleaning - and the second half with two grrl friends...we did the haunted history cemetary tour and watched Paranormal Activity at the local theatre. BUT! the coolest thing is that on the tour, we stopped by a law office that is also the local Historical Society Headquarters and they had a wall full of CLEMENTINE HUNTER ORIGINAlsI had no idea there were so many here in town, and the most famous ones to boot (big chicken) Ironically, this is just the day AFTER a forgery scam in the news. So that was amazing and exciting and I ran into my old Art History Professor so it was good to reconnect with her. I wore my witch had and witchy boots and kept thinking how Halloween is the one day of the year I can dress like I want to and no one STARES (like i wish i could dress EVERYDAY) and there were fabulous costumed strangers roaming about  and there were colorful mums and cornstalks decorating all of downtown.....Today I plan on making oatmeal cookies from scratch to take to some of the professors I am still friends with and then go visit my parents. I never eat the cookies I bake. Still. And I am holding off the loneliness...The air is still warm here but beneath that, the nights are gettin cool ..I am pushing back the cold wind swirling around the trees as they begin to bare their bark bones....Trying desperately to not wish for it to be my bones the cold air clings to. Putting this year to bed...remembering where all the ghosts of me have roamed. Gains and losses.

Sun sets on another year.

The Ruined City

So this is a new painting called The Ruined City. Yes, I am painting the end of the world. WELL.
Okay, It's not the end, really, just the way a really crowded crumbley city feels to me. And this is Louisiana and we know about crumbling cities.

I worked the hell out of the surface to get the cracklies in there and I am pretty happy with them.

Once a prof said to me, Ghost Girl, if no one buys your paintings it is because no one wants to be reminded that they are going to die. Bwahahhaha! Really? I think about it all the time, i always have. Not on purpose, either. I finally stopped obsessing but....i mean i still think about it. But it is only bc i LOVE BEING ALIVE (er usually) NOW. and Life tastes like strawberries and sticky sunshine kisses. But you can't just forget the cold death chill. Besides, i have seen some death and I wont forget it - it would be a dis-service to all living things to ignore it....as it would be to put death above LIVING. So love your life to death, says I. And move forward carrying your battle scarred heart. and sing a song of re-membrance and re-growth. Bc out of the ruins, we will rise.

Pretty New Drug.(and more lotus pods)

Some people dont have proper boundaries. Between themselves and other people or places or events or nature and it just gets so intensely close that the damn sunset might as well be INSIDE your heart. 
like jesus. 
but not really. 
This is the south. I can joke about jesus. and fishing. and dipping skoal and marrying your cousin. bc i do, in fact, work with a woman who is married to her first cousin. But the lady at the local college is a published poet who studied under Anne Sexton. This is a weird, jumbled up town.
Between the plantations, and 2 strips of fast food joints there is the moldy movie theatre and the 18th century graveyard.


The tattoo shop opened near a historical marker for the First American Fort ...located between the 17th century french fort and the spanish fort. and then down the road, near hte newspaper where i work, is where they put a marked down for the Native American burial ground the archaeology students dug up. I pass it on the way to work. Usually while i am eating breakfast. I eat in my car. I always do. Makes it less real. I would rather have lotus pods in my stomach than granola high fiber low fat sugar free all natural what-have-you.


30 Days Of Strattera. That is the movie i'm starring in right this minute. I called the doc to tell her that the sample packet was used up and we needed to plan a new course of action. I had a 3 page report in my head called What Strattera Did To Me and was ready to deliver it. Instead of the doc, i got the receptionist who said, "look, is it working? bc if so, we will just call you in a script." i stammered, "yes but..."  "okay, what is your pharmacy?"
oh yeah. I forgot. No one cares so much about the 2 lists I made; one of pros and one of cons.
"Rite Aid." "Okay-we'll-call-it-in-right-nowthankyoubye."


I understand that my neurotransmitters are just a very small facet of your JOB but, jesus, lady.
This is serious business for me. I dont take drugs lightly (anymore) esp not Big Giant Heartless Corp Manufactured drugs. Okay one more month. 30 more days. We shall see....


....until the lotus blooms inside me.

Lotus Pods

 

For some reason, I am having a terrible time formatting my blog posts.  Ugh. So here is a picture of my new goodwill dress. You like?
• i LOVE clothes. not in a fashion designer model-y sense but in a color texture pattern art sense.

I mean, i don't pay so much attention to what it is "in this season" as much as i get excited about visually stimulating things. like im in a COSTUME SHOP. And i LOVE shopping at goodwill,  I love diggin around in used clothes - I am not a germaphobe at all, but i can see where if you were, secondhand clothes could freak you out. A Lot.

So in the background you can see my new

watercolor - nude and lotus pods. Here it is closer. The design is off, but i was just practicing and ended up liking the figure. And i love those lotus pods. they rattle, and each little seed is is all enclosed in its own little pod.

All Tore Up

I love my Dog. But sometimes.
She is very. very. very.
Bad.
and likes to TEAR UP.

Like this painting that she obviously didn't like.

I am so tired.
I went to a meeting after work today.
A meeting of people who are trying to start a local nonprofit dog fostering/shelter program.

I am participating.  
in real LIFE.


Yesterday,  I went to lunch with one of my old professors and we had the grad school discussion.  Again.
He says, you know, if you don't want to eventually teach,
there is no point in getting the mfa (i have an ma)
See, that is the problem with me and Starting Things.
i don't start things that have ENDS. or GOALS. i just randomly DO THINGS.
and .....end up far out in the empty space between a star, a rib, and a blink of your an eye...
or rather lost in the purple lines beneath my own...

uh...do these bones make my hips look wide?  .....

Maladaptive Universe. congrats on yr starving!?!

Will power is continuing to paint when you know you suck

Continuing to write when you know you are not a writer

And continuing to eat when you think you are big enough

But you know there are people counting on you to keep going.

So yeah, I am working on this watercolor. Practice.

Non stop practice, it feels like.

So yeah, Im like, this is stupid. And pointless.

Buti keep going, I am still in that mode.

My moods, they don’t come and flash and go

They come and they settle and stay a while.

And I drink. And I smoke. And I paint.

Its bad, yeah. I know.

But the thing about addiction… is THIS. Don’t congratulate yourself

For your willpower when it comes to E.D.  – AN specifically.

Don't congratulate yourself for starving..when you LIKE it. when you are addicted to it.

Does anyone congratulate a drug addict for snorting all THOSE LINES???

or an alcoholic for drinking THAT MUCH??? no. NO. But it is the same thing.

resisting food is not -

NOT about having a strong personality..when it is something you are addicted to.

jesus. Does this society's love affair with thin NEVER end? really though.

I LIKED IT.

just like i like struggling to be a good painter..when

 i know...there are only a handful of good ones.

oh well.

its the struggle, right? the struggle for balance and for health.

"No Struggle.

No Progress "- (frederick douglass quote.)

hmm this painting is just a copy from a magazine. i do that sometimes for practice. but it kept looking more and more like me as a confused kid than as a fashion model in  NYLON. so i let it go and be that. ugly dress and all. then i made a butterfly with mis matched wings out of a different kind of paper and sewed that on. MALadaPTIve uNIVersE.

keep going.

That is all. Just keep going.

Girl I Used To Know

miss her sometimes.

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.

Strange Aches. Unfinished Business

Marya is manic.  Im almost done with Wasted, so I look her up to see what else she has written. Her book Madness, which came out in April 2008, is about being diagnosed as Bipolar.  Everything makes much more sense, now. I was expecting a book about a girl with e.d.'s but as I was reading I actually thought, " can't believe no one diagnosed her as manic-depressive" (that is the old term for it, right?. Oh, but they did. Only it was a story for another day.
Her behavior in Wasted is terrifying to me. Mania is terrifying and fascinating to me bc I have most likely never felt a single drop of it....but it always seemed like a necessary something to counterbalance the EXTREME depth of my depression. After I emerged from the worst deep  and dark depression of my life, I told my T that my brain felt wounded...that i was actually waiting for an extreme upswing..something to knock the pendulum too far over into a realm of the OPPOSITE of depression..whatever that is. Mania, I guess. Instead I documented the time between waking up and having the first 'longing for death' thought. Gradually that time increased. Slowy, slowly crawling back to life. Once I had "but i don't want to die," run across my mind, and was so shocked and excited that I immediately told my T. My brain had only offered me misery and rather gruesome thoughts for so long...the first positive idea that floated up was stunning. An Organ offering thoughts was the only way i could describe My Own Thinking...I didn't feel like I owned my thoughts...My brain was just a sick organ rotting in my skull. Radiating outward the putrid god awful thoughts...
And nothing got accomplished. I avoided everything and everyone. I finished school, I painted ferociously, but i kept it mostly to myself and had shaking anxiety fits when I thought about a Plan for The Rest Of My Life. or Promoting Me. So I did nothing. And I become nothing.
So reading about People who had
a debilitating mental illness
and survived and
even achieved.
gives me strange aches.

Truth

drinking wine.
not drinking wings, although that would be nice.

can't type. never could.
hope will float up, i think it does.

31 years and i figured one thing out
you have to believe in yourself ... u really do.

bc no one else can. What they believe in
is their perception of you...
and it is very likely..well... Wrong.

What goes around comes around, and yeah
i did some dumb things.

ususally bc i was afraid
of the truth.
Can't tell the truth..dont know what it is.
Isn't the truth just whatever you want to hear?

no? oh.

well i have magic mirrors sewn into my skin
and what i am
is whatever you want me to be.
but that spell wont last very long.
and when it wears off..
you say, "i never want to see you again"
and the bad thing...
the bad thing is
i understand.

WASTED

I am reading Wasted…by Marya Hornbacher.(finally) I have sort of avoided it. E.D. related books give me alls ort of weird and conflicted emotions but I was ran across it in the library and couldn’t leave without it.  I was in the library bc I have been reading about the Celts and I picked a few more celt books (one history, one fairy tales) and a movie about archaeology digs of Celtic burials. I love all that..anthropology, material culure…of Others. Not Mine.

My culture is Wasted… And the ADD book self help book I picked up.

{LOSER.} shut up I amtryingtoimprovemyself

So anyway, Wasted, is on one level, something I can related to, and on another level, absolutely maniac terrifying.  The counting, the repetition, and the disassociation, the body image issues I can TOTALLY relate to. The fearless wild child ….I am shocked by and in awe of. It rings true though. All of the bulimics I have known, have been  much more fearless and outgoing…aggressive Risk Takers than the AN.  Surely, that is not true in all cases, but just the few I have know. 

The An part of me is absolutely terrified. Of. Everything. Any Change is upsetting and makes me quite aware that we are all going to die. It took an act of God to move across town… All the strength I had. It was like closing my eyes running off the edge of something. In reality it was. NO. BIG. DEAL.  So I find her experiences of fighting, drugs and sex and trouble to be absolutely mystifying.

I enjoy her writing style, how it flows almost poetry-like and has the rhythm  of a voice.

Gazing at her face on the cover, at her body..i wonder what it be like to talk to her…..to have known her in 1984, 1995, now.

What kind of brain does it take to make long series of cohesive complete sentences (NO FRAGMENTS) and express present tense thoughts about painful past tense.events?

A good one, it seems like.

The book is not a trigger so far, although I secretly hoped it would be. There I go, setting traps inside myself. Another Protective Chain Link, a Wall, a Silent little Cage. So besides just enjoying the artistic merit of her words, Maybe I'll learn something from this book. Somethin’ about getting free from this wasted cage.