Breakfast.
It has come to my attention that my brain requires a massive amount of reorganizing. There has been so much I have regarded as absent since the beginning of the year that has disturbed and frightened me even as relief over their disappearance overwhelmed me. I did not notice the profound excess I now sense in myself - a house too large for it's walls, or a cup too small for its contents. The overflow is happening because I need to thoroughly embrace what is hesitantly easing its way into me; that is to say, I need to fill my holes with the positive progress to allow everything to fit. My lack of fear when it comes to abandonment, loss and inadequacy needs to be filled with the confidence I can't quite accept. My lack of responsibility or indeed even love for Donna or those who I had adopted like her needs to be filled with the love of others who are actually worth my time. And et cetera.
I notice it has been over a year and a half since I have written in this journal, and I can really only speculate as to why. It seems easy to blame certain parties for this, to claim that their inability to accept my mental shortcomings led me to force all evidence of such out of sight. But of course one of the truths that will soon take up the space of the spaces inside me I'm getting lost in is that I made these choices, I have the power to change everything that is going on with me, so I will have to take responsibility for my failure to address my issues in this venue I have created for myself to safely do just that. Also, even after cutting ties with these certain parties a year ago, I still did not come back to this place. I assume that this means I wanted very much to believe, just as certain other parties did, that I was getting so much better so rapidly that I hardly needed the personal insight. I believe I was also under the impression that no one was reading this anyway so there was no point in keeping it up - which of course is coming from a place of pride I didn't know I had (which makes this sudden awareness of its lack of being very jarring indeed) since it would make more sense to write when no one is looking in hopes of stumbling upon real truth.
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, it has been a year and a half since I last wrote in this journal. I am currently taking nothing to alter my mood or brain chemistry, save the probably absurd amount of alcohol and occasional bit of marijuana or MDMA, my last stint with either being months and months ago. Marly has suggested that my relative steadiness after making this change (as in not completely flying off the handle) feeds her theory that I was misdiagnosed as Bipolar II. Her suspicions lead her to the hypotheses that I suffer from either: Cyclothymia, which is still within the bipolar spectrum although less severe and less predictable; or a form of severe depression which I would have had since my early childhood mixed and blended with the PTSD I acquired at age twelve - the receding of which seems to be what is leaving me at such a loss as to how to get on.
There may be as of now no official diagnosis to explain my mental state. The conclusion that I have to come to is simply that I was wrong about a great many things regarding my brain. Everything else that I knew to be true has changed. I have become better. This is a clean start, really. No medications, no preconceived ideas, not even any hair dye to mask my true color, no obsessing over my history of trying and failing because this is all new. There is literally nothing stopping me from making my life the one I want it to be.
I realize only as I type that that i am absolutely terrified of it. Of the hugeness of it. Because it is huge. There are some very important relationships I have (including the one I have with myself) that actually have been defined by my illness as I understood it. There are some that were even defined by my need for that person... there were many like that. I realize that I do not know how to love someone without needing them. But I don't. I don't really need anybody. I can face everything with the tools I have collected and the strength I've allowed myself to see. Although the quieting of my mind has left me jarred and somewhat lonely, I have been refusing to reach out as much as possible in fear that I would fall back into my old self, into my old habit of needing. I know what it must sound like to someone who is listening to me or reading this. How ultimately contradicting I am being. I know and I wish that I could find a place of actual sense but I'm afraid I can't find one myself. I go through periods of relaxing, of convincing myself that it is only a matter of letting it "be" that is the secret to accepting these new aspects of myself and letting the old go. But rapidly this sense of calm is replaced by panic, the knowledge that I cannot possibly rebuild myself or my relationships, the vision of all of me, all of these pieces, not being held together by skin or sanity or duct tape or anything... that it is simply a hot mess and it is too much and too big a task to put it together again.
Reflectively, there are rapid cycles of energy and lethargy. I go through them every day, at least twice a day. I feel as if action and movement will help me, as if getting it done will make me feel better. I will then start on no less than three things at once and finish one of them and get frustrated with the rest. Then: fail. Then: despair. Then: nothing.
Sometimes I begin to reach out and try to find support from someone else. So then I go through the list: Zac is of course at his job, or at band practice and if he happens to be home he is tired and talks about important things like money and plans and everything I would ask of him dissolves into making him more comfortable. Julia has so many friends who make her happy and don't ask too much of her, so many projects and how can I even talk to her now? My father is in Jackson with his soon to be wife (tomorrow is the day) and is very interested in fixing but despises the not-easily-fixable. Who else? Jack is wonderful but our relationship can't be nothing but crazy talk. Cip is so easy to talk to that everyone already comes to him with everything. Besides all this, how do I approach someone with something so abstract and confusing and expect them to talk to me about it? "I don't know how to love without needing... I don't need so I don't know how to relate..." What can anyone do with that.
I have grown frustrated and upset. I suppose it is going to be important for me to talk to someone somehow. Logic tells me that just like I have to let myself "be" I also need to trust the people I love... trust them to not reject me or whatever it is I'm worried about... Just start talking to someone about my mental paradox because I can't sit here in limbo but in flux at the same time. That's what's exhausting you, Elfie, and you know it. You either go or you stay. You either sit at the bottom or ask for a hand up. It can't really be as hard as you're making it out to be.
I really want to know why I'm scared right now if it really isn't that hard.
I notice it has been over a year and a half since I have written in this journal, and I can really only speculate as to why. It seems easy to blame certain parties for this, to claim that their inability to accept my mental shortcomings led me to force all evidence of such out of sight. But of course one of the truths that will soon take up the space of the spaces inside me I'm getting lost in is that I made these choices, I have the power to change everything that is going on with me, so I will have to take responsibility for my failure to address my issues in this venue I have created for myself to safely do just that. Also, even after cutting ties with these certain parties a year ago, I still did not come back to this place. I assume that this means I wanted very much to believe, just as certain other parties did, that I was getting so much better so rapidly that I hardly needed the personal insight. I believe I was also under the impression that no one was reading this anyway so there was no point in keeping it up - which of course is coming from a place of pride I didn't know I had (which makes this sudden awareness of its lack of being very jarring indeed) since it would make more sense to write when no one is looking in hopes of stumbling upon real truth.
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, it has been a year and a half since I last wrote in this journal. I am currently taking nothing to alter my mood or brain chemistry, save the probably absurd amount of alcohol and occasional bit of marijuana or MDMA, my last stint with either being months and months ago. Marly has suggested that my relative steadiness after making this change (as in not completely flying off the handle) feeds her theory that I was misdiagnosed as Bipolar II. Her suspicions lead her to the hypotheses that I suffer from either: Cyclothymia, which is still within the bipolar spectrum although less severe and less predictable; or a form of severe depression which I would have had since my early childhood mixed and blended with the PTSD I acquired at age twelve - the receding of which seems to be what is leaving me at such a loss as to how to get on.
There may be as of now no official diagnosis to explain my mental state. The conclusion that I have to come to is simply that I was wrong about a great many things regarding my brain. Everything else that I knew to be true has changed. I have become better. This is a clean start, really. No medications, no preconceived ideas, not even any hair dye to mask my true color, no obsessing over my history of trying and failing because this is all new. There is literally nothing stopping me from making my life the one I want it to be.
I realize only as I type that that i am absolutely terrified of it. Of the hugeness of it. Because it is huge. There are some very important relationships I have (including the one I have with myself) that actually have been defined by my illness as I understood it. There are some that were even defined by my need for that person... there were many like that. I realize that I do not know how to love someone without needing them. But I don't. I don't really need anybody. I can face everything with the tools I have collected and the strength I've allowed myself to see. Although the quieting of my mind has left me jarred and somewhat lonely, I have been refusing to reach out as much as possible in fear that I would fall back into my old self, into my old habit of needing. I know what it must sound like to someone who is listening to me or reading this. How ultimately contradicting I am being. I know and I wish that I could find a place of actual sense but I'm afraid I can't find one myself. I go through periods of relaxing, of convincing myself that it is only a matter of letting it "be" that is the secret to accepting these new aspects of myself and letting the old go. But rapidly this sense of calm is replaced by panic, the knowledge that I cannot possibly rebuild myself or my relationships, the vision of all of me, all of these pieces, not being held together by skin or sanity or duct tape or anything... that it is simply a hot mess and it is too much and too big a task to put it together again.
Reflectively, there are rapid cycles of energy and lethargy. I go through them every day, at least twice a day. I feel as if action and movement will help me, as if getting it done will make me feel better. I will then start on no less than three things at once and finish one of them and get frustrated with the rest. Then: fail. Then: despair. Then: nothing.
Sometimes I begin to reach out and try to find support from someone else. So then I go through the list: Zac is of course at his job, or at band practice and if he happens to be home he is tired and talks about important things like money and plans and everything I would ask of him dissolves into making him more comfortable. Julia has so many friends who make her happy and don't ask too much of her, so many projects and how can I even talk to her now? My father is in Jackson with his soon to be wife (tomorrow is the day) and is very interested in fixing but despises the not-easily-fixable. Who else? Jack is wonderful but our relationship can't be nothing but crazy talk. Cip is so easy to talk to that everyone already comes to him with everything. Besides all this, how do I approach someone with something so abstract and confusing and expect them to talk to me about it? "I don't know how to love without needing... I don't need so I don't know how to relate..." What can anyone do with that.
I have grown frustrated and upset. I suppose it is going to be important for me to talk to someone somehow. Logic tells me that just like I have to let myself "be" I also need to trust the people I love... trust them to not reject me or whatever it is I'm worried about... Just start talking to someone about my mental paradox because I can't sit here in limbo but in flux at the same time. That's what's exhausting you, Elfie, and you know it. You either go or you stay. You either sit at the bottom or ask for a hand up. It can't really be as hard as you're making it out to be.
I really want to know why I'm scared right now if it really isn't that hard.