What Separates The Kill From The Pack

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abuse, advice?, Anger, anxiety, bipolar, black sheep, Blame, Communication skills, crisis, cruel, Current Events, Current Problem, cut short, Dementia, Demon, Depression, Dirty, disaster, Downward Spiral, episode, Family, Family Stories, Father, fears, Food, help yourself, Homelessness, hypomania, incest, Inside POV, Mental disorder, mental illness, MI, MI Education, Mindfulness

The Band & Neil Young – Helpless

I went to the informational lecture for Bariatric Surgery. It was a big step for me. I hate myself and have since I was 3 and molested by the babysitter’s husband. Ugh, reading that is ugly. Makes me think I want your pity and I don’t. It happened and I couldn’t stop it. Whatever.

So they tell you about 3 ways of dealing with obesity through surgery. Tell you about the support that they’ll give you when you go to get it. A counselor, support groups, nutritionist all these people there to help you through making your stomach about the size of your fist from one that’s the size of I don’t know, the head of an elephant? At the end they pin this little gem on: “If you go and tell other people about what you’re planning you won’t get the surgery.” Charming, isn’t that? Guess what I did, thinking; “Okay this is the one time I’ll reach out and get help.” Yes I did.

So I decided that I would wait a while and let people ask me if I started it and tell everyone I decided not to do it. I have this little memo pad I’ve been recording my food intake since Easter. I have the elliptical that I STILL can’t get my fat @ss on. BUT I have gotten out of the recliner and gotten out to do more physical things around and outside of the house. The apple tree has been dropping pips and apples as has the pear tree. I spend every afternoon (well almost every afternoon,) picking them up with one of those old lady claws. I try to get out of the house and ino town to do something at least 5 times a week. I know it’s not enough but I’m building up enough strength so my body stops hurting.

When my Mother made it clear in her passive aggressive way that she really wasn’t going to put my father into a nursing home and I was stuck dealing with him and his dementia I gave up. I stopped going out and doing things with my friends. I stopped looking for things to occupy my time and I started sleeping more. I decided that I should probably die. I couldn’t just out right kill myself though. Everybody would say it was because I wanted attention because that’s the kind of low down pathetic type of denial that my family lives in. Don’t get me wrong. In the “real” world they’re wonderful people. They just couldn’t give a rat’s @ss to take time out of their lives and read up on mental illness never mind actually asking me personally why I acted the way I did and how I am dealing with it. I mean they might learn something like more than one person in our family has mental illness. And god forbid anyone actually talk about what happened at the babysitter’s house. Personally I don’t think about it all that much or any of the other times I was molested by neighbors or people I knew. Still pretending it never happened has NEVER EVER healed the foundation of my tattered soul. I know that sounds dramatic but I am seriously f^cked up and would rather not be. I’ve worked hard alone to undo the years of twisted sh!t that have shaped me into a fearful, obese, closeted person when I could be out feeling free from these brain shackles. I really could use some help from someone that won’t drop small bombs and gaslight me or patronize me or sneer at me for the heavy load I bear. It seems every person I have met so far has to contribute something ignorant or f^cked up that helps set me back a step or two. I mean it’s not just people there are other things that set me back too.

It brings me down. Some days I feel like I’m 5. Nowhere to go. No one to ask for help from. Really nothing has ever really changed. People I seek help from give me the old party lines. The same crap my parents, all adults dropped on me to shut me up and doubt my own eyes. It took me many decades to realize that I can disregard most of the cr@p that falls from people’s lips like dung from a cow’s @ss. If only all that cr@p gave someone sustenance like manure actually does. Most of the poisonous ether that emits from people’s mouths shrinks brains. I was helpless against the family chorus, the world cast that chants bullsh!t that only comforts themselves so they don’t have to answer the questions they don’t want to think about, that would have saved me years and my self identity.

It took me this long to find that the magic word is “Whatever”.

On the good side. K and I are now talking. How long will this last? Whatever.

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Countdown to a Phoenix’s Renewal…

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bipolar, black sheep, Depression, hypomania, money, story, woman's shelter

Getting paid once a month, I keep thinking that I’m doing okay. I pay off all my major bills (cut to 2 major ones,) pay off anyone I borrowed money from (which I attempt to rarely do,) then I promise myself to mete out the rest of the money judiciously the next 3 to 4 weeks. I tell myself, “see, you have it all planned out! Now put aside $40.00 and you can save for something really special!” This is a lie. I don’t live below the poverty line, I live under the grave of the poverty line. And days like today I am glad for the $25 that I give towards the cable bill.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. There were times where I was much much worse off than this. Times where I was homeless and my method of entertainment was suspended because I had to corral 2 kids in a shelter for battered women from some of the more demented denizens that also lived there. You see you really don’t understand the saying “beggars can’t be choosers” until you’ve been told by a woman who obviously has better places to be that you will be safer in a house full of questionable occupants than with the evil you live with at home. At least at home I didn’t have to contend with a “House Mother” who had a cocaine problem and stole from uninitiated incoming victims. I envied the woman who came in and obviously had money when she got the tour, went downstairs, called her lawyer and sat in the office until she got out of there. She didn’t have to contend with the racist attitudes, interestingly enough which were reversed. The “House Counselor” a white chick from the suburbs didn’t believe that she had to help anyone else white. They had her advantages right? And I never thought I’d have to deal with a nasty confrontation with a black woman who insisted I was “looking at her” and was “looking for a beatin'”. I never left my sons to play or wander in that house. They got their own roughing up one time when I had to cook a meal for the house. It seemed like such a nightmare then and now just like an afternoon tv movie. Needless to say I was anxious the whole time and hyper-vigilant until I got my own check and apartment. I am thankful to get anything. I am thankful for what I have. It may not last long. My Mother may die tomorrow and I’ll be out on the streets again looking for a place to be safe in.
I can’t get a roommate. I won’t get help from my family. I am the black sheep. And because I have bipolar disorder which isn’t considered an affliction in my family, (I think they believe it’s an “excuse”,) I won’t be getting any sympathy. I’m used to it but that doesn’t make me not bitter. It’s all the things you read off the internet about the bias against mental illnesses as well as years of society’s attitude towards something it doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to understand. If I’m depressed I’m lazy. If I’m hypomanic I am inappropriate. And since I’m not a child I’m not cute enough to feel bad for so that people want to do something about connecting with me. All those years actually now make it difficult to connect with me. I don’t trust anyone that talks to me. I’m used to human service workers who are notoriously horrid at helping and communicating without their own agendas trying to fit me into their idea of what is right. By the way, I’ve been through two shelters. Did I tell you that? No, but it left several marks.
I used to be a trusting soul.
Now I’m trusting time to march it’s large @ss on through to Thursday so I can feel a little closer to normal. Or what I consider people feel like when the feel normal, a chance at feeling potential. ‘Cause money isn’t happiness. Money is potential. A new start to either f^cking up royally or maybe a (albeit thin,) blanket of funds to bring some events to life throughout the month so that I can give myself goals to look forward to instead of sitting in front of the idiot box or lying in bed. I know I should flog myself for not being creative and writing in a journal (I do but there’s not much to write about unless it’s depressing and angry, it should surprise you that I am not a pollyanna,) taking a walk (I hide the fact that I fear people looking at me and can only go out and do things if my mind is sufficiently busy enough so that I forget I am human,) or exercising (not going into it.)
Did I tell you I’m skating on the edge of depression? I won’t be telling anyone else. I give myself a 2 time limit to mention my moods that may bring my stability to halt to anyone. People get that scrunched up constipated look whenever I say it more than 2 times. No one wants to deal with it. And somehow I am suppose to use the intelligence that I have to deal with it and change it. You know this doesn’t just criticize regular people. People with MIs are just as judgmental as those without. I don’t understand the ignorance. I’ve come to think of it as a superstitious reaction in people with MIs. If it is expressed they may be dragged down with a depressive episode or shot up with a manic/hypomanic episode. I also think it is superstitious in a different sense for people without. If you are in an episode you may infect them and “make them crazy”. Also you may heaven forbid! embarrass them. Real embarrassment is taking your penny bag to the store to buy a whoopie pie.