Low As Hell

Hey guys, it's been awhile. . . A long while. Sorry about that. It's just. . . *sighs* life, not in a good way either. The awful part about it is I needed this blog, and I didn't use it. This is my place to vent, rant, and open up—here I speak out into the universe, and though it never responds I feel better knowing it's no longer inside me. So why haven't I used this wonderful tool since October?

Punishment. . . It's the only thing I can come up with. I do, after all, have masochist personality disorder, and in some way I'm sure I was punishing myself—keeping myself away from the good outlet so I could wallow in bad habits. I'll admit it, I'm not ready to let go of old comforts no matter how self-damaging they are. I can feel myself getting close to letting go, my mind and body are moving toward better habits but I'm not there yet. One day soon, hopefully.

It's truly a struggle trying to do the right thing for yourself—loving yourself—when you have been taught to hate every last thing about yourself. Being told you're not worthy of—really—anything. It's my biggest struggle, not only loving myself, but not believing all my life lessons. To me normal is messed up. Not just a little messed up either.

You know how I came to like chicken lo mien?

I used to have to walk to my mom's work behind my high school, and wait in the car in the parking lot till 6pm when she got off. My school let out at 2:30pm. 3 ½ hours I would sit in the car, often times in the freezing cold (she would leave it un-locked but not leave me a key or give me a spare. Most of the time I spent half an hour looking for the damn car because it was a factory with a full lot). By 6pm, when Dani got off, I was usually starving, not because I was used to an after school snack. We never had after school snacks or anything like that. Nope, I was starving because a lot of the times I wouldn't have eaten all day. My school lunches were reduced but not free, and if I asked for the 10cents to buy lunch, Dani would freak out on me. I wasn't allowed to pack lunch because that would cost too much (my brother and sister always packed unless it was pizza day. They also got free school lunches by the way, but still packed.)

So what does all this have to do with lo mien?

Well, I would be so hungry by the time I left school I would search the floor of the car—which always looked like a trash truck—for anything I could eat. My brother and sister were very messy, and often left food in the car. Dani was too busy to tell them to clean it up, and she rarely got around to it herself. I ended up finding a Chinese takeout bin Dani must have had for a late dinner one time. Score, there were noodles left in it. Not many, but it was something. I downed those noodles and licked the damn thing clean. Before that I would always cringe when Dani got lo mien. All those things mixed in sauce you couldn't tell what they were, but I was desperate and it tasted so damn good. I've been a lo mien fan ever since.

I randomly told my husband this story—meant to be a childhood funny story sharing moment—one night when ordered takeout. I gave my usual chuckle that I've used to mask the awfulness of my past, then I looked over to my husband expecting him to do the same. Instead he looked horrified. He said, “you realize that's not normal right?”

I often don't know things like that aren't normal, because that was my normal. I never knew anything else. Okay, that's not 100% correct. If another person had told me this story about themselves I would have said the same thing to them. I would have believed it was horrid for them to have to shift through trash to find a scrap of food. I mean—fuck—it's really messed up, but because it was me—because it was my life—I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Why? Because I was trained not to see myself as human—as worthy. Instead I was always grateful to be alive, just happy to be in the world. As a result I go without—I punish myself even though I have done nothing wrong. I have guilt about everything! It makes recovery—healing—difficult on the best of days, and when my world starts getting hit by outside awfulness it becomes impossible.

End of October I pushed to get coloring books out, working myself into exhaustion because I'm always worried about money—about being a failure—and not working a 'real' job. It's something Dani would criticize me for, and now my brother in-law does too. (That's another can of worms to open another day). On top of that my mother in-law started dealing with some health problems, it ended up being a rare form of cancer. Something no family is ready to deal with. Since then life has been a blur, but I can feel myself slipping into old habits. Working far beyond my healthy limits, nightmares, irrational fears, ect. All the awful stuff I've fought against this last year or so is coming back, and it makes me wonder what's the point? Why do I suffer tons through healing when I end up right back where I started? Instead I could kept doing what I was doing and only suffered a little at a time.

I know these are all lies. I'm better for the battles I've won, and people tell me I'm doing better all the time. Problem is, all I feel is chaos. Wild, unrestrained chaos, and I don't know where to start putting the pieces back together.

The last week of December and first week of January I've been feeling more suicidal than I have in a really long time. Every second there's regret weighing me down, and it's all because of my asshole brother in-law and his harpie. It's brought me back to remembering things like the first time I tried lo mien, and other truly low moments in my life. Then comes the thoughts, “maybe my mom was right in the way she treated me. Maybe I should just be happy with being allowed to live as long as I have, because I don't deserve anymore than that. I'm worthless, pathetic, this lowly thing rolling around on earth. . . Everyone would be better off without having to deal with me.”

To keep myself grounded while these thoughts race through my head I've come back here—back to the thing that might just keep me moving forward. It doesn't change the way I feel right now, or how low my opinion of myself is, but maybe it will help something. Give me something to grip while I struggle. Oh yeah, my birthday is in two days also. Great time to feeling like this, but then my birthday has it's own awful memories. So, yay for me! Welcome to 2019.

#Failing #Struggling #Abuse #Depression #Suicide

~Jax