Month: November 2019

But I’m not suicidal.

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This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

I’m not suicidal.

I haven’t left the house since Friday.

I’ve been stuck in my own head.

Yesterday was DBT and

I

. . .just

. . . couldn’t

. . . quite

make it out the door.

. . .

Who am I kidding?

. . .

I couldn’t even change out of the clothes I’ve been wearing for 4 days straight.

. . .

I’ve cleaned the entire house.

I’ve cooked meals.

I’ve crafted and created and even sold things.

Everything within my safe little bubble.

I’m stuck in my own head.

Who am I?

I don’t want to face the world when I can’t even figure out what the world should see when it looks at my face.

I can’t figure out how the world should know me.

I can’t figure out how important it all is anyway.

And I can’t figure out if I want to share that part of my story because I don’t know if I even want it to be a part of my story.

If I ignore it will it just go away?

If I speak it will it become more real?

There’s a lot going on up there in my head right now.

I’ve let myself run out of one of my medications because I need to leave the house to get it.

My body is revolting against me. It doesn’t help that I ate the ever forbidden potatoes. I know better. I know they cause inflammation and inflammation is my worst enemy. HS (Hidradenitis Suppurativa) can go straight to hell and right now it’s taking me with it.

My brain hurts.

My body hurts.

And I’m not suicidal (but that won’t last unless I get my mood stabilizer back on board).

There have been a few random passing thoughts.

“If you were dead, this wouldn’t matter.”

But they are easily brushed aside.

Right now I’m stuck in my head and I’m stuck in a very ouchy body and this body and this brain are trapped inside of the house, because there are far too many steps between these 4 day old clothes and making it out that front door.

And it’s easy to say, I’m not suicidal, so I must be fine.

Because when “suicidal or not” is your measuring stick, almost anything looks good enough.

But this isn’t good enough.

Not even a little.

But digging myself out of my own brain, when every move hurts and my body wants to explode, is a very slow and painful process.

And every process starts with the first step.

I guess I should take the meds I never took this morning.

How is it already 7pm?

How is it already Tuesday?

But I’m not suicidal.

 

 

 

It really is this good.

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This is a Really Real Relationship post.

I’m all about radical vulnerability. Being wide open, and raw, and honest.

And I realized that while I’m showing all of the sides of mental illness and widowhood, it feels like I’m offering a Facebook version of my relationship.

And that’s not who I am.

It’s not what I’ve ever meant to do.

And honestly, I want people to know that things CAN be good, even with shitty mental health and a shitty traumatic past, and even with a relationship that’s just, almost, perfect.  I deserve good things, and things don’t have to be perfect to be good.

Wonder Woman and I have a really great relationship.

Over two years in and we haven’t had a single fight. We haven’t raised our voices at each other or said harsh words to each other even once. We apologize almost immediately if anything has even seemed passive aggressive. We even apologize if we’re grumpy or in a bad mood.

We really are sickeningly sweet.

But.

We have hard talks about hard things. We have some areas of our lives and our relationship that are really hard to work through. We are polar opposites in a few areas.

We are gentle with each other about those areas. We are respectful. We are understanding.

And, we get help with navigating those areas from a couples therapist, because the view from the outside is much clearer than the view from within.

It helps, and we always come out of our sessions with ideas about how to move forward, together.

I think there’s this view that couples therapy is for couples that are falling apart.

That it’s a last resort.

It was one of the first things we went for when we realized we were hitting road blocks in some areas of communication.

Don’t get me wrong. We have GREAT communication. But some areas are just HARD when we are so different. Different histories, different traumas, different preferences.

Different ways of communicating.

So I’m writing this post for two reasons.  One, is because I realized I was offering this “facebook reality” of my relationship, and I just don’t like that. And two, is to help with normalizing couples therapy, because really, what’s wrong with getting an unbiased outside perspective?

Vacation

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This is a Really Real Widow Post.

But also a bit of Mental Health thrown in there.

We never took vacations.

It’s one of my big regrets from Parker and I, but also from Kidlet’s childhood.

There was the year we traveled from Maryland to Florida to see our families.  That was our only family vacation in the 8 years we were together.

I think once we came from Florida, to Maryland, tagging along with my mom.  I guess that was a vacation. During that trip we managed to go over to DC for part of a day. Parker had never been to D.C. and she absolutely loved it.

A few years later when we were living in the homeless shelter up here, we met her family in D.C. for the day while they were on their vacation.

But vacations weren’t really on our radar.

Keeping the lights on, paying off the rent before the eviction notice expired, stretching the food stamps by making it to the food pantries on time. Making it to countless doctors appointments.

Those were the things we worried about.

But not vacations.

Wonder Woman and I leave for vacation tonight. I can’t count the number of overnight trips and vacations we’ve had in the 2 years we’ve been together. This is a belated anniversary trip, something we wanted to do, but couldn’t quite afford to do in September, so we were able to put aside some money and make it happen a bit late.

We’re going to a cabin in the mountains. The mountains are Wonder Woman’s place, she loves the cold. Mine is the beach and the warmth.

We’ve done lots of beach trips, it’s time to hit the mountains. I guess I can bundle up for a few days.

We have a fireplace in our cabin, and there are fire pits in the resort.

I guess I can handle that.

I still have great memories of going to the beach over Christmas on our first vacation. Hanging out in front of the fire together.

I look forward to repeating that.

I still feel weird taking vacations. I still have to remind myself that I deserve nice things. That I deserve happiness. That I deserve to travel and have these experiences.

That I deserve stability.

I’m so used to struggle that it’s hard to settle into stability.

It’s hard to feel comfortable with packing for a trip. It’s hard to avoid overthinking it.

It’s hard to find the balance between “bring absolutely everything you might need” and “if you forget something you can just buy it.”

It’s hard to find the balance between over planning/letting anxiety win and waiting for the last minute/letting anxiety win.

It’s hard to find the balance between being thankful for what I have now, and grieving what I didn’t have then.

We never took vacations.

I deserve this life.

Love

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This is a Really Real _____ Post.

Widowhood. Life. Relationship. Mental Health.

This is one is going to cover all of it.

Today I got messages from a few different people, telling me how amazing Wonder Woman is, and how amazing she is for me.

They weren’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

I love the way she loves me.

I love the way she’s always there for me without ever trying to fix me.

I love how she makes me laugh whenever I take life too seriously.

I love the way she loves me.

And.

I love loving her.

No one ever said anything to me, but I knew. When I started dating Wonder Woman, people wondered if Parker was being replaced.

They didn’t want anyone trying to stand in Parker’s shoes.

And the thing is, no one can ever fill her shoes. I wouldn’t want anyone to.

Wonder Woman fills her own shoes.

There’s no comparing the two. Parker loved a completely different version of me.

Parker was great at loving the version of me that didn’t know how to stand on my own two feet. Parker was great at being the other half of me when I didn’t know I could be whole by myself. Parker was great at surviving utter chaos with me.

I loved the way she loved that version of me.

And I loved loving her.

But now I’m an entirely different person.

Widowhood does that.

Wonder Woman is great at loving this version of me.  I can’t imagine ever being anyone’s “other half” ever again. I’m too busy being my whole self. Wonder Woman is a great partner in life. She’s great at showing me I can stand on my own two feet when I forget how capable I am. She’s great at supporting me in being the best person I can be.

And the best person I can be is constantly changing. I’m regularly discovering bigger and better things I can accomplish.

I’m looking at job postings and not freaking out at the idea of applying. (I’m even working on my resume.)

I’m working on new and deeper DBT skills.

I’m getting better at riding the waves of bipolar.

I’m working through trauma and learning how to navigate the world without so many triggers. I’m also learning how to navigate the world of triggers when I need to.

I’m really enjoying my life as I push forward.

I love loving them.

I love loving my life.

I love.

Happy Birthday Dear Ghost

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This is a Really Real Window Post.

Today is Parker’s birthday.

I feel like I should write a big commemorative post, except, I’m not sure what I would say.

This is the 3rd birthday she hasn’t been here to celebrate.

The birthday before she died, she was in the psych unit and we had to celebrate a week late. That same day she broke her ankle.

She was in a cast from having ankle surgery 6 months later when she died.

Connections.

I find that my memories are fading quicker than I’d like them to. This is why I hate not having pictures. (Take the damn picture, get in the damn picture.) I have a bad memory to begin with and now there are very few people who still discuss the memories we had. Memories fade. Something I never believed when people first told me after she died.

She would have been 41 today. But she’s forever frozen in time.

We don’t get to make new memories.

We don’t get to fight and piss each other off.

We don’t get to joke about how 41 is worse than 40, because now she’s OVER 40.

We don’t get to make each other happy.

We don’t get to share a life.

I still miss her even though my memories are fading. I still miss getting her balloons or cheesecake each year.

I miss seeing the smile on her face the year that Draven came home from his dads on her birthday. She felt like it was the best present in the world to have him back after 2 months.

She loved him.

She loved me.

And we loved her.

Today we are supposed to be celebrating her. Showering her with love. Filling her feed up with birthday wishes.

She acted like she hated the attention and hoopla while at the same time wondering why she didn’t get a whole birthday week.

Her mom would be baking her a cake the next time we went to see her. I wonder what her mom does to commemorate the occasion now. I miss her too.

Today is my ghost wife’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Parker!