itmightnotbeok

I don’t believe in anything anymore. But if I did, I’d like to believe that there’s a version of me out there with the same amount of love to give, that doesn’t destroy everything she touches.

Weird to never know if my brain or my heart is leading my steps.

Weird to never know if I’m walking blind or seeing clearly.

Weird to never know if what I see in the mirror is my own reflection.

“I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome”.

Why do I punish myself?

Like I purposefully set myself up.

I wish I didn’t choose to see what someone else will have and I won’t ever again.

I wish I didn’t know.

I wish I could have at least pretended a little longer.

I wish I didn’t know you really never loved me. At least not for a while.

I talked to the kids at work recently about why emotions are called “feelings”. We talked about where we physically feel anger, joy, fear, anxiety and sadness. When I asked them where we feel sadness, they unanimously agreed sadness starts in the stomach.

Maybe that’s why I feel so nauseous.

It’s my fault, it’s really becoming a pattern.

I acted out of character again. Thinking I was going to feel some sort of petty validation. I wanted to hurt your feelings.

Instead I hurt my own.

I’m genuinely so annoyed and frustrated with myself.

I don’t want to be miserable but I’m so pulled to misery.

Like if self harm could be breaking your own heart.

I died my hair back to blonde tonight. I wanted to recognize my reflection again. To feel like myself again.

I still don’t.

How can I feel like myself when I gave so much of me away, to you?

I wish you could have given it back with all the other evidence of me left scattered in your world. In a bag on the porch.

Love makes you blind.

I’ve been thinking about my willingness to follow you without question.

How I ignored the blazing signs in front of me, giddy just to be holding your hand.

I don’t want to have to love with one eye open.

I don’t want to worry that you know I will listen to your voice, instead of looking at my surroundings, and you will use it against me.

I don’t want to lose how love makes everything else blurry when I’m with you.

I want to walk with someone, eyes tightly shut, knowing when I open them, I will be in the place they promised.

How do you know, when love steals your vision, you aren’t being taken where they promised you would never have to go?

When I can trust someone to lead my steps, when I can follow someone knowing they won’t leave me in the dark, that’s when I will love again.

You were supposed to take me somewhere beautiful. How foolish not to have felt the cliffs edge beneath my feet before you pushed.

But God, do I miss who you used to be.

I didn’t apologize that last night for the reasons you think.

I was careful not to lie.

I never said,

“I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that”.

You told me that I had changed.

I argued I hadn’t.

But I have. I have changed.

Twenty words.

I apologized because after you wrote them, after you sent those twenty words that could never be written by someone who loved me, I realized I wasn’t acting like myself, I was acting like you.

I didn’t apologize because I believed I didn’t have the right to express my anger.

I didn’t apologize because your words ended up making me believe that it was my fault, like all the times they had before.

I didn’t apologize because I decided you didn’t deserve to feel the same way you have made me feel countless times.

I didn’t apologize because your attempt at shaming me, at reminding me of my mistake, again, made me question myself.

I apologized because I realized in that moment that I would never let someone in my life again that would degrade me like that. I apologized because I knew that would be the very last night I would ever speak to you. I apologized because after so much effort put in to trying to change myself for you, I realized I had finally done it.

But it wasn’t the change I had been initially trying for. It wasn’t that I learned to become someone who was silent in order to please you, who was unbothered by disrespect, someone who didn’t advocate for their needs and dignity. I hadn’t changed into the person you found acceptable, the person I wanted to be so badly to keep you.

I changed by not allowing you to cloud my character anymore. I changed by not even having a desire to earn your approval. I changed by realizing you weren’t worth the level my emotions had gotten to. I changed because I finally felt nothing in response to your cruelty.

And it wasn’t you who made it happen. It was me. My strength. My growth. My acceptance.

I realized I was not going to walk away for the last time acting against my true character in response to yours. I was able to finally let go of the suffocating grip that your words have held me in and feel only pity to the depths you would sink to come out on top.

I apologized because I realized I wasn’t willing to let you make me behave in a way that didn’t feel true to who I was ever again.

I apologized because after your attempt to humiliate me, I realized you weren’t someone that I wanted to fight with or for anymore.

I apologized because I realized I was speaking to a different man than I had known, and I had nothing left to give.

I apologized because I realized that was the last time you would ever try and make me feel like a bad person.

I apologized because I am not a bad person.

And now?

I apologize to myself for the times I fell to the standards that you hold yourself at.

I apologize to myself for ever letting someone touch or speak to me the way you did, for as long as I did.

I apologize for wanting to become someone else to make you happy, when in reality, I would never want to be the kind of person you fantasized about.

That was not the apology you thought it was.

I have changed.

You have changed.

I miss you, all the time. That hasn’t stopped.

The change is, I no longer see a future with the person that you turned out to be.

When I was a kid, after my dad killed himself, my mom started struggling with a serious case of depression.

I’m not going to go into detail because that’s not my story to tell, but it was pretty debilitating to her for a long time.

If you had told me 15 years ago that I would talk to my mom everyday, tell her I love her, call her when I was in need, I would have never believed it.

When my mom got sick, I didn’t understand. I was grieving the loss of my father, and then suddenly felt like I was also grieving the loss of my mother. I was angry at her. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t the same anymore. In my pain, in my immaturity, in my selfishness, I wasn’t able to realize that I wasn’t the only one hurting. I failed for years to recognize what my mother had to go through, and the lengths she went to to protect us, all while experiencing unimaginable pain. I couldn’t see that his death didn’t just leave me without a dad, it left her without a husband. It left her without support, without a second person to raise us, without the person she thought she would be with forever.

It wasn’t until I experienced the crippling sensation of depression myself that I was able to understand that the things I saw were not my mothers choice. It wasn’t until I couldn’t get off the couch for hours at a time, and struggled to even heat food in the microwave for my children that I realized that depression isn’t something you can just “pick yourself up from”.

I harbored so much resentment towards her and blamed her, but the truth is, what I really felt like was that I wasn’t enough for her. That she didn’t love me enough to just “be ok”. I was so self centered that I couldn’t comprehend that her illness had nothing to do with me.

I had to live the reality myself. I had to get to a place where my own children, who I loved more than anything, weren’t enough for me to just “be ok”. My love for them had nothing to do with the chemical imbalance that was happening inside my brain.

Not being able to show my mother that empathy, is one of my biggest regrets.

I wish that it didn’t take experiencing the symptoms myself for me to have shown empathy. I wish I could have put myself aside long enough to understand and support and love her through it.

Mental illness is not something we get to choose. We don’t get to decide when it will reel its ugly head, and we don’t get to just decide to feel better. Mental illness is a disability, one that is so extreme that it causes people to kill themselves rather than experience it any longer.

No amount of love for someone, no amount of passion for a job, or positive thinking can change the way our brain decides to function.

Mental illness is an unfair, crippling reality for so many of us that can breed an incredible amount of guilt. It has nothing to do with being strong enough, or loving someone enough, or pushing through.

It kills people.

If you are struggling, and experience what it’s like to have someone invalidate your diagnosis, I am so sorry.

It’s a terrible thing to have to suffer so deeply, and then on top of that be met with people who shame you, judge you, or question you because they don’t understand.

The same ideas surround the reality of being an addict.

There will always be people who don’t see addiction as a disease. Who view addicts as people who are selfish and choose to destroy their lives and lose everything they love.

If you have felt that from someone, please know you aren’t alone.

You aren’t weak because your brain doesn’t work the same anymore. You aren’t a bad person because you have an illness that you didn’t choose to have.

If you haven’t experienced the burden of mental illness or addiction, and you make someone else feel that it is their fault or their choice, please educate yourself.

Talk to a professional, listen to people’s experiences, do your research.

For a long time I let my insecurities block my compassion because I couldn’t focus on someone else’s pain over my own.

It’s not a choice. As adults we have a responsibility to treat our disabilities. We have a responsibility to do the work it takes to get sober, to get help, to get on meds.

But sometimes, we just can’t. It has nothing to do with effort.

I don’t believe my father could have just “tried harder” or that his love for me should have been enough to keep him alive.

My father lost the fight inside himself, he didn’t choose to.

That’s the reality. Sometimes people get better. Sometimes they can’t.

If you believe anyone would choose to experience the pain that I have experienced, that my mother has experienced, that my father experienced, maybe you need to look inwards.

Maybe you need to ask yourself if you really believe they aren’t trying hard enough, or if deep down what is happening to them makes you feel that YOU aren’t enough.

If you have been invalidated, you aren’t alone. Your pain is real. You have an illness, and you deserve compassion, forgiveness and love.

There are people out there who will support you, regardless if they have lived it or not.

Find them. Hold them close.

And the rest?

Honestly, they can just fuck right off.

I won’t call you anymore when I’m scared.

But I’ll think of you.

I won’t reach out when the nights are long, the bed is cold and my heart is aching.

But I’ll think of you.

I’m the type of person that needs anger, that needs a reason to hate someone to be able to let go.

I don’t want to be that person anymore.

For so long I have felt that without anger, there would only be sadness.

I’m afraid of sadness. I’m afraid of what will happen if I let myself fully embrace that emotion without the rage pushing me to keep going out of spite. I’m afraid I will lose to the dark.

What would happen if instead of letting go of the good and embracing the pain to heal…

I let go of the pain?

What if I took all of that energy, and tried to let go of the brokenness I feel?

What if instead of reminding myself of every reason I have to justify why I’m better off when I feel that loss creeping in, when I’m reminded of you, I used it to think of the happiness I once felt because of you? What if I used that energy to embrace acceptance? Acceptance that people don’t always stay forever. What if I used it to be thankful for the laughter, the passion, the friendship?

What if instead of trying to pretend that if I just focus on those harsh memories long enough, I’ll see you for who you are, what if I can choose what I remember?

What if I can direct my thoughts to gratitude and understanding instead ?

What if I don’t have to feel sorrow or hatred?

What if I can just remember what it was like when it was love, and be happy for it?

What if I’ve had it wrong this whole time?

What if it’s not “without anger there is only sadness”?

What if it’s, without anger

there is peace?

I see the same concept all over the internet . “One day you won’t remember this sadness”. “One day you won’t remember how hard this was”. “One day this season will feel like a distant memory”.

Am I crazy?

Like is this true for most people?

This seems so, completely opposite of my experience so far in life.

Idk about you but for me, I actually only remember the sadness. I only remember the dark. It’s the good I forget. The moments that make it all worth it.

I started keeping a photo album of Polaroids. I take a camera with me most everywhere I go. I call the album, my “reasons to stay alive” book.

I have to have tangible reminders that things aren’t always so dark.

And even in that album, are photos of people and places that represent grief that I will never forget, without ever having to lay eyes on them again. Slow dancing with a friend I thought I’d have forever, the treehouse, the ocean we watched swell and break where we started our ten day pact, selfies with friends that are now strangers. Some I’ll admit were moments where I didn’t recognize my own face, that it wasn’t me in the photo… I threw those out.

I surround myself with evidence of good memories in every room, just as a reminder that I have been happy. That I do have friends. That I really can still feel the gratitude of my heart still beating. I have tattoos that say things like “we are the ones who live, I’m with my friends, I promise to never leave myself, and have you ever been in love”. If I didn’t actively have these visual reminders, I really would forget.

I don’t keep reminders of the bad intentionally because I know they wont fade.

Those reminders live in me. When a memory flashes through my mind unannounced like a bird that flies in front of your windshield, or in every single song I shared with someone, or in places that feel unsafe or hold beloved memories turned bitter, in seasons coming and going without the same people to celebrate with, in furniture I’ve cried on, been held on, in my bed that’s too big for me, the ink on my skin, or in my dreams, I remember.

It’s not even remembering. That’s not the right word because I never, ever forget.

The challenge for me is that it’s the good I can’t grasp for long. It slips through my fingers. It’s the darkness that puts out the light. Not the light that puts out the darkness.

Is this reversible? Is it a matter of just not letting go like I’ve been told?

Or is it just reality. That some people will spend their whole lives having to remind themselves why they should get out of bed, instead of reminding themselves in their joy that things weren’t always easy.

Idk.

It’s not that one is harder. It’s not that I’m envious of seeing things differently. It’s just foreign to me.

Maybe some of us really are just prone to the dark, as others are to the light.

I’ve always been a night owl anyway.

I slipped on black ice today. I wasn’t expecting to get out of my car only to have my feet hit the ground and slide out from underneath me. I was dazed but otherwise felt no pain.

I forgot about it all day in fact.

But, as I went to lay in my bed after work, I noticed my hip was too sore to lay on my left side.

The hours have ticked by, and new places have started to ache. Bruises are starting to form in places I didn’t even know hit the ground.

Is this what this heartbreak will be like?

I felt nothing. I carried on, dazed, but otherwise pain free.

But as I lay here, I can feel the pain of loneliness beginning to form. I can start to see the bruises of broken promises, dreams that will never come true, and they are starting to ache.

With time my bruises will heal and I won’t feel sore anymore, I won’t be black and blue.

I hope my heart is the same.

I hope this is a setback, and I am still on the path to healing.

Maybe I spoke too soon.