itmightnotbeok

I slept without nightmares last night.

I had a five scoop sundae.

I held hands with my favorite person.

I start work in a few days.

Life is still messy. Still painful.

But I feel good today.

Even if it doesn’t last until tomorrow.

Today I feel good.

I’m waving my white flag.

Is there a word in the dictionary that describes what it feels like to consistently miss the mark?

Is there a word that encapsulates the feeling of desperately trying not to lose yourself while also trying not to be too much for others?

Is there a word that sums up the feeling of realizing that to not cause problems you must be silent?

The only word that comes to mind,

is defeat.

I hope I find peace in accepting it.

The ever invasive, consistent thoughts in my head have been there as long as I can remember. I have never experienced long term silence inside my brain. I have tried to find the right ways to express them, to get them out so I can release and heal from the words I know I should not think.

I know that I am a lot. I over analyze, over think, over worry. I need constant reassurance. I pull the rug out from my friends and family when my emotions and thoughts come spilling out at random times and catch them off guard. When I feel overwhelmed with grief, fear, guilt etc. to the point of vomiting, I corner people with my thoughts, boiling over like an unwatched pot and leave them feeling tired and on edge.

I hold them in as long as I can, otherwise I would literally be speaking negatively almost every second of the day, until I feel like something will break inside me if I don’t get the release. I can’t make them stop with therapy, coping skills, or medicine either, it seems.

I hurt the ones I love by putting the burdens I cannot carry on their shoulders without their consent.

I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I don’t want to steal anyone’s peace just because I have none. I have been told that I live by the phrase misery loves company, and I’m starting to realize maybe it’s true.

It’s frankly extremely selfish. Maybe the version I claim to be is really just an idea of who I want to be.

The way that I am, the decisions I have made, that is my burden to bear. I’m tired of making people feel like they aren’t enough just because I feel like my needs need to be met exactly how I think I need them to be.

I need to practice silence. Writing these posts helps alleviate some of the burden, without forcing someone else to carry it. So that’s where I will speak.

But my voice? My actual words that spill from my mouth at any given time to the people who make me feel safe, those need to stop.

It’s not anyone else’s fault I feel the way I do, and it’s no one else’s job to help fix it.

This life, my choices, my baggage, I will begin to pack back up. I’m tired of being too much. I’m tired of feeling like I overwhelm more than I nurture.

Silence. I’ve never enjoyed it.

Maybe it’s time I start.

I made this blog for myself. I made it because journaling has never been enough of a release from the thoughts inside my head. I made this blog so I can keep track of my moods, behavior and mindset so I can be on the alert for a manic episode. I made this blog so I can look back. Look back at my memories and remember what happened.

This is how I feel right now in this moment. Hear me out, I know this is temporary. This is going to pass. I am going to look back at this entry a few months from now and remember and be glad things have gotten better. But this is how I feel right now.

Right now things are difficult. I worked really hard in October to repair the damage I caused this year. I got on meds. I repaired relationships. I spent time doing inner work to be a better, healthier person. I got a job. I kept my house clean.

Then my son got sick. Without going into details, it’s been bad. We’ve spent weeks in the hospital on and off. I had to push my start date back for work. We haven’t slept, our schedules are completely fucked. My nervous system from the lack of sleep, noise and memories of some seriously sad shit at the hospital, is wrecked.

I’m safe. I’m taking my meds, keeping my family involved, reaching out for support. I don’t feel like I’m in a manic episode. I still feel like my thoughts are my own. But I don’t feel like myself. Not like I feel like another person, I just feel hollowed out. I feel like only a small percentage of who I normally am.

I’m burning out. I don’t feel anything except for panic almost all the time. I’m incredibly tired the entire day. I feel frozen in place if I’m not being forced to move. I struggle sleeping because I don’t want to repeat the same thing the next day. And I have no clear line of sight for when things will get better.

I’m truly functioning at a one day at a time mentality.

I don’t laugh anymore, I’ve noticed. I don’t smile really either, so little so that when I actually do my skin gets red along the wrinkles by my mouth. I don’t really speak. My friends and family know me as the host. A true Leo. The person who gets people together and leads the conversation.

I don’t invite anyone over anymore. I don’t text or call. I find myself telling the person I’m with that I just don’t have the motivation to talk more often than I ever have. I just don’t care about anything right now.

I don’t have any opinions. I don’t have a voice.

I am living inside an endless stream of voices and images in my head that occupy every second of my thoughts, awake or asleep.

I am surviving because I have responsibilities and people counting on me.

I am not doing it for me right now. The idea of living for myself isn’t enough right now.

I have felt like this before, and I survived. I will survive again.

I am allowing myself to feel like I’m drowning, because I know I’m not. I won’t.

All seasons end. I’m so ready for the spring.

Have you ever gotten into a rut where you find yourself scrolling through and watching dozens of videos on social media of people giving advice? Dating advice, self love advice, healing advice, etc. Now anyone will confirm, I am as skeptical as they come. I don’t believe anything anyone tells me without having seen it for myself. Especially the shit you see online. However, almost every single video I watch is giving me the same message, just in different words. The videos speak on settling for less than you deserve. They talk about noticing unacceptable behaviors and walking away immediately. They talk about loving someone, but not allowing them into your life if they disrespect you, cross your boundaries or repeatedly refuse to change. And most of these videos are targeted towards speaking to a female about a male partner. I often see videos on gaslighting and narcissism, how allowing someone to give you less then you deserve is a betrayal to yourself. Men and women speak on red flags in a relationship, how to know when it’s time to walk away, how to choose yourself above anyone else.

Don’t get it twisted. This is not a post talking about how those people are wrong. In fact, almost every video I watch, I can relate to in the relationships I’ve allowed to be a part of my life. There is more truth in the advice spoken than I even want to admit. And honestly, I don’t disagree with the concept in the slightest. I think it’s amazing that you can go online and hear stories of experiences that you can relate to. I think it’s a beautiful thing to watch so many creators who are encouraging people to recognize their worth. To stand up for what they want and need and to feel pride rather than shame in leaving any kind of relationship that makes them feel unworthy of the love they deserve.

I obviously have been someone who has not followed that advice in many of my relationships. I have allowed people that I love to mistreat me, over and over and over again. I haven’t been able to let go of the empathy I have for people about why they act a certain way, and the hope I have for them to grow and to change. I always envision it ending with someone finally healing from their pain, taking accountability and feeling the kind of love I didn’t get. I envision me walking through all of the disrespect, the lies, the hurt with them, only to come out the other side with someone who knows at least one person didn’t give up.

That at least one person saw the good in them and held on.

It takes a lot for me to actually walk away from someone. I find myself constantly justifying someone’s behavior based on their childhood and the trauma they haven’t processed. My heart breaks for people who were forced to survive as a child and now have no clue how to have a healthy relationship with someone else because they were never shown an example of one. If I love someone, it’s very difficult for me to believe that there is no hope. It’s hard for me to leave someone to deal with that pain on their own, even if they are hurting me in the process.

Now typing this out it sounds like a classic case of someone who is in denial. Someone who doesn’t recognize that they deserve better, and that they aren’t a bad person for not allowing that type of mistreatment into their life. Maybe one day I will agree.

I’ve always been very emotional. I’ve always been hyper aware of my own feelings and the feelings of others. That was the survival technique I developed as a child. Having a father that was so unstable left me feeling like I was constantly walking on eggshells. I had to learn to read his emotions within seconds to know if I could approach him or if I needed to go into my room and lock the door to avoid a painful encounter. My self awareness is something I usually am thankful for. Living with bipolar disorder can make it very hard to recognize if my emotions are based in reality or not. If the way that I feel is genuine or coming out of a manic or depressive episode. I’m still not perfect at it, but I believe being able to feel all of my emotions so strongly has saved me a few times. I often comfort my daughter, who also lives with a disorder that causes huge highs and lows, that when we are in that low state and we are angry that we feel things as strongly as we do, that at least we get to experience the highs. Some people live their whole lives in a state of neutrality; never allowing themselves to feel too sad or too happy.

I sometimes find myself when I’m in the lows, wishing I had the ability to do this. In the last few years of my marriage I would spend hours looking up ways to emotionally detach, but I could never master it. I have never been able to choose how I feel. I live a life of being completely out of control of what my mind thinks about, and I have never been able to overcome it.

If I love someone, it takes an incredible amount of time and pain for me to feel that I can walk away. And the deeper the love goes, the harder it is for me.

When I commit to someone, when I let them into my world, into my family, I rarely feel in my heart okay with choosing my peace over my commitment. It took a years of being manipulated and emotionally abused for me to leave my ex husband. I have to be certain that I can not wait any longer or fight any harder for the behavior I believed they were capable of.

Typing this out, it really does look like I’m just someone who does not know their worth. I know people will assume that when I eventually find it, I wont tolerate the disrespect that I allow from the people I hold so close to me

But the truth is, I know my worth. I definitely didn’t for a long time. Living with a narcissist depletes all ability to see yourself as worthy and lovable.

The truth is, I didn’t start to realize how much I deserved until I adopted my two daughters. I started to realize that by allowing myself to be disrespected consistently was sending them a message that they too should settle. The love they showed me made me realize that I was a better person than I had grown to believe. That the little girl inside me who day dreamed of that kind of love deserved more than feeling alone lying in bed next to her partner every night.

I know I’m a good person. I know I’m deserving of relationships that aren’t one sided, that give me respect and care without me begging for it. That make feel secure.

But I also know that I haven’t always been easy to love, and still am not. My mental illness causes me to act out sometimes in ways that I can’t control. My trauma has made me so insecure and anxious about abandonment that I sometimes come off as controlling or too emotional. I need constant reassurance and I struggle to really trust that someone means what they say. 

I am far from perfect. But my entire life, all I have wanted was for someone to see underneath all of that. For someone to see the love I am capable of giving, the selflessness that I show to others. I’ve wanted relationships that love the parts of me that most would rebuke. Someone that says no matter what you do, I see you, and your worth fighting for. Someone who would never leave.

The times where I have gone against my heart, and followed the logic of the situation, it has been a harder period of confusion and what if’s and grief. It doesn’t even matter if my head ended up being right and I ended up heartbroken. I have always tried to pick that hope and love I have in a person over every single logical reason of why I should let them go.

I have never regretted when I chose my heart; even if doing so left me utterly broken.

I know I am worthy of someone who truly gives me unconditional love. Someone who doesn’t walk away even if I’m pushing them. Someone who protects my heart. 

I guess my view point is, if I deserve it, why doesn’t someone else? I don’t want all the times I have been hurt, lied to, taken advantage of, to change who I am. I don’t want want to be someone who chooses being logical over giving someone a chance of recieving a love I’ve always wanted.

I won’t allow my heart to harden. I know it probably isn’t the right choice, and maybe I truly am not as healed or healthy as I think I am becoming. But I can’t force myself to give up. Not until they show me there is no hope left, and even then a small part of me will always believe there’s a chance for change, for healing. Hell, I still can’t give up hope that the man I was with for ten years, who promised to honor me, that ended up stealing my home, my car, gave up his 3 adopted kids and has continuously degraded me and tried to harm me even this week, will change and come back into his kids lives and be the co parent they deserve.

It’s not really advice I would give to anyone else. To choose to be hurt over and over and hope that what I’m seeing is not just the signs of being manipulated is scary. 

But it’s all I know. And somewhere deep inside of me, I have hope that one day it will pay off. That one day, I will meet someone who maybe wouldn’t meet social media’s standards based on the way they act but in reality all they needed was for someone to see who they were underneath the mess, to know that how they are as an adult was shaped by unfair things that happen to them as a child and they were trying to survive, just like I was from my dad. For someone to choose to stay even if it hurts. Unconditional love. Idk maybe I just daydreamed too much as a kid, maybe it’s the Christian upbringing, but I really believe in it.

Maybe I’m in denial, but this is who I am. I want to trust myself, I want to believe in myself. Denying what my heart is so strongly guiding me to do, feels more of a betrayal to myself then following a set of standards that someone has has decided I should live by. I can’t expect someone to value my worth if they can’t even recognize their own. And I have changed. I don’t choose to allow unacceptable behavior because I think that’s all I deserve anymore. I choose to stay with someone because I believe THEY deserve grace too.

Until my heart changes, I won’t change. I have seen a lot of darkness in my life and I do consider myself a pessimist, but I just can’t shake this feeling that a selfless, genuine, love exists. I would go through a lifetime of disappointment if it gave me a shot at it. 

That kind of love has just has always seemed worth it.

I’ve talked about my mental state a few times now. But I haven’t realllyyyy talked about how I got here. I haven’t actually sat and recounted what has happened over the last three years, ever. I’ve tried journaling, keeping a diary, etc, but I have never found relief from it. I need relief from the constant stream of thoughts and images in my brain. I relive conversations, events, all day long on an endless loop. Even in my sleep, my nightmares aren’t imaginary situations manifested by my innermost fears, they’re memories. Writing it down into a book that is only opened and closed by me, doesn’t feel like the thoughts are being released. Rather, they are being stored. But when I speak these memories out loud for someone to hear, when I write them down for someone to read, thats when I feel the relief.
When these moments go from hidden, to seen, I can begin to process their reality, and ultimately develop healing towards them. Maybe its selfish to need a witness to be able to acknowledge my own past. It probably, most definitely is.
With that being said, these are MY memories, and we all perceive things on our own plane of reality. What I have experienced may look different from someone else who was a part of that story. But these are my thoughts and my memories. I imagine I’ll write this in a few parts.

This is the story of how I lost everything.

I think it all started Christmas Day 2020. My marriage had started to crumble years before, my faith was already dissolved at this point. But things really didn’t begin to fall apart until that morning. I spent months preparing for Christmas. I had lists in my phone for each kid with things they had mentioned throughout the year. I made checklists of what I had bought so I could make sure everyone got the things they wanted evenly. I handmade a gift for each kid like I did every year. That year we had already adopted the girls, and after all was unwrapped and we were winding down the girls thanked and hugged me. I think it was one of the first real hugs I had ever gotten from my oldest. I noticed a significant coldness from my ex husband following gifts, and finally confronted him after being brought to tears by his demeanor towards me and the girls. I was met with anger because the girls hadn’t expressed gratitude towards him. It was my fault that they thought the gifts were picked by me (they were), even though I put both our names on every gift with the intention of protecting him and his lack of care for their experience. I was heartbroken. I had worked so hard planning, assembling, and wrapping all on my own. I was proud of myself. I felt like a good mom. To have that type of reaction from the person that was supposed to support me the most, felt like a slap in the face.
I took a bath to cry and pull myself together, which had become almost a daily ritual, and realized that this was not how I wanted to spend the rest of my holidays or the rest of my life. The idea “divorce is not an option” was shattered, and I started to have serious thoughts of walking away.

Days after Christmas, my son was admitted to the hospital after 3 days of not sleeping and erratic behavior. I spent a week watching my non verbal son be held down by doctors to administer an EEG, suffer from bad reactions to medicines, and experience an astronomical amount of seizures. I received complete indifference to the pain I was feeling, and was guilted for having a “mini vacation”, while my ex husband was stuck at home with the other kids.
I still have flashbacks of those moments in the hospital with Luke. The pain of watching him suffer, changed me. It darkened a part of my heart. I felt a coldness creep over me. A lack of patience, a lack of care for things I used to care deeply about. A loss of any hope of fairness in this world. I came home from the hospital and told my partner that I wanted to attend marriage counseling, and if that didn’t work I wanted a divorce. After months of failed sessions, I was ready to call it quits. But a sudden job change, a relocation, the chance to buy a home, all was thrown into our laps. I decided to stay, and give this new life a new line of trust and hope.
I spent weeks renovating our new home, but I was becoming more and more miserable. Things weren’t getting better like I hoped. I started drinking myself to sleep the nights I was “renovating”. I sunk deeper and deeper into what I now know was the beginning of my first serious depressive episode. I had lived years in a manic state. I was super mom. I could handle anything with a smile on my face no matter how alone I felt. But suddenly that ability to fake it til I made it slipped away. I was deeply sad, had lost all sense of purpose, and had no hope for a better life. A few months after moving in, I filed for divorce.
I couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage on our home alone, I had never had to make as much money as my ex, and I had no savings as we did not have individual accounts, so I had to move out. I couldn’t afford a security deposit, and there were no apartments available in my price range. So I packed all my belongings in my car and couch surfed. I stayed at friends houses (forever grateful to y’all), I slept in my car. I left my children, my cat, everything I had invested my life into, and eventually moved into my best friends room at her parents house. I spent my mornings and afternoons with my kids, and spent the rest of my time working in a warehouse unloading trucks. I was broke, homeless and for the first time in my life separated from my children. I sunk deeper. I was able to afford a townhouse with my best friend and oldest daughter. But there was still no room for me to have the kids. I continued to spend my days with them at the house I had worked so hard on, and work nights, but bills started to pile up. I just wasn’t able to work enough and be with the kids everyday to afford my rent. I was scared. I felt like I had abandoned my family for a chance of happiness only to be met with the deepest pain I had ever experienced. I was consumed with guilt and constantly afraid of going back to sleeping on couches and letting my family down. My daughter had already attempted suicide by then, I was living in a state of perceived failure higher than anything I had experienced before. I wasn’t used to it. After all I had lost, I couldn’t lose the townhouse. I decided I had to make money another way.

They say fear and stress are the largest triggers for a manic episode. I had experienced mania for as long as I could remember. The boost in mood and energy. The idea that I was invincible and could do anything and everything. But I had never experienced such a severe shift in my ability to make judgments. I had never experienced a period where my mind was no longer in my control. I thought I was taking control of my life. I thought I was doing what I had to do for my family. I told myself the money would make it worth it. Three months later, after living a life where money was no longer an issue, where I could afford groceries and shopping and gas and not worry about the rent, I woke up. I was hit with the full weight of my choices, and left with memories that still haunt me to this day.
I realized in my dissociative state I had planned to drive my car into a tree on the way to visit my brother. I told my best friend I was going to kill myself, and I needed help immediately. In January of 2021, I checked myself into the mental hospital for the first time.

I think thats it for now.
Pick up where we left off later?

I almost forgot.
October is for healing.
I’ve been on my meds for 3 days now and I gotta say, its been ass.
I have felt incredibly tired, and have been living in a state of sadness so dark I haven’t wanted to be awake for it, for fear of where my head would take me.
Every time I have woken up, my eyes are so swollen I can barely see.
I wake up confused, heart racing, often reaching for something that’s not there.
But today, I woke up before 2 pm.
Two friends came and spent time with me in the tiny home I’ve made myself in the corner of the living room.
I drove myself to their house to change up my scenery.
I played with their cats, I ate.
I laughed harder than I have in a while.
As I got ready to leave, I thanked them for giving me respite from my misery.
I heard the words come out of my mouth before my brain even formed them into thought, and I said
“I guess I just needed to remember why I wanted to be alive in the first place”.
I almost forgot.
October is for healing.
I can’t fake happiness. I can’t fake any emotion for that matter.
I can’t make myself feel joy, I can’t ignore the deep cracks running through my heart.
But maybe I can do more things that look like what healing feels like.
Cooking dinner to good music, visiting my friends, enjoying a drive alone at night.
Maybe then, if my life mimics what healing is supposed to look like, my emotions will too.
If I give myself the room to grow, maybe I actually will.
Three days on the medications that could change my life.
The doctor said “You’ve been searching your whole life for something to fix the imbalance that your brain has. It’s time to let us help you do that. It’s time to give yourself a chance to heal”.
October is for healing, and I really want to.
I really want to be ok again.
The sadness, the shame, the loss, they run deep within me.
But this blog is helping.
I’m revealing the cracks for the world to see, in hopes that maybe
a little light might seep in.
Maybe a little light will seep in and I will finally
grow.

I have been told for a long time that I only think in black and white.
Maybe it’s true.
I see it in myself.
I either hold on too tight,
or I let go completely.
You are never wrong,
until you are the villain.
I will fight for you until I lose myself,
and then you’ll mean nothing to me.
Everything you do can be overlooked and forgiven,
until that last moment.
Then there’s no going back.
I think that’s why I hold on so tight to people.
I know if I reach that place,
the dark side of my mind,
I will lose them forever.
I will never see them the same.
I won’t hear your laugh.
I won’t see the tiny wrinkles by your eyes.
I won’t feel your hand in mine.
I won’t remember how you held my head in the crook of your arm when my head got too heavy in the car.
I won’t hear the snores when I was trying to fall asleep.
I won’t remember how you cradled me as I shook.
I won’t remember how you looked at the end of the bed in our treehouse in the sky.
I will remember the indifference.
I will feel how it felt when you left me for two months of freedom.
I will remember the lies.
I will remember the way you broke me when all I needed was forgiveness.
I don’t want to get there.
I don’t want to remember those things.
So I’m holding on as tightly as I can.
Like trying to hold a dog thats pulling on its leash.
Fighting to hold on to the you that I see now,
before it all goes to black.
I guess it’s selfish.
At least it’s honest.
I got my meds today.
I hope they don’t change me.
I hope they do.
And if it happens,
know how hard I tried.
How hard I tried,
to keep you from being the monster in my head I never wanted you to be.

I never used to be able to sleep alone.
Lying awake all night feeling cold and afraid.
Now I talk in my sleep.
I speak my dreams out loud for the world to hear.
I cry in my sleep, reliving every moment that haunts my memory.
It’s gotten worse. My voice has gotten louder. I wake up saying all the things I wish I had been brave enough to say in the moment.
“Don’t touch me, don’t yell at me, you don’t deserve me…please don’t leave me”.
Now I sleep on the couch.
Too afraid that my subconscious mind will utter the one name I want to keep hidden.

That I wont be able to hide that deep down, I know that every night, the face that I see the most,
is yours.

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 9 years old, walking home from the bus stop with my mom, listening to her tell me about a surprise she had for me. She said it was a big surprise this time and I would have to share. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 9 years old, walking up the stairs to my parents bedroom and seeing the cat food bowls on the floor. I’m 31 and I still feel like the 9 year old girl, holding the cat she wanted so badly in her arms and crying tears of joy. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 10 years old, watching my father look at me like I was worthless. I can see his eyes staring at me, the malice on his face, more than I can remember the words that he spoke. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 12 years old being raped by a senior in high school in the middle of the night. I can remember him telling me it was just a back rub. I’m 31 years old and I can still feel his hands on my skin, and I can still remember the pain the next day. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 12 years old, too terrified to speak, whenever a man touches my shoulders. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 16, finding out I was pregnant with a stolen test in the Walmart bathroom. I can see the car that hit us the day before my planned abortion. I’m 31 years old and I still feel like the lost teenager telling my mom in the hospital after the accident that I was going to keep the baby. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel like I’m 21 on my wedding day, overcome with gratitude and excitement that someone had accepted me. I’m 31 years old and I still feel the pain of having my husband refuse to even look at me during our first dance. I remember the moment that I felt that no matter how beautiful I looked, I would never be good enough for anyone. I’m 31 years old and I still feel 21, thinking I had found my forever to only have it end in ashes and disappointment. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel like I’m 27, standing in the court house adopting a teenager and feeling like there was no one that had ever lived that was more meant to be mine. I can feel the joy of being surrounded by my friends and family. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 27, hugging my child and knowing that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for them. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel 29, watching that same child seize over and over in a hospital bed after they overdosed, wondering if they would make it through the night. I can still feel the fear when they woke up and couldn’t remember anything and wondering if they would ever be the same again. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 29, coming out of my first major manic episode. I remember standing in the kitchen with my best friend and feeling a switch in my brain. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 29, turning to my best friend and telling her if she didn’t take me to a hospital I was going to kill myself.

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 30, full of pride, watching that same teenager who I almost lost, walk across the stage to receive their high school diploma. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like the little girl who just wanted to make her father proud. I still feel like the scared child who learned that her worth was based in what she could offer a man. I still feel like the young woman who thought religion was the only way she would be accepted after her past. I still feel like the woman who had her faith slip away through her fingers and wonder what was left. I still feel the pride and fear and guilt of leaving a marriage that no longer served me. I still feel the weight of addiction that surrounded my life for so long. I still feel like the woman who felt true love for the first time.

I’m 31 and I still feel like the world is cruel. I’m 31 and I still feel like I have time to see something beautiful. 

Do we ever really grow up?