Autobiography · Mental Health · Relationships

Crumble

Ruby Pipes34 Comments

"Puddle Play" © Mary Jo Boughton, 2015. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Puddle Play” © Mary Jo Boughton, 2015. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
I held my breath all the way home. Led Mason back into our apartment, walked to the bedroom, and collapsed on the floor. Hurt went through me like waves and I tried to ride them. Tried to steady my breathing. Say something nice or think of one good thing about myself.

Slouched over to one side, I curled my knees into my chest and sobbed. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” Just one of those nights. One of those days. I started running through my list of emergency contacts. Practiced saying, “I need you to take me to the hospital,” under my breath.

Mason came into the bedroom when I started to hyperventilate and throw fists. Coaxed me onto the bed and pulled me into his chest tight. Immobilized, I softened.

“I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m trying so fucking hard and I don’t feel like anything is changing. And I can’t exist like this.”

My own words crashed over me. Each one a sharp epiphany. They pointed to my exhaustion, my self-doubt. They told me the truth about how I’ve been seeing myself lately. Torn between how I’ve been feeling and how I want to feel. Logically, I know I’m a good person who is working hard. Emotionally, I feel like a waste of space who deserves nothing lovely.

“I just… I fucking hate myself.”

And I don’t think I’d ever admitted it to someone else before. I wanted to slap my own words out of my mouth. I knew how hurtful they were, to him and to me. But I didn’t know how to say anything else. It was the only thing that seemed to hold any significance. Any weight of its own.

I didn’t backpedal, though I wanted to. Wanted to make excuses about getting caught in the moment or being overly-dramatic. But that wouldn’t be true. I said it. I meant it.

But not all the time.

Sometimes I think I’m worth the work. Most of the time I know I do good things. And that’s what’s important to remember. When my fingernails are digging into the palms of my hands. When I’m listing the things in the house I need Mase to hide from me. I have to learn to remember it is not always like this.

It usually isn’t. Even though lately it is.

Addiction · Mental Health · Personal Development

Hover

Ruby Pipes19 Comments

“Hummingbird” © AnnCam, 2010. CC BY 2.0.
“You’re running to stand still,” he said as he mimed the motion. “The way you describe it is like the way a junkie describes shooting up just to stay level, you know. You know. Just to keep from getting sick. It sounds exhausting.”

I glanced out the window, then back to him, and pulled one foot underneath me. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. I mean, I guess I just figured I kind of have to do this stuff because…” I trailed off in a light giggle. “This sounds so fucking ridiculous.”

“It sounds dangerous, is what it sounds like. It sounds unachievable. It’s just another way your perfectionism is coming into play.”

He doesn’t usually get preachy. Usually he lets me get there on my own, so I can tell it’s important when he doesn’t. My religious avoidance of things that might be addictive or may cause unhealthy habitual behavior has become just that.

Taking care of myself is getting closer and closer to becoming just another avoidance tactic. Just another thing I do to not deal with what is happening. Focusing on my health slips from being a good idea to a dangerous obsession with just a few additions.

There’s got to be balance somewhere. An understanding of the things I need to do to take care of myself and the way I need to do them. Room for the just sitting, space for doing things just because I like them. There’s has to be a way to have a cup of coffee without thinking, “This is addictive. Caffeine is addictive. Everything is going straight to shit. I’m going to start drinking again.”

Flexibility has never been my strong suit. But I like to think I can learn to stretch. Learn to believe I have the capacity to live somewhere between the perfection that doesn’t exist and passed out drunk in a ditch.

Autobiography

Stuck

Ruby Pipes36 Comments
“Stuck on You – HFF” © Nana B Agyei, 2010. CC BY 2.0.

I can’t write lately.

My moods are improving. Things seem to be leveling out. Medication doses stabilizing. Hormonal birth control abandoned. Therapy twice a week.

But I sit down to write and…

It’s like I’m all dried up. All talked out. Like everything has been scoped out from every angle and I have nothing left to say about it.

Instead, I want to take long walks to nowhere. Afternoon naps. Want to find a hobby, an escape that has nothing to do with words.

Or maybe I just feel stuck in general. We’re floating in that place between leaving and staying. Deposit down for a new place hundreds of miles away, but no move-in date.

My fingers itch to start putting things in cardboard boxes, to sign up for yoga classes I can walk to from our new apartment. To set up my new office and establish a new routine.

But instead I have to sit by the phone and hope our new manager will call and say, “Construction will be done next week, for sure. Move in whenever you’re ready!”

I float. Feeling like I already soaked up everything I can from this soil, but unable to leave.

Ever hopeful that maybe when we do things will start making sense again. That words will form into sentences. That my vision won’t blur around the edges. That I won’t feel like crying for no fucking reason. That it will make a difference.