where I learned not to trust. January 22, 2009

This post started with a picture, but not the picture in the post, it really started with this one. I was in a “fuck you, I hate you, I can’t believe I let you pull this shit with me” kind of mood. I was so pleased with the way it turned out, and have been really inspired by music lately, so I decided to put my iTunes on random and just wait for the first song that I thought I could take inspiration from.

hmmm, no not that one…. nah, that won’t work…. uh not in the mood for that one…. oh oh, yeah, yeah thats the one.

See… there was this guy….. fuck, there is always some guy.

but this guy was THE guy. he was everything that 20something year old me wanted. he was smart and funny in a really cynical way and creative, like really ridiculously creative, and talented, and omg really…. the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I’m not being biased. really. he was all that. what really got me though… that one thing that made my knees weak at just the thought? he could sing. and play guitar. and write songs. and had blond hair that went almost down to his…wait. that’s 4 things.

So what came up of my 4147 songs, and inspired the image within, is this:

if you listen close you’ll hear me
walking beside you as your feet touch the ground
if your eyes are closed you’ll see me
looking at you looking at me

you’ve got to know that you love me
help me grow old make sure im young
and when they’ve dug my grave
you can sit with me and rest in the cool summer shade
no longer servant slave
you’re only as free as they want you to be

you learn to understand it
feeling right out, looking right in
you got to be able to handle it
peeling away the soft inner skin
and when they dig your grave,
come rest in the cool summer shade
no longer servant slave
you’re only as free as they want you to be.

Todd was always nuts about intellectual property, and that was before everyone and their mom was sharing music online, and I know this would drive him totally crazy… but I’ll wait for the cease and desist letter to come. *rolls her eyes*

He was my first non-adolescent love. My first long term adult relationship where I could really see the possibility of my future with someone. Until about 9 months into the relationship. That’s when I found out he was married. Well, that isn’t entirely true. He told me he was still legally married, but had been separated from his wife for years, they didn’t live together.

It was 9 months in when I got a phone call from a woman claiming to be from a credit card company, asking to speak to him, He wasn’t with me and I was confused why someone would be calling my house.. It was a strange call and I was suspicious and within 5 minutes he was calling me yelling “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO HER?!?!” and I replied, shocked, that I had no idea what the hell was going on.

It was a long time ago now, but I think what happened next is that he called me… from a pay-phone, and she was standing next to him telling him what to say. “I don’t really love you” “I want to be with her, she’s my wife” and I could hear her, telling him what to say…. and I was crying.. how can you do this to me? He had told me horror stories of how she had cheated and how she had abused him and… how can this be happening?

A few days later he called, told me he came to his senses. She was bad for him, he loved me, he’s been with her since they were teenagers, he didn’t know how to leave the only person from his youth, but he knew that I was the one he wanted to be with; I could save him, he said.

For years after that, I am ashamed to admit now, I would continue to believe what he said, even when it proved, every time, to be untrue. I ignored the middle of the night phone calls that came in, pretending to be asleep when he left the room for 15 minutes, an hour, 2 hours on the phone. I even believed, when he moved to the other side of the county, that he was doing it to get away from her, and that I would go visit, and maybe move out there. Three years went by between the time he left and the time I finally ended it. I visited him 3 times the first year, and then not at all. He kept telling me he wanted me to visit, I wanted to go, but he could never find the right time for it. In hindsight, of course, I know it’s because his wife was with him.

I think it was when I found out (gotta love the ‘Net) she had moved out there too that i finally gave up. Even then, when I said “I know she is there, I know you have been lying to me this whole time, and I can’t do it anymore” he tried to argue, and I wanted to believe, oh I wanted SO MUCH to believe, but i didn’t have any trust left. This is where it all started. This was the first person to ever really deceive me.

That relationship ended over 5 years ago, but for me it’s the one I always comes back to when I am upset. No matter who it is that hurts me, I can cry for hours, and by the time I have cried myself out, I have cried over Todd too.I haven’t spoken to him in over 5 years and I still know his telephone number by heart.

Why is it that people will work so hard to make us believe, and we want so much to believe, even when there is so much evidence to the contrary? And why the hell do I continue to buy it? I need to start exploring that, it’s where I get hurt every single time. Why, why, why, when my mind screams “this is no good for you!!!” does my heart say… “but, but, but… maybe this will be different.”?

side note: when I think about the history of my romantic life… not even I can believe some of the bullshit I’ve experienced… I’ve actually left out some of the most ridiculous details for fear someone is going to think I am exaggerating. Oh, and if you think this post was inspired by you, I encourage you to look at my history and what you know about me and realize you are just one small part of a much larger pattern.

Wow, today was a rough one. December 11, 2008

Last night I wasn’t just awake too late, I felt like I was jumpin outta my skin. It was good though, I was singing along to some tunes and bouncing in my chair. I finally got to sleep around 4am. When my 8 o’clock wake up call came, I had the usual getting out of bed trouble, but once I was up I was good, I had energy, I was running around getting ready.

As I was about to leave, my dear friend Marrick (well, that is his SL name though he is rarely here) was letting himself into the house to say hello before doing some outside house stuff. He’s my “guy that does guy stuff around the house” and the only person in my life who is allowed to just let himself in. He is also the only one who understands that things that happen in SL effect people RL, so I can actually talk to him about that stuff too.(hell, he may be the only person who understand me, period) I started talking to him about things that have happened since I saw him last and I was talking fast and excitedly and appeared to be in a good mood. He took this as a good sign; he’s seen me in the deepest of my depression.

I got to the hospital kind of on time and began to listen to the discussion on the purposes of emotion: how fear can protect us, how joy acts as a reinforcer for activities that make life worth living, how love helps us to create the bonds necessary for community, etc. I’ve heard this stuff before, and I was getting a little frustrated sitting there wondering how often we were going to talk about the exact same thing.

Next group was about “Distress Tolerance”. Basically, what is a crisis, what are our choices of what to do in a crisis, and what are those behaviors we turn to that are not the best option, and we make a list: isolation, drugs, violence, binge eating, promiscuity, and on and on. Now, on it’s own this is not a bad discussion… but, since I have been in the program I have been through making this list and talking about why we go towards these behaviors like 4 times and we NEVER get to the part about what to do instead. Oh, no, I can’t say never. Once we talked about ways to comfort ourselves and we drank hot cider. OK, well, in my crisis time I am not about to start milling cider.

And I started to get mad. Like, REALY mad. I recognized this feeling. It was the same feeling I had in staff meetings at work when things were taking too long, or when people misunderstand me, or when I sat in a high school classroom… and I felt rage. Rage at the waste of my time, rage at the intern presenting for not moving forward, rage that made my whole body shake. I had to leave the room.

I sat on the floor in the hallway and put my iPod on and listened to some chanting and tried to just breathe. I could not stop shaking.

When my advocate came to get me for a meeting we had planned, it was obvious we were going to have a change of focus, and he worked with me to figure out what I was feeling, the potential reasons for it. There was the possible immediate reason: we were supposed to have a phone conference with my mother that afternoon, but i didn’t FEEL like that was why I was freaking out. My state of mind felt really random and not connected to any identifiable “thing”.

I could not control my shaking and as I started talking I was crying. In thinking back on the conversation now, it’s hard for me to recall the details. I do remember that I was asked to keep eye contact and I found it almost impossible. He was able to tie our talk in with his presentation earlier, about emotions. There were two things I wanted to do at that moment, I wanted to rage and yell at people, or I wanted to isolate and sleep. Fight. or Flight. Fear, it’s about fear. Fear of what I can’t really put my finger on, and I still felt more angry than scared… but I see the connection.

We talked about the times in my life where I HAVE felt in control of my life, what was I doing at those times, what can I take from those times to apply to my life now and I started to come down a bit. and “come down” really is the right word. I felt almost like coming off a bad trip, more depressed than I have felt in days, exhausted, and worst of all, scared that I just can not do this…. and I am not even sure what “this” is.

I don’t know what I am trying to accomplish. Yes, get out of my depression, relearn how to deal with my emotions… that part I am clear on. but… after that? Fuck, I have no fucking idea, at all.

it’s not all bad December 9, 2008

When I woke up this morning and went into the bathroom to draw water for a shower and found that there was no water to be had I said “fuck it” and got back into bed. I started thinking “it’s always something and I just can’t deal” and slept for a bit.

I didn’t sleep for much longer before calling the plumber to deal with my frozen pipes and making the decision to do something productive if I wasn’t going to the hospital. I grabbed a few garbage bags, plugged my iPod into my stereo and started with the most obvious trash. Paper plates and cups, packaging from various electronics, scraps of paper, dead flowers sitting in the same vase for months.

I grabbed a lighter and stepped over to the fireplace mantle to light some candles and incense and I noticed that i was bouncing to the music and I smiled. I WAS feeling a little lighter today. The incense, I only burn one kind, is Nag Champa. If you are a hippie, or if you practice yoga you probably know it. (Heh, have I mentioned that I live near Woodstock, NY? Hippie capital of the world?)

After the water was fixed, I started on a job that, I am embarrassed to admit, hasn’t been done in months and months. I cleaned the master bathroom. Now, those of you who keep a relatively clean house would never have let any room of your house get to this state. Of course, I hadn’t been paying attention, and the light was out. The one small window had me showering with the door open for more light, and if you are been reading this blog, you know I had no heat until this past week. My showers have been fast, and really, I was only showering so as not to offend those around me.

When I say I cleaned, I mean the kind of cleaning where you put on an old t-shirt and scrub. Seriously, I have no IDEA the last time I did anything that resembles cleaning. I know, it’s not really a big deal to most people, but when you have been as down, as unmotivated as I have been, trust me, this was huge.

The reward, of course, was a long, hot relaxing shower where I broke out all the different soaps and things that smell good and exfoliants and this peppermint stuff for my hair that gets my scalp all tingly and i did latherrinserepeat like 4 times with different shampoos. One corner of my tub has a seat and I sat and let the water just fall over me and didn’t think about anything.

It was fantastic.

That isn’t to say that the whole day was fantastic. The frozen pipes. Making a big payment to the electric company so they wouldn’t come turn off my power. I had some unsettling conversations where I found myself unsure what to be thinking. I’m not feeling too well about missing today at my program. This weekend I told myself that I was going to get there everyday, and on time. On the plus side, I did get a lot done, instead of avoiding the day by sleeping until 4.

Ok, see, that it what I am trying to do. I am trying not to beat myself up about the shit I screw up, and to enjoy the moments that don’t suck.

I used to really enjoy life, like, almost every moment of it. I spent time outside every day, walking up the mountain near my house or snowhoeing in the park. I’d be outside like that for a few hours a day. Now I hardly want to leave my house. There is this one summer, I was doing a yoga workshop that was 3 hours a day, and after that I would go walking up the mountain or around the lake. And I loved it! AND I had energy to spare. I try to think back to that version of me and I almost can’t believe that was me. I’ve walked with a heavy backpack through cities where I didn’t speak the language, and now I don’t even want to drive to the local store.

But, my house smells like Nag Champa, and my bathroom has light and is clean, and I had the best shower that I have had in months. Things are relative here. I’m not gonna be at 100% for a while, but right now, even a little better is a really good thing.

maybe I will sleep? December 8, 2008

/me waves sleepily from under the covers…

Just in case anyone has been paying attention and wondering if I threw myself off a cliff… the past few days have been less sucky, which, from my position is pretty good. There’s some stuff I wanna write about, and I spent some time writing tonight but then I looked at the clock and decided that what is in my best interest at 3am is to go to sleep. I have a couple of photos taking shape in my mind now, and, I have a tendency to say “oh it won’t take that long” and then it’s 6am.

I was considering a half of a half of a klonipin now before sleeping so that I don’t lay there, but, I think I’ll try to just breath.

It’s Noon Already?!?! December 5, 2008

I didn’t sleep well last night.. wait, I think I mean the night before…which still kinda of feels like last night because of my sleeping patterns. When my mom called at 8 to help me wake up, I told her I really didn’t sleep well, call me in an hour, I can still make it to the hospital on time.

Fast forward 4 hours and I wake up startled to the phone ringing…asking the person on the other end, not my mom, what time it was.”Noon” he said.

Oh Shit!

Turns out she did call me back at 9, and I told her I was getting up. I don’t even remember talking to her that time.

OK, actually, I am kinda proud of myself. The day was half over, why bother going in right? But I scrambled out of bed anyway and got my ass over to the hospital. The afternoon and most of the evening was ok… ok being a very relative term here. Then, I started thinking about… stuff. I think I handled it pretty well, after venting to a friend, I went to sleep. It was like 10pm i think and that is really good for me.

But then I was up at 3am. I came in world, did some pics, listened to some music, was actually feeling not bad, checked flickr.

Don’t you hate when the things you are trying to let go of just keep showing up? I can get like, a few hours of not thinking about shit I don’t want to think about and there it is, on the phone, in a message, in a song. I might find a paper in a pile somewhere. Seeing my Dad’s handwriting really sets me off every single time, I saw it a few weeks ago, on a bag in the trunk of my mother’s car. I was helping her carry something and she opened the trunk and I saw the tag with our name and address and I lost it for a few minutes. That means the bag is over 11 years old, and she hasn’t changed the tag. I’ve got a bag like that too. But that pain is… older, and I know how to let it go through me, and cry for a few minutes and then get myself together and move on. The more recent the hurt, the harder it is for me to let it go, it comes in and it sticks around.

I have to laugh, afer writing that, it’s 6:30 in the morning, and there is one of those things now, ahh, at least in some ways, life is predictable. OMG I was actually sitting here just expressing myself, not getting too wrapped up in how I was feeling just… observing and now here I am in the middle of it again. My heart up high in my chest, and like it’s taking up too much space and all I want to do is get out of this conversation and get back into bed, and catch a nap.

my days are like a roller coaster.
*thinks she would like a photo for that, but decides that 2 hours of sleep is more important*

more about letting go. December 4, 2008

ok ok i get something……
pain is going to be there. I can not change the world around me or the people around me. I can not bring back people I have lost or who have left me. I can’t change the bad things I have done or the bad things that have been done to me.

I can wallow in it. I can try to force it away. either way it is going to be there.
So I can spend a whole bunch of energy trying to fight and push.
Or I can just let it be there and work on not being attached to it, not let it control my thoughts and actions; to letting it go.

I’m not saying I can do it. I’m not saying I like it.
but i get it.

so usually the pics I do for this journal represent my RL… this one is more symbolic and is based on the drawing I was doing in my very first post… if you look real close you can see.

sleepless December 3, 2008

When I get into bed before I am completely exhausted, if there is even a moment to lay and reflect before sleep, I start to think. Lately, i don’t really like to be left alone with my thoughts like that. quiet and dark and vulnerable with the door of sleep so close, but here you are on this side where thoughts can take hold… and the next thing I know I am crying. I am sad and angry. I am mad at my self for 100 reason, and I am mad at other people for 100 more.

I’d like to get more sleep. but it’s become a habit that I am no longer thoughtful about. I don’t say “I think I’ll stay up till I am too exhausted to keep my eyes open”, I just do it. When I think about getting into bed earlier, I get that feeling again… the uneasy one that says… noooo, um, we don’t like that… how bout this over here instead..and even if i am laying in bed I will put on a movie or check out flickr or some blogs until I fall asleep.

It’s 5:30 am and out of the corner of my eye I just saw Vixie log off SL. What are YOU doing up so late missy?! I’ll take a cue from her and try to catch a nap before the day begins.

Predictable Meltdown December 3, 2008

So I didn’t make it in to my program today. I look back and see how incredibly predictable it all was and someone who knows me watching from the outside would have seen me yesterday afternoon and said “nope, she isn’t going in tomorrow”

Trigger #1
Yesterday I was supposed to go to the post office and pick up my mail and go through bills and figure out what is what, but just the very idea of going to the post office and pulling that stack of mail that has accumulated for at least a month was enough to send my heart racing and my mind looking for any distraction it could think of. I conveniently drove the long way home from the hospital, I didn’t go anywhere near the post office.

Why did yesterday have to be the day for the mail? Because my mother is helping me to cover expenses during this time and she has been on my case to get my information together so she knows what needs to be paid and when.

Trigger #2
So I didn’t do it and I came home and Mom had left a message asking me to call her and I didn’t. Then she called again and I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t do it. Her fourth (or fifth?) call stated her intentions of showing up at my house the next day. This is her threat now, when I don’t answer the phone for a full day, she is going to get in the car and drive here. this cycle of the phone ringing and me not answering and the phone ringing again a few hours later revs up my anxiety even more. Yeah, I know, just answer the damn thing… easy for you to say.

I’ve learned that when you are faced with triggers and are “in crisis” you have a few choices. You can deal with whatever problem is causing the crisis, or you can distract.

So I distracted myself by requesting some very revealing new outfits from on of my favorite SL designers and focusing my energy on a very cathartic and fun in world photoshoot. Perfect, that takes a few hours to prep and shoot, some time to process. Did some more picture taking, watched Kung Fu Panda for the hundredth time, did some journal writing, and closed my eyes sometime after 4am. Distracting yes, but I haven’t solved my problem, and I created another one, lack of sleep.

When my mother called at 8 this morning I did pick up the phone. I told her that I didn’t get to the post office before it closed yesterday, but I promised I’d get there today…and yes, I was awake and getting out of bed and heading to the hospital. I then hung up the phone and went back to sleep. Until 1 in the afternoon.

So there is the cycle.. something I am supposed to do and can’t… pressure to do that thing that should be easy… just a matter of will, just go get the mail!! Guilt that I didn’t do it. Avoiding my mother. I am 36 years old, why do I worry so much about getting in trouble with my mother? Because I can’t do this without her help. I should be independent. I should be able to go a few days without checking in with my mother. But she is helping me, so how can I do anything other than what she asks of me?

And round and round it all goes in my head till I can’t think about anything except how simple it once was to live in a tipi.

Oh but hey…. get this… I didn’t get to the hospital but guess where I did get to? I got to the post office. I haven’t looked at everything yet but hey, one thing at a time.

trouble letting go December 2, 2008

My heart has felt like lead in my chest all day, except for a brief phone call that lifted my heart for a split second before sending it down to the depths again.  There may have been a few times during the day where I was distracted– talking to people, reading something, doing an SL photoshoot– but mostly I was dragging my feet with my eyes on the floor waiting for the feeling to pass and it still hasn’t, at 4:30am.

I mentioned that I have been discovering things about myself the past few weeks, working hard at introspection.  One thing I am learning is that I have a very hard time letting go… letting go of people, ideas, things, emotions. It explains why I have drawers full of stuff I don’t need, why I will argue endlessly about something I feel strongly about, and why when I hurt, I hurt so deeply. I claim that emotion, I hold on to it, I have a right to it, it is mine. No one else can have it or tell me what to do with it.

Today I have collection of emotions that almost consumes me. Recent events exacerbate it but at its core, today’s grief is about something that occurred almost a year ago. It was a day that I felt completely loved and then completely rejected… and I just can not let go.  Just the thought causes me to curl up and cry.

one friend November 30, 2008

In RL, I’ve got one real friend left. He’s been my friend for a pretty long time, and he’s the only I know that can fully accept me and my moods and never take it personally and just love me for who I am. Over the past months, in the deepest of my depression he would come to my house, which meant walking a few miles (he doesn’t drive) just to check on me.

He’ll do the dishes when they get out of control, even though he hates having his hands in the water. He will change the light bulbs while I sit in the dark. He will bring me tissues when I cry. And if 15 minutes after he gets here I say “I really just can’t.” he will turn around and walk home and know that there is no deeper meaning; I just can’t.

See, he knows the Elyse that was. The Elyse that would go to a 3 hour yoga workshop and THEN hike up the mountain. So he makes sure to check on this Elyse, to make sure she is at least still breathing and trying to live, so that when she is ready she can climb up the mountain.

I told him about this little project of mine, representing RL with SL pics, and asked him to come in world with me to let me grab some pics. Now, in SL he is Marrick. This afternoon I even got him to play a little guitar for me.