Prologue.
There are millions of things that have happened to me to
form me into the person I am. Movies
I’ve seen that terrified me and caused me to be afraid of certain things my whole
life. The smell of a lilac brings me comfort because in the midst of chaos it
was the only beautiful thing I saw. I hate dragonflies because of a book I read
when I was 14 and the lady, that I hated, loved dragonflies. A ladybug bit me
when I was kid and no one believed me and so I have been freaked by them ever
since. I don’t eat peanut butter or drink milk. I have a hard time falling
asleep if I know other people are awake in the house because I was afraid
people would leave me as a child. I almost always carry a sweater or hoodie
because I hate the possibility of being cold. I can build a balloon arch
because in high school I helped set up dances. All these parts of me that make
me the person I am. Years, months, weeks, days, hours, all spent building this
person. Since I was very young I have wanted to understand the reasons behind
all these things. Why I am who I am? Why it would matter that I am freaked out
by bugs but spiders don’t bother me? Why I can see things the way I do? Or how
different I would be if I had existed somewhere else?
My life is the making up of chapters, some of the chapters
are subtler and flow into the next before I even realize it. Other chapters end
so abruptly that I am left in shock wondering what happened on the last page.
There are a few chapters that I hate, pieces of my story that I still see
stained with shame and disappointment. There are several that break my heart
and make me cry. There are even more that fill my mind with happiness and other
sweet memories of joy. There are moments so profound in these chapters that I
can’t find words to describe those days. There are moments so deeply hurtful
that whenever they are revisited they bring about tears and sorrow. Things I
don’t understand and won’t ever understand. But they all make me. They all tell
my story. The hard part is I don’t get to choose the words to write my own
story, the words are all being chosen for me.
I tell stories. I always have. I started as far back as I
can remember telling stories to others and myself. The ability to tell a story
kept my heart safe as a child. I like crafting the perfect sentence to convey
that just right emotion. The feeling of elation that comes when I can read over
the sentences that flow together just right to tell a captivating story. I can
understand why artists turn to drugs or drinking because it’s hard to live
in-between creating the story and not yet telling a new one. I would chase down
the feeling of completeness and joy all the time that actually finishing
telling or writing a story brings me too. There is something magical and sacred
in it each time. I am met there in a way I can’t be met in any other place or
by any person. If I were braver and had a bit more drive and someone to
actually drive my kids around I would probably do nothing but write. I have
realized that I do not like having the story written for me and then just
having to tell it. I’m not sure any author or writer would be different. There
is something inside of all artists that strives to control the story told.
Whether through a painting or words or sculpture or music in creating something
someone else looks at and feels something is hard to admit you can’t actually
control what they feel. To have had the story completely taken from my hands
feels like tying my hands and jumping into a river.
My whole life I have longed for two things, that I would
feel safe and wanted. My whole life my two biggest fears have always been one
that I always be an outsider and two that I would be left if people really knew
my whole story. If people could see past the stories I was telling to hide my
pain, I knew they would run but people liked the made up stories. I just told
the made up ones. I played pretend as long as I could. I crafted them perfectly
to hide my greatest desires and my greatest fears. But I never actually got to
rewrite the real story. I never got to pick the pieces that would affect my
whole life. I didn’t get to pick where the scars would land, both on my body
and in my heart. The real story was the one being written each day and tucked
away into my heart. Just like I never made the conscious decision that I
wouldn’t like white fish, I never made the conscious decision that I would
self-destruct relationships because it was scary to be loved. These were things
that were formed as I grew. I still don’t eat white fish and I still tend to
self-destruct in relationships because I’m afraid. When handed what I wanted
most I had almost the same reaction to when I was handed what I feared most.
These tales were beyond my control and I learned I couldn’t rewrite how any of
it happened. I could just tell the story. I could only be a player in the
story, not the author.
It took me a long time to come to any sort of place that I
could tell the stories written for me with any sort of confidence. It came as I
learned that not all the parts that made me were bad. It became easy when I got
to see how pieces that I hated helped someone else love their own selves. It
became more painful to not tell these stories of truth when I started to
understand how they were written for me because of love and that while all I
could see was my own part there were always more players and I was never alone.
There are still chapters I hate. Ones I wish I could burn. The latest chapter I
have is one. It’s odd because I have walked through more painful experiences. I
have been loved less and treated with little regard to my own safety and
wellbeing. I have been betrayed and left by those that said they loved me most.
Those are the chapters I carry with me and judge all the others against. They
are the ones I use to justify any pain and suffering. This last chapter
destroyed me completely. I stopped telling the story again.
If you have never been to the darker places you might not
understand what it’s like there. How hard it is to breathe or move. The first
time I went there was when I was 10. Where all hope was lost to a little girl
that couldn’t see why this story was hers. I’ve been back to that place a few
times. It’s haunted me and followed more close than maybe I even realized.
Every time I was pulled out of it, it was never by my hand. I was saved from
there. I always knew it, long before I even knew what was actually saving me. A
part of me always knew I could never write myself into another story. The thing
people might not understand is that you can’t pull yourself out of those dark
places. You can only be saved from them. When you’re the author you get to
write that scene and know who will be safe in the end. When you are just
telling the story you don’t get to know anything but where you are at that
moment. It isn’t something I like. Whenever I write and whatever I write I know
with great intimacy and depth what each word means. I know each character and
what their greatest fears and desires are. The words don’t simply feel like
words they feel like part of my body and soul. To have to trust my own creation
to another author is terrifying.
This is what I have been asked to do with my life. This is
what I want to do with my life. Tell the story. Lay down all the words I have
and show the beauty that exists in-between the pages. For many years it has
been enough to know that the painful moments were for a greater purpose, even
if the purpose was to move the plot further along. I wasn’t afraid of it
anymore. To be back in the place where I am afraid of the words I have to share
feels just as foreign and bleak as it did the first time I had to share the
first tales. Words are my refuge. They save me and comfort me. It’s hard to
know that the thing that is closest to my soul is once again something I’m
afraid of. When you tell a story most likely someone will tell you how much
they love it and most likely someone will tell you how much they hate it. I
don’t get to decide who likes it and hates it. I don’t get to hand pick the
people that will hear it and trust it. I don’t get to refute every person that
may doubt my tales. I just get to tell the story.
Tell The Story. Chapters.
Depression and anxiety.
If I could tell any story in the world I would tell stories
of unending adventure. I’d tell tales of virtue that remind us of the core of
who we are supposed to be. I would tell every story I could; except for one. I
would erase this story. This fraction of chapters I’ve had over the last couple
years and am still in. I’d burn the pages and watch them turn to ash. The truth
is I hate them but I think somewhere deep inside there is still a pieces of me
that believes one day I will see a purpose and be ok with it. But today I’m
not.
Years ago Jesus whispers to me that part of my Call is to
“tell the story” those words hold many meanings to me but part of it has always
been telling the truth of my own story. I shared it with no shame or
reservations. I told it with confidence because I knew what it meant. I saw
redemption and freedom each time I spoke of my wounds, sufferings, and even
joys. I could share every ugly scared moment with a stranger without hesitation
because I knew Jesus had it and wanted me to give up my own version for His.
Then the stability and safety I had built fell apart. The
first place that had ever felt like home was gone. Suddenly every misplaced
frightened feeling I had been through as a little girl was back. Every feeling
of being left, unwanted, and alone boiled up and tried to consume me. For a
long time, I could fight it off or ignore it. Then I started to rationalize
with it and justified each feeling. I started playing a game I had played so
many times before. I pushed myself farther and farther down a rabbit hole until
I was gone.
I HATE THE NEXT
PART.
I felt weak and disgusted with myself. I thought I could fix
myself but I was destroying myself. For a period of around six months I faded
away each day. It felt like a foreign substance had moved in and was replacing
the person I was. I couldn’t fight anymore, so I drifted. I shut down. I would
promise myself it couldn’t last forever and I would beat it but it didn’t stop.
I did though. I was a human shell. Every day lacked and made me feel worse.
Half way through the six months my body started to fighting
me too. It started with two weeks of migraines and headaches which moved into a
nasty head cold, followed by an eye twitch, and finally my body breaking out in
in severe eczema which I had never had before. My entire torso, arms, and
thighs were covered. It burned and itched and bled. I couldn’t sleep. I
couldn’t stop it. My husband said “go see a doctor” but I wouldn’t. My friends
would say “go see a doctor” and I’d say “no, it’s not that bad.” I would never
had said it out loud but I knew why I wasn’t going. I had decided I needed to
be punished for my weakness. I would scratch it until it bled and think to
myself “my blood should be poured out because I’m not clean enough for Christ’s
blood anymore. I don’t deserve to be saved.” I would sit in the darkest places
at the darkest part of the night and cry out not for my relief but for my end.
I wrote during that time and every word written during that
time are the hardest words to read. They are the darkest and the emptiest place
I have ever lived. They aren’t lacking hope or faith. They aren’t sad. They
aren’t a cry for help. And this is important to understand what they are. They
are without any hope. They are pure empty desperation. They are a good bye
letter. I’ve reread them several times now and know that each one was telling
the story of my end. No one could reach me or save me.
“Pain so hidden it’s damaged my core. It leaks out in pieces and people
think they can see it.”
“It burned away my flesh and bones. My body, mind, and soul ache. Still
those scars remain. Reminders of my wars fought. I keep losing my sight.”
“crushing weight bears down on my shoulders, digging into my flesh.”
“Exposed for all to see but no one wants to come into this space to
see. All the space eats up all the noise and only allows silence. You can see
me but you only stare. I can see you walk past this space.”
Those are pieces of my breaking. All I felt was crushing
weight. I still fought it though, I fought letting anyone know. I returned to
the “original Karina” that only knew how to hide, lied, and cover pain with
anger, and just pretended feelings. I tried to become a mirror again and just
reflect those around me rather than ever be myself. I felt worthless. I felt
hallow inside and that no one would miss me. There was no longer a safe place
for me. It seemed to build so slowly but took over so completely, the
depression and anxiety. The only thing I was were those words.
If you’ve never been there it is probably hard to imagine
what I actually mean. I don’t mean these words in the “culture” way where
everyone is sad and introverted. That I wanted to sit and look out of a window
and hold a cup of tea. I was nothing inside. I couldn’t enjoy anything. I could
only pretend and not very well. It was the worst during the holiday season and
looking back on it I didn’t enjoy one celebration. No moment holds joy in my
memory because there wasn’t any.
“Drowning. Drowning. Drowning. Can anyone see it? I can’t tell anymore.
Whether people are just avoiding seeing or if they can’t see me here in the
murky watery grave that’s claiming my heart. With each moment I am losing more
of myself. I just want to be free. I just want the pain to stop.”
“The pain of not being able to breath is nothing compared to the pain
of being left.”
“I’m burning up. Dying inside. I can’t stop the pain. I can’t stop the
terror.”
“Take my breath and set me free. I can’t keep going with this medal
around my neck, burning more and more with every step. Why? Why can’t I get
better? Why is this the life offered? Why can’t I leave it?”
I can still feel it feel it in me. It still feels like a
foreign monster has climbed inside my skin and climbs through me. I hate this
part of my story. I hate these chapters. I think they are weak and disgusting.
I hate how I fell and that I entered my own trap I destroyed myself. I became a
version of myself rather than anything real. For three months I literally
didn’t look into my own eyes, I couldn’t. It made me feel like vomiting if I
even tried because that’s how foreign my own flesh felt.
I didn’t enjoy anything for over four months. I was dead
inside. All I felt was anxiety and was paranoid of everyone and everything. I
would spend my days going through the motions of life. The only thing I hoped
for were the moments I was alone and I could curl up on my bed and try not to
exist. There was no hope and no freedom. Everything I was counting on was dark
and empty. The only escape I saw was death. Those darkest moments when I sat
there on my couch in the middle of the night and planned out how it would end,
it was never me that saved me or stopped me. It was solely because Jesus stood
before me. Without my permission and without my asking, He saved me. I didn’t
even want Him at those points. I knew how to make it happen. I knew how to time
it right so it wouldn’t affect the kids getting to and from school. I remember
thinking “whatever I do I will in the
bathtub so Jim won’t have a mess to clean up.” That seemed to me like the
much bigger problem than my family living without me. I knew that Jim didn’t
love me enough to actually miss me. I knew that my friends could move on
quickly. I knew that at least this way my kids would appreciate a fragmented memory.
I’ve always known good-bye. I know how to say it. He stood there though and
covered me. The last thing I wrote before I spoke the words of the real story
are the last chapter I was planning on writing.
“I watch myself fall back into darkness and lose more of myself. Alone
is how I fight but I’m not strong enough. I’m too weak for this. I’m not a
fighter. I’m not a warrior. I can’t pull myself forward anymore.”
It was my white flag of surrender and not in a good way. It
was meant to be the final piece. It scares me reading it. How far I truly was
from my own self. I have a rather introspective nature. I tend to always be
aware of some part of my emotional state. I am constantly viewing myself and
others through a lens of “how it affects a story” it helps me to understand
people and myself. While all this was happening part of me watched it. I kept
waiting for there to be a hero. I kept waiting for Jesus to just stop it. Other
than the fact I’m still breathing He didn’t. He let me fall and didn’t pull me
out of my pit. Don’t read that as He abandoned me because He didn’t. I ran away
and fell into the pit. I lied and hide on purpose. I wanted Him to become my
shortcut to being “fixed”. It scares me to see how far I turned away from Jesus
and yet I am reminded of how close He remained to me.
The last thing I wrote before I went to talk to a doctor
reads like a horror story and makes me feel physically sick and my skin crawl.
“I can feel it shaking me. I wonder if others can see it? Can they hear
the screaming internal cries? Can they feel the way my bones are shaking? I
don’t think I’m strong enough to fight anymore. I feel sick to my stomach. This
monster is trying to escape my flesh. Trying to rip me open and expose itself.
I wonder if those sitting next to me can sense it? I wonder away the moments of
my life fighting this monster. My insides turn to knots. My eyes search for
something to offer relief but this monster always wins. I twitch and shake and
feels its claws inside my body. I wish I could remove my own flesh to find
relief but then the monster would just hide in my bones. It digs in deeper
every time I try to cut it out. It’s sucking me dry. It’s taking my voice.”
The depression had destroyed everything about me that I
cherished. The anxiety had removed me from everyone that held value in my life.
All that was left was ash and destruction. Even after I went to the doctor and
she gave me some medication I struggled to actually take it. The darkness
inside of me screaming at my failure and weakness. All I could see or feel was
the nothingness that had consumed my life. All I was left able to do was go
through the motions of my life. I couldn’t feel happy when I watched my kids
play. I couldn’t really laugh when I was with my friends. I felt attacked when
my husband asked me if I needed help. I could see it all from inside a cage in
my own head. I couldn’t tell the truth of how bad it was though. I couldn’t see
any grace left for a sinner as bad as me. I had never understood self-harm
until these months. When I scratched my own flesh until blood poured out and
relief came because I could at least feel something. I couldn’t understand why
someone would want to leave their kids without a mother until it felt like all
I could do was pass along darkness to them. I couldn’t see anything. All that was left was ash and destruction.
“It fills all the parts of me I can’t find. It hides away in the part
of I can’t see. It’s always there. Lurking and watching. I’m always aware of
it. Feeling it’s unnatural coldness pushing against me. I no longer look in my
own eyes so I don’t have to see it’s reflection. I push away my heart so I
won’t feel the pain. It beckons me with promises of emptiness and nothingness.
I believe it. I trust it. I shudder and let it have me. I’m it’s possession
now. I no longer belong to myself. I am bound to this. It keeps filling me. I
scream out in agony and change my mind but it’s too late, it has taken over I
am trapped now. Its hunger devours me. It took everything inside so I just wonder
why it bothers to leave behind my flesh. What worth does a shell of nothing
hold? None, is what it tells me. What reason does the empty nothing have to
make it to the next moment? None, it whispers into my heart. I shudder and fall
again. I couldn’t beat it. I couldn’t hide. It already knew me. It already knew
my biggest weakness. It took me apart piece by piece and rebuilt the lost
emptiness left behind. I don’t recognize my own face. I don’t feel my own skin.
I can’t hold onto my own hands anymore. It took them from me. Put me in a cage
to watch. I’m not whole anymore. I’ve lost too much. I am far too gone it tells
me. It oozes through my bones, flesh, and soul. Its traces burn me and the
scars will not be healed. It’s longing for my destruction with each passing
moment. It’s sacrificing everything of worth I had left to fight for its own
safety. I’m too far gone to fight anymore. It knows this. It only fears one
thing but will that one thing come this time? I don’t know. I tremble and try
to grasp at anything but even the bars on this cage burn me. I’m trapped and
it’s pulling me apart. It’s infected each part of me. It’s always there. I’m
always here, wondering.”
Those are the last words I wrote before I started taking
medication. One last cry out of the depths of my soul.
Pills of failure or success?
Crazy.
That’s what I had decided on. I was crazy because normal
people that have properly functioning brains don’t need pills to go to grocery
stores without panic attacks. People that aren’t crazy don’t need medication to
help them know how to feel things. When I started my medication all I knew were
a few things I could hold onto. People I loved, respected, and trusted also had
taken medication at some point. People that had proven they cared about me wanted
this for me. And that I am really good at controlling and manipulating things
and it’s dangerous for me to go unchecked. So I swallowed my first
antidepressant and posted a tiny portion of my struggle on the internet. You
know what feral animals hate? Anyone coming around them and trying to help
them. That was my mental state when I swallowed my first pill. I was angry. I
wanted to lash out. I hated myself more than ever. Picture what it would like
if you walked up to a feral hurt sick cat and tried to cuddle it. Suddenly
everyone had access to the tiny portion of the inside of me that I had shared
and I felt horribly exposed.
I had prayed and I had sought counsel and had the people I
trust more than any other people tell me I needed this. I agreed not because I
wanted it but because I knew that I was going to destroy myself and my legacy I
was handing my kids. All I knew from Jesus about what I was supposed to do was
take these meds, trust five people with the truth other than Jim, and tell
myself one true thing every single day.
Taking the meds.
Once you have lived in darkness and been held there, there
isn’t really much that truly brings about shame. Because when you are there in
the darkness you don’t feel anymore. You are cold and empty. The shame comes once when you have to turn
around and admit how far you are into it and how much you’re afraid to walk
back into light. My whole life has been affected by this darkness inside me. I
honestly don’t know if I can ever truly live without it but it was no longer a
piece of me, it was all of me. Once people knew I was in trouble and that I was
sick all I could feel was disgust with myself. Admitting I was struggling
suddenly opened up a door for people to tell me how brave they thought I was,
let them in to tell me they “got it”, allowed them authority to tell me what I
should try to do to fix it. And I could recognize that I think all of these
people truly cared and were offering me a piece of what they assumed was hope.
In my arrogance and suffering though all I saw was another shot at my weakness.
I don’t know how many people have been in this place. Truly
been here. I just remember thinking every time someone told me they “got it” I
wanted to ask if on New Year’s Eve they had sat and contemplated not making it
to the next year. That you were planning the perfect day to end your life so as
not to traumatize your kids on their birthdays for the rest of their lives. Or
if they would have such overwhelming panic attacks they had to leave the store
and cry in their car. Or if they sit a stare into nothing because that’s the
only thing that feel even remotely safe. I never did ask those things maybe
because I didn’t want to be rude or more likely I just didn’t care at that
point. I was hard and cold. But I swallowed my pill each day because I knew I
had too. And they made me sick. Literally sick to my stomach. It felt like when
I was pregnant and nothing would ever really take away the feeling that you’re
about to throw up. They also messed up my sleep and give me strange dreams. And
people ask “maybe they need to be tweaked” They do not. I have talk to my
doctor and these are the side effects one should expect with almost any drug
out there. But I now no longer have a desire to drive in front of a semi-truck
or cry in parking lots so they are doing their job. This probably all reads as
pretty bitter and that’s probably because I am pretty bitter about theses
stupid little pills.
I like to call them “pills of failure” and my husband likes
to call them “pills of success”. Honestly I don’t know that they are either but
rather pills that I take that kind of change my ability to cope while making me
sick but not as completely crazy as I was but still pretty off in the mental
game. I suppose failure or success are easier to explain to everyone else
though. Because we live in a world that wants to paint everything black or
white even though it’s mostly all grey. Now I just live with this fear that
what if I can’t ever get back to a safe mental place and I am always on these pills?
I think about it every day I take it. My kids ask what it is and I tell them. I
make jokes about it because I don’t ever want them to feel like anything is too
much or too scary to talk to me about. I tell them the truth of what they are
too because I don’t ever want them to feel the kind of shame and failure I do
in regards to depression and anxiety. These stupid pills are now a part of my
story for good.
Recently these pills have started causing my hair too thin
and fall out. Noticeable to the point that both my husband and oldest daughter
noticed without me saying something. Another reason to hate these pills and now
I have to take four different vitamins every day that make my stomach feel
queasy to help fight the side effect. The most annoying part is that doctors
don’t actually recognize it as a side effect because it wasn’t proven in
clinical trials. But they say it is common and probably a lack of protein
caused by the upset stomach that makes you eat less. According to the research
I did several people find that their hair starts to fall out. There was no
conclusive research to if once I’m off the meds my hair will return too normal
but to be fair I was so physically upset and shaking I couldn’t read more and
stopped because I was having a full on panic attack. I sat and cried for
45mins. Then Jim called and asked me how my day was and I wanted to lie. To
pretend I didn’t care about such a vanity as this but I couldn’t. I was once
again broken and falling apart. He listened and told me he would always love me
and he thinks I’m beautiful. But every day I look at myself in the mirror and
cry.
Every day I hate
myself when I swallow my pill.
Every day I think
about just not taking it.
Every day I forget
something and am reminded they are breaking my memory.
Every day I feel sick
and wonder if it’s the meds again.
Every day I fear what
will happen when I do go off them.
Every day I fear that
I will never be free of them.
Truth vs Lie.
I have always lived in the grey areas. Black and white have
never been easy for me. I always wonder where the loop hole it. I always hold
onto the fear that no one is ever telling you the whole truth. After admitting
I was depressed and anxious beyond a normal level, after talking to my doctor,
and after swallowing a pill every day all I could think was “what’s next”. The
answer isn’t easy to find. Because I’m not “better”. I don’t know if I get to
be “better”. Every morning I wake up and one of my very first thoughts is
always about how do I feel that day. I worry that it will be a bad day and that
I will lie and hide and feel terrified. I long for a good day where I’m happy
and don’t feel like I’m drowning. Most days I wake up and I am in the middle. I
have to fight uphill all day. I have to constantly be aware of truth over lie.
I have to decide what is truth or lie.
When I first started my telling truth I felt like Jesus
asked to name one true thing every single day. For fifty-five days I wrote one
thing down in my notes on my phone that I could hold onto. It wasn’t easy or
fun. I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted to stop because it hurt. It was the only thing
though that felt real. I needed something real so I did it.
The first entry was this “Day One-2/4/16 It doesn’t feel better. I feel
sick. The feeling of fear is burning inside me. The only reason I’m functioning
is because I have too. Because I don’t want people to think less of me. All the
inside of me wants to do is climb in bed and hide.”
The last one was this “Day Fifty-five-3/31/16 I feel confused. I feel
like I don’t know what’s next. Afraid of being fixed and losing myself. Afraid
of not being fixed and losing everything. Afraid that one day I’ll slip away
forever.”
The part I found amusing through all of it was I knew that I
wouldn’t be fixed by the pill or telling truth and that after however long I
was going to write down these little daily truths I was still going to hurt.
Writing has always been my best way to move forward but the part of me that
always sees truth knew this time was different. I was and am telling a story of
long suffering. The part of me that only sees lie wanted to believe that I
would be safe when I was done and that I worked through all the worst parts.
It’s impossible though to work through it. I can’t. Because every day of my
life I have woken up with some of these issues and pains and doubts.
The months that I existed in the darkest places I lost my
belief in hope. To me hope feels like a poison or a trap. A way to trick me
into believing you. Everything I wrote was without hope. The fifty-five days of
little truths wasn’t hopeless but it was a burning reminder of my fear and how
far I sank away. I think it was good but painful. Painful in the way a wound
sometimes will hurt more to heal. In my battle of truth vs. lie my fear always
plays a part. When I feel unsteady my first reaction is always to return to my
biggest fears. They were my only truths for 19 years of my life. When I
panicked and felt like I was drowning the only thing that could make sense was
the fear. That burning loneliness that has torn me apart so many times. I know
how to self-destruct and ruin myself. That was my safe haven as a child. I
could control my pain. When I was angry at my mother for not loving me I would
stop eating or bite my lip until it bled. That felt safe. Because while I could
never know if my mother would be there to take care of me I knew how long I
could go without eating or how much to bite my lip before the swelling was
noticeable. That was my home. Having kids now it makes me sick thinking about it.
It hurts more too. Knowing what it feels like to love my kids and the work it
takes to know them and notice them and realizing the pain I felt was that my
mother didn’t. When my life falls apart in any major way that’s where I return
when I’m sacred.
The scariest place for me to be is in the face of
loneliness. When I lose hope the first thing that the lie takes are my sense of
safety in relationships. The lie is good and it’s slow but building. Weeks
after finally swallowing a pill and finally being sort of open and trying to
find truth, lie continued. I don’t believe my friends. I don’t believe my
husband. I don’t believe anyone that says they care about me. That is simply
the truth. I figure at some point all relationships end and eventually everyone
will pick someone over me. I mostly believe this because it’s true. I’ve seen
it happen to me more than once. It’s not because I don’t have good solid
friends that are catty and mean. I have the most solid and loving friends I
think a person could have. It’s not that I think Jim is looking for a way out
and doesn’t love me. I believe that Jim will always fight for me and not quit.
I believe lie because of the truth of my level of crazy.
When summer started I was plagued with terrible life like
dreams that everyone would leave me. Each night a different darkness climbed
into my head and told me another vivid story of my unworthy self and that
eventually they would all see it. I would wake up and try to hold onto truth
but truth can be slippery. It can be muddled in my head. Truth vs. Lie is black
and white but I want to make it grey. I want a place to sit and decide which is
which. The sad truth is that no matter how many times my friends or husband
tell me they aren’t leaving me or quitting on me I won’t believe them. A part of me denies it the second the words
leave their mouths, “I’ll never leave you.” Lie creeps in and whispers into my
greyness that someday never will show up and they won’t choose me. I can’t
decide if it’s truth or lie because truth is sometimes people you trust more
than anything hurt you and betray you and lie is sometime people quit because
you’re too much. The dreams stopped when I switched back to taking my pill in
the morning after deciding I could deal with feeling like puking much better
than not sleeping and frightful dreams.
The fear doesn’t stop. I do though. I stop trying. I play
games with myself and try to find the holes and gaps that are going to break
me. To me truth vs lie is every single day. I don’t get to be free from it. I
know this because it existed before the crazy came into my brain. Because the
truth of the lie is once I stop and give up that lie gets me. It traps me and
swallows me whole without missing a second.
Epilogue.
As a writer I do not like epilogues. I think they are a way
to cheapen the story and provide closure to a story that is easy for the reader
rather than letting the reader take the characters farther. As a reader though
I love them because I want to know what the writer had in store for them and
where they wrap up. The danger I find in them is that sometimes when you read
them you realize how desperately you wanted a different ending. I remember when
I was 13 and I read a book that I can’t even remember the name of but it was
set in the old west and there was an epilogue and the main character made a
choice that made me so angry I threw the book. That’s the danger. Complete
destruction of the story in the mind of the reader. So maybe I’m about to
destroy everything I was building in these words.
My story, my whole story, isn’t one I get to write. I don’t
get to know if I will ever visit London. I don’t know if I get to see all my
kids get married and meet my grandkids. I don’t if serious illness will plague
my family or a close friend. I don’t know if one day I will finally like white
fish or peanut butter. Some things I have a stronger guess at but I still don’t
know. When my story ends I won’t get to know how people think about it. I won’t
know what they thought of the end. In the perspective of writing a great book,
you have to have a solid ending. There has to be some sort of emotion and drive
to finish. Since I am not getting to write the actually story here I don’t get
a vote. It bugs me. I want to control it. I want there to be a full circle of
storytelling. Poetic words and a justified finish. But it doesn’t matter what I
want. I also want to know that people were satisfied with it. That when it’s
told again someone will get it. Again I don’t get to decide. Within a few
generations I am just a name. Maybe someone that a great-great-great grandchild
looks up and finds random information on for a report or curiosity.
When my end comes my epilogue will be my children and their
children. I have lived through horrible suffering and I am still trapped by a
weight I can’t escape. I am afraid that the rest of the chapters I write will
contain this too. I said at the beginning that I hate these chapters and wish I
could burn them. I still do. A part me wishes I could print these off and burn
the pages and watch the words disappear into ash and then I would be free. I
can never escape these chapters. Recently it was the anniversary of the most
painful and hurtful thing I have ever experienced. A moment that broke me and
changed my belief that you can ever fully trust a person. I never hated the
moment though. I never hated that year that it happened in and I affectionately
called the worst year of my life. It made sense to me in some way. I don’t hate
my childhood and see a reason for it. The hardest days in my marriage or
parenting I don’t wish away because I know they’ve brought me something
important. But this. This I hate. There is a part of me that wishes I could not
hate it because I know when I don’t hate it I function better. There is a part
of me that is ashamed of the hate. Also a part that just doesn’t care and rolls
my eyes at myself.
I do not see the purpose for dragging me down to my weakest
lowest point and hallowing me out. I can’t see the reason for me breaking so
far down that I have stood at the point of deciding my last day. I don’t
understand why it will ever be helpful that I hated myself so much that I put
myself in physical pain and caused my body to bleed out for weeks. I don’t see
a reason that my heart was so distant that on Christmas morning I had to fake
all the feelings while my kids laughed and played. I don’t understand why I
would benefit from breaking parts of my marriage because I turned away and hid
inside myself. I can’t understand why it was good that I broke friendships that
can’t be fixed. I don’t see a purpose for being so weak in my strongest
friendships and lying and hiding. None of it makes sense. And I don’t know if
it ever will. I don’t know how to sit with it. How do you sit with the story
and know that the chapters you don’t like will always be there but you don’t
get to edit them and you don’t get to even know if they are helpful until much
later?
As I said before my kids are my epilogue. I have tried to
tell them the truth about who I am. I have tried to know them. I have watched
them and loved them. As I rapidly approach the points in their lives that they
will go out and live their own lives I wonder who I am to them. How they will
speak of me in their lives. Not out of arrogance or pride but because I really
am curious. We all have our stories being written and while some of the same
players are in different stories you never know how each one affect the others.
I know I have messed up my kids. I have made huge mistakes that I can’t change.
I know I have hurt them in both a way that was sin on my part and in a way that
was unintentional pain I inflicted that they struggle with. I wonder how their
eyes see me now. In all my glorious weakness and faults. Most likely 3 out of
the 5 will vividly remember these days. The chapters of me hiding in my bed and
the days I couldn’t take them to the park because I was overwhelmed. I wish I
could have some sort of guarantee that these parts haven’t hurt them but
somehow made them better people. I don’t get that promise either.
Where does all this leave me? With a stack of hurried
emotional writings. A sick feeling in my stomach that makes me a grapefruit
most every day to handle the sickness. Broken relationships. A haphazard way of
coping with fear and sadness. Hopefully a piece I needed to get to the next
part. I don’t feel like I am old enough to know things and be wise. Which is
funny to me because I think I used to be wiser and braver. I can’t find my way
to the next part. It’s not for me to decide the pages and how long each chapter
is. I know I have talents and abilities to do things. I don’t know if I have the
drive to accomplish anything but to be fair I’m fine with not having drive and
not finishing things. I know I still have different things that Jesus has
placed in my heart to do and I am not sure when I will actually ever do them
again. For me right now all I can hold onto is that I am this mess. I’m both
sides of the coin and probably always will be.
The end isn’t mime to write or even know. The end will come
when it does. Truth is I’m not looking for the end I’m looking for the next
chapter. Maybe that’s the point. Because for a long time I was searching for
the end and I was willing to finish it. Lie is that I will never be there again
because I could be. I will probably never write a great piece of literature
that changes people’s lives. I will probably just be me and try to figure out
how to get through the craziness of all my days with some sort of hope. The end
isn’t in the epilogues anyway; the end is in the part that keeps going after
the story is finished.
