but I'd trade the rest of my days for you tonight

first sunburn of the year, slow to develop, just a little glow on my forearms and face. riding bikes by the lake with my lost friend's little sister and talking about loss and love and hurt and growing up.

my heart aches. there's so many holes punched in it that I imagine it like lace, gushing and leaking inside my chest. maybe that's why it's beating so fast. 85 bpm, unrelenting, like new love, like stage fright, like being chased down a darkened hallway in the night by the wolf from under the bed.

where is my brave face. where is the script for me to follow. what is love. can I love without trusting, or is that just addiction to oxytocin and dopamine and a very specific bioelectric field.

when I was little my mom used to make me pray for a husband. now I can't imagine anything other than living and dying alone. even when I'm with someone. when nobody's going anywhere. when they're right where I need them. I'm still alone, because there's no hope of anything other than loss and loneliness and broken shattered pieces of my lacy hole-filled heart. when did I lose faith.

who broke my heart first. my dad. jesus. the world. I remember being 13 and telling myself that there was no such thing as love. losing my virginity in a tent in the woods to a stranger, before ever even having a first kiss. because nothing is special. nothing is pure. nothing will last.

tomorrow I give in to the dark side. I lose the mission. I cease to keep the faith. I go to a psychiatrist and I get pills to quiet my heart. to put me to sleep. to make being unwanted hurt less. to keep my brave face on. to live through this.

everything sticks in my throat. pills. raisins. toast. resentment. fear. maybe I'm choking on love, on insecurity. on being unable to let go and trust. to surrender control.

I first heard this song the summer of 2003. the first time I lived alone. me and the cats and a sixpack of high life writing in livejournal, bike rides to the food coop, to decleyre, to the felix house. honeysuckle and porch swings and blue shadows on the street. sitting alone in the dark listening to lucero, loneliness like a knife embedded in my chest. surrounded by love but unable to open my arms and take it. like tantalus in hades. pushing the rock of my own stubborn lack of faith and hope and trust endlessly up this hill.

so I'll swallow my pills until summer, until the earth tilts, until things make more sense. until they are better.

but it won't be tonight.

I really wish I could go back on meds, that they'd work. that the side effects wouldn't be just as miserable as my baseline state is.

weeks of unending dopesickness has left me sure that my neurochemistry is irrevocably fucked.

I've read that crippling depression and anxiety are part of "secondary withdrawals," that it's going to be another month before I feel anywhere close to normal, which is way too close to rock bottom for me anyway.

I'm losing friends because all I do is whinge. I can't stand myself either. I can't stand feeling like this and all I can do is stick needles in myself and take handfuls of valerian root and drink lemon balm tea and wait for my heart to stop pounding.

I'm at wit's end. I've been having a panic attack, unable to stop crying for 3 days straight.

strong at the broken places

after two weeks off Vicodin I was stupid. I took a few pills when I had cramps too bad to walk, thinking surely it wouldn't be too bad.

instead I triggered another set of withdrawals all over again. fish-flopping limbs. racing heart. searing pain, like sunburn under my skin and on top of my muscle layer. hallucinations. nausea so deep it felt like dying. icy sweat.


I've been pushed to the very deepest darkest places this past month. I've been in more pain than I ever thought I'd be able to bear. I had to relive the whole Second Chance experience over again, being locked up and in pain and being treated like a liar. being forced to kiss ass and make nice to get out and get back to my life when inside I was seething with rage because no-one would help me.

and yet I go on. like a good little Newtonian. at some point these experiences will have their equal and opposite reaction. I will learn whatever it is I was supposed to learn from this and I will make myself its master.

and eventually this world will get tired of breaking me, and it will kill me in the end. even then they will gather after over the pieces of me that are left and say, she was so strong.

see you at the crossroads

It's gonna be awhile before I can write about the past couple weeks in any sort of depth. bad reaction to Yasmin had me feeling like I'd been set on fire, my MDs decided it was narcotic withdrawal despite the fact that I was taking 60 mg a day of hydrocodone, I went to the ER, got sent to the state mental hospital, went 8 days without seeing the sky or riding my bike, got out, had Howard Brown fire me as a patient because my health problems are beyond their scope of practice, one of the nurse practitioners there somehow gave my therapist the idea that I was a narcotic addict so now she's refusing to treat me, Howard Brown refused to refill my pain meds because I won;t have a laparascopy done so now I am detoxing, I had to drop two classes, I'm weeks behind in the 3 I kept, I lost 5 pounds cos the fucking state hospital's idea of gluten-free meals are a scoop of government peanut butter and three cups of canned fruit cocktail...

hospitals trigger my ptsd like fucking hell and if it weren't for all the meds I"m on right now I think I'd be fucked out of my mind.

right now the only thing that is helping is eating bacon cherry chocolate chip pancakes 4 meals in a row.

and this beautiful amazing inspiring song, which I've got on repeat.

avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?

I've been buying herbs from a Chinese pharmacy in Little Saigon for a couple months now. the owner is a diminutive woman who appears to be fluent in several languages. she stocks all the major medicinals for decoctions as well as the most commonly used pills and teas and creams and liniments. We've gotten to be on a first-name basis and I've joked about getting her to sell me her shop when she wants to retire.

I've been in there about 5 times in the past week; I've been having horrible hot flashes that make me feel like my bones are boiling, sending a very uncomfortable fizzing sensation through my muscles. I get so hot that I get goosebumps, despite having no measurable fever. I'm frantic with worry and sadness, not sleeping well, nauseated, downcast, miserable. I've spent about 80 bucks in the past week on medication and herbs trying to get my body back to its normal miserable state. seriously, I can deal with just fibro, but this endometriosis and pseudo-menopausal crap are grinding me down.

Lin, the owner of the herb shop, was asking me about my health. she knows what she's selling, so she can tell from my purchases that I'm not the average 30 year old. I was trying to give her the short rundown and somehow ended up giving her the whole life story.

I don't give myself enough credit. I really don't. between the culture shock of the South's suburbs and my brother's attempts to molest me and then getting sent off to a brainwashing lockup and force-fed lithium for years, I went through more hell in my early teens than most people do in their whole life. and shit didn't even stop then. my life has been an avalanche of poor health and poor decisions made from an inability to plan for the future for most of my adult years too.

I've had a hard time being around people lately. I'm ashamed of my inability to keep my composure. I am constantly afraid that the few friends I have will turn their back on me, that they will be sickened by my neediness if I ask them to keep me company when I am sad or scared or feeling self-destructive. I have been hiding in my apartment for weeks, watching hours of downloaded tv, sticking needles in my feet and hands to keep from cutting myself. I schedule one or two social events a week and try my hardest to put on a brave face.


I am fragile. I am crumbling. but I have to believe that I am not broken past all hope of mending. as much as I want all this pain and fear and anxiety and sadness to be over, I'm not done living yet.

I just have to hang on a little while longer. and then a little more after that.

I'm too unforgiving towards myself. I let my physical fragility cause emotional fragility and then get angry at myself when my circuits overload and I lose control of how I feel. I need to learn to step back.

these past few weeks, I've felt like I'm running on a giant hamster wheel, constantly tripping and falling down and skinning my knees and palms, busting my lip. I feel like a giant bruise emotionally.

I should have broken down and called my shrink. she was out of town and I didn't want to bother her, but she told me to call if if I wasn't doing well, and fuck. this past week has been one of the worst I can remember.

hindsight is 20/20, right.

cheer up, honey (I hope you can)

today seemed slightly better, as if I've rounded some sort of bend, as if the light at the end of the tunnel has come microscopically closer. there was an earthquake this morning and a foot of snow on the ground. soon it will be March.

I don't think I have ever missed anyone this intensely. not and still believed that they were coming back.

please come back.

fail

I gave herbs and acupuncture a year to try to fix all my mysterious lady problems; today, after having to combine vicoprofen and tylenol 3 just to get out of bed, I broke down and called my doctor for a birth control script.

I'm so hormonally overloaded it can't possibly make it worse, right?

I'm ok with my boobs growing, but I can't afford new britches, so let's hope my ass stays the same size...

consolation prize

I keep telling myself, "At least you still look good," but honestly, it's not really helping. I'd rather be ugly than hurt this much.

I am constantly overcome with envy.
I feel so left out.

I miss having a life.
I miss working.
I miss being busy.

I feel so fucking trapped.


I want out. I want out. I want out.

I never saw so many tigers

JD Salinger died today.

the ultrasound didn't show anything. I spent 5.5 hours at the hospital and eventually walked out. I got tired of being shut up in a small dirty room to panic. they could not tell me what to do next. I'm certainly not letting them cut me open to look around. they don't know what's wrong with me, why I feel this bad, and they just didn't seem to care. I'm not doing this cos I enjoy being on narcotics. heroin would involve jumping through less hoops, I am sure, and the end would come a lot faster.

I'm too tired for this: separation anxiety combined with increasing desire to avoid social contact. constant suicidal thoughts. I hate myself. I want to cut myself. I want to punch walls, to bang my head on the ground and scream. I can't stop weeping. I can't get my feet warm. loss of appetite. dysphoria even a brisk ride on a sunny day can't shake. anorgasmia.

I won't go back on meds. I am certain if I can figure out what is wrong with my uterus and narrow down a treatment strategy, this horrible emotional turmoil will resolve itself. I am just getting impatient. I cannot explain; you would not understand. this is not how I am. I'm losing my religion. I'm at the end of the rainbow and my rope. I kneel in the night before tigers that will not let me be. I never saw so many tigers.

I am too old to be acting like this.

I thought I would grow out of being crazy.

Instead I'm pacing around my apartment with needles in my toes and forehead weeping like a madwoman and punching walls.

I can't live like this. I don't know what to do.

I'm waiting for the time when I can be without

I can't make it through the night without pain waking me. I reach for the pills. if it's before 6, I can have one. if it's after, two. I count hours until I can take more. I ache and throb and burn. I'm taking more than the bottle says. I'm behind in class because I can't find a buffer zone between too fucked up to function and hurting too bad to sit still. my dreams are endless anxiety and abandonment and exhaustion.

the things that used to comfort me just don't anymore.

and I want you to notice when I'm not around

I found a new therapist, one who does EMDR. When we were setting up the appointment, we talked briefly about what I think is wrong with me and what I want to work on.

here's the thing: maybe I was in so much emotional pain that it just spilled over and became physical pain. then again, maybe I think I deserve to suffer. maybe I think that I have to be in pain in order to be loved. maybe this physical but invisible manifestation of pain is the only way I could get my parents to admit how badly they fucked me up. maybe it's my body screaming out I don't deserve this and no-one is listening. maybe after a decade of nightmares and self-hate and cutting and burning and screaming bloody hatred and rage into the big empty space where my lost personality- the person I was before I was made sick- used to be, maybe it just built up and shorted out and left me with these endless aches.

maybe if I can stop believing that I am sick I will stop being sick. I've been told I was sick and broken since I was 13. I don't even remember what it felt like before, to feel safe and coherent and cohesive and loved and accepted.

I wish I believed in unconditional love. I wish I believed that I will be ok.

I am terrified of what is growing inside me. I am terrified of finality. I am afraid I will never be wanted again, that I will never be touched by someone who desires me. I have so internalized these years of rejection that now my body is rejecting itself.

how do I stop
how do I feel whole

Love and Monsters

"you know, when you're a kid, they tell you it's all grow up, get a job, get married, have a kid and that's it... but the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. it's so much darker... and so much madder... and so much better." Elton Pope in Dr Who, new series season 2

I have to believe that things will get better. that the way I see myself when I am down in it and blinded by pain is not how others see me. that anyone else would behave the same way were they in similar circumstances.

I can't live like this, constantly breaking my own heart.

I don't know how to be anything other than sick. I don't know how to keep my fucking mouth shut and act like a normal person. I don't know how to stop resenting all my neurotypical friends.

I am humiliated at all times. I have no emotional control. I have no filters. I can't pretend to be ok. I can't keep my heart off my sleeve. I can't keep my feelings from being hurt by minuscule things. I don't know how not to be a greedy, grabby, clingy, emotional vampire sponge monster.

I don't think I will ever rise above this.

I don't believe in the future being better. I don't think I will ever be anything but scared and alone and in pain. no matter how many painkillers I take it still hurts. I almost overdosed last night because it hurt so bad and I just kept taking more and it is never enough to make it stop.

I wish it had been me instead of Liza.

there is no-one what will take care of you

I'm not doing well. it came on pretty suddenly. cramps so severe I woke up before dawn crying, so bad that a triple dose of tylenol with codeine didn't even take the edge off. I got vicodin from my doctor, but even that is only making it tolerable.

there is something horrid and out of place in my body.

I need an MRI. I can't stop imagining this horrible evil dark sludgy teethy gnawing thing growing inside me. wishing me harm. it doesn't belong there.

then again I don't want to know how bad it is. if it's adhering to my organs too much then they would want to burn it off. I have no-one to take care of me if they cut me open. I don't want to go through the county hospital, with their endless lines and infection filled waiting rooms and below standard quality care.

I am giving Chinese herbs a few more months. after that I don't know if I will have any other option besides surgery if it keeps getting worse every month.

I am scared and I am alone and I feel disgusting and dirty and foul and broken and I don't want to be here.

proportions

After taking a year of Herbology classes that focus on learning around 300 of the most frequently used herbs in the Chinese Materia Medica, I've finally started a formulas class.

Putting together a formula is like organizing the government of one of those epic historical simulation computer games. there's an emperor, who dictates the main action and purpose of the formula; below him is the minister, who supports the emperor by either having a similar function or by addressing a second, coexisting symptom. the emperor and minister generally have the highest dosage range in the formula. at lesser doses are the assistants and envoys; the assistant can reinforce the actions of its superiors, it can reduce their unwanted side effects, or occasionally it can have an opposing effect when the disease has a complicated manifestation. the envoy focuses the actions of the formulas on a specific area of the body, such as the throat or the eyes, or else "harmonizes" the formula, sort of like taking the rough edges off. licorice root seems to be the most common envoy- it's very sweet and can make a particularly nasty potion a bit easier to get down.

sometimes the roles of each herb can be unclear: it's easy to pick out the emperor when it's dosed at 60g and everything else is 15 or 6, but certain herbs might be the emperor even if their dosage is small. wild ginger, for example, is an extremely warm herb that is used for severe chills with copious thin mucus; it generally is not dosed higher than 3 grams because it is so warm and drying. in a formula with wild ginger dosed at 3 or 4 grams, it will serve as the emperor even when the other herbs outweigh it by far.

despite the overall Confucian nature of herbal hierarchies, this last fact strikes me as rather Marxist- from each according to his ability, right?


In the past few months I've developed a fairly broad and varied group of friends. some of them are like me and have a lot of free time; some of them work way too much. the few people that I think of as my closest friends all fall into this latter category. I rarely get to spend time with them, but when I do, it means a lot more to me than when I hang out with people I see every day. their presences in my life are the most important, despite the fact that I might see them for only a few hours a week, or even less. My best girlfriend from back home and I rarely get a chance to sit down and talk on the phone for hours like we used to, but she's still my best friend. I can't remember the last time I got to spend a few hours with my closest friend here, but the twenty minutes every couple days and the waving at each other from our neighboring apartments' windows mean the world to me.

if you can't see the metaphor here, well, I don't know what to tell you.