Brown

As far as colors go, brown ranks pretty low in terms of beauty.  It is drab.  It blends in.  It is a non-color.  It is certainly not in the rainbow.

Dead plants are brown.  Rotten bananas turn brown.  Brown is what comes of all the colors when they collide together.  Paper bags are brown.  And these bags are meant to disguise a secret.  An embarrassment.  The guy on the corner who drinks all day... he hides his bottle in a obviously discreet paper bag.

I carried a brown paper bag today.  It didn't contain my lunch.  And no, it didn't carry beer, wine, or liquor either.  It's the see-you-in-six-weeks kind of day.  The day where I go sit in my shrink's waiting room and pray that I don't look as crazy as I feel.  Today is the day that I rate my mental state by the bag I carry.  Am I carrying my favorite handbag or am I carrying a loud and awkward paper bag stuffed with meds?

My psychiatrist is a nice man.  He is fairly intelligent as well.  He is the first of his profession to treat me with kindness and respect.  It's refreshing.  I don't say a lot.  I smile at least once so I do not present flat.  I answer his questions with single words if at all possible.  I am not having a good time of it and that must show.  When he starts his shrink talk with "I'd like to talk to you today about..." I know that my meds are being tweaked or changed.  Yippee.

Thirty minutes later I've paid my bill and I walk the twenty five feet across the waiting room full of people and I'm holding that damn brown bag.  Any chance of appearing normal is wiped away when people see that crinkly bag full of she's-not-quite-right samples.

I skip the elevator to avoid riding in a closed space with someone who would clearly know they were confined, for a one floor descent, with a crazy girl.  I make it to my car and I dump the bag out and cram the samples into my black leather handbag.  Much more presentable because crazy people don't carry professional messenger bags, right?

The snarky humor is here but beneath that is my anger.  I'm angry that I have to do this charade every six weeks.  I'm angry that I'm a walking stigma.  I'm angry that I pay good money for appointments and medication to help me function and unfuck what they did to me.  I'm angry that I have side effects from the cocktail of meds that I take.  I'm angry that the medicated me is better than the can't-get-out-of-bed me. 

I'm still struggling over the events with my mother in law for reasons that some may not understand.  I will try to put that into words shortly because I need to find a way to express in words what is churning in my mind.  My husband's advice has been, "just be yourself", which I always inwardly smirk at because the thought of an un-medicated "me" attending a family dinner is something I'm almost certain he never wants to encounter.

Update

I apologize for neglecting my blog.  I've been in a weird place as of late and I suppose I've spent some time pretending that all this isn't happening.  In my mind, if I don't write here then I must be fine.  Right?

Wrong.

I got over the hump of the last integration only to slide downhill into a family mess.  I have worked hard to keep my head above water and ignore the worry that comes with this shit.  And I was doing a good job until last weekend.

A breach of my intimate trust occurred nearly five years ago when my husband and I were engaged.  His relationship with his mother has always been strained for a number of complex reasons.  In an attempt to share his life with her he shared with her about me, our relationship, and what seemed to be harmless details. 

At least to him. 

When he told me about their conversation I learned that he told her about my past and my Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I have never believed that he did this with ill intent but I have always worried about her own ignorance of perception.  Because she is a truly ignorant person.

And now their conversation, as I have always worried, has come back to bite me in the ass.  For a whole other post about the reasons, she is angry with me for something I have no control over: my husband's relationship with his two kids from his previous marriage.  To pay me back she has taken my disorder, skewed it's reality, and has shared it in an open email to any family member with an email address.  All under the guise of "let's pray for her".  Like all good Christians do... and I write those words dripping with truthful sarcasm.

My husband keeps telling me that she looks worse than anyone could ever think of me.  I am having a hard time believing that.  I'm also having a hard time not being angry with him.  I know he didn't do this with the intent to hurt me five years later but the truth is that is exactly what is happening.

I have tried. I really have. But I am out of ideas or delusions that this is OK. It's not and it hurts terribly.  I am horribly embarrassed and no matter what I don't see a way out of that feeling.

I Know

If they only knew?

I know.  I have been with you for many years and it is easy to say that I know you just as well as you know yourself. 

I watched you as a small child reach out to love them.  I watched you as an older child dying to be loved.  I have watched you as an adult love your own child.  I know you and I see your love for those who love you back as well as those who never did love you.  This ability to love is amazing and it is something not everyone in this world possesses.

This love makes you good.  This love also makes you unlike him, or her for that matter.  You will never be like him because you are not sick.  Sick is doing what he did; sick is raising you in a nightmare like she did.  And while I know how bad you feel, you are quite healthy despite your pain. 

Despite your pain you have not quit.  Despite your pain you love.   Despite your pain you grow.  We haven't always known if we were going to make it.  Many times I have doubted our fate.  But today I can tell you that we ARE well and we are going to make it... because of you.  You are strong, you are loving, and you are not them and you never have been like them.

I know you and I know we are going to all right.

-James

Sick

Broken babies everywhere.  Fraught with shredded suffering, nothing soothes or makes them calm.  I am so afraid that I have a very sick mind. 

They scream.  They hurt.  My head throbs with psychic suffering and torment.  I am so very tired of having this twisted space of devastation within me.  Normal is relative but with simple confidence I can say that normal people do not have these images of pain.

Most memories are ones that I can endure but bleeding babies push me towards capacity.  Common people smile at me while daily acquaintances are kind and complimentary. 

If they only knew... 

If they only knew the poison that has washed over my mind.  If only they knew the images that I can never shake.  The oily suds of sin that froth and foam, they will never wash completely clean. 

I wrestle and I twist with these faces until I am overcome with the fear.  My bitter stomach churns as I reach for a familiar metal.  My hands shake with forward reaching regret until the warmth of release stings when mixed with salty tears.

My mind lurches forward as the flashbacks of the past find me unsuspecting.  The mental whiplash leaves me lost as the jarring shock brings me to my knees.  I am begging for an end; a present firmly rooted that is able to withstand the forces of his latent life. 

I am begging for relief before I am sick like him.

Money

This is a discussion I avoid at almost all costs.  Money.  Yet I am surrounded by it. 

Literally.  By way of my profession.

My family was wealthy.  So now that they are gone, I am left with a mess.  It's not a mess to most people but rather an inheritance.  I have now stood up the estate attorney four times.  I make the appointment and then I don't go.  His office assistant drives me crazy.  She probably is a pretty nice person and she probably wouldn't drive me crazy if I showed up for appointments. 

I get in my car.  I drive down the freeway.  I have even made it to his office.  And then I break out into a cold sweat, my head begins to spin, and my heart pounds with the anticipation of finality.  And then I leave.  I just can't do it.  I can't go in and legally acknowledge what has happened.

My family is gone.  A family that I never quite had in the first place.  So if I never had them, did I really loose them at all?  Perhaps my loss is bigger, even different than just their physical presence.  My loss was the chance for a caring mother; a loving father; a best friend for a sister.  I never had these things.  But I hoped for them.  I begged for them.  I even prayed for them.

Well meaning people offer me encouragement and ideas for what to do with these funds.  I nod my head and listen but each idea hits a dead spot in my brain and travels to a broken part of my heart.  Money doesn't make this better.  And while this would be a welcome addition for most; it is a painful insult to my own existence because I did not die.

I survived and they did not.  And for walking through hell I get the prize.  When I sign those papers I will make this official.  The black and white proof of their end and perhaps my own twisted beginning.  I want to say that this is good.

But all I feel is that money makes a dirty and really shitty band-aid.