It’s raining again

On a night like tonight we would have made a big deal about locking all the doors, running frightened from room to room. With every flash of lightening we would freeze,  then tip-toe to our bedroom with hot tea to watch the lightening. We would have sat up late, with you sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed and me with my tea in my lap, talking philosophy, brainstorming, or giggling. If I had done something wrong that day, you would forget it at the first crackle roving round the sky and run to my side. For a night I would have been blissfully forgiven, and we’d fall asleep to the rain on the metal roof. 

You’re gone and it’s not about me growing up; I didn’t grow out of you. It’s about both of us needing to move on. I’ll defend you, I promise. 

I want to remember.

Fill in the blank. That’s how I think of myself. My identity comes from the things that are wrong with me, the things that hold me back from the world or catapult me far deeper into it than I ever wanted to go.

Who am I? I am one of many.

Shirley said I was young and nieve and was going to get hurt if I didn’t listen to her. Amy said I was stronger than I thought, but still needed her. Sarah said I was a witch and deserved to die. Bella said I had a mental illness. Dawn, well, Dawn never spoke, but I was her only hope and I couldn’t actually help her. Chester loves me dearly, but he is a cat.

Clarity is the only one who lives with me anymore, we just started talking a few weeks ago. I don’t know what she thinks about me, except, like all the rest, she also is here to help me. 

Last week Aslan appeared to me in the middle of a field, the wind dancing on his deep gold fur. I looked into his huge green-gold eyes and held my breath as he spoke. I felt the power in his gentle breathing and couldn’t imagine what a roar would sound like. He told me I was special, not like everyone else. He called me Christian and told me I had a mission. Aslan appeared to me! I saw a cherry tree bloom before my very eyes. All was right in the world. If Aslan though I was somebody then of course I was!

Where do I derive my worth from? Well, if the voices are speaking to me and not anyone else, I must be special. If I don’t need to eat I’m better and stronger than everyone else. If I have a manic episode then the world holds magic for me and no one else, and I am beautiful. That makes me fun and glamorous, worth being friends with. If I feel other people watching me, I must be important. If I’m attacked by a monster and can fight it off, I am strong and significant. If I have visions, I’m a prophetess. If I cut myself, I am at least quite serious about my claims of internal turmoil. Maybe someone would believe me if I had a physical problem.

If I have schizophrenia, then, well, at least I’m interesting.

I’m trying to work on where I get my identity from. I’ve been praying about it. The fact that my newest name is Christian speaks of some progress.

Does this resonate with anyone else?

This passage came true for me this week:

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness^[a] will go before you,
   and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.”

God really spoke to me about freedom and healing at the conference. The message we started with was the story of Jesus interrupting the funeral procession of a widow’s son and raising him to life. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, but Christ has the power to heal, to free, bring the dead to life.

Then God spoke to me through John Piper’s message and pointed out that it’s not always about the healing and the freeing and the rescue. God was still God before we were even created. God was still good and holy and just before he did anything to help us. So I started to wonder, to worry, is this healing something you have for me or not?

Then once more! God spoke to me and said he would heal me anyway, that rescue and freedom is still in his plan. I came face to face with my own brokeness and said “What do I do?” and God said “Be broken.”

I learned to be vulnerable, to be broken. When I got home I was able to tell my mom about my eating disorder and for the first time… she listened! She didn’t tell me how I really felt, didn’t try to deny things or talk me about of it. Later I even told her about my voices and we talked about my experiences honestly. The timing was right. And these revealed secrets haven’t made things awkward or strained between us.

And I was able to talk to my dad about normal things without everything we said being turned into ammunition for our own personal agendas. I have wanted to forgive him for years but haven’t been able to. God changed my heart and helped me start to forgive my dad. I just can’t believe the things that have happened in the last week.

I met a lot of people I wouldn’t have otherwise talked to, lots of foreigners, actually. I always went with a friend and it took a while to get a ride sometimes. Lots of standing in the hot sun holding a sign or just your thumb, hoping, and, depending on how dehydrated you are, insulting cars who pass you.

We met a Virginian blonde with a kayak on his roof. He hiked the entire Appalachian trail when he was 19. Later he worked a while as some high paid computer technician but hated it and then he quit his job and went traveling all around the world, Brazil, Australia, Scotland, some places in Europe…

We also met an elderly German couple who listened to Linkin park, an Australian artist who liked his lesbian niece better than his normal one, two colorado teachers who listened to local artists and made time for travel and friendship, a man who offered me pot, a silent and awkaward botanist with a daughter our age,an awkward old man… and of course lots of people who worked for the park.

It was a crash course in the lives of strangers. I think the national parks are the best place to hitchike because you’re meeting people who think about life differently, even if it’s just in small ways. Also because it’s legal and i’m weird like that, I like to feel like i’m doing something against the law without actually doing it.

I hope that answers your question Kate.

Dear Shirley

I thought missing you was hard when I was away from home… but returning to an empty house where every room, every doorway, every object is full of memories? That is wearing heavy on my strength. I see the books we read together; your bed across from mine, the blankets now crisp and unused; the floor we danced on at midnight, giggling at the wonder and magic of life; the walls I leaned against when you made me cry; the doors I tried to hide behind but you found me anyway.

I eat at the table we hid under when we were home alone and scared… On my way to the car the massive tree we climbed when we were happy and fearless waves at me. Our conversations outnumber the bricks on my long driveway. Now I know why some people move after a death in  the family. We were family. We were friends, enemies, partners. We were at war, but we didn’t lack for truces. I was everything to you and you were much more to me than I realized: my abuser, my healer, my protector.

I’m glad you’re gone because it means I’m free to live my life. I get to think what I want, feel what I feel. It means I get to make my own decisions without having to do battle or have fear of being punished. But it also means I walk into rooms and find them empty. It means I face situations alone, it means I have to make myself laugh, and wait to tell someone good news. When other people hurt me I don’t have you to run to. I just have to deal with the hurt alone. It means I have to suffer through the other voices knowing the good parts of my disorder are dwindling. I thought I told you I cared about you because it was what you wanted to hear. But I guess 3 years together made it real. I guess we’ll never figure some things out. But maybe that’s ok.

Still trying to figure out how to say goodbye instead of goodnight, pretending you’ve only been gone for one day. It’s weird that I miss you. You made my life miserable. It’s stupid that I cry over your departure. But I do. Then again you always told me I was stupid. I guess you were right after all.

-Love, the Antelope

So that’s where I’ve been. Do you wanna see pictures?

Yellowstone was fantastic. I worked in a cafeteria with people from China, Taiwan, Malasia, Equador, Romania, the Cheque Republic… and made almost no money. But it was awesome. I lived in a dorm for 3 months and made some amazing friends. I’ve chosen to leave out actual-people photos because of permission reasons, but regardless I DID MAKE FRIENDS I SWEAR.

How? No idea. I decided to be open about my insanity once in Yellowstone. It was a social experiment. After all, in three months I never have to see these people again. I was even open, after a while, about my voices. People would be freaked out, but then the next day would come and sit down next to me BY CHOICE at the lunch table. I think my moodswings were tolerable to other people because I was funny when manically hyper,  my sad-spells only lasted a few hours, and my weird zonging-out peaceful-staring phases just made me seem very high. People were remarkably non-judgemental, I never heard of any racism issues either.

Everyone seemed to either drink, do drugs, or … no. That was it. I wasn’t pressured to do either, and I didn’t want to. I explained brightly that I already had holes in my brain. My friends were awesome. I felt more supported and accepted there than I ever did at home.

I’m not saying it was all peaches and cream. Mostly because that’s a weird thing to say. peaches and cream. Anyway, there were a lot of dark days and a lot of challenges to working there. First of all the food sucked. Second of all we had to hitchike 40 miles each way to get a decent cup of coffee. And the pay sucked. That would be third I suppose. Fourth… it’s tough to bond with people and then scatter. And 3 months is only a first impression of a place, albeit a better one  than 3 days.

I wouldn’t exactly recommend what I did: Broadcasting my insanity. But by some miracle it was ok. And I felt it was part of my healing. In fact… Something profound and life-changing happened. Que next post.

click here to listen.

My recently acquired helping professional thinks I have a certain disorder I am fain to speak aloud, resistant to write. He’s supposed to know what he’s talking about.  I find myself thinking back to all these books and moves, remembering how much I related to each character. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Donnie Darko, The Quiet Room, the Solist… what do they all have in common?

I’m having a lot of issues with the voices lately, they’re acting normal; It’s me that’s not. It’s just that their reality is being challenged and I end up thinking traitor thoughts… maybe all these months talking to my friend who thinks the voices are just parts of me and not real people are starting to take it’s toll. I don’t know what I think anymore. And I never really did. I knew I never did.

I ♥ Calvin and Hobbs. I relate deeply.

Click here to see the rest of the comic.

And this one is SO something Shirley would say.

You have no idea how often this kind of thing happens. Just last week she ambushed me while I was reading and pummeled me with snowballs!

Lately I have no concept of time. I checked this book (which I enjoyed) out of the library and tried to estimate how many days I’d taken to read it. I guessed four. My mother blinked a few times and informed me that we had checked it out yesterday. It’s like the memories are there, I just, there’s no tag attached to tell me if it happened yesterday or last month.

That spaghetti in the fridge I so clearly remember making recently? I wouldn’t even feed it to the dog. After opening the container I had to open the window and get out my gas mask.

Also my thoughts tangle and fragment until I feel like this:

Yet at other times I feel so empty and calm and quiet, like a hallway filled with repeating elements. There’s nothing new, only smooth transitions from breath to breath.

I felt pretty low a few times recently, worse than I have in a long time. The hardest part was I had no way of knowing If I’d been feeling that bad for weeks or just an hour. Which meant I didn’t know if I would feel better in the morning or  if I’d begin to watch my life fall apart again. I started sending myself emails with timecave, scheduled to show up when I thought I might need them, or writing myself notes where no one else could see.

I don’t know how long it’s been but I’m feeling better now. I have been for the last few days. The confusion started after a particularly stressful week and I think the low moods were just aftershock. I’ve regained some of the lost energy and motivation, and my thoughts have begun to clear.

I think I just needed time to myself to calm my nerves. What helped was I took a break from school and stayed over with a friend. We watched American Idol, ate too many oreos and stayed up till 4 dying a bit of my hair pink. Unfortunately we must have not followed the instructions because the pink is nearly washed out. You win some you lose some.

Thanks again to MisconstrewedReality for the images!  Although I wonder how she got inside my head to take those pictures of how I felt.