journey not recovery

I'm not afraid to die, but I am afraid to live. That is not what I planned on; in fact, I have already outlived myself, lived beyond what I had planned on growing up. I never saw much of a future for myself and I still do not. I was told early on that I would die or live out the rest of my life in a state hospital. I got out of the state hospital and though I've had close calls with death many times, I am still somewhat here. I say somewhat because I feel that I am existing and not living. My life is still a mess of hospitalizations and suicide attempts, frequent self-harm episodes and major food restriction. I am not convinced I want to be here. What would it mean to live? To me living is giving up. It's saying the trauma that happened to me can be healed when I don't believe I will ever recover from it. To get better from it seems to say it wasn't bad enough to kill me when it was. I do not forgive or forget. I do not wish to move on with my life as though it ...

There is a funeral for myself in my head. I'm not dead yet but they've brought wreathes and flowers and their prayers. It's too soon but also too late. My nightmares are my unconscious telling me over and over what I try to suppress, what I don't want to admit. They are clear as day and haunt me in my waking hours. Trauma is your body being taken over by someone else. They continue to live on there after it's over, making you feel culpable because your body unwillingly took part. I don't want to be my abuse, I don't want to live it every day. And I don't want to admit to myself what happened I won't say it aloud in therapy still. We talk around it. Body memories and flashbacks. I need a kind of exorcism of what took place, expell it from my physical self and my mind. Crosses and holy water, my body laid out, watch my head spin.

I've been hospitalized more times than years than I've been alive and many of those times were because I tried to die. Popped pills and frantic forearm artery spurts, and atrocities against myself I can't speak of in detail. But I have yet to have forgiven my survival, the sense of failure upon waking upnin Intensive care units, or the taste of choked- down charcoal on my cracked lips. The crushing disappointment of failing at the one thing I thought I was good at: dying. I am a suicide survivor in both my own attempt at taking my life and of my little sister's hanging in the basement. I understand the ramifications of suicide. But I also understand the desire. And I am not one of those who die to escape the pain while wishing they could love, not completely. I genuinely most of the time seek death itself. imagine getting high snorting suicide off the slit veins of your wrists. I keep running closer to the edge. Sometimes it feels as though I live for dying...

I believe forgiveness has its merits in healing for some, but I do not wish to forgive or forget. My body is a monument to hurt, to what was done to me, scarred and starved in revenge for His transgressions and Her not protecting me. The denial and hiding and making my truths sound like I am just a mental patient no one cared enough to ever visit. My skin weeps red, my bones hold the sorrow I want to be visible through my flesh. I want them to get on their knees and pray. I want them to ask for salvation from their sins, stigmata dripping from the palms of my hands in anguish. I will not forget. I will not allow it to ever be okay and I will not move on and let it go. What happened deserves justice for this continued suffering and loss of life. Let them choke on my ashes and fall upon my grave in devastation. But they won't. They breathe lies and denial. They swallowed me whole, my childhood emptied so early on. And I stumble on limping, I carry on not wanting to go on. My ...

The other day my case worker asked me what my goals with my therapist are. The truth is, we don't have goals that the larger system would like me to have, such as eat, restore weight, stop or reduce cutting, improve depression. Because we both know that is not how therapy works. It's about long term progress and growth; not instant or even visible change some of the time. A lot of it goes on inside, small shifts in thinking or for me, the new ability, after all the years in therapy, to be able to actually talk. My therapist believes that me having my garden is very important. He thinks that for me, who struggles with severe depression and PTSD, among other things, the small moments of joy and contentment and laughter are crucial. He knows that my ultimate goal is to die, in fact. But in my time left, he would like me to be able to have moments of peace, even if fleeting, in the little things: sunshine, a good cup of coffee, connection with others. A big part of our work...

Sometimes at heart I feel institutionalized, meant to live in institutions. That life is partially ingrained in me deep down. Whether the circumstances are good or bad, it is my comfort zone. The second I'm admitted anywhere have a flock of patient friends and there are staff who come in to chat and catch up. There are people who like me and seem to care. There are also adversaries and power issues that play out and I am constantly repeating and fighting. This cycle feels inescapable at times. It feels to be at my core. I feel like an emergency, a walking crisis stitched up strangling on my words. Strapped down screaming. I am always snatching failure from the jaws of victory, perpetual patient wandering the halls hidden in hospital clothes. I was told early on I would either die or live out my life in a state hospital. When I got to a state hospital it seemed fulfilled. It still seems wrong that I forced my way out of there, lying and battling and flying under the radar, ...

As a child i struggled with eating in school. Every day, starting in kindergarten, I would throw away my uneaten lunch in the cafeteria room trash. I would go the whole day without eating.I had this deep feeling that being seen eaten was shameful. I felt embarrassed at the meer fact of having a body. Early trauma left this deep sense of shame and worthlessness inside of me and I didn't have the words to explain to anyone. My Anorexia didn't begin with wanting to lose weight or with dieting. It started out as a voice whispering in my ear, "You don't deserve to eat." It seemed to appear just overnight one day, but I know now it had been building for a long time. I was silent in school as a child. My kindergarten teacher called my mother and was concerned that I never smiled. I hid my body in boys' clothes, and learned how to become invisible, a ghost girl, left alone. When I was first in treatment for my cutting I was left with the inability to being...

I used to not talk. I had the ability to speak but I lacked the words and the belief that nothing I had to say mattered or was worth being listened to. When I started therapy i sat mostly silent for whole sessions. When I was questioned about things I became so afraid of my reality, what I thought was real, being shattered in the light. I would skip sessions or else leave there feeling physically ill and going straight to bed in a darkened room, often missing classes. It's taken many therapists and a lot of years to learn to find words for things instead of acting them out. My therapist now tells me "Everything is important." I am learning that I have things worth saying that matter and deserve to be heard and listened to . However, I have yet to truly address my trauma. I was always an emergency, constantly, and not able to be safe, so talking about topics in depth was not really an option. Though I still react strongly to things and put myself in jeopardy, t...

Hospital roommates, unlikely pairs thrown together, laying across from one another. "I did not choose him/he did not choose me/we have no chance/of recovering/sharing hospital joy/and misery" (Hospital Beds- Cold War Kids).  I have had so many roommates throughout the years that I can deal with almost anything, including the day and night rumbling snorer, the late-night eater with crinkling chip bags, the girl who read my diary. There were women who struggled as much as I did, like when I woke up to my roommate choking out my name, a pillow case tied around her neck. The older woman I told stories to, read picture books, who wailed when staff talked to her. I have also found friends and saviors. Michele, sitting beneath the Christmas tree crying in the Eating Disorder unit group room, named me Punk. She was spunky, sneaking Splenda packs slipped into her sweatshirt for us. Flipping the nurses off behind their backs to make me laugh. Crocheting us scarves, Mother to ...

"How long do you think you'll be here?" The psych ward doctor asked me just the morning after I was discharged from a medical hospital because of a suicide attempt. I'd been coming to this hospital for many years, many times a year sometimes kept for months at a time, my symptoms were so severe. But I had never had this doctor on this particular unit. Clearly though he knew about me. " Hospitals aren't always helpful for people like you," he said. He went on to describe me as "chronic" and said, "There's nothing we can really do to help." How could he know these things right off the bat, before even meeting with me? That is the stigma of a borderline personality disorder diagnosis. My reputation preceded me. I had just almost lost my life at my own hands but every day this doctor would spend just a few minutes with me, not offering any options to help, just asking how long I thought I would be there. I had never ...

I read someone say once that rock bottom is when you stop digging. What does rock bottom mean to you? Over the years I've realized the rock bottom I keep seeking is truly bottomless. Wouldn't it have been bleeding out in my bathroom floor? Trips to the ICU? The sheer number of hospitalizations or being sent to a state hospital when everyone gave up on me? The loss of people who got tired of my illness? The loss of jobs and opportunities and purpose? So many things. I've always had a death wish, seeing how far I can go, to what extremes. I wanted something to feel like I had finally reached "Enough." Enough would mean feeling whole, complete, sick enough, close enough to death that I was scared. I have yet to get there, if it even exists. If rock bottom is actually when one stops digging than maybe that's why I haven't reached it. I have yet to stop digging completely. Always further to fall, skin to slice, bones to see rise to the surface ...

What does recovery mean for me? I am no longer living in the hospital but I'm sent there every few months. Enough that my life is constantly interrupted and it's hard to plan for anything. I'm not still 80 lbs but I am working to starve myself to death. My limbs are forever altered by disfiguring scars and I get comments and states wherever I go. I am working hard in therapy but I am tormented still by my trauma. I imagine recovery to be a kind of healing. A disinterest in dying and wanting to live. My favorite thing is self-destruction. How do I ever give that up when it is such a huge part of me and how I have been able to survive this long? Who am I without it? I am not happy where I am but why do I not wish for better? I guess I don't think I deserve it. I have a loyalty to suffering. It seems noble to me, it seems justified, it keeps things under control. I think to recover you have to be more sick and tired of being sick and tired than ...

I am a crime scene body, the chalk outline of a girl lost. Im a corpse that I drag around. If I were dusted for fingerprints I would be littered with them. But I'm not in any milk carton photos. I went missing before my mother's eyes; Maybe she wasn't even looking. Left in someone else's hands On me, Trapping me, Taking me over. I am willing to burn this body down for something better Something not already stolen Something innocent. I am a marrionette puppet, strings hanging from my limbs. I am abandoned house My bones turn to ash.

One thing you won't see on my blog, as you may have noticed, is a trigger warning when I talk about difficult things. I don't mind if people put a trigger warning when they share a link to my blog or a post....that's their choice. For me to put a trigger warning on stories from my life feels like a way of apologizing for what I'm about to say: I'm sorry this is hard, or ugly, or messy, that you have to look or listen. I had no trigger warning for my life experiences, and have been called a trigger to others. As though I have to walk around apologizing for the ways I have had to cope to survive. Yes I have scars and yes they are permanent damage. They are the result of other damages I have lived through. I once got kicked out of a treatment program for just bringing up the subject that I wanted to be able to wear t-shirts when I'm hot and uncomfortable. I was told this was bothersome to the sensabilities of others. Instead of having a conversation abo...

What if a hospital is the closest thing you've ever had to a home? Where do you end up? When I started getting admitted to McLean Hospital's PTSD and Dissociative Disorders Unit on a regular basis, it became this place I finally felt safe and loved for the first time in my life.  Why there ? You may ask. Seems like an odd place to find yourself to be at home, especially when hospitals have historically been a damaging experience for myself, stripped of rights, power, and sense of personhood. Proctor 2, however, was something special. Staff were kind, gentle, and uniquely trained to deal with individuals who had experienced major trauma, both men and women, though usually there were mostly women. When I was walked up to the unit for the first time, the first thing I noticed was the silence. Unusual for a psych ward at night. What is a home? A place one feels safe, like their physical and emotional needs are met. Family. Silent girls stalking hallways, whispers. a...

I haven't yet survived my life. What is survival if it hasn't been exactly voluntary? In mental health we speak sometimes about "resiliency." To me, that word means getting through something difficult and coming out on the other side. To me, it's not the same as strength. Instead, for me resiliency has not been a choice. I haven't made it this far because I have wanted to necessarily. I have endured pain, trauma, life-altering grief while being forced into hospitals against my will, hooked up to feeding tubes involuntarily when I wanted to starve myself to death, stitched back together when I cut an artery open, and had 911 called on me other times I've tried to end my life. Good luck? Rotten luck? Sometimes I can't be sure. But what I do know is that after all these years I don't feel like what people call a Survivor. I don't feel strong or really yet that I have chosen life. I feel I am living halfway, in a kind of Limbo. Alive but not ...