continuum

Hi Jojo,

It’s been a while since the last time I saw you. I’m not sure yet if I’ll see you again. I’m sure you’re off doing bigger and better things for yourself, and I hope your journey thus far has been as rewarding as you’d hoped. 

I’m writing to you today to admit that not going to therapy for the last couple months has hit me harder than I thought it would. I think that as life passes us, the momentary pockets of peace and quiet we get are stabbed by intrusive thoughts, deeply buried insecurities, and traumas we thought we’d moved past. 

I’m writing to you today because I just had my first mental breakdown in a while, and I’m not coping very well. I don’t know who to talk to, so I thought I could write to you like I used to. But I’ll be embarrassingly honest here. It’s not that I don’t know who to talk to, it’s that I don’t think I’ll like or be able to accept what they’ll say back to me. 

When someone is hurting, do you tell them what they want to hear or what they need to hear? I always thought that you had to tell them what they need to hear, albeit as gently as possible if there’s such a way. But what if I don’t know? My body has been lying to me again, and I’m not sure what’s real today or not. I just don’t have the capacity, and I know my lifeline is thinning again as my grip on reality loosens. 

Do you remember when I would write goodbye letters to my therapists? I never really wrote you one, but that’s because somehow, I always found a way back to your therapy sessions. This time, I’m not quite so sure yet, and my abandonment issues are flaring up. 

I actually think there’s a lot going on underneath the surface that I refuse to admit to myself. So hopefully by writing this, I can slowly peel back each layer of the onion, as hard as it might be. I have successfully pushed away someone, not quite my intent but definitely a realistic result of the circumstances, and while I know I am being completely irrational right now, I just can’t help it. It sounds like a shitty excuse, I know. Especially with all the work I’ve – we’ve –  put in so far. I know I can communicate better. I know, I know, I know. But somehow, inexplicably, I don’t feel a lot of remorse. 

I just feel empty. I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel disappointed. I feel despair. I feel hopelessness. These are all of the feelings I feel, and more. Rational or not, they are there, and they have seized my bones like the grief that has seized our country. 

In the ethereal state of feeling, I try to grab onto something more concrete, like the state of being. What am I today? I am desperate to be loved but I cannot accept it right now. I don’t understand it, but my brain is flatlining and that’s the best way to put it. And like always, my chest is tight and I can’t breathe.

I know what you’re going to say. The signs are all there, aren’t they? Either an episode is coming, or I’ve stuck my foot in it and I’m sinking fast. 

This morning, I lost my mind and left the house. I felt like the walls were violating my sanity in the stalemate air. Instead of reaching for the blade, I did what I used to do, I walked. I walked and walked and walked and lost myself in the lake near me. Not once did I think of jumping in and drowning, which is good news, but I did think of ways to unalive myself should the circumstances dictate. 

When I was healing, I learned and accepted that we choose what to do with the time we have, and we don’t compete with anyone to get where we want to go. I told myself I had so much time, and I could take as long as I needed to get there. The world was my oyster, an opalescent pearl of opportunity should I ever pull myself out of the suicidal depression that characterized my early 20s. And the thing is, I did. I did, and I still do, every single day. Some days, my depression laughs with me. Others, it mocks me, and I’ve learned to live with it. 

And you know what? This is absolutely wicked, but I don’t talk about my brain anymore because I don’t have the capacity to listen to others tell me they’re going through the same thing or have been through this before. The solidarity isn’t helping me right now. Why? Because theirs isn’t the same. It won’t be the same, ever, and that just feels terrible. 

I wish even Buddha would come down from the heavens and just tell me yeah, you know what? 

This just fucking sucks. Everything sucks right now, and that’s that. 

There’s absolutely fucking nothing you can do about it. 

There’s no way to fix it, there’s no way to solve it. It doesn’t matter if you cry in the shower or slit your neck or beat yourself bruised or go hide in the bathroom after a fight. Nothing makes sense right now, and that’s okay. 

Why do I always end up being the only person telling myself what I want to hear? I just end up feeling crazy and I act like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. It just makes the voices louder. 

Like seriously, I hear myself, I hear the voices, I hear it all. And I can’t help but ask, what the fuck is wrong with me? I feel incredibly selfish. 

What am I even mad for? How the fuck am I supposed to know? When I was asked that, I wanted to punch a hole through the wall. I wanted to SCREAM at the top of my lungs. But I didn’t. And even then, I didn’t control my actions and words well enough. 

I know there are so many, many red flags in everything I’ve written here. But if I can’t even be honest with myself, then I really have nothing left holding me in this world. 

I really, truly think the root of my anger is the despair I feel that I have so much I can do but I never asked to have to do any of it. Everything I do, all the things I do to fill up my day, the friends I see, they’re all momentary patches to fill the irreparable sinkhole threatening me. I found temporary respite in the wild whilst on my walk today, and it took me back to the days where I would walk, all day. Mile after mile, through the city, getting away from something or just….pretending like I had somewhere to go. I wish I could’ve walked forever, that my legs would either just buckle and give up or I’d find myself somewhere that somehow explained the peculiarities of existence. 

I was listening to one song on repeat, and my thoughts, the voices, my friends creeping in my head,  were so loud, I didn’t hear the lyrics at all in the two hours I walked. 

I think of the time, the years unfolding ahead of me, and the yellow brick road of life looks a lot less golden than it did just a year or two ago. The path unfolding in front of me feels exhausting and arduous. Thinking about how much farther I have left to go is debilitating rather than exhilarating. 

I lost another friend in November. They just keep dying. Why them, but not me? What higher purpose do I have here now? I’d rather my soul be recycled. Perhaps I won’t be as cognizant or sentient in the next life, and it’d be more of a relief than the soul I carry now. 

David reached out to me last year a few months before he took his life. I remember I responded, but he never texted me back. It was like with Jordan. I should’ve known. I should’ve done better. I should’ve, I should’ve, I should’ve fucking tried harder to be a better friend. 

I know thinking this way doesn’t change much, and it doesn’t help anyone. But why are all these people leaving me? 

I am a shallow pit of self-pity and self-loathing right now, but it’s a somewhat comfortable place to be in since I’ve been here so many times. I know this will pass. It always does. But I don’t know how many more of these episodes I have left in me before I do something drastic again. 

I’m sorry that I’m rambling Jojo. I can feel the physical aching inside me right now and existing feels devastating. That sounds so dramatic. Someone would probably just tell me to get over it. Or I have to actively take steps to mitigate the situation and pull myself out of this shithole I found myself in. 

You always told me that anger is usually hiding some other, deeper hidden emotion and I have come to radically accept that as much as I hated it the first time you told me. My anger is covering up a lot of frustration and disappointment in myself that I’ve inappropriately placed on others around me. My anger is also hiding deep, deep seeded anguish. I do not know how to explain this kind of sadness to anyone. No one’s anguish is the same. I hate it when someone tells me they get it. They just don’t, just like I will never get theirs. It doesn’t feel real because I never wear this on my body. It just cripples me internally, and when I shut down, I implode. The anxiety talks to the woman in my head, and she continues to curse me out. 

I need softness, kindness, warmth, light. But I, myself, in my deepest, darkest moments, am none of those things. I run away, I hide, and I sit on the floor and stare into space. How do you tell someone that sometimes when I’m doing that, I’m just trying to find that lost, little girl and I wish they would join me. That I’d try not to hold it over their head if they walked away, but it just feels like I’m being abandoned all over again. I want to be held like a baby, but I’m not one. I want my hair caressed, my back rubbed gently, and words of caring whispered into my ear until I fall asleep. Not words telling me that I’ve done it before and that I can do it again. 

Soft words so I feel less alone. But what’s terrible is I don’t know how to communicate this on my terms because we can’t all get what we want. So I break down more, and the fiery child I never was takes over. 

But I’m an adult, not a child. I can’t, I shouldn’t be acting like this. 

You don’t think I know that? Can’t you tell I’m trying, even if you can’t see it? I fucking KNOW I CAN OVERCOME. I’ve done it before, and I’m tired of doing it. 

I will get on my knees just to beg you to see. I just don’t have the bandwidth right now. My plate is too full, but if I offload anything, I just might topple over like Humpty Dumpty. Everything I’ve meticulously pushed down and compartmentalized comes bubbling up every time I acknowledge this part. 

The part that as much as I try to move forward and acknowledge that a chunk of me has healed, there are still so many unseen crevices that I have yet to mend. So many triggers that are still surfacing now, and it physically makes my skin crawl. 

I am scared to have children that may be born with what I have to overcome. It isn’t that bad. You’re not even that bad. I’ve seen worse, you’re basically normal to me. You’re going to be fine.

Respectfully, fuck you. I hear every word you say and I will pick them apart with the millions of voices scrambling to take a turn harassing me in my head. I may have turned out fine, but I haven’t been doing a good job of keeping myself from snapping. When I said my body was lying to me, I wasn’t joking. I can feel the poison seeping through me, whatever the hell it is, and I cough up blood in the mornings. 

So you’re right, Jojo. My body is probably trying to tell me something, but I’ve been ignoring it because I wasn’t ready. I remember there were still things left for us to unpack. I distinctly remember times when I told you – I’m not ready to talk about this yet. 

I think that time has come. 

I’ve blocked out what exactly those topics were, but hopefully, sending this letter out into the continuum will help me remember. And maybe it will bring me back to you, or some other therapist to help me work through it. 

I’ve written so many letters in this blog, but even though they’re addressed to others, I really have been writing them for myself. When I go back and read what I’ve written, the angst is often a bit much, but I can feel every single ounce of pain in every word that girl has written. 

And that makes me weep. 

Even now, I know in a few months, a few years, I’ll come back to this letter now with kinder eyes and love the girl I am even if I don’t now. 

When I read what I’ve written, I cry tears from a never ending well. I feel and I remember, and that tells me. It was real. I was real. 

So therefore, I am real now. 

It doesn’t make the thought of getting through even today any easier. But at the very least, I can say that I bared the ugliest part of myself to you today and I don’t feel any guilt at all. As irrational as I am right now, my feelings aren’t any less valid even if they don’t make any sense. 

I wish there was someone else to tell me that instead of just me and the stupid voices up there. 

Here’s to 26 years on this godforsaken planet. I couldn’t tell you if it got easier or harder with every passing year. But I can tell you right now at least, I’m tired. I feel like a shell of my usual self and it’s taking a lot just to act fine and get through the day without being an absolute bitch. 

This isn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but it is an uncomfortable one to sit with. But I suppose that’s what dealing with mental illness is. Sitting with the discomfort, by yourself, in the dark, tears or not. Wallowing in every mixture of self pity, grandiose feelings, and pulsing in and out of psychosis and reality. It’s facing the things you’re scared of but also owning up to the bullshit you cause. 

It’s loving yourself through it all, even if you can’t on the worst days. Today was one of those days, but I still took myself out for a walk. I saw the sunrise. I heard the birds. I felt the trees. And I made it back home to write you this letter. 

I am still despondent, hurting from something somewhat unknown, and I don’t know how to fix it. I am tired of verbalizing and communicating right now, and unless it’s written, words are difficult to express. It’s not anyone else’s fault but my own, I know. But it does fucking suck. 

I’m not quite sure if this is a state I must radically accept. I’ve released a lot of pent-up emotions in the last 24 hours and I’m sure there’s more where it came from. 

Thank you for teaching me to un-layer the onion, even if it’s hard work. And it’s true, onions sure do make you cry. 

I still feel the heavy throbbing in my body, and I’m waiting for my feet to land in a safe place. I suppose we all just wander through this life waiting for some purpose. I’m still just figuring out mine. 

Thank you, Jojo. For everything. You are one of the reasons I’m still here today. And as you’ve always reminded me, there are still tethers, like the very real members of my family living in my house right now, that hold me securely in place in the here and now no matter how much I try to push them away. 

Until we meet again. 

With love,

Ella