Nightwatch

I’m callin’ out, “Hey you! You with the janglin’ keys, janglin’ down the hall, janglin’ down my throat. Shakin’ my insides. Shakin’ me til I’m blue in the face — my eyeballs rattlin’ around my head, lookin’ for the right direction. Each step you take, takes me closer to my janglin’ death. A death I’m running from, but you’ve locked me in. And all I can do is dance my way down to my grave to the beat of those janglin’ keys…

Layin’ there 6 feet from my heavenly earth, being buried under dopamine and kerosene and a big ol’ trampoline. You’re jumping on my grave singin’ the song of those janglin’ keys. You’re scorching the earth with every step you take. And my ears are ringin’ from the raging fire and those janglin’ keys. They’re unlockin’ my soul; asking me to bring out my dead, and my own deadly beat.

Now I’m shakin’ you down. I’m shakin’ my whole self, hopin’ that I’ll shake you off. And you’ll jangle back down that hall. Yeah, you with the janglin’ keys…”

Jangle.

Jangle, Jangle.

“Lock it up and jangle on away.”

I Quit

I quit. I stopped. I said I would and I didn’t. I signed the sheets and didn’t complete. And I didn’t. I quit.

And all I want to do is apologize. In my mind I see myself affecting everyone else. I could have done this if I had gone through with it. And these people in my life would have benefitted from that. And my future plans could have happened sooner. I could have been successful. I could have followed the dream. I could have been proud of myself. I could have boasted about new success and future successes.

But I didn’t.

I quit.

So am I failing? Have I lost? I have reasons why I quit, but are they only excuses?

I had to quit a job after it had barely begun. I found I was still too sick to work. I sat there on my first day with paperwork and someone else made the first quip instead of me. My smiles felt vaguely forced, but I chalked it up to just not being used to smiling. I sat there on my second day and just existed. Someone remarked that I looked really overwhelmed. “No,” I said, “This is good for me. I get to sit back right now and take it all in. I’ll dive in soon enough.” The third day I called out. And the fourth. And after that second phone call to say that I wasn’t coming, it clicked. I was still too sick. I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t take care of the children. I couldn’t take care of myself!

Lying in bed at night after the first day of not going into work I wondered if I really needed to call out that day. Could I have gone? Did I just not want to get out of bed in the morning? I started writing. My journal entry reads:

“I skipped going to work today. Ugh. I don’t know if I’m ready for this. I want to be. It’s been 5 months! Or 4 months. Still! Too long! I need to do this. But I can’t with being at 85Z. It’s so stressful. I slept all day today and I’m still exhausted. I need to go back to sleep. All I want to do is cry.”

I lay in bed the following night and cried. My journal entry reads:

“I’m too miserable to work. I know I’m not going to make it in tomorrow. I don’t want this life.”

I had quit. And hope dipped at the horizon.

My dreams! My goals! I saw this beautiful, strong, courageous woman getting up and going to work. I saw her smile at paychecks. I saw her paying rent with money earned. I saw her eating well and exercising. I saw new friends and dinners and drinks. I saw laughter and new stories to tell. I saw a full life and I was reaching so hard to grab it, to take it, and to wrap myself up in it.

But I couldn’t hang on.

I’ve had these moments of quitting before. I’ve had to quit many jobs before they really start. There have been wilderness jobs, and restaurant jobs, and desk jobs. I’ve been a quitter in my life. Or maybe I’m just overzealous. Maybe I’m a shouldn’t-start-er. I dive into everything. And a lot of times I go too deep and come out scared, and sometimes it’s too shallow and I come out disappointed. And a bunch of times I’ve jumped in, the water’s great, the view’s fantastic, and I have the strength to swim for miles.

I’ll find that job. And I’ll swim for miles. I’m not giving up. I’m just getting back on the boat for now. And I’m hanging with my crew. And we’re going to scout out where the right jump is. I’m going to dive into another job when the timing is perfect, because I didn’t fail. I didn’t allow myself to fail this time. I assessed the situation and sadly had to step away. Unfortunately, it happens. That job doesn’t need someone who can’t show up, nor do I need something to quit every time I have to call to say I’m too ill.

Mental illness is like any other illness. It flares up when it’s not being taken care of. Right now it’s still swollen for me. And I need to take care of myself for the time being. I know I’m a really hard worker. I know that I dedicate myself to the business I work for and that I’m a team player. I was raised in an environment where these things are highly valued and so I keep to them. I know that I can only work when I’m feeling well enough. I don’t have to be 100%, but I’m functioning at about 65% right now and that’s not high enough to take on a serious job. The swelling needs to go down.

You may have had to quit something too because of circumstances outside of your control. And who likes feeling out of control when it comes to life? Not I. You are not a failure either. Regret what you could have tried and didn’t do rather than what you tried and couldn’t do. Because successes only come when chances are taken, the water is warm, and the view is great.

Brown out

Did my power even leave?

Did it never even grow?

Are my powers weaning?

Will someone let me know?

A long tumble down the rabbit hole

Trinkets with edges meant to incise

The raining drama of a senseless life

I’m not sure I’m even whole

Or even alive

When you’re in the dark

There’s no certainty you’ll survive

I’m not sure I’m even falling

Can we be real?

At some point I was leaving

And was it light I left behind?

Was it power?

Was it strength?

Or am I gaining that now,

Length by length?

Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

What’s Love for Me

Well, This thought has been brewing for some months. While you may not think of “love” as a factor for mental health, it is indeed the factor that saves many and controls our actions. Whether it is love for someone else, love for thyself, love of a higher power, or love of a thing, that love of these things keep us on earth, and for this I am thankful. So let’s talk about it: Love.

Recently (as in 10 minutes ago) I read an article on “How to Avoid Mr. or Mrs. Wrong” via psychologytoday.com’s facebook page. Psychology Today used to be my favorite magazine, but recently it has been marketing itself to the stay-at-home-mom-who-dreams-of-the-perfect-partner. Nevertheless, I have yet to give up following it, just in case they publish something other than the likes of “Secrets of Happy Couples” “Why You Should Kiss More” or “How Jealousy Can Turn You Into a Semi-Stalker”. And every once in a while, I’ll click on a love-article to see, well, how can I avoid Mr. Wrong?

According to Anita E. Kelly, PhD. of Psychology Today, Mr. Wrong is arrogant. He’s emotionally unstable, disagreeable, and moody. He berates you when you get in his way. He gets angry if you stay out too late. And when I name these things, we can all think of someone who is totally Mr. Wrong, even if he’s already married. “I can’t believe she married him!”, we might be thinking. But does this mean that Mr. Wrong can never be Mr. Right? Is Mr. Wrong doomed to the “Wrong List” for life? I don’t believe so.

A long time ago, when I was still being introduced to the world, I asked a lot of questions. I asked the ones about why people behave certain ways? Why can’t I go play now? Why can’t I have cake for breakfast? What does (curse word) mean? And Mom and Dad and everyone else who had a say in these topics did a pretty great job at explaining it to me. Eventually I stopped asking them and started finding out from friends or from experiences. And when I had my first boyfriend and pulled out the L-word to describe our relationship to my Mom, she explained to me that one has to get to know oneself before they can love another person. And I took that knowledge to heart, and used it to protect myself from future broken hearts. So protected did I become, that when it was finally time to face reality and acknowledge that I was truly in love with a serious boyfriend, it took my Dad sitting with me on my bed one night, telling me that the freedom and happiness of loving someone is worth all the heartbreak. He talked about his love with my Mom and the turbulence that came with it, and still does at times, and why he wouldn’t trade those moments of heartbreak for anything in the world, because without them he would never have been able to experience the beautiful moments that come with Love.

So I consigned my boarded-up heart and let the love flow freely. I felt the love for my boyfriend. I felt that joy and freedom. I was so happy. He was my best friend, so I decided to share this with him. I told him I loved him. However, he hadn’t gotten the L-word talk from someone like I had, so he was a bit confused. “What does that mean?” he asked me. “What does this mean for us?”

“Well, nothing.” I responded, “The way I feel right now for you — this is love for me. But it doesn’t change anything about our relationship. And you don’t need to say it back to me. I just couldn’t hide it anymore! I love you.”

“Ok.” He said, and we went back to our little make-out session for a few minutes. I could feel his energy had changed. His mind was elsewhere now and soon he left my house (earlier than expected).

Soon after this night I got a letter from him on the subject. He said that he was “in love” with me but did not “love” me. This part I didn’t really understand, but I knew it made sense to him, just like saying “I love you” made sense to me. I let this be, but I continued to talk about love. I wrote him an e-mail, that I have saved, explaining what love is to me. How I knew these things at 17, I don’t know, but I still believe this to this day. Let me share with you now “What Love Is”

“Babe,

… I’m doing this art project and one of the topics is Love, but it’s so abstract that no matter which piece I choose, I regret it. There is no right answer to love. It’s a personal thing. When I learned of the word “love” in french back in 7th grade our teacher wrote this diagram on the board:

Hate (Hair)

Don’t Like (Ne Aimer Pas)

Love (Aimer)

Love a lot (Aimer beaucoup)

Over the moon love (Adorer)

But 3 ways to say I love something? Love has so many more than 3 meanings. Unfortunately our language only embraces one word to express it all. But I have just learned that love is what you make it to be — just like religion. Although every religion has its guidelines, each person’s personal beliefs are different from everyone else. My God and your God may fall under the same religion but they are not the same. How I love you and how my brother loves his girlfriend or how our friend loves his girlfriend are each different types of love. There is no right answer, just like you said.

So what is love? How can we ask people such a subjective question? We all have our guidelines. We have our parents, we have our friends. We have what we see in the media or what we read. But it is human nature to love. And just like it is human nature to know how to scratch an itch, once you fall in love (sorry, I know you find them different, but I’m one of those people that thinks of them the same) you know that you love that person. But if we ask ourselves, “Am I really scratching the right way?” or “Is this really love.. or is that love and I have to feel exactly that?” then how do we know? One person scratches their itch with their nails and the other rubs it against their hand, but still they get the job done. They still scratch themselves. My view of love is not the exact view of love that my brother has, but he loves his girlfriend, and I love you. I feel it not only in my heart or know it only in my head. I know and feel it in my entire body. Every piece of me loves you.

So this leads me to say that I don’t know exactly what love is. There’s no science to it. I can’t give instructions on how to love or tell anyone exactly why I love you. It’s my nature to love you. You’re my itch I can’t ignore. But your question seemed to be more of what happens once the itch is scratched. What happens after you tell someone you love them? How can you grow? How can’t you grow?! There are feelings people have that you can’t put into words. You can’t tell someone the difference of an “I love you” from when you were a teen to the “I love you” on a 50th wedding anniversary because they are the same words. Either way you’ll be denying that one of them was love. For me, the “I love you” begins a journey. It gives light to how real the whole thing is. I love you right now in one way, but let’s hypothesize that I stay together with you for years to come. Let’s pretend we get married. Forty years from now I’ll still love you, but we’ll have had 40 years behind us. So we’ll have changed (together of course) so that our love will be slightly different. But saying I love you on that 50th wedding anniversary may be the same words, but at that point they are loaded with a completely different bullet. My parents knew they loved each other when my mom was a junior in high school. And they didn’t stay together forever. They each had different boyfriends and girlfriends in college, but there was still a love somewhere which each of them could not ignore. I don’t want this to sound like me saying I love you is me planning to spend the rest of my life with you forever and ever no questions asked. I believe that we change who we are every day. And if the you of yesterday and the you of tomorrow met each other, they might be so similar that it seems impossible to tell them apart, but they are different in the slightest bit. One knows more. One has new views on subjects. One would make decisions that other one knows not to make. So when I say I love you, I love you as the person I am. And I will not change dramatically day to day, but I’ll be slightly different from yesterday, so I’ll still love you tomorrow. I’ll still love you the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. I most likely will love you forever, because that’s how it is for me right now. But the Ryan of today won’t love the you of 50. She loves the you of 17. And the Ryan of 50 will love the you of 50. And each of us say I love you, but each day it means more. So this may just confuse you so much more (If you’ve gotten to the end of this excursion through my thoughts) or it may make me saying “I love you” not mean what I want it to because I’ve over simplified it. I’m going to send this to you now anyway. Thanks for letting me ramble…”

Our journey ended a few years later. It was sad, but I don’t deny that the Ryan of 17 loved her boyfriend of 17. It was love. And now I’m on different journies. I love my friends, I love my family members. There is still no “right” way to love. My love is different with each person whom I love. It’s still love for me. Many of you who read this blog have been told that I love you. This is still true.

I feel love like a drop of ink into water. I feel it and it spreads its tendrils into all the aspects of the relationship until we’re a beautiful new hue. Sometimes I’m still afraid to love. I feel that drop at the surface, but I’m nervous the soft tendrils will hold too tight; that the water will become too clouded. I’m afraid the glass could shatter and our relationship spill, never to be brought back together. But then my heart warms when I’m with you. You make me smile. You make me think. I find myself turning over conversations as I lay in bed at night and I snuggle deeper into my gratitude for the love that lives.

I think of how much love I have to give and I can’t wait to find those in the world to share it with. All the friends to come, new family to join ours. And that one. That one love that never ends. The one I love above all else. The one I fall into and never reach the bottom. That love. I can’t wait to love you.

 

Ernest Hemingway on Writing

The words come from my very being when I write. I feel it before it comes, like an existential orgasm from the soul.

11 Surprising Facts About Binge Eating Disorder

11 Surprising Facts About Binge Eating Disorder

I am clinically diagnosed with BED, and have struggled with disordered eating. Here are a few things that resonated with me that I’d like to share. Click on the link above to read!

Battle Stories: First Binge

It started when he left. Er– maybe before that. Maybe it was the first time I stole food from the cupboard and didn’t get caught. Maybe it started when I was given ice cream when I was feeling bad, or ice cream when I was excited. Maybe it was the first sweet thing that ever touched my lips. Nevertheless, I remember it like this:

I said goodbye. I was sure that this was it. He would find someone better than me. College would be better than me. New friends would be better than me. Anything he found out in that big wide world would entice him to break up with me. I had convinced myself that things would never be the same. So I left his house that day crying. He was on the road to college while I was just on the road back home. I still had four more days to wait. But my tears fogged up my sunglasses, so I decided to stop. I decided to stop at Carvel and get myself a large Carvelanche because I was feeling badly.

Feel badly = eat ice cream… right? It’s what sad girls do in the movies.

I sat in the car enjoying that tall chocolaty deliciousness. The frozen creaminess was a fantastic distraction from my immediate issue of a disappearing boyfriend. I just about inhaled that 1000 calories. I took down spoonful after spoonful of it. That sweetness hitting my taste buds as if I had never tasted it before — meeting my watering mouth like a sunburnt man into a cool pool on a hot day.  I loved that ice cream. I loved it instead of my boyfriend. Instead of God. Instead of my family. Instead of myself. I wanted more and more and more. I didn’t want it to end. So what if this is 5 serving sizes? So what if I’m not sharing it with anyone else? So wh– and then it was gone.

So I dried the last of my tears, wiped the excess from the side of my mouth, and drove home. That week I binge ate about 3 more times before going to school. I was so nervous, so sad, so excited, and so hopeful that I needed something — anything — to drown out these feelings. With my friends gone, I turned to food.

That fall I binge ate a few times, even though I was happier at school. I knew that I wasn’t eating healthy, but I didn’t realise that what I was actually doing was creating an unhealthy coping mechanism that I would come to use for years on end. Eventually I planned my days around it. I made up lies to everyone who saw the evidence about what these 3 large bags of candy were for. (I’ve been making an art project out of candy for 6 years now) I usually ate small, healthier amounts during the day, trying to hide the fact that I was taking down 2000 calories at night.

During stressful days I would plan to “go for a drive” or make up errands that would take me outside of the house. I would almost hold my breath all the way there. And when I got to the grocery store I would avoid eye contact and make my way to the candy isle. I usually knew exactly what I wanted. But once I got there I saw everything else, and I would buy another bag of something different. With my 3 large bags of candy (or eventually cookies or donuts) I’d make a beeline for the cash register. Once there I would put on an act of confidence. Don’t worry everybody, it’s all fine and normal here! No one needed to question me or worry about me. However, inside I was incredibly ashamed. I was cringing. I was hiding. I was making up back-up lie after back-up lie in case someone approached me and asked about what I was doing with all this junk.

And then I would all but run for the car. I’d open a bag and start eating on my way back home, then stuff it all in my coat pockets in the winter or in my purse in the summer and walk into the house. Those bags lasted only hours usually. On good days they would last just over 24 hours. I’d take to my bed and eat — crumbs and wrappers stuffed in between my sheets and under my pillows. Filth didn’t matter as long as I had those few fantastic moments of oblivion.

I’ve eaten my way into affecting every aspect of my life. My social life, my body, my mental health — they’re all affected by my binge eating. I had 14 cavities when I finally went to the dentist. I’ve been 100 pounds beyond a healthy weight for a woman my age. I knew it was a problem, but I didn’t realize how big. I always thought that I would take care of my mental health first and then my body weight. Sanity over vanity, right? But it’s all tied together. This is a food addiction. This is something I have to pay attention to for the rest of my life. It’s not about dieting. It’s not about losing weight. It’s not about making my body look a certain way. It’s just about a relationship with food.

A Thank You Poem to my Parents

Let me go

You set me free

I’m obliterated

amongst these thieves

Right

Left

no up nor down

am I the only one

left searching for

the crown

It’s not the life

for me

But you knew.

You blew me away

To where the

sky meets the

Wind

A solstice

amongst winter trees

A beautiful lover

A room just for me

Thank You

Thank You

You set me free

Untitled Friendship

For those of you who follow me, it is most likely not profound of me to state that I struggle with keeping friendships. I can easily get people to like me. I can sometimes make men fall in love with me, but a long lasting friendship befuddles me.

While growing up, I thought I had it down. In fact, I didn’t even think of it. I wanted to hang out with someone? Merely ride my bike/call/text/instant message them and Bam! Friend! It wasn’t until I had dropped out of college that it became clear that it takes more effort. People live far away. They need someone who won’t just make the call, but will stay on the phone. Someone to drive to them. Someone who can not only talk and laugh, but with lend an ear. Someone to hug them.

Unfortunately, years have gone by where I’m incapable of these things. Not only can I not pick up the phone, I can’t answer it either. I can’t respond to texts, e-mails, facebook messages, or a ringing doorbell. I am so trapped inside of me, that I can’t fathom fitting anyone else in my life. It’s all about me.

And when I eventually come out and see that bright blue sky, and the sprawling field of hope again, I look around and find that friends I used to have have moved on. So I start from the beginning. New start, new friends. However, I’ve restarted my life more times than I can count. I haven’t kept the momentum of life going to an entire year… ever. Every year I make new friends, but I can’t seem to keep them.

And every year I now go to group therapy. I spend multiple hours a week spilling my soul to these people and listening to them do the same. I re-grow that hope and happily watch as they do the same. We collect facebook profiles and telephone numbers. We set dates and make future plans.

And then we fall apart.

Is it just me or does watching friends crumble make you crumble a bit too? It seem to perpetuate my habitual downfall. And when I restart my life again, I find that either they’ve already moved on, or I don’t want to surround myself with the same people who I worry so much about. I get scared.

So here I am in a long term treatment facility, far from home — farther from friends. What do I do with the people I meet here? Do I get my hopes up again? Do I promise dates, give out numbers, and share my facebook profile? Or do I just enjoy the feeling of friends while it lasts? Do I go out knowing that we’ll all fall apart? Do I let them go when I leave? Do I protect myself from the inevitable crumble? Or will I get hurt again?

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. For if I don’t open myself up to love and human connection I believe that I’ll miss out on something great.