Inhuman

On any given day I try my best to have somewhat of a normal human emotion pattern. To feel sad when I should feel so. To feel happy when you would think it would be called for. However my efforts more often than not are for nothing and fail majority of the time. Happiness is few and far between, and just when I think I'm happy and have it right, my mood drastically changes within seconds and whatever it was that I thought I had is swept away with whatever emotion my mind decides on next. To be so heavily medicated is confusing to say the least. You don't know whats working, when its working, or if its even working at all. I want to be responsible and take all of my medications prescribed, which in fact I do. But I constantly wonder, do I really need to be on all of these prescriptions, and if I don't, how on earth am I going to find the time and courage to ease off of some of them? Which ones should I get rid of? Where is it going to take me? It doesn't help that I lost my insurance that covered going to the best psychiatrist I have ever had, and am now having to go to my old one who verbally said to me that he was not comfortable treating me, due to my overall nature with medication and history of hospitalizations. In a perfect world I would maybe need two of these medications at most. I know not to wish for no medication because what I have is irreversible and has always been a part of me. To think that would be a cause for more emotional pain because it is impossible and I am smart enough I will never allow the thought to even cross my mind. I try to damnedest to keep moving forward, with my head held high and the false appearance of bravery and hope. Once upon a time I had hope. But as the years pass, the less hope I seem to possess. The deeper I get into this journey, the more it beats me down and violates my humanity. Stripping me of all dignity and essentially "putting me in my place". Insanity sets in, and while I know its not truly me, I doubt myself and think "maybe it is". The mind is a very powerful thing, and when it is highjacked by a chemical reaction, it is next to impossible to come out of. I always loved the saying "It is not mind over matter when it is my mind that is the matter". And yet I still fight. It may not look like it to others, but I am fighting every waking moment of every single day that I am alive. To simply exist is a battle. To socialize, to smile, to get out of bed and change my clothes, to take a shower regularly, to force myself to care enough to be a functioning human of society. To try in one persons eyes is different from another. And judgment is not something I have ever been able to brush off. It doesn't matter who, whenever a judgement is placed on me I deeply internalize it and let it eat away at me. It becomes something that I am doing terribly wrong if someone has the audacity to give their opinion. I don't take opinions well. I do know better. Deep down I know that people will have their opinions and will only understand certain things from which their perception derives. I know the science of it, but it still doesn't stop me from taking it to heart and reevaluating what I am doing with myself and my situation. God knows I don't want to be this way. Who would ever truly want to be this way? Sometimes people think that I truly do want this. That I am happy to be a "mental patient" and lab rat for the big Pharma. Despite what all of you say. I want none of this. I don't want to swallow one single pill. I want to be able to get out of bed in the morning. I want to be able to remember what I ate for breakfast, and if I even did in fact in breakfast. I want to laugh when others laugh, not have to go into the bathroom on a regular basis and cry for no reason. I want to be able to date and have friend without being terrified, uncertain and completely uncertain of  "what they will think of me once they know". I know there will be good people who will see past all of this, but then again I know that there are those who will certainly not. And I try not to let those people get to me before they even get to me. 
In a perfect world... 
I am Laney, and nothing less. I am happy, I am sad, I am everything in between, I only need two medications to keep my emotions at bay. I socialize with confidence and without fear. My medications don't effect my attraction to men and I actually have to desire to date. There is that "special someone" and I aim to find him. I have a quality group of friends who I can count on, but at the same time they can also count on me. My parents don't have to worry about me and ask me if "I am safe". I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars a month on medications to barely keep my head above water. I don't need to rely so heavily on health insurance and can work wherever I want. In a perfect world, I would have been somewhere very different from where I am now. I would simply just be me. No strings attached, no fear, and no uncertainty as to what the next 10 minutes will bring. 

Victimized By My Own Falsehood

Are you done yet Laney? Are you done lying to yourself? Are you done hiding in your room and in your bed? Are you done telling yourself that everyone else can amount to something, but not you? Why are they the exception? Why can’t I be? Why can’t I have the things that I have always wanted and the things that I have always known that I have wanted? I lie to myself everyday. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not skinny enough. I have a mental illness that will hold me back. I will never be what I want to be. The odds will never be in my favor. Why do I continue to fill my own head with lies? Lies that are coming from my own mind! Where did I learn this? How do I unlearn this? What would Scully do? What would Laney do? Good question. What would she do? Hide in her room, watching television shows that she wishes she was on, while eating a pint of ice cream from the comfort of her own bed. Sitting there like a blob, thinking of how wonderful it would be to be the one from the other side. The one giving the entertainment and not taking it. What is stopping me? Why do I think myself to be so worthless? Why must I continue to play victim with myself? Why don’t I deserve what I want in life? Why don’t I deserve the career I want? Why don’t I deserve love? Why are the rest worthy of these things but not me? Do I really think that these people, these actors were just handed these things? Do I really believe they are beautiful and flawless just by chance? That their jobs chose them? How do I stop the negative self talk? Where did it come from? How do I find it? If I find where it came from then maybe I can search and destroy. Attack it from the source. Sure I have ideas and theories, but have I even began to challenge them? That’s it. Where’s the challenge in my life? I’m so afraid of failing, but I’m also afraid of succeeding. So naturally I do neither. I stay in limbo. Never succeeding, never failing. Sitting comfortably with the things I have always protected myself with, even as a child. A movie I can fall asleep to, and then only dream of being the one in it. My bed. Safe under the covers where life can’t get to me. Where failure can’t get to me. Where success can’t get to me. Where change itself cannot get to me. I think my way into a whirlwind thoughts. They spin me around time and time again. Every once in a while they trick me into thinking I’m finally going to take the plunge. But do I ever take action? Maybe I say I’m going to do something, and then fantasize about it. And that’s the extent of it. It excites me enough where I get some sort of fix. Thinking of it, then maybe believing it for a single moment, and then just like it came, it goes out like a light. A zap in my brain. And I’m back to thinking about the doubts, the excuses, the voices of others directing my mind elsewhere. I don’t believe everything I hear. In fact I’m quite a sceptic. But when someone tells me that I won’t amount to anything, I believe them. Where does my scepticism go when those people and myself are flooding my mind with falsehoods? I suppose sceptics choose their battles. Sometimes it applies, sometimes not at all. It applies when it has to do with ourselves. After all, we are after all our own greatest enemy. How is it that we can tell someone they are capable of the world, but when it comes time to tell ourselves even a fraction of that, we cannot even begin to believe it? Is ego something we are born with? Why are some of us born without it? Natural selection perhaps? What happens when you’re the one born without it? Whatever ego I had, its gone. It died slowly, in my own arms. I watched it leave. I watched it vanish like vapor, some here, some there. Every now and then there is a spark of it in my head, but just like a thin white line on a mirror, it’s there at one moment, and then gone the next, leaving behind only my own reflection. A reflection that doesn’t speak to me the way that it should. That reflection brings it all back. The pain. The failure. The loss. The voices telling me that I can’t. That I won’t. The voices asking me how. How in hell will it be you? Of all of the people in this life, in your life, how are you the one meant to succeed? Why would you be the one to make it? Says who? How are you not going to end up like your worst fears? Why on this damned earth would you be the exception?

The Xfiles : Call Me Crazy

 Somewhere out there, there is a truth bigger than us all. One that we as human beings cannot possibly fathom. I don't think any of us know what this truth is, or how it came to be. I think thats the beauty of it. Once something is discovered, its innocence is taken. Its beauty fades. Think about it, we all believe in something bigger than ourselves. Perhaps that of a higher power, in whatever shape or form it may take. We are all down here on earth, living our lives, both happy and sad. Some of us think we know the answers, some of us are completely lost. Others may be blind to truth that is standing right in front of them. And maybe theres a reason for that. Maybe they're not supposed to see it. Maybe we are all not supposed to see it. And that brings me to the part where I may be judged. I may be questioned of my sanity, and questioned on the topic of how a TV show changed my outlook on life. Some years ago, I discovered The Xfiles. Thats right. Scully, Mulder, David and Gillian. I was completely enamored. It was never just a TV show to me. It was life. It is life. It was my admiration for two wonderful characters, and two amazing actors. I devoured it. Its twists and turns, its answers and its questions. Besides igniting a childlike fire in me, The Xfiles started to teach me something, and began to give me a hope I had never felt before. Since my illness emerged, I lost my ability to believe. What did I believe? In God? Evolution? The devil for giving me what he did? Or just in the simple fact that I was the offspring of a scientific and genetic disorder, passed down to me by my biological father. I guess I still really don't know. But the very idea that I don't know, maybe thats okay. Maybe I am okay knowing that there is a bigger truth out there that I may never find. The cure for my illness that I may never experience. The reason of why I was given this disease. Maybe I simply don't want to believe in anything anymore. Perhaps we must accept the unknown and appreciate it for what it is. To me, The Xfiles convey that. It conveys the idea of whenever you may think you have figured something out, life takes another turn and knocks you back on your feet. Now call me crazy, but this TV show has helped me to see that. That we are all just waiting for answers, and something bigger than ourselves. But at the same time, while we reside here and do that, we confide in the fact that we will probably never know, and thats okay. Its okay to not know. Its okay that life will take us for just one more ride that we never planned on. Its okay to go through these life experiences, thinking that we know but really we know nothing at all. Because maybe one day, when we have gone through our lives, after all of the searching, and we have reached the end of our days, just maybe, the truth will be revealed to us. Because my friends, it is out there.  

Just So Tired

That "Im just so tired" feeling. That feeling that your soul is being drained faster than you can fill it. Your overwhelming emotions are taking you for a ride. Your stress inhibitors just can't take it anymore. Work, job interviews, customers, roommates, money, therapy, medication, family struggles, world problems on every news outlet. These things take their tole, and it quickly becomes huge. Some people have the ability to take on a bigger stress load. They don't crack under pressure. They take it by the balls and get it done, and at the end of the day, they unwind, destress, and wake up in the morning ready to do it again. 
I have never been this way. Since childhood, I was always overwhelmed with even the smallest things. Someone would scold me and I would cry for an hour. Homework would pile up and I would give up. Something would get hard and I would throw in the towel. Everyday was a pool of anxiety, stomach knots and lumps in my throat. Everyday at school I would have multiple panic attacks, have to call my mom at least 5 times, and usually go home early. My first day of Kindergarten was when I first experienced a panic attack. I cried the entire day with a whole tissue box to myself. My mom had to come to class with me. Unfortunately diagnosing a mental illness in a child is extremely difficult and in those days simply not done. I thought that the pain and agony I was going through was normal. I wondered why other kids could feel this too and yet they stayed at school and made friends. Little did I know most of those kids didn't have those feelings. They wanted to be there. Little things didn't phase them. Simple things didn't unroot them. 
I look at myself then, and it all makes sense. The anxiety, the panic attacks, the constant feeling of doom and despair, the need to cling to my mom every single hour of every single day for all the years of my life. I would cry at the drop of a hat. I would get angry within an instant. Everyone wondered why I was the way I was. We had no answers until I turned 18. 
Now I know what was "wrong" with me. Ive been to hell and back. Ive dealt with an immense amount of emotion, and the reasons why I am the way I am. I know the tricks, I have the tools, and I've read the book numerous times over. But it still gets to me. A bad day at work is like a bad year at work. An insult from someone unkind eats away at me and makes me second guess myself and my entire life. Applying for jobs and going on even one interview sets me over the edge, leaving me bawling my eyes out on the drive home, even if it went well. Its hard to explain, the amount of emotion that gets stirred up from just the simplest things. You can say something to me in the wrong tone and I immediately take it to heart and turn on the defense. Im a ball of emotion. I feel more than most people feel. I cry more than most cry. I get angry at the smallest of things. 
All of these traits stop me from doing things, stop me from experiencing life. I shield myself and my emotions, letting very little people in, doing very little activities. I'm afraid to get out of bed in the morning. Im afraid of love, because I know it would emotionally destroy me and possibly land me back in the hospital. Many people with mental illness go through a break up and snap, and have to be hospitalized. That unfortunately would be me. I want to experience all of these things, see all of these places, feel all of these feelings, but I feel as if I can't. Not without an overload. Not without a breakdown. Not without once again burdening my family with the many problems of me. I want to study so many things, but have a learning disability and can't keep up with the pace of school.I have to try extra hard at anything in order to barely make it by. I have to try extra hard at work to be acceptable to customers and barely have my boss say that I am moderately meeting standard. Nothing has ever come easy. I have always had to try 1000% in order to maybe reach only 95. I want to be all of these things. I want to do all of these things. But tell me, is it worth it?

Seriously. Whats the Point?

Bare with me. Its about to get real skeptical up in here. 
Honestly, why do I even bother? It never amounts to anything. So why do I keep trying? To maybe find someone one day who actually has legitimate feelings for me, we fall in love and get married. Maybe pop out a few kids. Then my vag stretches out, I won't do anal, and my husband holds a lover on the side. I find out and our relationship that we worked so hard for falls apart into a hideous divorce. Who knows where the kids will go. Maybe half to their cheating father, and half to their wide hipped undesirable mother. Meanwhile he spends a few nights in jail for not paying child support, until a family member bails him out. I find his mugshot on the internet, and all of our friends and family soon know everything about our personal life. Our reputation as a "beautiful family" is ruined. Our kids grow up to be broken and lost souls who struggle with drug addiction and are in and out of rehab, not to mention seeing a therapist twice a week with little to no result. Don't even get me started on the minimum wage job I barely hold down at a Joanne Fabrics, just to keep some food on the table. My sexuality and self esteem wither away and I finally invest in a minivan. Which means I lose my ability to drive like a proper human being. I grow old in the same old musty house that I got to keep in the divorce. The kids come and go, make families of their own, go on and off of drugs and alcohol, ruin their kids lives, and I on my dying bed lay. Only a few relatives come to watch me pass, probably because they know all of the gambling money I saved from my numerous pathetic single old woman trips to Vegas is going to them. And then thats it. Its all over. All of this, because I took the time to care in the beginning, and actually thought that someone would want to spend the rest of their life with me. Why did I bother? 

Keep in mind this is Miss Yadda Yadda talking. 

Secrets Uncovered

When you think you want to know something, but when you finally find out, all you wish is to rewind and make them to stop before they tell you... But now you can never go back.  

All of my life I have wanted to know more about my Fathers side of the family. Since the day he left I have felt very distant from him, and distant from the real truth. I felt that I deserved a right to know. Anytime I saw my Grandparents after that, which I could  only count on one hand, I would try to get as much information as possible. Not about my father though. I didn't want to know anything about him. He made his own bed in what he did, and I wanted nothing to do with him or his new family. Plus I knew too much about him already, and most of it was ugly.  

No. The things I wanted to know about were only these two. More about my Native American heritage, which my Grandmother really knew nothing about, and also of what my Uncle was like. Before he killed himself. I was five years old when my parents got the call. I cant even imagine what my father was feeling after just finding out that his identical twin brother shot himself in the head while in the shower. I remember my mom telling me that when he heard, he laid his face in both of his palms and hunched over in great emotional and physical pain. I can vividly picture what that must have looked like. 

Since then, I always wanted to know more about who my uncle was. My Grandma on my moms side describes him as being the "nicer twin", my father I guess having more of a spunk to him. I also know that he was a lumber jack. I remember very plainly watching images of him cutting down trees. These videos were on slide shows, so they looked especially vintage, and his face was hard to make out. I knew it was him though, because he always had a mustache, and my father didn't. My father did however grow my uncles signature mustache after he died. You can imagine how confusing this was to a young child. My father would walk through the door and I would think it was my Uncle. But how could it be? He was dead. And I wondered why we didn't visit him anymore. I didn't understand. 

My father quickly took on his twins persona. He grew the mustache, adopted his music taste, bought drums and taught himself to play, as my uncle must have done, and he even bought an old Ford Ranger and had the license plate bare his brothers name. Aside from these things, the only other things I knew of my uncle, were the teddy bear that he gave me close to when he died, and the straw hat that my father had for a long time until my brother inherited it. I still have the bear. He sleeps on my bed every night, as he is right now sitting on my right. Whenever I want to feel close to my uncle, I hug my bear and say a prayer, and even talk straight to my uncle, like maybe he can hear me somewhere up there. 

I constantly wonder what life would have been like, had he not committed suicide. Would my father still have gone off the deep end? Would I have actually had an uncle who cared enough to be in our lives, unlike my fathers other brother, who couldn't give two shits about us kids, and never did. In my heart of hearts, I feel that my uncle who passed would have been a wonderful person to have in our lives. One early memory, and one of my only memories I have of him, was when my brother, father, uncle and I were camping somewhere in Washington State. I was very little, and we had to cross a strong river. My uncle hoisted me up on his shoulder and carried me across like the river didn't even phase him. I looked up to him as being strong and unstoppable. On the same trip I remember him and my father pushing down rotten trees with their bare hands, then climbing the massive trunks. I didn't know that the trees had died, and thought they were both strong enough to push down trees at their own will. As a kid, I was in awe of both of them.

I have fuzzy memories here and there, but I doubt any of them are correct. I wish they were, but I for now can live off of the memories I do have. And to have my teddy bear, is like having a physical and emotional part of him. I can feel his presence. Not in a scary ghostly way, but in a peaceful way. I have created what his presence must have felt like and have put that onto my childhood toy. No matter what, to this day I can hug my bear and feel an immediate sense of relief. I even had him with me in the Mental Hospital, but after a while the nurses told my mom I was too old for a toy to comfort me, and they made my mom take him home while I stayed in the hospital. That was a low blow in my opinion. But thats beside the point. 

Everything that I have known about my uncle has been good. I don't know what any of his faults must have been. Obviously I know that he was hurting very bad to have done what he did. I can't say I understand what he was going through, but I too have hurt so bad I just wanted to end it all. An unfortunate truth just came out to me today. I learned from my father, that my uncle was molested as a child, by my great grandfather... I was absolutely disgusted by this fact. From what I understand, it was a continuous thing. I wanted to immediately rewind and never learn of this. Because now I feel that icky feeling, the one I can't quite explain. And now my heart hurts even more for the uncle that I can never reach out to and try to comfort. I feel like he is still in pain, despite being gone. I feel like there was such an injustice done to him, that the memory of him may never be peacefully laid to rest. How could it be? 

Immediately my mind started to race, started blaming and wondering what the hell my grandparents could have done to have prevented this. I know they are not the most functional people in the world. In fact they are the most dysfunctional people I have ever known. And somewhere in their dysfunction, a helpless boy was being sexually abused and they were too blind to see it. I also wonder what they must feel like now. Do they feel like failures as parents? I suppose I pity them given that fact. I always thought my uncle took his own life because he was depressed, and because his wife cheated on him, but never could I think of something so dark and ugly happening to him. I want to go back in time and prevent this from happening, from completely changing the fate of an entire generation, and also an entire generation after that. Or maybe I should go back and strangle the man responsible for all of this pain. Does God punish these people for what they have done? Is there really even a God up there? Its hard to believe in him, especially when he allows for such mortifying behavior.

I may never know much more about my uncles past, and that may be because I don't want to know. I feel that I just want to remember him the way that I have created through the years. I don't know what more detail would do to me emotionally. Should I know everything for the sake of his memory? Should I learn about it to honor him, or should I only allow for the good memories to be shared? These are some things that I may never know the answer to. And maybe thats okay. It has taken such an emotional toll to learn such a deep and dark secret. One that I never thought would plague my family. 

To my uncle Marv. I love you. As a child, you were like superman to me. So strong, manly, kind, even my savior when you saved me from the rivers current that one summer day. I looked up to you, not more than my father, but in a different way. I always wanted to be around you and know more about you. And I am heartbroken that I never really got to. I will forever cherish your memory, even if those memories are something I falsely created as a child. Whenever I want to feel close to you, I will hug my bear, think of you, and say a long prayer in honor of you. Rivers will always make me think of you, and old two tone brown Ford Rangers will always be something I look out for, hoping that maybe it says Marvmbile on the license plate. I am sorry for the pain that you had to go through, and how alone you must have felt in those last hours of your life. I wish you could have gotten help, and maybe even had a family that talked about their problems, and didn't stuff them down inside. It is my believe that you deserved much better, but you were unfortunately never even given a chance. I hope that one day, somehow I will see you again, and wrap my arms around you, and give you the comfort that I so very badly want to give you now. May you rest in peace and happiness. To say that you are greatly missed is a tremendous understatement. My heart is broken for you, but I will keep on praying, as long as I'm alive, you will live within my soul, and I will try to live a better life for the both of us. If only it worked that way. In the name of Rush, your favorite band, "Fly by night away from here". Goodnight uncle Marv. 

Regrets

No Ragrets? Really? Not even one letter?

Ah yes. The nights where you ruminate over every single decision, every word, and everything you have ever done in the eternity of forever. 2:00am and you're wired awake by something you said to a very unimportant person 6 years ago. The time when the last thing you said to the first guy you ever dated was "live long and prosper", as you idiotically held up your Klingon hand and gave a Vulcan salute while walking away. Yeah, that wasn't horribly dorky or painfully embarrassing. "Thanks for the sex, don't get killed out in space!" I would like to say that I don't have any regrets. That I believe that everything happens for a reason. But sometimes, some things just happen and they fucking suck.  They didn't necessarily have anything to do with anything. As a wanna-be comedian, I try to hold onto these embarrassing moments, because at some point they are going to make a damn good joke. So I literally shit my pants one day after work in 2014. So I thought when Trump said he wanted to drain the swamps, I literally thought for a good amount of time that there were literally swamps surrounding the White House and he literally wanted to drain the water out of them. So I once believed that I couldn't lie about my weight at the DMV because they would see my real weight on my birth certificate. And yeah, that one time in band camp... See what I'm getting at? Some things are embarrassing, but seriously like WTF, you actually did that? There are those stories, the ones that can get the laughs, and then there are the stories that are much more private. The ones that you completely want to forget about and pretend like never even happened. The stories that not even a comedian will dare share. How much sanity do I want to keep? Do I even give this one credit and share with a close friend? Or do I keep it bottled up for fear that it will come back to haunt me and the shame will never go away? Now, most would say I am a very open person. Sometimes too open, whatever that means... I mean can you really be too open? Yeah, I suppose in some cases you can. I have yet to figure out what those cases are however.
The regrets that I truly have, and ruminate on, those are the ones that hit home. Those are the ones that I am truly ashamed of. The times where you finally go out on a limb, and get totally and utterly rejected. When you finally get the courage to ask that guy out, and the feelings are not even close to being mutual, and you say something stupid like, "just kidding! Don't worry, Im asexual. I don't actually have normal human emotion. Gotcha!"
My biggest regret? Reading into everything. Thinking that I know whats going on and that I can read minds. Thinking that I know how other people are feeling and are acting a certain way towards me for a reason. Like how in the hell are you supposed to tell if someone is into? I sure as hell don't have that one even slightly figured out. "Oh he agreed with me on something? I know we've only known each other for five minutes, but we're probably getting married."
IDIOT! You think you know these things. You think you read all of the signs right. You think that there were even "signs" to begin with. You thought he was into you, you acted on it, and none of what you thought even existed in the first place. Excuse my while I go crawl into a hole and die...
Usually at this point I would come up with some great realization or epiphany. I would tell you what all of this really means, and what things you should actually be focusing on, but I'm afraid that I cannot do that. I posses neither the knowledge nor the wisdom that it takes to understand these things. I can tell you numerous things about mental health. How to take care of yourself, and how to be an overall good human being. I can share some pretty great morals, and beliefs to abide by. I pretty much have that all figured out. But when it comes to matters of the heart, I can not even begin to tell you one single thing.
So while you lay awake at night, ruminating over a guy, a girl, or a guy/girl, and are wondering what those "signs" meant, don't ask me because I too have absolutely no fucking clue...
Now get out there, live long and prosper!