This is directed at no particular person...except for maybe all the sorry asses that feel it's okay to judge people...to place expectations and forced solitary confinement...and who ostracise people for even a lifetime of mistakes, not borne out of intention or desire to manipulate and dominate, but of pure unfiltered pain...often a pain so intense than the brain would split in two if forced to confront it all at once or in anything other than the rate at which they know they can handle it.
I've made mistakes...I've hurt people...I've...I've...I've.
And I've fucking made amends, and I've tried to repair bridges where I could.
But I've also tried to fix me and all of the things--real and perceived--that are wrong with me and the way I think and the way that I feel. And it sucks that it took two completed suicides in order to reach the point that I've ever felt worthy of even fucking saving. And I'm sorry that I've brought two children into this world that frankly, may have had a better chance had I kept my legs closed at 16 fucking years old. And I'm sorry that I've taken a man so wonderful and so beautiful and so damn innocent before I erupted into his world, and turned him into a negative, pessimistic, doubting, distrustful, and worst of all, judgemental, walking double standard that fucking, "doesn't have time for me to fix myself." Wow. Now if that doesn't knife me to the core, I'm not sure what does.
Well here's my response...
I don't fucking time not to do just that.
But guess what. I'm for the first time in my life...talking about how I feel instead of avoiding it...feeling it instead of numbing it...dealing with it instead of hating myself for the fact that I even have these emotions in the first place. For the first time, my thoughts aren't immediately to say that emotions = weakness and that they must be covered up at all costs. I want to face them, to deal with them, because this self-pity shit gets old and tiring after this long. I'm 30 years old, and physically feel 50. However. My emotional maturity leaves something to be desired, not just to him and the, but to me as well. Do I enjoy knowing that I'm just now learning shit that I should have been given the chance to learn 20 years ago. Fuck no!
And now that he's walked by this damn computer 15 times to see what I'm looking at, I'll finish this shit up later.
It's not like any of it should be a shock...I've said it 50 fucking times. The key is closing your mouth, opening your ears, and getting beyond thinking that I still somehow deserve to pay for my mistakes. They're my damn mistakes to be made. I gave the opportunity to bail at 16 when I said that I came with baggage.
It's a real fucked up thing to do to someone to decide after 13 years of marriage that it was just too much baggage to contend with. I've spent years wondering if kids can come out of a divorce unscathed...even if the parents were 25 years old when they married. I'm still not sure which side of that I fall on, but I somehow thought I was doing pretty well considering getting married and having a child at 16. The one thing that is sure is that I won't come out of this unscathed. My only regret in life, whatever happens...is that I've never given enough of a shit about me to put me first, so that I can be okay. Thank whomever that my girls have atleast one functioning parent to ensure that they do not turn out like me.
edited to add:
No, I'm not saying anything like that at this point, but everyone does have a breaking point. And talking about this right now is just too goddamn much.
edited again to add:
Honestly, and since that's the only way that I do or can ever roll, do any of you want to know? That is...why it's so important for this to be a journey that has to be at my pace, and my pace alone?
Regardless. I'll tell you, and I just figured out why this is, and it also has alot to do with why I'm perceived as "dramatic" or why I tend to be a positively "draining friend."
I'm impulsive. As hell, actually. It's the Lambert family stench of "out-of-control" and "I don't give a fuck" mentality that has destroyed, quite literally, generations of us. Correctly termed, however, it's called bipolar disorder, and furthermore, we are rapid-cycling crazy folks. I've seen what this did very suddenly to two wonderful people that I should have had the opportunity to know and love and be loved by before shit went to hell. 13 long years without my dad in my life...due to a spiteful mother, of course, who took literally the phrase, "If I can't have you, no one will." That's no dad, no grandmother, no two uncles and an aunt with families of their own and cousins galore, and grandfather...well he called prison home for right at 20 years. In a nutshell, I rescue my younger sister and get two lousy ass years filled with, "You'd be so different if I'd raised you." and "You're just like your mother." I might add that I am in no way or fashion like her, except that she and I both bleed, only she bleeds battery acid.
And then bam...gone. And then bam...almost two months later...the grandmother I never knew...gone. Both suicide. And the lovely mother..."Stephanie, I'd searched the obituaries for years hoping to find that man's name there. I don't care."
I had it alright for a short two months. And then little by little, everyone irritated me, and I had to stay busy all the time, and I couldn't tolerate any mental downtime lest I punch a hole in the wall everytime my favorite movies were made fun of or had to sit through another movie I hated, because my movies were stupid and everyone's elses made sense or had plot. Diagnosed with the same disorder. Meds. Switch. Test. Check. Switch again. "Take your meds today?" "You're overreacting." "Oh, stop being so dramatic." "It isn't that bad." "Damn. Did your Dad's death fuck you up that bad?"
Eventually anger was all I had. And rage isn't easily controlled, and it hardly subsides long enough to get your bearings. Suddenly Dad and Grandma had taken the better way out of this shit of a life. But could I look at my, at the time, daughter and do the same to her that had so destroyed me? Absolutely not. So they'd escaped, and I was stuck to deal with shit that I was bewildered by. Not even another child deadened the whatever it was I felt at the time.
I was puking 5-10 times a day, working out 4 hours a day, and then drugs came a calling. Now I have to say here, that I've been clean since:
October 17, 2004
I don't want to screw that up. I'm proud of that.
But don't force me to face my demons and my pain and my emotions before I'm ready, because I can make no guarantees that it would stay that way. Nor can I make any guarantees that I wouldn't lose it just like my father. I know he was in pain, and he didn't make it. My grandmother was in pain, and she didn't make it. I finally want to make it...don't drive me to that end. I'm trying, and I expect the others to try also.
The one thing that people never realize, but should, because it's the most important part of a person who's trying to change for the better...
Listen for it...because it's not nor has it ever been that difficult a concept.
If you want your loved one to think/behave different...better...everyone has to change. There are things said that trigger certain automatic and conditioned responses from people like me. Think small...then go big. Make a list, prioritize it, and then ONLY the top 10% to bitch/complain/gripe about...the entire list is not up for nagging.
If you've made it this far, you get an award and my appreciation. I'm calm now.
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