To Write Love On Her Arms

Since I was 14, I have been fighting a war within myself. Constantly barraged on both sides from not only OCD (which i probably have had since i was about 5 years old), but from depression as well.  The dark sometimes debilitating mental disease that sends me into the darkest corners of my mind; where all is lost and hopeless and seems to hold no meaning whatsoever.

I was on heavy medication for two years, both Prozac and Zoloft, both dosages so high that it made me mentally and emotionally dull.  The stump on your front lawn had more emotion and personality that I ever did for those two years.

Here is a good portion of my story:

When i was in middle school, I was a pretty normal pre-teen girl. Just blossoming and starting to move from "Eww boy cooties" to "wow he's cute". I had a best friend who I had been in classes with since third grade, and she and i have ALWAYS been mistaken for sisters.  Life at home was good for the most part. . . then things changed.

My parents started fighting more and more.  Long loud arguments that had my youngest sister and i hiding in our room, pretending that we couldn't hear them screaming, or mommy crying when daddy left, the door slamming behind him so hard the whole apartment shuddered. There was one day that I remember vividly.  My parents had been fighting, badly, and i sat on my computer, doing something or other, probably playing The Sims, and tears just rolled down my cheeks.  My father came in to say goodbye... and saw me crying and telling me that everything was okay.

I remember saying through my tears, "No, nothings alright, its not okay."  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I didn't want to be another statistic, I wanted and LIKED the fact that my parents were still together, and that we lived in the same apartment as a family unit.  But with the way the fighting was intensifying, and with how bad it was becoming at home, i just knew that it would happen.

Things started getting harder for me to do at school, grades would slip, effort on projects would wane, and I would stop wanting to help out or do things for my mother or my father.  My mother became concerned and took me to see a therapist, who was a counselor at Coconut Creek Middle at the time (i THINK, not too sure). Fast forward to going to a psychologist, who recommended that I go on meds to up my serotonin levels. 

I was on high dosages of both Prozac and Zoloft, both of which made me less of a person, and i has less quirks and personality than the computer that you are one while reading this.  People think I'm exaggerating when i say things like that, but then they hear from my mother and she backs up my story.

As I was being weaned off the second set of meds, I got frustrated/upset one day and actually started crying.  My mother made the decision then and there that I wasn't going to go on any other medications, because i finally cried.  She was glad that i was crying, but not in a sadistic way, just glad that after two years of being on meds that i finally showed some form of emotion.

I was free of meds, and for a few years i was free of any medication except for the vitamins i occasionally took.  Then i got into my car accident and it all came roaring back to me, with a new friend... PTSD. Such was my fear of being on medication again that i refused to get treatment for six months after my accident, swearing that i could push through the feelings, no problem.  That i could handle it, that i was fine.

Until I finally had a breakdown one day and called my father and told him that i needed to see someone, that i couldn't handle the constant anxiety attacks and the fear running through my mind over and over again.  

There were times when i was with my then BF either at school or at his apartment and have to walk away from all the happiness and the light.  I would walk into his room at the apartment and crawl into his bed and hold a pillow close and toss the sheets over my head to try to drown everything out.  He'd come into the room and hold me as i cried and raged and ranted.

At school i'd sit on his lap curled into him holding my head in tears because my thoughts were spinning around in my head.  I couldn't control them, no matter how hard i tried to stop them, to calm down.  If i didn't hold my head i was afraid that my head would explode in 50 million different directions.  And yet through all of it he held on and kept helping me through.

I started seeing a psychologist, and she prescribed me some meds, Effexor XR.  Thankfully, it did the trick, the dosage going up to where i need it to be, for now.  its lessened the anxiety attacks to nothing save for the three i had while dealing with my psycho ex BF... I no longer deal with racing thoughts, though with stress the compulsive picking has upped a bit.

I started seeing a therapist again after my father abandoned my family and after my boyfriend from college broke up with me a few months later.  She has helped me through a lot of stuff, as well as having the most amazing support from my friends and family.

I am one of the lucky ones.  Some people aren't.

Please, visit http://www.twloha.com/index.php for more information on depression, suicide, addiction, and self-injury, and ways/resources to help your loved ones with this disease.

We can't do it alone. 

We need your help.

We need to know we're still loved.

We need to know that you care.

Because sometimes,

We're just not strong enough to pick ourselves up.

A Realization

As I was looking through my entries on a seperate blog that spanned over the past year, I stumbled on an entry that had me stopping and thinking.  It has been over a year since Jose and I broke up.  What would be REALLY ironic if the one Josh Groban song crops up as i write this entry.

I remember how hard it was for me to get through the day, the pain eating me up inside, my OCD only making it worse.  I had yet again been abandoned by a man that i had thought would be a major part of my life forever, and one that I was deeply and truly in love with.  The night of the break up I laid in bed and wailed and cried and thrashed, my mother and my sister by my side comforting me as best they could; my mother stroking my hair after turning the lights out like she used to do when i was a little girl.  I felt like my heart had been shattered and thrown to the winds.

Work was so hard as well.  Having to keep it together, pretending that nothing was wrong when so many people could see right through me, but chose to say nothing.  Which was a good thing, because me cracking at work, especially with that was not a good idea.  There were a few moments when I had to stuff my hand in my mouth and hold myself to keep from screaming.

Slowly it got easier, for the most part.  It wouldn't hurt as much to think of him, to look at his profile or our photos together.  But then he needed to bring a few things to me and i just HAD to touch him and to breath him in... one last time.  And GOD did it hurt, did it bring the hurt right back, to have him so close, but to not be able to kiss him like i wanted, to have to settle for my nose buried in his neck one last time.

But with the help of friends, family, and yes a therapist, things got better day by day.  I could listen to the aforementioned song and remember the good times, and not want to curl up in a dark corner and hide for the rest of the day.  I could look at our pictures, and remember the good times goofing off in the UC at FAU, ballroom, spending the weekend with him at his apt or his parents' house.  The arrepas Saturday mornings made by his mother fresh off the skillet with meat and cheese and coffee con leche...

Aaannd there it is.  Such a beautiful song.  I think it personifies perfectly how Jose "told" me how much he cared for me.  It's a bittersweet tale to tell now, but it's probably the sweetest way any of my relationships have started.

It was the end of a semester (or something) and i had to return some books to the bookstore, and the person that i was essentially rebounding off of wasn't around, and i didn't want to go alone.  So Jose took his chance and offered to walk me.  Such an awkward man he was, unsure of how to really tell me.  But he told me in no uncertain terms that he cared for me, a LOT.  I was taken aback at first, but flattered.  Looking back I really kicked myself when i realized how i was missing the obvious.  They way he looked at me and interacted with me.  One of the biggest things that i missed was when i was listening to this one song on my MP3 player that i loved, and the way he smiled as he watched me dance like a loon to it.

Tanget sorry... anyways back to the story.  

We went into the bookstore and come to find out I was missing my ID or something and i had to go back to get it.  As we walked back I had been goofy and ran ahead but slowed to catch my breath.  My back was to him and all of a sudden i hear something along the lines of "Oh fuck it," and he came up behind me, turned me around and kissed me square on the lips.  And something in my stomach just clenched, and it felt like a key had been turned.  The Universe telling me "Here is the one that you need to be with right now."  We walked arm in arm back to the UC, stealing kisses before walking back into the UC and cuddled on the couch, everyone not so secretly relieved that he had finally bucked up the courage to tell me how he felt.

And the rest, as one would say, is history.

He was one of the first people on the scene of my car accident a few years ago, along with my father, my mother being the first.  I clung to him when he came, sticking my nose in the V of his shirt, drawing strength and comfort from his presence.  For six months after he put up with me as i went through mood swings and anxiety attacks and OCD attacks that had me isolating myself and crying hysterically holding my head afraid that if i let go my head would explode in a million pieces.  He held me in the darkness of his room when the depression overtook me and i couldn't stand being in the same room as his room mate and his GF as we all watched TV. Held me as i raged and cried, cursing my father, cursing the accident, anything that had gone wrong that day.

He brought me back from the extreme so many times, had me thinking things out logically, step by step until i had calmed down and was able to think clearly.  Gently, patiently, as frustrating as i know it was for him, he did it, and helped me through some rough shit.  And for that I will always be grateful.

And the question that I'm sure a lot of you are thinking. 

"Do you still love him?"

The answer simply, is "Yes".  

But it needs clarification.

I love him as a very dear friend.  I remember the romantic times we had together with fondness and a smile, because that was one of the better times of my life.  Through all the hell that i was going through at home, i knew that i had a safe place to go wherever he was.  He was the logic to my eccentricity, the calm in my storm. And for that i am thankful.

He is a rare gift, and I hope that the woman who captured his heart for the rest of his life treasures the gift that he is.