I Dreamed A Dream (And Remembered It!!!!)

I've always been jealous of people who have amazingly vivid dreams and then remember them, especially since I've been taking Effexor: it's one of those medications that can cause wild dreams, and I was kind of hoping that would happen to me. I don't doubt that I dream every night -- dreaming is something your brain does during certain phases of the sleep cycle. On occasion, I've even known that I've woken up from dreaming, or been awakened by a dream. But it's pretty rare for me to remember a dream even moments after I've just woken up, and I've always wished that wasn't true. So imagine my delight when I remembered this beauty that I woke up from the other day!

In my dream, we were all still living at my parents' house, and were in the process of getting ready to go somewhere. It was morning, and I must have been finished whatever I needed to do, because everyone else was doing stuff and I wasn't. I was looking out the window in my old room.

I could feel the earth rumbling beneath me, and hear sounds like explosions, like the earth shattering. I looked out the window, and in the distance I could see volcanoes exploding. The sky was filling with smoke, and I could see the fire pouring to earth. I felt a dull sense of dread and panic in my belly, and I was telling my family that we needed to hurry, that we needed to get out of there, but no one else was in a rush. I felt like no one was listening to me, that no one saw how dangerous the situation was, how we were all on the cusp of being consumed.

I went downstairs and put my hand on one of the external walls, and it was warm. I was totally convinced one of the volcanoes was close by and ready to explode. I kept pushing, telling everyone "let's go," until finally we were ready to head out to the car.

As soon as I stood outside, I saw a patch of dried lava in the front yard near the side of the house, near our neighbor's retaining wall, so right near the property line. The lava was oddly grey, and the patch was small, but I knew that I had been right. "You see," I told them, "there is it. I was right." I remember they were like "Where?" and I was like "Right there," and pointing right at it, but it was like they couldn't see it. My father was walking around the lawn, looking and looking, until he was practically right on top of it. And finally he was like, "Oh yeah, I see what you're talking about." So finally there was an acknowledgement that I wasn't delusional or seeing things that weren't there, but everyone was still acting like it wasn't a big deal.

I was telling them that we needed to leave, to get out now, that it was going to blow any minute, but my family was unconcerned. Finally we were getting in the car when my brother realized he'd forgotten some sort of important document. My father gave one of those long-suffering sighs he gives and told us to start heading down the hill away from the house while we went back for it, and that he'd meet up with us with the car. So we started walking quickly away, until suddenly we were at the bottom of the hill.

We were looking up toward the house, wondering when he was going to show up, when our house suddenly exploded, blowing violently outward and apart. I knew right away that my father was gone, but I didn't feel anything about it, not sad, or relieved, or anything. In that moment, everyone started to panic, and we all started to run. Objects and bits of things were flying through the air -- more like a movie about a tornado, really -- and my brother and I were dodging. I knew my mother can't run if her life depended on it (she just physically can't), but I wasn't looking back for her or thinking about her. I was just sticking by my brother, trying to make sure he got out of this alive.

Something was flying through the air toward us, and I knew it was the car from our house. It was coming toward us, too hard and too fast. We dodged, we ran, our lungs burned from the smoke in the air, and our eyes streamed from the fire breaking out of the earth in the distance. The car just missed me and hit my brother square in the back, and he was gone instantly.

And then I woke up.

I was like, holy shit I had a dream and I remembered it! Now what do I do? I felt sort of like the dog that finally catches the car.

Being me, I couldn't just leave it alone: dreams can be a treasure-trove of information, yes? I'm not saying that, like Freud and others in the psychoanalytic tradition, that dreams are a direct product of the unconscious mind shedding insight into repressed desires (dreams, and techniques like free-association, are particularly important tools for the analyst who proves to be terrible at hypnotism). But I am saying that the mind/brain is particularly adapted for finding patterns that make sense out of even random stimuli, so much so that we can perceive patterns where none exist as the brain tries to process dispirate and disjointed pieces of information. Even if neurons in the pons (a part of the brainstem) are firing randomly, that doesn't mean that the patterns the cerebral cortex uses to synthesize the information doesn't tell us anything about ourselves. It stands to reason that the brain is going to use patterns that are accessible, that fit into previous schemas and belief constructs, or that reinforce concepts we've already accepted.

Our mind can also challenge us, revealing ideas and patterns that we know are there but haven't consciously accepted. Sometimes, I find I really do have two ideas or two constructs that fundamentally contradict each other, or that I know on some level to be true, and I'm sure that's the case for lots of people: sometimes we don't notice the non-dominant one, or fail to pay attention to evidence that supports it, simply because our mind is using that as a strategy to reduce or avoid cognitive dissonance. It helps us go about the daily business of functioning. But it can be really unhelpful if the schema you're running around with is one that needs to change.

To make a long story short, I think dreams can be interesting and informative regardless of where we think they come from. And so: onwards with analyzing the crap out of it!

I think it's interesting that the events involved in the dream were events about explosion. That's often how I felt living in that house: that we were on top of something that was constantly simmering, constantly threatening to blow-up in some irreparable way. It was there beneath and behind everything we did. Obviously, that fear of explosion, of one thing too many or one day too much, causing a kind of violent destruction, is something I still think about, and also in some way know is inevitable. In the dream, I try to warn my family to escape, but already know there is nothing I can do to stop the volcano from happening because we are past the point of no return.

I think it's interesting that I was trying to tell my family something was wrong but no one was listening to me: there was no sense of alarm, no sense of having understood or believed what I said. Of course this reflects the reality of what it's like to live with my family. I keep saying over and over that things are not normal, not the way they're supposed to be, and my family either ignores me or tells me I'm basically delusional because everything is perfectly fine. In the end, everyone goes calmly about their routine while I stand alone, looking out the window watching the shape of our destruction.

I think it's interesting that, in the dream, everyone dies in the exploding volcano but me. On the face of it: this is the opposite of what actually happened: my family members are managing their lives pretty normally, whereas I am the one who has self-destructed with sudden and explosive violence. But in other ways that's not true. There are ways that they've been consumed by these patterns as something that just is true while I've had no choice but to try and desperately escape them. In the end, the net effect is the same: I am standing alone and the family I should have been able to rely on to weather the storm is absent.

I think it's interesting that the volcano I see on our front lawn is located on the property line, the boundary or limit that defines what belongs to whom, and beyond which you aren't supposed to go. There are major boundary issues in my family. I've spent most of my life confused about who and what I am to at least some extent, and as I think more about it I'm realizing that, given the circumstances of my life, maybe that's not such a surprise. My family has laid claim over my emotional and psychological life by telling me that my beliefs are stupid, that my emotions are wrong, that my memories are incorrect. I am porous, open to manipulation, the playground for other people's needs and perceptions. My boundaries have been violated by the people closest to me telling me my reality isn't real. My family has used their emotions and ideas inappropriately as well, using a lack of their own boundaries to try and blend the line between us and to create unhealthy relationships.

My family has laid claim over my space, time, and possessions, to the point that I could never be guaranteed privacy in my own room, or even in the bathroom. Nothing ever really belonged only to me, or was really mine -- not even my activities or decisions -- in a way that just wasn't true for the rest of my family members.

My family has laid claim over my body, saying things about my body and treating my body in ways that disregard any sense that I should have control over my own body, or even that my body belongs to me. My family has used their bodies to encroach on my space, to impose themselves on me, to make what should have been private to them into something public that pierces through my space. Suffice it to say, it doesn't come out of left field that the focal point of our destruction lies at the boundary of things.

I think it's interesting that the house is destroyed, and that I'm uncomfortable in it even before it blows up, because I don't have an archetypal image of "home" as a place that is comfortable, or stable, or safe. I think it's interesting that my father is the focal point of the explosion even though my mother is the more daily problem. I think it's interesting that she is the one telling us to take our time getting ready, to stick around, to be comfortable in a place that's about to kill us. I think it's interesting that I feel the heat from the outer wall in the basement, which I was always afraid of growing up.

I think it's interesting that I stay in the house as everyone takes their time instead of just running for it and saving myself. Because that's exactly what I did in real life, isn't it?

I think it's interesting that, when we finally do get out, I don't try to help my mother when it's time to run away. Over the years, I've had various dreams of having to save family members from our house as it burns, but I've never abandoned any of them before. But in this dream I absolutely know my mother can't help herself, but I easily turn my back on her and save myself instead. During the years I was in therapy with my original psychiatrist, we talked a few times about how I felt obligated to take care of my mother and needed to find a way to let go of that burden.

I think it's interesting that was trying to protect my brother, because that's something that was discussed, too. In the dream, I felt like I was trying to save us both. But I wasn't really, was I? We were just running side by side. In the end, I didn't throw myself in front of him, or push him out of the way, and take the blow of the projectile car myself. I dodged and lived.

I think maybe that's what I need to learn to do: to protect myself, really protect myself, without guilt or remorse. The reality is it all blew up and was consumed by fire. It happened. And I'm standing here, shaped and surrounded by those old patterns that tell me to go back into the flames, to keep standing still, to try and preserve everything the way it was. But being stuck in a house that's about to be consumed, constantly on edge, is no way to live.

I don't know exactly how to recover from barely escaping from an exploding volcano that swallowed my entire family. But I'm pretty sure it'll be a long and messy journey with scalding steam-vents along the way. And I'm certain that it will be a long time before I've gotten far enough away not to see the fire in the distance or smell the smoke clinging to my hair.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

This Halloween wasn't all about my costume (although my costume was pretty awesome because I basically dressed up as  health insurance processing joke). It wasn't about the cool prizes I put into a draw for my colleagues (although those candy bars were pretty nifty). It wasn't even about the teensy chocolate bars (although I did learn that waiting until the last minute means all the best minis will be sold out by the time you get to the store).

This year, Halloween was about my younger brother getting on an airplane and flying to the United States of America for true love. He's moved down there to live, in wedded bliss, forever.

I'm so, so happy for him. They truly are very well-matched.

People keep asking me if I'll miss him. And the thing is, we're not really that close. Oh sure, we have inside jokes, and the intimacy that comes with growing up in the same home with the same people, and being able to blackmail one another should the need ever arise. But my brother and I grew up to be very, very different people. The truth is, if we weren't related, I doubt we'd want to be friends.

He can be quite cruel, abusive even, in ridiculing people whose beliefs are different than his -- and that, of course, includes me. He has a way of keeping on going when he's clearly gone too far. He makes rape jokes in front of me all the time, as if it will ever be funny, or I'll ever want to hear it. He has said some of the cruelest things I've ever heard from anyone in my life: he has a way of figuring out people's vulnerabilities and cutting right to the quick. He's not really that interested in people who aren't directly relevant to him -- even people he's known for years. The outcome of other people's lives is largely a matter of indifference. Things roll off him in a way I can't imagine, and he seems to have a lot more inner-peace than I do because of it. Or maybe it's emptiness. Sometimes I really envy him, but the truth is I wouldn't want to be that person if it came down to making a choice about it.

Will I miss him? I will and I won't, if that makes any sense. I do know that I spent the week in between his goodbye dinner and his Halloween departure eating every piece of food in sight. This is unusual for me because, prior to the recovery period from this major depression, I've never done anything like that. The whole binge-eating thing has always been kind of a mystery, because I don't like eating that much to begin with. Yet here I am, eating (terrifyingly) large amounts of food to comfort myself, feeling out-of-control, So there must be something going on here, something more powerful than I realized.

At first I thought it must be that I was feeling bad because I was going to miss him a lot and I didn't know how to express that kind of emotion. But I thought about it a lot, and I think I was wrong. I think I'm feeling jealous that he gets to escape our family and I don't. I'm still here, and he's left me alone to be responsible for my parents. It won't be easy to ever miss a holiday if I'm their only option. I've seen them go to my father's parents every year because they're all alone otherwise, and I'm afraid of that happening to me. I feel like he's dropped all the responsibility for them onto me, and I'm not the kind of person who easily says no, even when it means protecting myself. I guess I've always felt he was selfish for making me be responsible for my mother but then never protecting me from her, and that now he's done it again, but on a much larger scale.

I guess my next life-lesson project should be working on convincing myself that I'm not responsible for anyone else but me! And that maybe -- maybe -- this is the time in my life to put myself first even if that means letting people down, and feeling less-than-perfect, less-than-enough, and learning to be okay with that.

The Music Man: Of Course it Continues *trigger warning*

After I stopped seeing him, MM and I kept in touch sporadically, exchanging emails every once in a while and occasionally chatting on Facebook. I'll be honest, even though we didn't meet up again, we did flirt a little sometimes. A girl needs to practice her sexy, you know? And even though I found myself conflicted about the nature of our relationship, over the time we'd known each other I'd come to care about him a great deal, and wanted to keep in touch. I'd read drafts of the early chapters in the book he ended up publishing...I wanted to know how he was doing, know the general outlines of his life. I wanted to know that he was happy.

In 2009, I ended the most emotionally difficult intimate relationship of my life, and I wasn't quite sure how I was feeling. Although I'd loved my partner, I'd struggled for over a year-and-a-half with the dynamics between us that made me feel deeply unhappy and unhealthy. I'd always felt a little bit controlled and restrained by the way he seemed capable of taking over my life and my affairs; he didn't do it on purpose, but I ended up feeling incapable and small. After I had behaved particularly badly, my partner told me that he would feel better and trust me more if I dropped MM from my friend list on Facebook. So I did. For the first time -- and I hope the last -- I allowed someone else to determine who I could and couldn't be friends with.

When we broke up, one of the first things I did was get back in touch with MM. Part of it was revenge, I'll admit it: I wanted to do what I hadn't been able to while I was with my ex-partner. Part of it was a feeling of expansive freedom. Part of it was wanting to feel desired and desirable after feeling sexually unworthy, unattractive, unwanted, and messed up. And part of it was just wanting to be able to talk to MM again, about all things psychological, about our lives, about the parts of ourselves that people keep hidden for fear of being judged. I wanted to be vulnerable and have someone accept me.

As it turns out, MM had recently been missing me as well, and we quickly struck up a flirtation. We ended up meeting for hot chocolate soon after getting back in contact, and I was pleasantly surprised by how things went. We talked about our lives, our recent relationships, and what I'd learned I wanted. I found myself very different with him than I used to be: I was shy and deferential, but now I found I was expressing myself with confidence and behaving more like who I really am, instead of like a student trying to impress her teacher. He remarked on the change as I, too, was noticing it. I was older. I was more sure of myself. And I knew that, if I liked him, it wasn't because I was star-struck but because I knew him and I knew myself.

I often wonder what exactly it is he saw in me. I know he liked that I was smart and we could talk about a range of topics. I know we found each other insanely attractive. But, more and more, I think it was that I simply wasn't impressed by all the crap he usually impresses people with. I didn't care that he was the equivalent of a psychology rock-star, because I'd known him before that was true. I didn't care about his house, or his cars, or his clothes, or his job, or his money, although I knew that those things all represented success to him. And he knew that I didn't give a crap. I think what he liked most about me was that I looked at him and saw him with all those things stripped away, and was interested in him anyway. I got the feeling that he was surrounded by people who focused on what he could do or what he had and was, and I was part of a smaller number of those who took him for who he was. We seemed to give each other something we were both missing, along with a lot of desire and tenderness.

I 'dated' him from late spring through to early fall, meeting up once or more a week. I invented a fake graduate student working in a psychology lab so my family would know I was seeing someone and wouldn't constantly be asking where I was going. I wasn't sure exactly what our relationship was, but we were having a lot of fun, and I was getting to know both of us a lot better. I met and had dinner with one of his friends from out of town, and actually went to a block party with him. We had a lovely and memorable day trip. I knew I had feelings for him, and him for me, but it didn't seem important to try and define what we had or where it was going. I was much happier and more fulfilled dating him this time around than I had been the first.

But, as time went on, it started to bother me. I felt like, in a way, I was letting myself get comfortable in a relationship that would, in the long run, keep me from pursuing what I really wanted. I was still young and I knew I wanted children, and that he didn't. I knew one day I wanted a life partner, but I didn't think that was in his plans. Ultimately, I started feeling like I was selling myself short and allowing myself to be less than I hoped to be by choosing to be with someone who couldn't give me the kind of commitment that I wanted. I felt like we were both settling for less than we deserved.

I knew it would hurt, but after crying it out all over a friend in Dio's basement after a Friday morning Eucharist, I decided I needed to stop seeing him and re-evaluate what it is I needed in a relationship in order to feel like I was growing, like I was a real partner, like I could be fulfilled.

Montreal Walks for Mental Health

This year was Montreal Walks for Mental Health's sixth year in existence, and my second year participating. I'd seen a segment about it on the news three years ago, and immediately began following the event on social media so I could join the next one. I sincerely hope I'm able to participate every year, and not just because they give walkers these truly awesome hats!

This year, I was able to double the number of people I convinced to walk with me. Double! On the surface, this sounds impressive and speaks wonders of my charisma and persuasive skill. This would all be true, except for the fact that the number of people who came out to walk with me was two.

Two.

I posted extensively on social media about the event, and about other mental health topics in the weeks leading up to the walk. I posted mass invites on facebook, and personally asked a couple of people I feel really close to if they would come with me. The posts where I told everyone I was going and invited them to come with me got only 8 'likes.' None of the people I singled out came -- some because they couldn't, others because they didn't want to. While I did have an encouraging number of private responses, most of those who were trying to make it ran into personal conflicts and ultimately weren't able to attend.

I have 402 friends on facebook, all of whom have seen my re-posts about mental health over the years. Of those 402 people, 1 person said the walk wasn't worth going to because we wouldn't be spending any time alone, 3 planned to come and couldn't make it, 1 wished she could come so much that she shared my invitation with all of her friends (with my permission!), and 2 actually came. 

Two.

The point of the walk is to stand up together against the stigma surrounding mental illness. We all know the tangible effects that stigma and discrimination can have: unemployment and underemployment, lack of adequate housing, fragile and non-existent social networks, loss of opportunity, loss of friends and family, food insecurity, looks of disdain, refusal of service...the list goes on. As for me, I am fortunate to have never experienced life-shattering stigma, to have never run up against that wall. While I've had my fair share of people tell me they don't believe in medication (including my mother who habitually refers to it as 'a crutch' and a graduate thesis supervisor who approved my leave of absence specifically so I could stop taking pills), or who believe that I will get better if I just try harder, the way that stigma has hurt me the most is actually in its silence.

I feel stigma in the silence of other people surrounding my illness. Over the years, my depression has been dismissed by family members as 'not that bad,' even though we've never spoken about what it's like for me. In the decade since I first became acutely ill, my mother has not read any literature on depression, suicide, or trauma. Depression, and its ongoing effects in my life, is never discussed, except in the weekly complaints that I kept a prescription light box on the family's kitchen table so I could use it every morning. 

I feel stigma in the way that people avoid talking about mental illness. The informational posts I share are the kind of thing people seem to skip over in their newsfeeds. Perhaps, like me, they worry that if they display too much of an interest people will begin, on that basis, to assume they must be mentally ill.

I feel stigma in the way that inappropriate language and misinformation about mental illness is silently accepted. Over the past few years, I've occasionally scattered my speech with ridiculous mental-health terms, hoping that someone will call me on it. A thing can be 'psychotic,' 'schizophrenic,' 'bipolar,' 'crazy,' or 'retarded.' I have never, not even once, had anyone tell me off for using offensive and discriminatory language (though I've certainly done it to others!). When I complain that news media have reported a story in a misleading and discriminatory way, people respond by changing the topic, with non-committal sounds, or by defending the newscaster. We have come to accept the misuse of words and misinformation as part of our social fabric, in the face of which we, as a society, are largely silent.

I feel stigma the most in my own personal silence. Although I was quite outspoken about my struggle with trauma and depression years ago, and was able to use those experiences to help other people, over time I've become hesitant to share these details about myself. When I began a new university degree, I decided to tell as few people as possible about my history of mental illness. Part of that was wanting to make a new start after having tried to kill myself again. Part of that was related to taking on new roles in church leadership and preparing for a more public ministry within my Christian life. Part of it was shame that, after years of helping other people with their illnesses, I could no longer convincingly tell a story of my own recovery.

In terms of employment, my manager does not know I have depression. My absence was coordinated with disability and HR, so none of the people I actually report to are aware of the circumstances of my medical leave. While negotiating flexible hours to accommodate group therapy (which should be starting soon!), I implied to my manager that the group is about my chronic headaches. I write this blog, all about my experiences living with depression, but the link is not posted anywhere on my social media because I'm afraid it might get back to the office inadvertently through friend-colleagues.

I feel like a hypocrite because, while I talk about ending mental-health discrimination, I keep my own illness wrapped in a carefully guarded silence. I do it because I'm afraid to ruin my career in a competitive, target-based work environment where failure to succeed is not tolerated. I do it because I am afraid I'll be seen as a liability in an office where taking your full 10 sick days in a year is tacitly considered unacceptable, unprofessional, and detrimental to the team. I do it because, on my very first day of employment, I asked about using sick days for mental health reasons and was told that for mental health days we have to use our vacation. And I do it because, as someone who longs to dedicate her life to working with other people as part of her church ministry, I understand all too painfully that disclosing my mental illness makes it unlikely that I will ever be entrusted with authority; depression makes me 'unstable,' and my honesty has meant that I am not considered a good candidate for ministry.

So yes, I do feel the stigma. I wonder to myself if people skip over my profile posts about mental health because we are more comfortable not talking about it. I wonder if I would have gotten more likes or more participation if I had asked people to join me for Light the Night. And I feel the stigma in the relationship of my own speech about mental health awareness to my silence about my own illness.

I went to Montreal Walks for Mental Health and I was proud to stand with people who are fighting stigma by speaking out, hopeful that one day I, too, will no longer feel the need to protect myself with silence. 

The Music Man: In the Beginning *trigger warning*

I first met The Music Man (MM) in the winter of 2004, when I was 21 years old. I was taking my first psychology class at McGill, and it was a massive, 550+ person lecture session about cognitive processes and the brain. I felt a bit odd and different at first -- I was the only person to attend class in pajamas, and one of very few not taking notes on a laptop -- but soon I got sucked into the material and didn't feel anything but enthrallment. It turned out I still loved psychology even after spending time in the mental hospital!

MM was our professor: engaging, funny, dizzyingly clever, and quite attractive to boot. I have to admit it wasn't hard listening to him tucked away in the middle of the room. After all that had gone on in college, it was nice to be anonymous in a big giant class.

After our first midterm (which, naturally, I aced) our teacher sent out e-mails to the top performers in the class, congratulating us and telling us we were free to come talk to him about any of the course material. As it happened (doesn't it always?) I disagreed with one of the models of attention that we were studying, and made an appointment to argue it out and see if my dislike was actually based in reason.

MM had a tiny wind-up brain on his desk that walked around, and was just as engaging in real life as at the front of a classroom. Talking about brains together, I realized that I was powerfully, magnetically attracted to him. I don't know if it was because he was so smart, because he was so good looking, because he was the teacher, or because he was 25 years older than me, but whatever it was it was totally happening. I had my first real teacher-crush, which I'd somehow avoided all through high school. Go me!!

At any rate, we met once more during the semester, and that was that.

Summer came around, and we somehow ended up planning to meet up and grab a beer together, talk about the course, how things were going as a whole, and -- of course -- brains and theories of mind. I thought to myself, sometimes it is good to score at the top of your class, and maybe there is something to not being totally anonymous after all.

We got along well, and it was a nice evening. I felt comfortable poking fun of him a little, and we started learning more about one another as people. I was totally, totally attracted to him. We went back to his office, hugged goodbye, and parted ways.

In early fall, we decided to meet up for coffee. It was a lovely day, and we took our paper cups out onto McGill's lawn to chat. Some stuff was just light, but other things were more serious: how I felt after the formal hearing against my college professor was fully behind me, his divorce. Eventually, he looked at me point-blank and asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. I was totally flummoxed -- it hadn't occurred to me that he might be interested in me back! I didn't know quite what to say, and ended up replying that I wasn't sure.

He talked about how it might be good for me to sleep with another teacher and have it not turn out the way it did before; that if I could teach my brain a new pattern using similar stimuli, living with the trauma might be easier. He even said that he was willing to help me out, and it's not like he'd be going out of his way, because he really wanted to have sex with me, too!

In the end, we went back to his house, and did all the obvious things. For a couple of months, we hooked up about once a week. Around February I started to feel weird about it all, and stopped getting together with him: it was all so...superficial. He e-mailed me a few times, and then eventually stopped.

I saw him again, from afar, during the spring of 2005, when we both attended Daniel Dennet's talk at the Montreal Neuro. I started thinking about him again, and it didn't hurt that I was pretty newly single and missing the intimacy. Over the summer, we got back in touch and started seeing one another again, but it didn't last beyond the start of school. I was in my last semester, and beginning the major depression that ultimately led me to try and kill myself in winter 2006. I just didn't have the time, the energy, or the interest. My psychiatrist kept repeating that he thought this whole casual relationship with him (him in particular) was a bad idea. And, frankly, I was feeling a little weirded-out by the way it began -- with his suggestion that it might be psychologically good for me. It started to feel a little...disingenuous...a little...manipulative...a little...maybe even unethical?

At any rate, I counted it as a learning experience and put it behind me. We were friendly enough -- keeping in touch on facebook and sending messages every few months -- so it seemed to have worked out for the best. I was happy that we could still be friends, and my life felt that small measure richer for knowing him.

Ye Olde Homestead (or, a post composed entirely of rant)

Yes, I know, I am a terrible daughter. Or at least I feel like one every time I put off going home to visit with my parents. It's difficult to find an excuse not to go over when some of my things are still living at their house. I'm just so much happier here, in my own space, in my own little world, with no one intruding on my privacy, my routines, my emotions, and my life. I'm so much more at peace.

It isn't that I don't love and appreciate my family: I'm pretty sure that I do. But when I see them, when I'm in their house, I just feel so...unhappy. I feel like the familiar walls are crushing me. I feel numb and anxious at the same time. I find myself slipping too easily into old patterns of behavior. My mother encourages me to eat my feelings, maybe because she does it too, and when I visit with her I do -- even though I know sticking to a proper diet is crucial to maintaining my equilibrium. I feel terrible now, tearful and uncomfortable the way too much food always makes me feel -- heavy and suffocated. I'll feel heavy and bad for the next few days until it wears off. 

I can't afford to do this right now. 

I don't want to do this right now.

It isn't always possible to cut the people and things that make you unhappy out of your life. I'm not an island alone in the middle of an ocean. I'm connected, intimately, with people I have no desire to hurt. They would never understand it if I said I didn't want to hear from them for a while, until I can hold onto the person I want to be when I'm with them, the person I know I can become if I let myself change and grow. Change is slow and fragile, and it would certainly be easier if I wasn't surrounded by people who, in one way or another, rely on me being the same as I've always been. They would never understand if I said that what I need is time to be completely alone in the world, without a family and without a home: no phone calls, no emails, no visits. 

I understand how people can go into a fugue and find themselves in a new place with no idea of who they are or where they come from. The mind is powerful, and Lord knows it's easier to build a new life without the old one following you around. It isn't possible for most of us to leave the past behind us and begin completely again: you can't erase your memory and your connectedness like a chalkboard.  

But I feel like I can't breathe. I feel an unnameable dread. I feel alone when I am with them, and uncomfortable in their space. I need it to be over, but I will never be able, or willing, to bring myself to do that to my own family -- to walk away without turning back. Maybe I would heal. Maybe I would be the same. I struggle constantly with the boundaries I need to keep them out of the space I am trying to build for myself. It is so familiar for my family to take over my space and my life, like a fog seeping into unguarded corners. 

I just need a lot of space right now. Maybe too much space, more than is really reasonable, or possible, or fair to demand. I need to figure out who I am, and whether or not I can accept this person or this life. I've never had the chance to be alone. I've never had the chance to put myself and my needs before what everyone else needs or wants or requires from me. I have thrived on giving myself away in relationships with others. I have been consumed by other people and the worlds they've created for me to live in.

But today I am tired. Today I want to be alone. Today I want to be free. I'm like a child demanding the impossible: leave me alone, but be there when this is over. Don't try to come into my life, but let me love you in yours. Don't make me be the person you love and want, but accept me however I feel like being right now in this moment. Don't demand or expect anything of me, but let me give you what I am able to. 

Nobody could accept that, most certainly not family. But I really, really, really don't want to see them, or hear from them, or think about them, for a while. I want to get the hell away from that place. I don't want to set foot in that house, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

I came back to my home today and cried, couldn't get off my couch for hours, after I visited my parents and they dropped off some more of my things that I don't want or need...more pieces of their house that I don't want in my life but that are, slowly but surely, shaping my new home in the image of my old one.

I want it to be over. I want it to be enough. But you can't outrun your family any more than you can outgrow the years spent loving them, trying to weave and unweave a life together that everyone can live with.

A Slow Awakening: An Early Spring Photoessay

You might know that I've been having something of a difficult time. Part of that is probably due to my brain settling into an old, familiar groove as the rTMS treatment I received moves further into the past. Part of it is undoubtedly due to therapy -- engaging with trauma, or any difficult issue, often results in feeling worse over the short term.

Obviously, what we're most concerned with is the long term: will I survive this illness? If so, for how long, and with what quality of life? But the short term matters immensely, too. After all, I live in the here-and-now, not in the future. And anyway, what with the Morlocks and the Eloi, it isn't as if the future looks like that awesome of a place to hang out.

One of the first things I noticed during rTMS is that the color green was brighter.

Spring was the ideal time for me to receive this treatment, as it turns out. My senses were awakening at the same time as the world burst into riotous growth around me. From a landscape laden with dead, bare branches and hard, barren earth sprung up buds, and new plants, and the beginnings of life. 

I felt like things I had all but forgotten were growing within me: humor, and lightness, and hope. Like a seed dormant in the ground, I had not lost those things whose absence I felt so keenly and with overwhelming pain. They were only sleeping. I couldn't feel them, or remember them, or reach out and touch them. I felt like I would never feel happy again, that nothing would ever change, and that there was no point to struggling on in the midst of lifelessness. But, when I believed I couldn't take it anymore, not even for one more day, the world around me burst into life and reminded me that feeling like I could live was hidden, but not dead.

Under a layer of dead leaves slumbered a field of flowers. And under the darkness of my despair crouched a hidden sunlight. I began to have hope -- hope that I could get better, hope that I could feel differently. Hope that, one day, I might even recover. I looked at the world around me with hungry eyes and an open heart, amazed at the way my own mind could take me by surprise. I had been afraid that I couldn't get better, that it wasn't possible, that this was going to be my life. In the onslaught of vibrant color, I was caught unawares by the possibility of change residing even in me.

I felt an openness, an expansiveness, like a body of water in the breeze. I began to see that life could be beautiful. Life could be beautiful emerging from death, and going into death. Maybe life is beautiful too when it lies in stillness, dormancy, a dreamless sleep. If I can remember this, hold onto it, when I feel like I'm dead and wish to be dead, maybe I can hold the beauty and the suffering in my two hands at once, cradling and cherishing both. Both can be tended to, and both frame the boundaries of my experience.

 Spring is not all beauty and new growth and sun reflected off water. Spring unearths muddy ground, trees that have not survived the winter, stagnant water overflowing with the detritus of decay. Plants that greedily take more than their share of water come back to life, dominating the fragile seedlings around them. It isn't all easy, it isn't all pretty, it isn't all what you're hoping to find in your foray into new beginnings. But it is there -- an undeniable part of what it means for life to come charging back in.

In its own way it is beautiful, because it is true. As I started to feel better, I began noticing painful truths about myself that had been buried under the agony of suicidal, backbreaking depression. I had opened the door to hurting myself again, and the longing plagued me. I have difficult relationships that take up a large place of my life, that have contributed to my illness and that I don't know how to manage. I have enduring trauma and recurring memories that flow through my mind. I hate myself, and wish I didn't. I live with a lot of shame. I am somewhat obsessive. I have difficulty understanding my own emotions.

These things were hidden under the blanket of winter. But now I see them again, reappearing, taking up time and space in my life. There is a layer of decay that fomented under the snow, and it needs to be reabsorbed into the life around it; changed into life, it can once again bring forth goodness and color and meaning and strength. It's good for a tree to fall in the forest and be reclaimed. But it isn't easy when you first see it lying there, tumbled across your path.

It will be hard. It will be painful. And it may cause me, sometimes, to forget about the springtime. But I have to look hard at myself if I want to reclaim the parts of me that have been damaged by depression -- the parts of me that have fallen under the unbearable weight of ice and snow -- and integrate them into a healthy life.

As I struggle, it is too easy to focus on the bark of a decaying tree rather than on the seedlings springing up in its midst, drawing their nourishment from it. I'm writing this post to remind me of how I felt when I saw vibrant green and new flowers. And to remind me that spring is a coming into being that enfolds both the remains of winter and the beginnings of new life.