Okay. Breath a bit. Listen, girl, to yourself. Inhale, exhale, deep deep deep dig dig dig.

This is meant to be a personal pick-me-up but I don't know how to start. This is not about a dumb boy. Jeez, I've spent too much time caring about what boys think about me. Okay, let's write positive things. Frame me like a mirror does, reflecting back the truth of who I am and showing the way the light can bounce off me. 

There are fruits on my table that probably grew on trees that are older than me. But maybe they won't last so long anymore. Climate change and depression in a desperate race against each other to see what will meet its demise first, my world or the world in general. 

Where was I going with this? 

A sad swan song. A waste. A waste of potential. A wasted life. Oh no, sorry I forgot to be positive.

My issues are too enormous. I'm going to starve myself to death.

I only ever post when I'm going through a meltdown

There are minor feelings. Minute feelings. Small, inconsequential seeming emotions that turn out to be the building of a swell. Checks on a chalkboard that add up, like you’re in prison, confined and bored, counting the days. Ticking time bombs, turns out.

These little things, unfortunately, they build. People like me aren’t prepared for such developments. Drain the bathtub and hide the bleach, don’t let people see the little emotions.

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life hiding from little feelings, scared to let anyone else know that it’s become a tide inside of me dragging me out into the deep blue. Jesus, I feel so blue all the time. It’s so unfair to people who care about me, and there are many. It’s unfair to them to get the 2 AM calls and the frantic messages.

I’m blue. I’m sorry. Can I call and just listen to a friendly voice?

My dad always said that when I’m sad, my voice gets too high-pitched. He can’t hear me. He cant understand me. I am a crackling voice on one end of a tenuous connection that he can’t decipher because it’s beyond the human ear’s capabilities. How am I supposed to tell my dad that I’m trying but I have a cursed brain that keeps trying to kill me and oh my god my entire body feels like it’s on fire, but I can’t express it in an octave that elicits care not disgust?

I imagine him.

Calls in the middle of the night. Middle child trying to kill herself again. Exhausting. I am screaming because screaming is the only thing that helps but no one wants to hear someone screaming. You’re on the receiving end of another Ally meltdown. You want things to be okay but between everything, the middle doesn’t feel like the middle anymore. There is no ground because I constantly feel like I’m falling to my death. Even typing it out, I’m exhausted of myself.

Back to the little feelings.

So here they sit. Somewhere between the diaphragm and despair. Little pellets of lead. Am I being weighed down or am I the weight? I don’t know how much more therapy I can do. I intellectualize my emotions rather than feeling them, but some boy told me recently that I feel too many emotions. Grippy sock vacations call my name like the way the sea calls to others but I am losing my grip on who I am. Minor little feelings, small cuts, many of which sit on my wrists. Scars and graffiti. Confetti, a celebration of a life that felt too many things. A memorial service for the greatest burden. Here lies our greatest regret. Potential laid to waste. A waste, an expenditure of energy and money and time and what else do we have space for on the tombstone? Here lays a lay-away. Here lies a liar. Here, now, quiet. We tried to help her, but she was beyond saving, and Christ Almighty, may you bless her in another life with a voice an octave lower. Is that a good epitaph?

Cuteness cures

 Even now, years after the fact of my pathetic teenage unraveling, I still get those tight feelings in my chest and those urges that say 'cut, cut, cut'. As if I never progressed passed my adolescence. As if all I'm destined to be is a this. Here. Now. This.

Feelings, right? I'm governed by them. Held sway by their power. The earth is moving under my feet and the sky is tumbling down and I just can't tame these goddamn feelings. Negative, dark, twisted, and unexplainable emotions that sway me like young bamboo caught in a hurricane  Very lame, I know. I'm but a sad-sack excuse for my species, a testament to the flawed theory of our supposedly superior - so-said cerebral - evolution, a sad girl cliche ala Tumblr 2014. Is it hormones or a congenital defect? Is it written somewhere on my mitochondrial DNA that I, like my mother and hers before her, am doomed to routinely self-destruct and cry like a bitch in the shower? Whatever. Basically, I still get sad sometimes. Boo hoo. What a revelation.

Thankfully, the great adventure of life provides easy, simple distractions. Despite the many terrible traits I inherited in the genetic lottery, I won a few hands and scored some cards that make these distractions easier to partake in. I'm pretty. Whatecer. Taking advantage of the symmetry and frame I was given, I dive deep into the worldly pleasures of boys, boys, boys. Boys, at least, are easier for me to comprehend. Boy, at least, are explicable. They're puzzles I know how to solve. Games I know the cheat codes to.

Of course, there's a new one. There's always a new one.  This is why we're hear. 

Unexpected but easy. 

Cosmic karma.

The end of the fucking world. 

So where does this one fit in to the tapestry of my love's and losses, wins and big L's? I'm not sure yet. 

Here I come, this freight train, stumbling through the bramble and writing just because I feel enamoured 

Maybe it's the rush. Do I live for the chase? Or the letdown that inevitably follows me winning them over then losing interest?

Maybe I am, like my psyche tells me, just a raging bitch with an unquenchable thirst for dick and more, more, more.

Maybe I'm a romantic.

Maybe I'm a user.

Maybe I'm a succubus born on this earth to suck men dry.

Maybe I'm just clinically depressed and trying to explain why I like sex so much.

But maybe, just maybe, this is the shot that will land true. Maybe this is the boy who will fuck away my problems. At worst, we'll both score some pleasant memories to revisit in summers yet to come. At best, maybe I'll be cured, be happy. Be best, thanks to some transformative care and love - haha - or whatever they call it, I'll be cured. 

If not, at least I have another name to pin to my lapel and another adventure to write home about.

A sudden update to come out of left field

A few months ago, I started a piece on my phone's notepad app and it began with the line 'I don't think I'm depressed anymore.' I never really got past that sentence, even though the concept was zipping around my brain and I knew what I wanted to say. The words were there, but the words weren't...there.

It was supposed to be about how deeply I identified as sad, how long I linked my very definition with my diagnosis, and how it felt to lose that. It was supposed to be an optimistic bit of fluff with a chipper tone of 'You know what, you can do it!' But months have passed and the note has sat on my phone, turning from a to-do to a mocking reminder of brighter days and greener pastures. And unlike my sad sorry attempt at putting my feelings to words, my mood itself has been anything but stagnant.  So maybe that's why I'm writing now.

No one ever really writes when they're happy, do they? It's not just me? Sometimes I think it's the serotonin. When it's gone, I fill up with words and thoughts and they make me ill and the only way to get better is to write them down and - very millennial coming up - post them on the internet. Hyperlink my feelings with my Instagram. Swipe up to read my tragedy. Pay attention!!, I'm sad. That sort of thing.

It's been almost two years since I've touched this site, and I'll take that as a good sign for my mental health. Two years of being okay is a record! Give me a shiny star to stick on my forehead and an award for getting so far. Now take away my chips for falling off the wagon and hopping back on to the Self Pity Express. 

Sometimes I feel like I have a big rubber band tied across my waist, anchored on its opposite end to the Totem of My Low Points. The physical manifestation of how my head is broken. It feels like no matter how far I go, I'll always spring back to Point Zero. Like Sisyphus, stuck forever on a loop and doomed to a lifetime of never learning. Thankfully, unlike our tragic Greek hero, my loop does allow me to experience some of the good shit, some of those sweet emotions, that high-highs of happiness. For that, I'm thankful. For the past two years, I'm thankful. But right now, I'm scared that the plowing forward period is done and now it's time to spring back to my resting point of sad sad sadness and low low loneliness.

Or

Maybe I'm not sad, because this whole piece has been pretty shit so far. Bad writing, good mental well-being? At least I'm still being productive. I'm going to school and working my jobs and feeding my cats and sometimes even remembering to feed myself (when I can afford it, but that's another thing). Maybe the rubber band is loosening. Maybe if I run against it enough times, I can get far enough away to reach the limit of its tensile strength and SNAP I'm free. Or maybe I can just get so fat it no longer fits around me. Or maybe when I'm at my lowest and it's at its loosest I can just slip it off and stop playing this dumb game of mental cat and mouse. How many times have I used the word 'maybe' in this, again? How many maybes can a person have before they run out of uncertainty and finally know what the fuck is going on?

This has been cathartic. Talk to you again soon. Or not. I don't know which one I want.

Joke's on you! It never gets better!

Sometimes I miss being sick. On a related note, I would hide my pills and paracetamol to delay the relief from a fever until I absolutely couldn't take it anymore. Being sick was better than just being, and I seem to be doing a lot of the latter lately. But yes, and this I will whisper so no one can hear or judge or notice, I do sometimes miss my old buddy, mental instability.

Maybe it's just a sign of growing older. Or rather, despising growing older. Maybe I just miss saying my age and ending with that cheerful syllable, teen. Now it's all numbers, a counting up to, or down to, the time when I'm no longer young. When the real learning to walk starts, not that (excuse me for how stupid this next part sounds) child's play of toddlers, but actually learning to stand on my own two feet because my face and body and skin, all once filled with glorious collagen and blasting elasticity to make a rubber tree weep in jealousy, they will all be gone. Someday. And someday feels sooner everyday.

But my! When I was a teen, was I a kook! Maybe that's why I miss my debilitating mental disorder and it's frequent visits and former residency. Doesn't make sense otherwise. Because aside from being unable to do anything fun legally, the greatest symptom of my childhood was a mental volatility that could've earned medals (if there were awards for crazy, which there aren't because would that be insane!).

Things have gotten all mixed up, shaken, stirred and wobbled about in my head and I think what I mean is I hate growing older. But my age and my breakdowns have melted together so I can't help missing all those days of misery as well as my skin's lost collagen. One and the same. Same pot, all mixed up already and ready to serve to your dinner guests. That isn't normal, is it? What even is normal, and how the fuck did I somehow end up there?

Downwards is still a direction. And falling down a rabbithole still leads you from point a to b, where b is not bills and adulthood and responsibilities and working and being a competent and functioning member of society. I'm feeling more and more like I'd rather be rolling to the bottom to my sweet spot low point, than marching forward to a steady, stable life where my mood sits still instead of having field days. Because where is the fun in that?

for when things are too good, the things you were almost kind of okay at leave your skillset

Most of my life has been spent wishing for better days, but as the sun rises and sets, or so it seems to from our gravity-anchored perspective on this little blue planet, I'm finding that these days are pleasant enough to live in the Right Now.

Scratch that, white out and erase that. These days aren't pleasant. They're a dream. If this is what happiness is like, why on earth did I spend so many nights buzzed and about, holding insomnia's hand like I needed help crossing the street? Oh yes, because I'm an idiot. Still am, but now I'm an idiot who's fallen into a pile of luck stacked so high a leprechaun would shit its pants.

My god! Why is it so hard to write about happy things? Give me a breather from my mind, a good bad breakup, and a series of unfortunate events then just sit back, watch how I could light up the sky with words, words, words, pages and pages of misery and verbal vomit. Or speach diarrhea. Never shutting up or stopping the flow of puke and shitty ideas. Endless jibber jabber of how my mind is rattling around and my mood swings lower that the crotch on MC Hammer pants (because oh of course, those are the most important topics, lend me your damn ears). But no, not now. No happy fun time ranting and raving and reviewing. I'm left speechless and dumb with joy at the thought of this person who thinks of me too (I think he does, he says he does, exercises in trust breathe in breathe out). Should I live in the now, or complain instead? Hard choice, considering right now I'm trying so damn hard to write anything worthwhile. But who needs art and creative outlets when instead I could turn my faucets on full blast and spill onto his skin, drip drip drip down to the floor and puddle at his feet. I've never felt less of an urge to be creative and I'm not worried at all. But here I am, still typing it out. For that, my friends, I can't offer any explanation.

Don't you hate that narcissistic feeling you get when you read through what you've written and you realize your sentences and paragraphs all start with 'I', 'I', 'I'? For someone with such low self esteem, there seems to be much too much wind blowing through my own sails. But it doesn't just stop with punctuation, the thoughts continue on to bleed into every aspect of who and what my life is. Say, with this here, this happiness I've somehow found myself in possession of. I trust the world and Mother Earth and the deep rumble in your voice when you say you love me one last time before the night's scheduled unconsciousness whisks you away to DreamLand, but I don't trust my own hands to hold a glass without shaking. Tell me then: how can I trust them to hold this all together? I'm watching myself from my own peripheral vision, whispering over and over, don't fuck this up. Don't. Not this time. Don't fuck this up for me, me.

"I may be a fuck up, but I'll be damned if I fuck this up" is the daily chant, recited in front of the mirror. Though maybe this chanting isnt the best idea. It doesn't sound particularly encouraging, nor anything like a victory lap around and around my past, haha, I've found a good one and I swear I'll make it work. That sort of thing, not that sort of thing. The ritual might actually summon my fuck-uppery. Backfire on me, and I don't think there would be any points for trying then.

Ever feel like you're flying too high and just realizing it drags your ankles to the ground? The fuller I feel, the more worried I am that these thoughts will turn to lead and drag me back to the bottom of the ocean. Wouldn't that be a chore for my eyes, already poor from genetics, to adjust from the sunny bright atmosphere of the Big Bright Up Above back to the bathypelagic zone? I don't think they'd be able to do it, if they're as lazy as the rest of my body. And the worry of that threat, and the worry of me ruining things... well wouldn't you know it? My feet are stuck in the mud! That was fast.

Things are going too well. They have to be. Things this good/great/golden can't just be! What if this headfirst fall into bliss ends? What if we're just racing to the end of my personality and when we cross the ribbon he realizes there's nothing else? Just stares into the big wide open empty spaces within me and hears himself echo off my ribcage? Then what? I am tensing all my muscles in the vain hope that something this good can be sustained, cursing my inability to be anyone else or better than simply me, and thanking my lucky stars that I am carrying a baton with such a lovely human being. He truly is. A human being, flaws and pores and all, and lovely.

There are many things I want to say about this, him, but I'm not sure of the exact spelling for this stupid smile on my face.

I'll continue on more when I'm more miserable, or find something better to say or find a better way to say what I want to. I'm not used to articulating positive feelings, so excuse the dip in my already low standards of output. Say what you will about anxiety, at least it gave me something to write about! Or at least, the almost ability to. I think the problem is that I now have someone to blow wind into my sails when I am in need of a breeze, a task I used to have to do myself. With all this rest for my lungs now and the lack of hyperventilating, I've stumbled upon the horrible realization that my mind isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean, I always knew it was cracked, but now I know that without oxygen deprivation, it's really not all that special (with the last few paragraphs/wastes of time as your examples!) And so, here. Take this shitty post and leave me to bask in my happiness for as long as I can.

Reviving the art of smiling

It seems the only time I find this space to be of any use to me is when I run out of real estate in my cramped skull. Oh, I'm sure there's more than enough space in there, but with all the clutter, the corridors I refuse to go down and so just board up, the blood clots that at this point it would be silly for me not to have, I mean, really, I barely have enough room to open the door much less put down all this anxiety! It's been months since I've seen the floor.

Either I'm sad, or in love, or heartbroken, or writing poorly. There is no in between. For here, at least. Because the in betweens don't inspire anything, the in betweens are forgotten. 365 days in a year and it would be silly to pretend they're all worth remembering. Even the good ones (or maybe especially the good ones). It fades from now to a while ago and now we're here, which was then, and it's exhausting keeping track. Imagine having to live without forgetting. I couldn't live like that, not that I'm living that well now and forgetting is my favorite hobby!

So where am I now? What's the point of this all? Sad, or manic, or happy, or in love, or heartbroken? Either way, the writing sucks, the punctuation is wrong, and there will be typos sprinkled like salt all over this because you know I don't bother to spell check.

I am in love.

Oh, boy, does that sound silly. Who am I announcing this to, and for what purpose? Maybe for myself, as a reminder, a note, a piece of proof to go back to for when (and if, and I hope not) this goes to shit. A testament to the State of Me Right Now. Because the days are good, too good, and I don't want to forget them, not this time damnit. I've lost enough of my own timeline. Maybe that's why I'm 21 but act like a child. I simply don't remember growing up but now I have to deal with the fear of premature wrinkles! If there's no space in my mind for the memories of these moments, I'll jot them down and keep them in the cloud. I'd rather get runs in all my stockings and tights or even run 10 miles, than run the risk of forgetting how happy I am at this moment.

Plot twist! Yes, happy! I am happy. I am a cup filled with foam and badly balanced on a tray and I am sloshing over the sides, just spilling over. My heart and my head are so full, but thankfully I keep my stomach out of that state often enough that my modeling career is going quite swell (more swollen than my own breasts, but don't get excited it's more like a shy B-cup of success).

For a long time, writing things down, how ever badly and error ridden, was a way to process the funny processes my mind goes through. But now there is someone who understands and I don't have to whine online and work through things all on my lonesome. Not that he takes the plow from my hands and does the tilling, rather it's just existing in that (this? my?) lonely world with me that's all I need. I'd say I'm not making sense, but when have I ever and also I'm giddy with happiness and love so buzz off. Partners aren't therapists, but goddamn does it feel good to kiss someone who understands the strange ticking and loopy, wonky thoughts that are part of me. And I try, boy, do I try, lips to mind telepathy to communicate what my clumsy tongue cannot. I love you, feel it, I love you, feel it.

And the idiot still likes me, despite having had several conversations with me. Despite seeing the skeletons in my closet and the spiderwebs behind my eyelids and the scars that form constellations on my wrists, he still looks at me and l-o-v-e pours out from his lips. The words are in the air and he can't take them back now (well, he could, but let's hope he won't).

Maybe I'm writing now, only to get back into the habit. Maybe to give myself some proof, some solid thing to hold to remember that this little blink in time here is happening, has happened. Maybe I just want to brag and say I have a wonderful boyfriend and I am in love. Either way, it's all typed out already and I might as well hit publish.

I can't stop crying. I can't stop crying. I can't stop crying.

5 more minutes

The waking world has its many horrors. There's aging, the anxiety of whether or not you're using your time right, the literally infinite number of things that could go wrong at any moment with every choose or action you or anyone else makes. Just spitballing here. The biggest nightmare is being woke, literally and socio-politically (but that my friends is another topic altogether).

So its no surprise that I unironically list sleeping as one of my favorite activities. I sleep so hard I actively sleep. It requires commitment. Dedication. A free schedule.  Or at least a general disregard for whatever may be scheduled. Snoozing calculating has to be the most use I get out of my math schooling. Also, makesas a consequence, it makes me race against time so much I might as well put avid jogger on my Instagram bio.

But this lifestyle doesn't come easy or without a hefty price. Anything before 10am is an activity ill never enjoy, part of a world I want no part in but can't help but feel a little bit of go no over when friends post brunch pictures. I was supposed to go to that, but then again I did get an extra 3 hours of zzz's so...regrets? Call back later I haven't decided yet. Besides that, once I do actually get out of bed, its a constant exercise of will. Anywhere I am, whatever I am doing, there is a link between me and my bed and it pulls me towards it. Think gravity, but with pillows. And laziness-inducing. So really, its not my fault I'm yawning and not paying attention; there is a real force of physics dragging me back to my apartment and my eyelids shut. It's science. Trust me.

Now, god forbid I get less than double digits of sleep time. I know, I know. 7-8 hours right? Well why settle for the standard? Oh, because 'over sleeping is as bad as undersleeping'? I tell myself the same thing as I wake up from a 12 hour shut eye marathon. I tell myself, but I never believe myself. I've been trying to convince myself for years, with no success. Undersleeping is infinitely, infinitely worse.

And waking up to an alarm? Ugh. Good days are when I join the world when I damn want to.

In a conversation with a friend, he told me he needed a nap. He'd been up since 6 am. Gasp, shudder, and chills!

Though.

It was only 3 in the afternoon. He'd only been up for 9 hours. Granted, he didn't get the most sleep the night before. But who ever does? The limit cannot be reavhed, I think, is a good philosophy to adopt for sleep. But still, my friend was exhausted. He was in full nap time mode. No more can be done, until he takes a 20-90 minute break from consciousness.

Remember in high school and grade school? Where we woke up everyday at 5:30 and stayed awake and productive and learning all day? Often with just as little sleep (tumblr would often keep me up until witching hour and then if have to wait for that to be over cause I was too scared to turn off the lights). Every day! With no naps! How? Or am I so old already? I've accepted I'm a 21 year old who's hit social meopause, but has my actual body lost the very real physical ability to be awake for more than 5 hours at a time? Signs of aging!

I'm nappy af. Meaning, I take a lot of naps. I love naps. I wish I could be napping right now. I had a casting today and its over and all I can think about is rewarding myself with some shuteye. I got 8 hours last night. And yet, here I am. Thinking about whether the staff in this coffee shop will judge me for taking a quick snooze. Or if anyone will rob me. It ain't safe being a sleepy girl in a cutthroat theft filled world. It ain't safe anywhere but when you're tucked in at home.

Muddled and returning

I've never been very good at keeping friends. Sure, if the strange lines and threads that pass between my life and yours so happen to intersect, we'll be fine, we'll do fine, it'll be fine and fun and dandy. But once those urgent reasons for us to know each other dissipate, so as well will our presence in each other's lives. Because I'm not good at keeping friends. That's the first sentence you read here and I don't know why I tried to elaborate on the point because it isn't even the main focal point of what I'm writing right now. Tangents and word wastage. So yes. I am not good at keeping friends. 

Which is perhaps the reason why my brain and I don't get along very well. The gravity around me, the things that keep your family and friends and job and dreams and life in place, well mine is loose or weak or wonky or wack and I can't hold anything to me, much less get a firm grip on something so slippery as my sanity. 

I feel like I've used a bunch of these sentences before. Rehashing, wrist slashing. It's a party!

Right, so, well, apparently the strength of my spinal cord and nerves is not enough to firmly anchor my head in place. Not that it's rolling on the floor, but it's definitely floating away. It's riding some sinking ship, sinking perhaps because it has an anchor much better at its job than my own, down down down under all the way into the far away and what I thought far buried land of depression again. And it's taking me with it, however I kick and scream and drag behind.

My brain and I used to be friends. I don't know when, my memory is kind of shot on this but I think I have pictures to prove it. In my baby albums, or maybe an ultrasound. We used to get along. Ideas would come and my fingers would create nice little diaries or knit things to give to my little brother or accomplish things that I could tell my parents about and everything would be good. But these sepia tinted memories are just that, long forgotten like my old myspace page. And as far back as needed to look to call this the norm, my brain and I, my moods and I, my mind and I, we have not been on the same page. Heck, we're not even reading the same book. We're in different libraries.

So now when my mind has an idea I let it sit because there is no messenger going from up there to down here and I don't get anything out of it but more disappointment in my own lack of action. Which leads to the action of more inaction and the misadventure of anxiety. Oh the places anxiety takes you. Ive only been out of the country once but I feel like I've lived 5 lifetimes full of worry. 

My body is fine and my life is fine and my world is fine but for some reason my brain didn't get the memo so now I am crying and wishing I was dying and making morbid little rhyming schemes to deflect from the fact that for the first time in years things are dark again and I've actually gone all the way to square one. Like a game of snakes and ladders and you step on that one damn reptile placed on the square right before you win and slide all the way down to the beginning. And I was about to win I was about to be a depression survivor and not I'm just depressed again. I should add it to my calling card. If I could ever fight the anxiety enough to be able to answer my phone when people call.

I don't know where I'm going with this, except maybe to try to say that the monsters are back. In many more words though.