I've fallen under the trap of my narcissistic mother for years. I've done a lot of reading about emotional abuse from mothers over the years, but really finally feel like things make sense. I also have finally started to broach the idea that even as a teen - when I was into stupid pro-ana websites and crap because I honestly believed that I was in control of my life in that illness. But fuck, growing up and knowing that my mom conditioned and groomed me to believe that I was just a fucked up teenager who wanted a problem - that there was nothing really that wrong with me. How I carried that around with me for years and years - how I still do. How I let it consume me. How when I was put in the hospital she told the doctor I was dramatic - that I embellished stories. That i was okay. How one time in the car she just looked out the front windshield and told me that I needed too much.
I have been sick for almost 12 years. 2014 was the first time in my life where I started to make progress - real progress. Working with Lindsey and even that was hard because I literally believed I didn't deserve to be there. And fuck my mom for every putting that thought in my head. For making me feel like what I was going through was fake, that it didn't matter - that I didn't matter.
Most of all, I hate that sometimes I'll be driving in the car and the windows will be down because spring is coming and I'll think I can do this - I'm gonna be okay. And when I see Lindsey in 2016, things are going to be okay. But then I'm back in the house and I want to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.
Because these days, I feel that holding a gun to my head and pulling the trigger will give me the control I never found in my eating disorder.
Sorry, Lindsey.
March 22, 2015
March 03, 2015
other people are not medicine
It's already March. In a little over a week, it will be three months since I finished school, which is kind of crazy to wrap my mind around. Last summer was only four months long, and I thought that it would never end.
Being at home is so strange. I guess I kind of realized that I was always going to end up here. I go back and forth a lot between mind frames; one minute, I'm really good. Things are great and I still can feel that girl who walked into Lindsey's office on December 12th for the final times. Other times, mainly the night, I can feel sickness and depression and illness seeping back into my bones and I honestly get torn between telling it to shut up and just letting it move back in. Night is the only time that I ever "consider" relapse. That I don't push the thoughts back out.
I emailed Lindsey last week because I miss her. And I hate that I miss her. Because we aren't friends and we never were, and as much as I have adjusted to not seeing her every week, sometimes it is hard. Sometimes, I do miss it. And sometimes I think it would just be so much easier to not send her an email at all. To just cut it all out of my life, but I know that isn't fair either. And so I emailed her and she emailed me back and it cut in all the places that I didn't want it too. I miss her.
I also emailed LB - six years after the fact. After running into her, or well, I guess, seeking her out on Thursday last week, I finally felt like I had enough courage to confront her about what had happened all that time ago. I sent it to her on facebook, and I know she's read the message but hasn't replied. And thats okay too - I told her I wasn't expecting anything from her. But that the door was open. I just feel like a million times better with it all out in the open. Now she knows.
I really thought I had a lot to say today. But I clearly don't.
Being at home is so strange. I guess I kind of realized that I was always going to end up here. I go back and forth a lot between mind frames; one minute, I'm really good. Things are great and I still can feel that girl who walked into Lindsey's office on December 12th for the final times. Other times, mainly the night, I can feel sickness and depression and illness seeping back into my bones and I honestly get torn between telling it to shut up and just letting it move back in. Night is the only time that I ever "consider" relapse. That I don't push the thoughts back out.
I emailed Lindsey last week because I miss her. And I hate that I miss her. Because we aren't friends and we never were, and as much as I have adjusted to not seeing her every week, sometimes it is hard. Sometimes, I do miss it. And sometimes I think it would just be so much easier to not send her an email at all. To just cut it all out of my life, but I know that isn't fair either. And so I emailed her and she emailed me back and it cut in all the places that I didn't want it too. I miss her.
I also emailed LB - six years after the fact. After running into her, or well, I guess, seeking her out on Thursday last week, I finally felt like I had enough courage to confront her about what had happened all that time ago. I sent it to her on facebook, and I know she's read the message but hasn't replied. And thats okay too - I told her I wasn't expecting anything from her. But that the door was open. I just feel like a million times better with it all out in the open. Now she knows.
I really thought I had a lot to say today. But I clearly don't.
February 28, 2015
under the gravel skies
I'll never be able to deal with how much of an afterthought I am here. Which, I wanted to erase the minute I wrote it because I think there was a time last year - after all my work with L that, it wasn't so much that I wasn't an after thought persay, so much that I could cope and deal with it. But its been almost three months since I've worked with L and a lot of snow has fallen and winter kills everything it touches.
Tonight was the first time since coming home that I laid in my bed, that horrible fucking ache that echoes in the hollow of my heart, so prominent - and I wanted to slice my skin open. I wanted to take the blade I found cleaning and slash my skin. I haven't cut since my anatomy midterm.
Sometimes I wonder what the point of nursing school is - what the point of any of it is when I could just split the vein and drown in the bathtub.
Tonight was the first time since coming home that I laid in my bed, that horrible fucking ache that echoes in the hollow of my heart, so prominent - and I wanted to slice my skin open. I wanted to take the blade I found cleaning and slash my skin. I haven't cut since my anatomy midterm.
Sometimes I wonder what the point of nursing school is - what the point of any of it is when I could just split the vein and drown in the bathtub.
February 06, 2015
January 22, 2015
where do we go from here?
So what's happened over the past two years? My last post was such a positive outlook onto what 2013 could be - and for the most part it stayed like that. Things in my life really did start to change and get better that year. I went to NYC in April with a good friend and got to experience the city in a way I wasn't used to. I worked two different golf course jobs. I went back to NYC in September and met up with my friend K from England who was roadtripping across America. But things started to get a little bit hard after that. I got rejected from nursing school, which I took incredibly hard. Things at home were at an all time bad and I was within days of being kicked out. So, on a whim, I applied to a lesser program far away - my top choice from 2012 that I had turned down.
And I got in.
I moved at the beginning of January 2014, almost three hours away - not really sure what my life was going to be. But I knew that I wanted to make it work this time - that this program was the answer to finally getting into nursing school. So I started working with a counsellor on campus - who changed my life so incredibly. And despite how hard things got at school, I finished first semester as one of the top kids in my class.
Summer - I had to move back home. And I couldn't find a job. Things sucked. Things were really, really, fucking hard. And so I started making trips out every few weeks to meet my counsellor from school to try and hold myself together. And come September, I moved back, and felt very unsure about finishing up my program. I didn't feel I had the same drive or stability after such a rocky summer. I tried to withdraw twice, but my counsellor fought for me to see I had reasons to keep going. And somehow - I really don't know how - I made it. I finished within the top 8 of my class.
And now its 2015. I'm off for the next 8 months until nursing school begins (provided I get in!). And I tried to make it work in my school city, but lack of a job, means being homeless and I had to pack up and come back home. Which hasn't been easy. Home is where things fall apart -where I fall apart against all better judgement because I don't know how to be who I am here. I don't know how to maintain that and fight for that and hold onto that when everybody around me is trying to bury me, break me, push me to the edge.
I don't know where I go from here.
I'm scared.
I'm scared I'm gonna fucking ruin everything. My counsellor is going on Mat Leave and I won't see her for about a year and a half. I'm afraid that when I see her next everything will be shot to shit and I can't even fucking bear the thought of showing up like that.
I don't know what to do. Relapse feels imminent. Like that silhouette you just slip into with ease. That whispers. Shh. It's okay. You're home now. You can close your eyes.
And I got in.
I moved at the beginning of January 2014, almost three hours away - not really sure what my life was going to be. But I knew that I wanted to make it work this time - that this program was the answer to finally getting into nursing school. So I started working with a counsellor on campus - who changed my life so incredibly. And despite how hard things got at school, I finished first semester as one of the top kids in my class.
Summer - I had to move back home. And I couldn't find a job. Things sucked. Things were really, really, fucking hard. And so I started making trips out every few weeks to meet my counsellor from school to try and hold myself together. And come September, I moved back, and felt very unsure about finishing up my program. I didn't feel I had the same drive or stability after such a rocky summer. I tried to withdraw twice, but my counsellor fought for me to see I had reasons to keep going. And somehow - I really don't know how - I made it. I finished within the top 8 of my class.
And now its 2015. I'm off for the next 8 months until nursing school begins (provided I get in!). And I tried to make it work in my school city, but lack of a job, means being homeless and I had to pack up and come back home. Which hasn't been easy. Home is where things fall apart -where I fall apart against all better judgement because I don't know how to be who I am here. I don't know how to maintain that and fight for that and hold onto that when everybody around me is trying to bury me, break me, push me to the edge.
I don't know where I go from here.
I'm scared.
I'm scared I'm gonna fucking ruin everything. My counsellor is going on Mat Leave and I won't see her for about a year and a half. I'm afraid that when I see her next everything will be shot to shit and I can't even fucking bear the thought of showing up like that.
I don't know what to do. Relapse feels imminent. Like that silhouette you just slip into with ease. That whispers. Shh. It's okay. You're home now. You can close your eyes.
hold on to hope love
Sometimes, I'm afraid that a relapse is just imminent. That I'm going to wake up in 6 months and I'm going to wonder what the fuck happened and how I got there and how I worked so hard to become who I am and it will all be gone.
A lot has happened over the past two years. And maybe when I'm in the mood, I'll blog about it.
A lot has happened over the past two years. And maybe when I'm in the mood, I'll blog about it.
January 17, 2013
lights dim
Maybe I've just watched one too many Bones episodes in the past week, or maybe it's because it's the start of a new year and I've got the clearest head I've ever had in my entire adult life, and perhaps whole life, or maybe it's just a combination of watching all of my friends in these different parts and chapters of their lives all at different ages that I'm just sort of standing in the middle of this, like, insanely crowded sidewalk. Sort of like things are zooming past me and I'm the only recognizable thing because everyone is running and they're a blur, like speeding up a video on a camera during a time lapse video - like manhattan in motion.
I remember so many nights of staying awake and thinking about my eating disorder and about eating disorders in general, and being so stuck in the mind frame. Being so obsessed and so in love with an illness that was killing me, but also giving me a sense of identity and self worth and love and companion and I'm so far removed from it now, which is weird, because I totally went to McDonalds in the first week of the year and binged and purged and the entire time just kept asking myself what I was doing and accomplishing and was this truly making me feel better. Because I let what people say to me affect me so god damn much and I'm a sponge and I absorb all the negative things that people, that my mom, that my friends say through words and between lines and I let it just affect me. Change me. Take over me and render me useless.
I want a baby so bad - not right now. As if. I'm still getting my life in order and working on myself and I'm a pretty rad person, and I'm pretty in love with who I am becoming, and I don't think thats conceited, even if there hadn't been a time where I literally tried to claw out of my skin. I think it's important to say and feel these things and really just confuse ourselves with these weird desires that contradict everything we've ever believed in. To anybody who would listen, I would say New York is my purpose. It's my heart and my soul and my being and it's where I'll be and where I end up. I gush about the top of the rock and sitting in DUMBO, and getting lost in Chinatown and walking bridges when I'm afraid of heights and sitting on my friends futon watching really gay characters on tv while we eat ice cream and laugh, and I've always had this idea in my head since I fell in love with the city the first time that I would do anything to be there. And that I would have this New York life that I would build and if I ever so desired I would get on a plane and go work in a hospital in a country that had absolutely nothing. And I would come home and be changed and do things that really shake me to the core and just have this crazy spontaneous life that reminds me of sitting at the kitchen table with my sister planning a trip to new york. Because it's so beautiful that we're two souls who were in love, and she got her heart broken and still loves and I'm still falling in love with a city that I'm lucky to visit whenever I can get there. And a baby contradicts it all. It's 2am and I can't sleep because maybe I've watched too much bones, or it's a new year and I'm stalking people on facebook like it's my day job or I'm working on college apps, or because I'm thinking about how wanting a child changes everything about anything I've ever wanted for myself. And I think about S, how her life radically changed as a Teen Mom, and how even if she was in her twenties, or thirties, her life still would have radically changed and the fierce love she feels for her daughter.
I'm so confused about my life and I wish I was physically with someone to talk about it, but I'm not, and that's fine because I'm going to be 23 and I've got so much time to figure it out, even though I feel like I'm on these insane deadlines to get my shit together, but I guess I am, you know, getting my shit together.
Is it weird to say I have no idea who I am, but I'm so in love with who I am. Like I finally have some identity even though I don't know what it is. That I'm this really, really, insert adjective I haven't found, person. I know being in school would ease so much more of this confusion, but like for one second I don't regret at all giving up my spot at Fanshawe for a chance of getting into the program at GBC. I don't. It was that leap of faith in believing in myself enough that I could do it, even though I didn't. It was believing myself to be more capable than I would have ever allowed myself to believe. I'm not in school, and it sucks, but it's also beautiful knowing that I do have what it takes and to believe, and keep believing even when shit doesn't work out. I'm going to be in school in the fall and it's going to be great. I'm going to be successful and rock the shit out of my degree.
I'm just going to keep rocking the shit out of my life.
I remember so many nights of staying awake and thinking about my eating disorder and about eating disorders in general, and being so stuck in the mind frame. Being so obsessed and so in love with an illness that was killing me, but also giving me a sense of identity and self worth and love and companion and I'm so far removed from it now, which is weird, because I totally went to McDonalds in the first week of the year and binged and purged and the entire time just kept asking myself what I was doing and accomplishing and was this truly making me feel better. Because I let what people say to me affect me so god damn much and I'm a sponge and I absorb all the negative things that people, that my mom, that my friends say through words and between lines and I let it just affect me. Change me. Take over me and render me useless.
I want a baby so bad - not right now. As if. I'm still getting my life in order and working on myself and I'm a pretty rad person, and I'm pretty in love with who I am becoming, and I don't think thats conceited, even if there hadn't been a time where I literally tried to claw out of my skin. I think it's important to say and feel these things and really just confuse ourselves with these weird desires that contradict everything we've ever believed in. To anybody who would listen, I would say New York is my purpose. It's my heart and my soul and my being and it's where I'll be and where I end up. I gush about the top of the rock and sitting in DUMBO, and getting lost in Chinatown and walking bridges when I'm afraid of heights and sitting on my friends futon watching really gay characters on tv while we eat ice cream and laugh, and I've always had this idea in my head since I fell in love with the city the first time that I would do anything to be there. And that I would have this New York life that I would build and if I ever so desired I would get on a plane and go work in a hospital in a country that had absolutely nothing. And I would come home and be changed and do things that really shake me to the core and just have this crazy spontaneous life that reminds me of sitting at the kitchen table with my sister planning a trip to new york. Because it's so beautiful that we're two souls who were in love, and she got her heart broken and still loves and I'm still falling in love with a city that I'm lucky to visit whenever I can get there. And a baby contradicts it all. It's 2am and I can't sleep because maybe I've watched too much bones, or it's a new year and I'm stalking people on facebook like it's my day job or I'm working on college apps, or because I'm thinking about how wanting a child changes everything about anything I've ever wanted for myself. And I think about S, how her life radically changed as a Teen Mom, and how even if she was in her twenties, or thirties, her life still would have radically changed and the fierce love she feels for her daughter.
I'm so confused about my life and I wish I was physically with someone to talk about it, but I'm not, and that's fine because I'm going to be 23 and I've got so much time to figure it out, even though I feel like I'm on these insane deadlines to get my shit together, but I guess I am, you know, getting my shit together.
Is it weird to say I have no idea who I am, but I'm so in love with who I am. Like I finally have some identity even though I don't know what it is. That I'm this really, really, insert adjective I haven't found, person. I know being in school would ease so much more of this confusion, but like for one second I don't regret at all giving up my spot at Fanshawe for a chance of getting into the program at GBC. I don't. It was that leap of faith in believing in myself enough that I could do it, even though I didn't. It was believing myself to be more capable than I would have ever allowed myself to believe. I'm not in school, and it sucks, but it's also beautiful knowing that I do have what it takes and to believe, and keep believing even when shit doesn't work out. I'm going to be in school in the fall and it's going to be great. I'm going to be successful and rock the shit out of my degree.
I'm just going to keep rocking the shit out of my life.
January 02, 2013
the sound of settling
I say it all the time, but saying it doesn't really mean acceptance, I guess. My mom is never going to change, and it's just something I need to accept. It's been years now of never being good enough for her, of walking on eggshells, of always falling short. But I also know in my heart there is nothing more that I can do - that I really am doing the best I can and that's good enough for me and that is all that needs to matter. I don't have to meet anybody's standards but my own.
I am never going to be the daughter that she wanted. And that sucks. But at least I'm going to be the person I know I can be and that's enough for me.
I am never going to be the daughter that she wanted. And that sucks. But at least I'm going to be the person I know I can be and that's enough for me.
October 13, 2012
at dawn i would watch the sun cut ribbons through the bay
So much has happened since I last blogged a very elusive post. NYC, school, work, life, family, friends. I've kept myself incredibly busy, so any downtime is incredibly nice.
I flew (yes, flew), to New York City on the 23rd of August. The 5K Color Run was taking place in the city and earlier in the year my friend and I had decided we were going to do it. I decided to spring the extra money for a flight because I wasn't quite finished at my job and needed to save travel time. Expensive, but so worth it. Landing in an hour and a half was pretty spectacular when you're used to a 10 hour bus ride. Leading up to the trip I felt a lot of ambivalence about my decision to go. My friend was in an accident the weekend before I was to arrive (but thankfully was for the most part okay, and is recovering very well!). Her parents were up to help her out, and I wasn't exactly sure where I would fit into that equation. I still wanted to come, but also didn't want to infringe on her time with her family or her recovery. But still, she assured me I was always welcome and she wanted me to come, and she still planned on participating in the race. (She's just crazy amazing like that!). The trip was incredibly different than what it usually is; somehow a combination of good bad and in between different. It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a good friend I hadn't seen in a few years. We spent more money than necessary at Victoria Secret, and she introduced me to the best Vegan restaurant in the West Village, and perhaps, (at least in my opinion), all of Manhattan. This trip was a lot more laid back, and I didn't feel such an overwhelming need to fill my camera or always be on the go.
And then it was smack back to reality. I had to return to work the next day, which was an unbelievably weird juxtaposition. I find it so hard to fathom being at work and knowing less than 24 hours ago I had been in Times Square. I feel like every time I leave the city, my physical being returns but it takes days, weeks, months...before my mind follows; before I'm present again fully. But work didn't last exceptionally long. There were only four days left. Most people had dropped by then, and we were working with a very small crew, which seemed to even out nicely as there was less and less to do as the summer season drew to a close. Of course, it wasn't going to officially be the end for me, as I planned on returning for fridays and weekends to make some extra cash during the school year.
Which leads me to school. In simple terms, it didn't work out. And I wasn't upset about it. At the crux, it was a dead end program that wasn't going to take me directly into my RN which was the original plan all along. It also didn't feel right. Being there, didn't feel like where I was supposed to be. I'm still not 100% certain of where that is, but sitting in my one class should have felt good and exciting - the same way doing my high school courses this past year felt good. All it felt like was a chore. I have applied to several different programs - one of which was the program I turned down at the college in London that had been my first choice.
People keep asking me if nursing is what I want to do, and to be honest, I don't have a solid answer for them. I don't know what I want to do - I can tell you what I don't want to do, based on what I have already tried in the past. But what I want to do, I'm still not one hundred percent certain. I think that was another reason why turning down school wasn't as hard on me as people expected it to be. Can I see myself doing nursing? 100%. Do I want to do nursing? Yes. Do I want to do it for the rest of my life? I don't know. I don't know if it's something I will want two years from now after all the money and training and school. I think it's hard for me to truly know what I want when the future still seems black to me. So...Let's face it. I didn't expect to be alive past 20 and I'm now 22, approaching 23 rapidly, and I facilitate between wanting to run head first into the future and wanting to run in the opposite direction of it. How can you know what you want to do when the future still seems black? When death still feels like it can lurk around any corner so what's the point? It's dark and dreary and depressing, but I still find it hard, most days, to make sense of my future. I feel like every time I think I've figured out what I want, there is something on the other side of the scale, quietly dismantling all my thoughts. It's weird to see all of my friends graduated - living the next chapter of their lives. Laurier feels so close to me these days, and yet so far away. Living away from home, in my own apartment. The days we'd run over to warmingtons for lunch or a 3am poutine from lonnies. I'm very nostalgic these days.
And I miss New York these days more than usual. Sometimes, I feel like I never went in August. The city feels more than an arms length away - friends feel more than an arms length away. I literally ache for the day that I can go and not leave. It's when I think about New York and living in New York that there is something - even the smallest something - about my future that isn't black. I miss it and it hurts like a son of a bitch. I want to be swallowed by the city and not worry about how many days I have left and if I'm spending every single second absorbing it all in. Its my home.
I guess that's where I am at these days.
I flew (yes, flew), to New York City on the 23rd of August. The 5K Color Run was taking place in the city and earlier in the year my friend and I had decided we were going to do it. I decided to spring the extra money for a flight because I wasn't quite finished at my job and needed to save travel time. Expensive, but so worth it. Landing in an hour and a half was pretty spectacular when you're used to a 10 hour bus ride. Leading up to the trip I felt a lot of ambivalence about my decision to go. My friend was in an accident the weekend before I was to arrive (but thankfully was for the most part okay, and is recovering very well!). Her parents were up to help her out, and I wasn't exactly sure where I would fit into that equation. I still wanted to come, but also didn't want to infringe on her time with her family or her recovery. But still, she assured me I was always welcome and she wanted me to come, and she still planned on participating in the race. (She's just crazy amazing like that!). The trip was incredibly different than what it usually is; somehow a combination of good bad and in between different. It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a good friend I hadn't seen in a few years. We spent more money than necessary at Victoria Secret, and she introduced me to the best Vegan restaurant in the West Village, and perhaps, (at least in my opinion), all of Manhattan. This trip was a lot more laid back, and I didn't feel such an overwhelming need to fill my camera or always be on the go.
And then it was smack back to reality. I had to return to work the next day, which was an unbelievably weird juxtaposition. I find it so hard to fathom being at work and knowing less than 24 hours ago I had been in Times Square. I feel like every time I leave the city, my physical being returns but it takes days, weeks, months...before my mind follows; before I'm present again fully. But work didn't last exceptionally long. There were only four days left. Most people had dropped by then, and we were working with a very small crew, which seemed to even out nicely as there was less and less to do as the summer season drew to a close. Of course, it wasn't going to officially be the end for me, as I planned on returning for fridays and weekends to make some extra cash during the school year.
Which leads me to school. In simple terms, it didn't work out. And I wasn't upset about it. At the crux, it was a dead end program that wasn't going to take me directly into my RN which was the original plan all along. It also didn't feel right. Being there, didn't feel like where I was supposed to be. I'm still not 100% certain of where that is, but sitting in my one class should have felt good and exciting - the same way doing my high school courses this past year felt good. All it felt like was a chore. I have applied to several different programs - one of which was the program I turned down at the college in London that had been my first choice.
People keep asking me if nursing is what I want to do, and to be honest, I don't have a solid answer for them. I don't know what I want to do - I can tell you what I don't want to do, based on what I have already tried in the past. But what I want to do, I'm still not one hundred percent certain. I think that was another reason why turning down school wasn't as hard on me as people expected it to be. Can I see myself doing nursing? 100%. Do I want to do nursing? Yes. Do I want to do it for the rest of my life? I don't know. I don't know if it's something I will want two years from now after all the money and training and school. I think it's hard for me to truly know what I want when the future still seems black to me. So...Let's face it. I didn't expect to be alive past 20 and I'm now 22, approaching 23 rapidly, and I facilitate between wanting to run head first into the future and wanting to run in the opposite direction of it. How can you know what you want to do when the future still seems black? When death still feels like it can lurk around any corner so what's the point? It's dark and dreary and depressing, but I still find it hard, most days, to make sense of my future. I feel like every time I think I've figured out what I want, there is something on the other side of the scale, quietly dismantling all my thoughts. It's weird to see all of my friends graduated - living the next chapter of their lives. Laurier feels so close to me these days, and yet so far away. Living away from home, in my own apartment. The days we'd run over to warmingtons for lunch or a 3am poutine from lonnies. I'm very nostalgic these days.
And I miss New York these days more than usual. Sometimes, I feel like I never went in August. The city feels more than an arms length away - friends feel more than an arms length away. I literally ache for the day that I can go and not leave. It's when I think about New York and living in New York that there is something - even the smallest something - about my future that isn't black. I miss it and it hurts like a son of a bitch. I want to be swallowed by the city and not worry about how many days I have left and if I'm spending every single second absorbing it all in. Its my home.
I guess that's where I am at these days.
August 23, 2012
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