I pulled three tarot cards today. Each represented one upcoming month. I don’t know what provoked me to do so other than curiosity. I always question if I am applying what I want to interpret onto the cards, or if there is something beyond my reach that is trying to tell me something? Who knows…

June-Strength XI-
This card represents having strength, both inward and outward, in your dealings. Display courage and have to willingness to go forward despite the obstacles in your path. June is going to be a very shaky month for me, as it is the last full month that I have some sort of stability job wise. I guess I shy away from the things that are coming to me, but be brave and do what is necessary to face July.

July-Death XIII-
Every time I pick up a deck of cards, I deal Death. I think it is stalking me. However, this card represents nothing more than change. A new beginning. This worries me, as I do not know what this new beginning is supposed to be? Could this card literally translate to me losing my job? Or will I be extended? Or better yet, be hired elsewhere and move to bigger and better things? Or will I need the aforementioned courage to face what is to come? I hate this fucking card.

August-III of Pentacles-
An overabundance? I will meet my just reward? I will be acknowledged and notice, but in what way? Regardless, I had better be grateful. I should maintain whatever motivation I have gained and run with it.

Time will tell I guess. Time for these cards to go back to their dusty box for now.

There were a few major happenings in regards to my mental health that stick out.  As far as getting help, I’ve tried, but it’s hard to keep people like us in therapy or medicated for long, if at all.  Too much reflection.  We think our shrinks secretly laugh at us after the session or discuss how hopeless we are.  Would you go back if that scenario would play over and over in your head? Playing on your paranoia?  I sure as hell wouldn’t…and didn’t.

My first trip to a therapist was when I was either 10 or 11.  I remember my mother pulling me into the laundry room one evening, so my cousin who was living with us couldn’t hear us talk.  I think she asked me if I had issues with my cousin living with us.  Was I angry about it?  Was I mad my sister had left home? Maybe she asked if I missed my step-dad? I can’t recall all of the details.   If I felt like I needed to talk to someone about something? I just remember nodding through her questions and in the end, crying.  She had already made an appointment with the doctor whose name I can’t remember. I just remember the big old house he worked out of.  Now that I think about it, it was wonderfully creepy inside, plays on my gothlike sensibilities.  Anyway. I visited there every Tuesday night for a month. He tried to get me to keep a dream journal, which I severely neglected.  I only remember him asking me about my real father once.  The rest of what may have been discussed is gone from my mind.  I’m pretty sure at times I lied, knowing he’d go back to tell my mother anything that was said. I told him what he wanted to hear. At least I have a feeling that I think I did. We eventually stopped going. Nothing else was said about it between my mother and I to this day.  I want to ask her the real reason why she thought her child need to see a shrink, but that is a discussing I think I will avoid for a while yet.

My next venture down the road to lala land was when Anthony died. It was sudden and in hindsight, I did not treat the whole event as I should have. I woke up that morning thinking I would go see him briefly before traveling back to school. Instead, I was met with my mother putting her hands on my shoulder and asking if I knew him. She said his name and before she could say he was dead I knew. I was a mess. I escaped. I didn’t want to deal. Straight back to college I went and skipped the funeral. My grief was fierce. Everyone told me to get over it because there was no way I actually felt love for him. Get on with my life and forget it. I remember sitting online until 4 in the morning, telling people I used to hang out with at home that I was going to kill myself. I wanted to die, anything was welcome, so long as I could stop feeling like I was just the walking dead day in and out. Whenever I went home, I became a project to fix. My family tried to use fear to get me to snap out of it. Telling me how Anthony had a secret life, he was in a cult, he was dangerous. Things I found to be nothing but lies later. My mother took me to the doctor under the guise of needing a check up. He came close to me asked me how I as coping. I gave stoic and expected answers. He have me a 30 day supply of zoloft. I came out of grief on my own, but after that point, there were so many nights I would find myself crying for an hour in the dorm shower to myself. I didn’t know why. I would be exhausted and go to bed to cry some more. I was on the pill no more than 15 days, and then off and on as months went by.  G.M. was in my life, more masks worn, things calmed down a bit and the episodes were less frequent.  However they were still intense and I don’t believe he could have ever understood what was going on with me.

During those months, I went to see a therapist at the college counseling center.  She was nice enough, but those feelings of judgement and being looked upon like a science experiement, prevented me from continuing the sessions.  I found all sorts of excuses to get out of them and they tried to blackmail me into continuing the sessions.  I couldn’t do it.  Seemed after that point things just got worse for me in my own mind.  College, I wasn’t good at it.  A lot of things I couldn’t handle.  I remember many nights in my dorm room where I could be happy go lucky one minute, and within the span of an hour I was in basketcase mode. In near hysterics.  Sometimes there was trigger, being alone was one, other times there would be nothing in particular that was wrong.  There would be days where I just barely made the effort to go downstairs to eat in the cafeteria, before coming back to my dark room to lay in bed all day.  Many classes missed.  My academic career was void.  People in my life just didn’t understand why I felt like I did, they just said I was lazy and didn’t care.  I was apethetic and indifferent, or worst yet, naraccistic and self absorbed.   Only last year, when I requested the records from those short visits with my therapist, did I learn that I was thought to have BPD.  Everything made so much sense then.  All of the hell I went through over the last 2 years came into focus.  I had a label for it, and all of the bad things people said about me slid off, because finally I had a better understanding as to who I was.

I still deal with it however.  I do not take my lexapro as prescribed, even though the doctor wanted to up my dosage.  All attempts at finding a therapist are half assed at best, because honestly, I still can’t handle sitting face to face with a stranger to tell them about my problems.  Not without that little demon on my shoulder telling me he or she is laughing at me.

Right now, I am trying to repair some of the self inflicted damage I’ve caused in my life as of late.  It’s hard trying to cope with that and find a way to deal with the highs and lows of my existence.  I am optimistic as of late.  I’m not scared of the why anymore, I embrace it.  I don’t think I will ever get to a point where I really know who I am and that’s okay, because who wants to be the same everyday.  I realize that I will be the storm in any relationship I have in the future, and that’s okay too. I’m sharing everything I am now, upfront, no surprises.

I’m going to keep on writing here until I get it all resolved.  Besides, everyone loves a beautiful train wreck.

Lately, I’ve been going back and recalling my ‘mental defective history’ and learning more about the last diagnosis I ever received, and finally agree with. I am one those fun people with Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s BPD Awareness month by the way. I’ll spare the details, you can find some links to the right if you are truly interested in learning more.

I’ve lived with some form of depression and anxiety since just before puberty. Most of it originated from harsh ridicule and criticism from class mates fueling thoughts of not being good enough. A lot this was thanks to a mother who didn’t understand how to encourage or discipline me in an effective, nurturing manner. I never felt I had the ability to live up to the expectations of others. Those thoughts would lead to fears about what people would think of me. Which would lead to putting on masks to deal with certain people and situations. I was constantly conflicted. I always felt as if I were being judged in some capacity.  Any rejection, no matter how reasonable, would send me on a spiral of hate and anger towards that person.  It would be consuming.  My only escape was in the dark at night, where I would daydream about being the person I thought I truly was. Dreamed about greatness and being a winner, being wanted, loved by all.

I’ve tried to share these things with people before in the past and they always give that flippant smirk and eye roll. “Everyone had a bad childhood these days”, they say, as if what I go through is just an excuse. I’m not saying my childhood was horrible nor that my mother didn’t do her best with what she had, but key events during that time aided in creating the amazingly unstable person typing this entry now. That can’t be denied.

My issue is recalling all of those events. I’ve always felt like I am missing something. It’s like leaving home and getting the dreadful feeling that you’ve left something important behind, but you don’t know what. I get bits and pieces of things. An image. A word. A deep sense of fear from some past embarrassment. I keep telling myself that I am going to start tracking those events. I also need to focus on my triggers. Record the highs and lows. Then, there is my twenties. I could probably write a small novella about my twenties. Things got considerably worse in my mind during that time. As much as I dreaded my high school days, I believe tossing myself head first into college sent me into an identity melt down. I can not recall any time in my life prior to my college years, where I consistently felt severely depressed. Where I thought of my death as a godsend, but who would I tell, when I felt like no one really wanted to listen to me? That I was just tolerated. I kept my thoughts at a safe distance from those I cared about, and again, wore every mask I had.

Frighteningly optimistic these days. Usually when I feel like this, it is a good bet that I am on one of my emotional highs. This time things seem different. I have had something reintroduced in my life that has been missing for a while now. Rediscovering things I had placed on the back burner, expressing myself in new ways. It is eye opening and makes me sickly hopeful for my future, which looked so bleak. I think all of this has something to do with these things called optimism and faith. Time will tell.

I was invited to go to New Orleans tonight to listen to a few bands play, but I can’t go, because funds are low. Uncle Sam should have sent my rebate check by now, but he hasn’t. I have to spend $20 on gas just to drive round trip 30 miles to home this weekend for Mother’s Day. Speaking of which, I can’t get a present this year.

Fun times I tell you. Fun times.

What an eyeopener. I’m happy for a change.