Trigger warning: self-harm
Please note that I did not re-read after writing because I just needed to write this, so there will be grammatical errors. Get over it. Writing, is my therapy. Sharing my real–life pain so that others can see they arent alone, is my therapy. Don’t ruin this for me. Please.
Contrary to popular belief, I am not always happy go lucky.
Contrary to popular belief, I have not completely slain my depression and darkness dragons and demons.
Because, contrary to popular belief, I am still human.
Especially when I go more than 3 days without my happy pills.
This morning, my 10yo and I butted heads. Like, screaming, yelling, her hitting and punching me, butted heads.
I snapped.
And I hated every second, yet I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t regulate myself. I couldn’t take a breather. I couldn’t give up.
I dug in and I was consciously aware of the anger and madness seeping through my pores.
This weekend, we had our first scout campout of the year and it was amazing.
I figured the 10yo would have a sensory hangover. I knew it was going to happen. And I was more or less prepared for it.
I knew she was going to go to school yesterday. I didnt even bat my eyes when I woke up at 645am to check in and try and wake her up, and she told me she was too tired to go to school.
What I didn’t prepare myself for, was me.
I didn’t even start returning to the land of humaning until last night around dinner.
But this morning, after prepping the 10yo yesterday that she was going to go to school today, I shouldn’t have been surprised she wasn’t going to go.
She didn’t take her ADHD and anti-anxiety meds Sunday. Or Monday.
Which means, getting her brain to shut down and go to bed is 10x harder on those days. This isn’t even factoring in the fact that her sensory hangover hadn’t even hit yet OR the fact that puberty sucks.
So, this morning, I just sort of snapped and. After she successfully evicted me from her room because she was threatening to run away, I ended up stationing myself outside of her room to make sure that my eloper, didn’t in fact, elope.
An hour in, I was still vibrating with anger, but I needed to go to the bathroom. So, I had to check on her. She confirmed that she wasn’t going to run, and I walked away.
I am still vibrating with anger. Albeit, not as much. But I am angry with myself. So angry with myself, that I am allowing self-loathing and self-hatred a little bit of control today.
It’s been months since I have felt this, this, this evilness. Even longer since I have let it control me.
And I don’t like this feeling. If I could take the world’s hottest shower and scrub my skin off until this layer of darkness is removed, I would.
Instead, I am reluctantly putting a deadline on this sadness, this darkness, this layer of vile. I am giving myself the rest of today to be in this angry funk. And when I wake up tomorrow morning, this dragon better have returned to its dungeon.
As I sat on the top step of our stairs in the front of our 10yo’s room on elopement watch, a thought came out of nowhere that scared me. A thought that I haven’t had in years. A thought that only happens when I lose control of my dragons.
I imagined standing up, walking to my bathroom right next to where I was sitting, unpackage an unused shaving razor, place it on my left wrist, and saw. Back and forth, I visualized the blood falling on the steps in front of my daughters room.
It felt so fucking real, that I bawled. I bawled and I bawled until I drowned myself in the hard rock Spotify Playlist I never listen to.
The kicker is, my anger, my demons, aren’t because of anything specific, and they certainly aren’t because of my daughters. I just broke this morning.
Unfortunately, our 10yo had front row seats to my callousness and unbridled fury.
Before I left her room to sit outside it, I did apologize. And as she screamed and cried about hating me and me being the reason she doesn’t have parents anymore, I explained to her that I was sorry and that it was wrong of me to direct my anger at here. That I was in the wrong.
The truth is, I have been off since last week. No. That’s a lie. I have been off since I got sick at the beginning of February.
The hardest part is that I KNOW. I KNOW I have been off. Today was inevitable. Needing to numb myself today, was inevitable and has been inevitable.
It’s who I am. I break.
I can’t be positive and happy go lucky forever. That’s not who I am.
I am a failure.
Which is why I reluctantly gave this off feeling a deadline.
If I don’t, the fog will creep back in and all progress, all healing, all of my future, will be sucked back into that pandoras box and locked down tight, out of sight.
That is the cycle. I know this.
So today, I am going to wrap up this off feeling.
I am going to acknowledge that I miss my Papa and Toria more than the sun itself right now.
And I am going to acknowledge that my writing comes in spurts and I will get back there.
I am going to acknowledge that I have no hope for humanity, especially those that hate my daughter just because the idea of her exists.
And I am going to acknowledge that I have built a family for her that unconditionally love her and that might be the single best thing I have done as a parent.
I am going to also acknowledge that I am not super human. I can break. I can have off days. That it’s OK to curl up into a ball and read while my tears flood my eyes and my nose is raw from wiping the snot away before anyone can see I am crying.
And I am going to also acknowledge that I didn’t cut myself today because I somehow found the courage (bc it definitely wasn’t willpower) to walk away.
Even just visualizing that first cut took me back to high school when that first rush of adrenaline surged through me as my invisible pain flowed through the visible wounds.
How I found the courage to not give in to that heady feeling, I don’t know.
No. That’s a lie. I do know. That’s not who I am anymore. And my girls deserve better.
So, while I am still vibrating with shadows, I am going to take the rest of today to sit with the suck.
Tomorrow, I will be back.
