Thirteen years

Thirteen years ago today, my mother lost her life to ovarian cancer. I was seventeen, a few months shy of eighteen.

Her life had not been easy. It made my life not easy. My sole purpose had been to get her to love me back. I knew she loved me of course, kind of... But I rarely felt it.

So when she died, Chance died.  I was this ghostsoulthing that still somehow had a body.

For a long time, I knew nothing but two extremes: numbness or pain. I patched a new life out of friends, community college, underage drinking, smoking, and eating junk.

My life in the last thirteen years has consisted of a chain of major relationships, with little more than a couple months in between. Even though my mother was dead, my sole purpose remained fairly fixed: to be someone that other would love. What I wasn't aware of was a silent add on: " ... At any cost."

That add on phrase is no longer silent to my awareness. It's danger is clear to me now. And on the anniversary of my mom's death, I'm mourning the consequences of that danger come to manifestation with a connected awareness I've never had before.

It only took thirteen years and losing the most important people in my life four times to freaking get what I've been doing.

I'm tired of getting myself into these situations. My heart is getting too weary and I'm getting too old for this shit in this brief existence.

So, I'm going upstream to do a code rewrite. I'm letting go of the purpose that didn't serve well. Laying it to rest next to my mother and the others.

I hope that having the awareness will make the next generation code better than its unintentional predecessor.

Choosing Me, Delving Deep

1. Why did I choose me over us/him?

The tipping point - I developed an emotionally intimate, potentially romantic connection with another person other than him. Why? Why would I do that? How could that have been possible?

I realized it's because something profound was missing between us, and had been a core major source of my sudden anxiety attacks. So what was missing? Emotional intimacy, truth, acceptance. I did not fully understand this until much unfolding and validation.

Then I asked, why had that happened if we loved each other so very much? Was it because I had not discussed it with him? No, that wasn't it. We'd discussed ad nauseum. Over 5 years. It was that as a result of those discussion I compromised something I had no clear awareness was super critical to me. Emotional intimacy, truth, acceptance -- all of that equates to meaning. Devoid of meaning, I was out of alignment with my purpose. Things felt off and I couldn't really dial it in.

Well, if it was my purpose, then why couldn't I figure it out? Because, I've neglected myself in favor of others my entire life. Never really granting myself permission to be myself nor explored who that was. As an empath, this combination destroys, smothers out any semblance of chance I have at being Chance, knowing her. If I don't know her, how can I be the best person? The lover, the supporter, the friend, the awesome human I want to be?

Matched with my deep love for him and his resistance to compromise from his side, I'd continue compromising and smothering myself in endless pursuit for external fulfillment that would never come, with meaning muted too low to nourish my parched roots.

2. What's really working in life?

These all work some of the time, especially if I can muster the energy:

Writing
Deep, analysis/solution based thinking
Reaching out to mentors and friends
Honesty
Bravery
Speaking out
Focusing on myself and the connections that support my journey and success
Therapy
Music
Yoga
Hiking
ASMR videos
Learning more (about self, others, things)
Reading up on the topic
Trying out new things
Self compassion
Anything that helps me accept myself

3. What's not really working and how would I like it to be different?

Oversnacking, an old habit
Deep, destructive thinking
Overreliance on others (including my ex)
Self harm

As for how I'd like it to be different - I'd want to be stronger and find other ways to soothe myself when it feels like everything but suicide.

4. Who is the most important person in my life? If not me, why? Am I willing to make it me?

It has rarely been me. Because I was brought up to believe that I do not matter, that I'm not worth the affection, love, effort. Then I went on to relationships and life situations that perpetuated that, let me rest my pain in those connections, rather than heal them.

But that's what this journey is about. Radical shifting to self nurturing which feels wrong and selfish, but I'm ignoring that for now.

5. What do I need more of?

Everything in #2, more exploration, slow development of healthy relationships

6. What could get in the way? What do I need to say no to?

Hasty decisions around relationships
Long term romantic relationships (for now)
Impulsive things like retail therapy, too much food

Well meaning folks & self scalping for survival

Well meaning folks don't know better. 

Think bad thoughts? Just say fuck you and think good thoughts. It's not as though I don't already use this technique. But sometimes that switch does not work. Sometimes yoga doesn't work. Music. Writing. Errand running. Distraction. 

Like today.

I am burning alive, completely on fire. 

And - true to rule # 2 - no one and nothing cares. 

No one can or wants to be with me while I burn. But I guess, they don't know. They don't hear me lay aside my pride to ask for their presence, like the therapist suggested. Because my own water supply just isn't enough today. And I am too much for everyone today. Too much. Always. 

And, because well meaning folks, they don't know better. And when the fire is raging, it's hard to find a voice loud enough to cry for help. Maybe I didn't ask for it right.

The only one calling me back is an IPA and the phone alarm I set for laundry.

That and the thoughts again - I am not worth it. I am not worth the effort. Who am I to deserve that kind of love or support? From them let alone myself? I was not meant for this.

I don't want to type the other thoughts. They make me want to seriously quit on normal life and check myself in somewhere with drugs that dull it all away.

I am my mother's daughter. But. I DON'T WANT TO QUIT. All threads to hang on to are fucking loose. So I'm scratching out clumps of my scalp and using my own hair. The blood makes it too slick to get a good grip though. I want to get through this.

Maybe I need to hit rock bottom like I did as a teenager. Then, I'll realize I am all I've got. I'm strong enough. Maybe stronger, when I think about it. I've lived through fucking hell, through looking at the edge too sharp to be that close to flesh.

If I did it at 16, I can do it again, but fucking better - hell maybe this time I don't need to hit the bottom. I just need to hit myself in the temple and remember how much shit I've gone through.

Grief & the Expectation to Look Like an Ass

Grief. Five letters seem an inadequate capsule for the experience.

My life has become a strange desert. The surface of Mars, maybe. Full of echoes, ghosts, intermittent sandstorms.

Is there beauty or life left in her? I wonder. I feel doubtful but the circle of love around me is vehement, "No, Chancey. You're just hallucinating right now. There is no desert. No barrenness of which you speak."

I throw rocks at the love. Kick sand at it. No way. Can't possibly. Full of shit. Or pity for a lost cause.

Then, the bitch comes in. Hey fuckface - your self doubt, hate, deprecation, absorption make me SICK. Seriously, get over your damn self. For fuck's sake. Do you think you're in some unique situation? NO. Millions have survived.

Then I get numb. The only thing piercing the numb is a raging appetite and womb ready to end this endometrium's entire LIFE.

I must figure out how to survive. Because once I do, the desert hallucination passes. Life and love and passion and joy will be accessible. I'm not naive enough to think I'll be hunky dory, that my predisposition to depression and anxiety will magically dissolve. BUT - there will be more balance rather than this rabid wild thing called emotion dragging me behind it.

I will establish an anchor and domesticate, refine.

Find or create a core of power.

I can't expect grace over night. I can expect to look like a complete ass and the weakest, most embarrassing human on the planet as I go.

I must trust in myself. My decisions and instinct. Don't overthink it. Just go through it. Hit the underthink edge a few times, learn, nod, and commit to memory until it becomes easy to do, eyes closed. Get deft as FUCK at navigating that, and the rest will follow.

Nothingashes or universe

The neighbor has dominated the laundry room this evening. Looks like laundry day is delayed yet another day.

Another day.

A day later, the life-ending mindgames have de-escalated. Trapped banshee howl to sleepy mumble. Distracting but far easier to let pass without a flinch.

Hard to believe how quickly pretend normal took over.

My skin escaped the hours long attack relatively unscathed. But maiming imagery in my head belongs to a true crime file. Bruised viscera, bleeding wounds, and exposed bone everywhere.

I exist under a glossy novacaine clearcoat. I feel my face smile at people, hear my voice reflex respond to the people around me. I dress the part. Even act the part.

My diligence forging sanity in the work related insanity around me doubles as sympathetic magic for the work I'm doing at the soul level. Yesterday, I was subject to the shitty code of my own legacy programming.

I am not 100% happy with my choices at the moment. My confidence has wavered after last night. But maybe that's because I've lost sight of "rule" 2 - no one gives a FUCK about me - and "rule" 3 - I'm what matters to me because I'm all I've got if no one gives a FUCK.

Losing him is like someone I love having died. Knowing I'm ultimately responsible for pulling the plug is devastating. Now we're both trying to breathe on our own. He seems to be beating the odds. I started promising enough but I'm struggling to make it.

Yesterday I flailed in angst to plug it all back in. The oxygen deprivation burned holes into my lungs and heart. All the poison and pain choked me up.

To no avail. He was not responsive. I was scared for my life. He promised to be there for me in emergencies, insisted I go to him, despite relationship status.

But through no fault of his own, he was not.

Maybe the message, my lesson here is just one in self sufficiency. I learned this lesson quite young being so underparented. But my coping strategies were all not all the best.

Now my situation may be giving my the opportunity to cope better, to grow stronger. The opportunity has come at great personal loss, risk, pain, and destruction. In my mind's eye, I'm looking in a mirror and seeing myself wrapped in nothing but nakedness and fire. The skin crisps and crackles in various spots, with burning embers spitting sparks through the charred cracks in my flesh.

No one wants to get close to an on-fire person.

My imagination wanders to a possible future state, where I've mastered the fire and all the burning embers become stars in a brand new internal universe and all lost sound finds a home to live, propogate, and evolve into song, story, and meaning.

I prefer that future to the other - burn and collapse into nothingashes.

Last night, I had the longest breakdown and crying jag I've ever had in my entire life. The only reprieve was a desperate visit to a friend's, but it came back as soon as I got home.

I cried for hours. I'm NOT suicidal but I've been bombarded by more suicidal thoughts in the past 24 hours than I've had in my life.

I called my ex. In a panicked plea. I can't promise him anything since I'm unstable as fuck. But he's the only one I can call for this stuff and promised to be there for emergencies like this.

He ended up not answering. My priority in his phone was too low to get through his night setting. We're fixed that in numb fashion this morning.

It's a relief. But at the same time I'm disgusted with my weakness right now. The suicidal thoughts. The levels of desperation and depression and panic.

I obviously survived, without him having to come over. If he had, there would have been no touching despite the bed to be physically held, but his presence would have calmed me.

It took a few more hours to wind myself up so tight, my body gave up in exhaustion.

I'm so tired. I feel like a migraine is going to whack me in the face sometime soon.

I'm just so fucking mentally and emotionally unwell right now. I'd call out but have two meetings to run.

The bad thoughts are around his judgement of my choices, the thought that he's gone forever/moved on, feeling torn between compromising myself and going back I'll equipped to save my spot or remaining committed to myself knowing he's already building something with intent to be romantic and long term so I'll be too late.

I don't want to put myself first. It's painful. Scary. Judged by the person I love more than anyone in the world because it hurts him so deeply.

He doesn't sound like he wants to be with me again anyway. He says I don't deserve him right now. But right now I want to figure it out in my own. That's not what makes me undeserving in his eyes - it's the idea of getting physical/sexual needs fulfilled by another.

I get that that's painful. It's painful for me thinking the same about him. Seeing the photo of him and that beautiful girl.

The thing is I can't have him wait around for this undetermined time while I figure stuff out. It's not fair. Also there are too many things he and I have to work though in ourselves and each other. Plus we have history that gets in the way of progress, at least for me.

So I chose the lesser of evils for a self discovery endeavor I feel immense guilt for even needing and choosing.


What it boils down to is yes, I seek out physical relief in the forms of various exercises, drinking alcohol weekly, and coming alone or with another.

The latter may not be traditionally healthy in my situation. But it works and I am extremely selective/careful about that, especially since physical is inextricably tied to emotions for me.

I think my period is coming. Because the level of anxiety attacks, suicidal thoughts, and non stop crying was too extreme to not be hormonally induced. I felt like a different person.

I am not sure how I'll make it today. I think I need to take a day off this week to recover.

Yoga tears

I fell apart doing hip openers and shavasana. I haven't stopped crying.

I miss him so much. Despite the painful parts, he loved me so well and so deeply, easily matching my intensity. I often think that kind of match for me will be hard, if not impossible to find again whenever I'm ready for another relationship.

"Our final embrace, you won't turn, I won't chase... "

"I'm sorry, baby. You were the sun and the moon to me. I'll never get over you, you'll never get over me."

I'm so so sad. We put our whole hearts and souls into each other. 

It hurts so badly.