Starting this blog is like meeting a new person; probably best done drunk (at least for me.) But I dont drink that much, anymore. So I guess you all will just have to come along for an awkward ride. I’m tired of people feeling entitled enough to tell me to go to therapy. Or about how great therapy is. Like I have the issues that I do as an adult and have never thought about fucking therapy before? Sometimes I would really like to look people dead in the eye and just say “yaassss bitch, I have google too.” We all have the worlds information at our finger tips. But I work in healthcare where people are paid to give their advice. It’s a little harder to check someones ego when they are paid for it. Anyways, I’m here because I have always thought sharing my story would be good for me and therapy came to a stand still. I’m here to purge the thoughts that I don’t share outside of the safety bubble of my home with my husband and our 3.5 month old son.

Therapy is soooo good for you. Yes! I know. It took me multiple tries to find the right therapist. Turns out I’m sexist against my own sex. We can get into that later. But once I found the right phsychologist, I saw them for a couple of years. At some point we talked about the end goal of therapy for me. The answer was not to cure me, but to make me more aware of why I act the way I do so that I can choose how I want to live life. “The memories and associated habits will always be there. The connection between your hippocampus and the other parts of your brain are already too strong and established to go away.” When I first heard this from my phsychologist I took it as a free pass to just embrace who I was and roll with it. Now I hear it as a death sentence.

This matches up with my two modes of living. Mode 1; fuck it, be your unapologetic self just like every one else seems to be. Mode 2: crumbling apart like a sad cookie in a childs car seat just waiting to finally be picked. The first mode is who I truly believe myself to be. The second mode is who most people in my life believe me to be these days. My second mode of being is based on many experiences I will share, however one experience in particular always comes to mind.

I’m some age between 9 and 11, I think. Memories a funny thing. I’m laying under a counter in what I call an industrial shop. My fathers industrial shop where he makes molds for mass producing things. A couple of inches away from my face is a fairly fresh pile of dog poo. The sleeping bag and camping pad that I’ve been sleeping on for who knows how long is covered in industrial dust, dog piss, and small remenance of poo that I used to pick up off my sleeping area. But this time I got into bed knowing that there was dog poo there. I crawled into my sleeping bag and don ‘t even bother to face away from the dog poo. I sit there and just stare at it. I take in it smell. I smell the odor of old and fresh urine. I smell the chemicals, the glues, the wood and metal. I think I remember crying. I lay there until I fall asleep thinking about how I am sleeping in dog shit. My mother and father sleep a couple of feet away in a closet. My fathers work desk is less than 6 feet away from my sleeping area. My brother sleeps on the other end of the counter. We used the industrial and office clutter found around to make cubby like areas under the counter tops for privacy.

How do I sleep and live so close to these people that are suposed to care for me and they don’t notice that I’m sleeping in dog shit, urine, chemicals, dust, debris and more? This idea hit me in the face one day. Before this idea, I was blissfully ignorant. I was unhappy and miserable but I was young and hadn’t realised the gravity of my situation. After that moment I was aware. Too aware. This moment was when I decided to be done. To kill myself. I hadn’t even hit puberty yet, but I was done. My selfawareness was born and I didn’t want it.

I stopped crying. I wasn’t sad about dying. I was at peace with it. It seemed peaceful to be nothing. I fell asleep to this comfort. I had fully embraced dying and was at peace with as a 9 or 10 year old. Obviously as an adult, I am enraged by this.

As I sit here writing this, I can feel the pause in my breath, the flutter of my heart beat. These are the feelings I should have had when thinking about dying. I shouln’t have stopped crying. I should have cried my heart out. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I should have screamed at the top of my lungs. I should have ran away and found another family. But when you’re young those aren’t options you often think of. Looking back this makes me feel trapped and helpless. Like I’m just along for the ride and not driving my own crazy bus. My husband can assure you that I don’t accept any other drivers. I dont say this in a threatening way towards my husband. We have a very respectful relationship. But I am a human and my first reaction is not always my best. He is very graceful about this. He says the right thing to give me space. Space to independently process my initial reaction so that I can repond the way I choose out loud, with him, when I am ready. He is very thoughtful and patient.