A break in the Silence #AmWriting #BiPolar #NoSleep #CrazyTrain @shannonihayes

Wisdom, Happiness Harmony

       These are the words that have sat before me for the past month or so. Little Dollar store framed caricatures  and a photo of a lost beloved pet. That there is my Grifialchial (Griffin or Mow, Mow for short). He died back in 2004 but I still miss him quite a lot. He was a beautiful and affectionate boy. Followed me around all through the house. 

I'm sitting here at 3 am with a shit tone of things running through my head, chowing down on a brownie washing it down with a bottle of water. Not sure exactly where I'm going with this post. Maybe it's the coffee keeping me up. Maybe it's the Mania, I'm not entirely sure, either way I'm writing something. Listening to my Pandora station, the songs are all poignant tonight. Songs like Cold (but I'm still here) from Evans Blue and Beautiful, from 10 Years, are hitting nerves...

Love every moment, Laugh everyday, Live beyond words...

These words are to the right of the photos. I bought the clear wall letter musing and changed it. It was supposed to read Live every moment, laugh every day and love beyond words. But that didn't appeal to me. So I mixed it up. Now I'm still not sure what it means to me, but I like the sentiment better.

To live beyond words. Beyond the fucked up shit we say to each other. The things we write. It's also to remind me to get out of my head once in a while. To remember that there is more than just the thoughts that hold me down at times.

I've been here in Ohio for 7 months now. SEVEN MONTHS!! Seven months, and I'm still not used to it. I still feel like I'm just a visitor in this place I now call home. I have my own space, a nice big room that showcases the things that matter to me. My dragons, my computer, my books. My cat Bubba is here with me too. 

I should be happy. I suppose in a way I am. But there are little things. Like hardly leaving the house because there is nothing out here that you can do that doesn't require a car and at minimum half an hours ride. I have little in common with those I share a house with. I'm a Pagan, the house has bibles and rosary on the mantle. I'm Pro-Choice, they're not. I'm an Independent, they think Obama is a total ass. All I know is if it wasn't for him and his legislation I would be without insurance and spiraling even more without medication and needed Therapy for my issues. I have a strict don't look the gift horse in the mouth attitude, if that makes me stupid and blind then smack my ass and call me Gomer Pile. In this area I'll fit right on in.

Do I miss Connecticut? I don't know. I miss working. I miss the access I had to getting places. Things like buses, trains... I'm in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.

In leaving Connecticut I lost track of the one friend I kept ties with, since being out here I've talked to him 4 maybe 5 times. We used to talk all the time, get together once at least per week. Now hell who knows when I'll talk to him again. I get it. Out of sight, out of mind. This is the way of the world. It was what kept me in the fucked up situation I was in before coming out here. i didn't want to lose my connection to him. I miss him dearly, though I'd never actually tell him that to his face. 

I miss my Dad. He's not well and leaving was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I had to go. There was no way around it. The water kept rising and I'd forgotten how to swim. I traded in my one window basement room for a two window above ground prison. Sure I could go outside but to what? I'm told I don't have to do anything major here like clean everyday or even cook if I didn't want to, but there's no way I could actually do that. 

I have to try to earn my keep. I pay rent, and contribute more when I can. But my funds are limited and I have expenses and other obligations. I just feel like I'm not doing enough and eventually those around me are going to say something. Snide remarks happen here and there and I've nearly blown up a few times. I'm trying not to do that anymore. But you what, I'm also not going to put up with the same bullshit here I was getting back in Connecticut. NO FUCKING WAY. Not gonna happen.

My mother has decided that we kids are not worth talking to unless it's to get money from, and there for since we are otherwise useless she doesn't want us to come back to Connecticut to see her and my Dad. I've gotten tot the point now where I don't want to fight anymore. I'm going to do as she wishes, and it's ripping me up. As much shit as I talk about my mother and our fucked up co-dependent, toxic relationship that is my Mother. I love her, I just don't like her very much. I even miss talking to her sometimes.

I've got this new Therapist, it only took 6 months to get in to see him. He's a bit of a joke. Wants to examine my Childhood and help me get past the ball of anger in the pit of me. Here's the problem with that. I don't remember 90% of my childhood before age 12. There are bits and pieces, but mostly it's the stories I have heard about me growing up that I know. As for actual memories, he's going to find the well is pretty dry. I don't know what I expect, but this way of helping me is not going to do much good. I'm open to trying it out, but I'm skeptical as all hell.

He gave me some homework. Want's me to write a letter to anyone who's made me angry, the thing is that there isn't anyone in my life that I'm mad at nearly as much as my mother and she knows it all, so what's the point if I've already said it all?? Nothing is a mystery in my family. After 30 years all the secrets have been laid bare. From all sides.

I've never been molested, I was saved from that trauma, my brothers, well that's another story. That's their anger, the point of mine I think was my birth in how it affected the relationship to my mother. See I rejected her even before I was born. I was sick when I came into this world. Jaundiced and they couldn't figure out why. I was a breath away from a complete blood transfusion. They wanted to drain every drop out of me and replace it, all because my parents never had the "WHAT'S YOUR BLOOD TYPE" conversation.  Mom is O, I'm A. Dad is A, as is his whole family. But because I rejected her blood type my body went haywire out of the womb. They finally managed to fix me, without the transfusion thankfully, but I think that my mother in a way saw that as my first rejection of her. She spent the rest of my days living with her telling me about it, about how I always rejected her.

It's always about her, even when it's not it always comes back to her. She has three children, and all of us each in turn were born to get or to keep a man. At least that's how we see it. It didn't work the first 2 times. But she hit the mark with my Dad. He loved her, and my brothers, and of course adored me once I came along. I have a shit ton of respect for my Dad. My Brother Philip would do anything for him, and he for him in return. As for my brother Thomas, mister USA Airborne, he's an ass and doesn't know what his tuning us out has done,but life will show him one day. Anyhow, my point is that me Dad has put up with my Mother for better or for worse, and there's been a lot of worse. 

What's my point? I don't know, maybe I don't have one. Been writing for an hour and just kind of keep talking. This is the nature of my mania. It keeps me up with random thoughts and if I can't get them out then I don't sleep for days. I just need something to do.

I had been writing, wrote and edited an entire 57,6 6 6 word novel in 30 days. That's a record for me. I don't write anything like that ever. I've been taking my Meds like I should, but maybe it's time to adjust them again. I think I need something stronger for pain too. This Naproxen is starting to tear up my stomach. I'm afraid of taking anything too strong as I have an addictive personality like the rest of the people in my family and I don't want to get a pill habit. But I'm getting to the point where I can't sleep from pain. I did something to my shoulder and can't lift it over my head without wanting to call out, and my knee is crunching more now than ever. 

I've gone through my older posts tonight and re-read some of the things I've had to say. seems this post is the most revealing of them, and yet I say an awful lot without really saying anything at all. Guess that explains how I get those epic word counts! Kidding aside though, my feelings about things haven't really been changed by the change of scenery. I had hoped that coming out here would make a huge difference. That I could finally be happy and maybe get to that well adjusted point. YEAH... No. Not happening. I've traded one dysfunction for another. 

I'm not really a hermit. I joke about it, perhaps I am an emotional one, but I thrive where the people are. Those who once knew me would tell you that I have a way of commanding a room, flitting from one conversation to another with the utmost ease. They'd be telling truths too. I used to be quite the butterfly. Now I'm in reverse. I get anxious around people I don't know if I'm alone. I'm afraid they will piss me off and I'm going to rip their faces off. 

I stare into my phone in the waiting area at Therapy. I don't even like my phone enough for that. But I let pintrest and Facebook eat my time till he comes out to get me. Why? Why do I act like this now? I don't fucking know!! At some point I let myself become alienated from others and it stuck. Now I can't undo it. I think I want to, but we live in this world where the flickering screens have more to engage us than the person sitting beside us. It's sad. 

You go see a friend as after a bit you both find yourselves staring at your phones and not talking. Our commonality is gone, we run out of things to say to each other, somehow. Or is it that we are afraid to show all of who we are or were to  new people? The things of my past that I can remember while they explain a lot about me, will find me sorely and surly judged by those around me now, so I stay tight lipped. Minds are certainly less open in an age where information gives opportunities to blast the sides of the boxes wide fucking open. I have no understanding of the location of the box most sit their little minds inside. I miss the others who know what that's like. I miss the me I used to be. Wild, free spirited, energetic. Unbroken. I miss the lies I told to hide my insecurities away, so that I could function from day to day.

I'm fairly sure that I'm no less fucked up than I was before leaving Connecticut. It's just a new kind of fucked up. I have a good friend here in the state and I've seen her in person once since getting out here. We Skype several times a week, sometimes twice a day. She's great, we laugh and bicker about whose read more of the others work. She jostles me because my work is thicker than hers in Word count, so she says she's read more than I have. It's funny. I like her very much. But it's a different relationship than I'm used to. She is my peer, but in some things she is also my superior. She's about ten years older than me which doesn't mean much, but she's got a daughter whose only 12 years younger than I am, so it's odd because I have things in common with mother and daughter. I see somethings from both perspectives, it's a very strange dynamic. I'm not used to being told things. It's not a bad thing, just different for me. She tried to mother me in a positive way, knowing that my mother was not/has not always been a positive influence in my life. Again not bad, just... Different. 

Another thing to adjust to, someone who cares without an agenda. She gains nothing from trying to be there for me. I gain much, she doesn't even realize what chatting with her does for my sanity. It's a break in the crazy in my head. I may be broken emotionally but I'm not actually made of stone.