It’s a tough afternoon around here right now. Insecurities are screaming in my head and I’m really struggling with shutting them down. It gets this way sometimes. It gets this way when I let my head go somewhere it shouldn’t go. In this case, it went down the path of someone in my world could possibly be more than they are now. A few days ago, we had that conversation because it had occurred to him too and in the end, he rejected me on that level. There are always reasons why it’s not because of who I am…I don’t live close enough, he’d never be brave enough to pursue anything, etc.. Heck, someone even told me the other day that they really wanted me sexually but instead they unfriended me on Facebook because I was so far out of their league. I’ve heard that one before. That was the line guys in college told me years later when they confessed to liking me.

The reality …at least my reality… is that I don’t believe any of it. After years of being told I was stupid and nobody would ever want me, that I wasn’t wanted by my own parents, it’s stuck. That’s the voice I hear inside my head with every rejection. I destroy myself by repeating it out loud to myself. You’re stupid. You’re fat. You’re ugly. Nobody is ever going to want you, not even just for any kind of physical relationship that doesn’t involve marriage or anything like that. It’s become a mantra on the days where I’ve done something like this, believed there was a possibility.

You’re stupid. You’re fat. You’re ugly. Nobody will ever want you. Your own family didn’t want you. You’re a nobody. Invisible. Only seen when somebody wants something and then thrown away again. Used. Discarded. Worthless. You’re going to be alone forever. Nobody will ever want you.

Nobody is saying those words to me anymore except for me and on days like today they come faster and faster until it’s like a blur inside my own head. When I was a child, I had a closet that was above our stairs. There were two rows of rods and clothing hanging in it and I would climb up into it and hide. Nobody could find me there (not that they were looking) and I was safe. I miss that closet. I miss having a hiding place where I can curl up until it all stops.

When I lost my hiding spot, I started hurting myself. I’d scratch until I nearly bled. Anything to stop the voices in my head. Anything to distract me from the emotional pain. Did you know that a glass dildo when swung at fleshy parts of the body can leave amazing bruises? I do. I’ve done it. I’ve sat and just hit myself in the same spot over and over again in an attempt to get rid of the emotional anguish. It works, right until you stop swinging and things like pants hide the marks you’ve left. Always hide the marks you’ve left. It’s safer than people asking you questions. If you’re lucky, you’ve worn yourself out enough that you sleep. Sleep can help. It quiets the chemicals in the brain.

Still, here I sit, remembering that not having expectations, not having dreams, not thinking yourself worthy and all sorts of horrible things is sometimes safer than letting yourself have those things because when time and time again you don’t get them or you get rejected, you’re brought right back to this place and while it’s familiar, it will never be comfortable.

I long for the times when I had the self-confidence to truly believe in myself and that things were possible. Not just people things, but me things. There are days when I wake up and I smile and I really believe that I am an amazing person, that I can do the things that I want to do, that I’m not crippled by the contents of my own head. They happen and remembering that gives me small bits of hope on the really bad days. I try to remind myself of just how far I’ve come and that I can’t give up. I may be my own worst enemy but sometimes I have to also be my own biggest supporter. It’s hard. It’s hard to pick yourself back up when you’re the one who knocked you down, but sometimes you’re all you have because you live in a world where people just don’t understand. It’s easy to be sympathetic to someone who has cancer or lost a limb or is somehow physically crippled. It’s not so easy when what’s been destroyed is a piece of your very soul and when due to no fault of your own, your own brain chemistry hates you and tries every chance it gets to cause more harm.

I don’t talk about my life, my world, my struggles with very many people anymore. After opening up completely to two people who in the end not only rejected me but cut me completely from their worlds, I’ve shut down. I’ve hidden away here in my little village. Most people only see the surface, they see what they’re comfortable seeing, and don’t have to see anything more. Now again, I tried opening up to someone and I’ve gotten hurt and another brick goes up but maybe it's progress that it isn't an entire wall.

You’re stupid brilliant. You’re fat unique. You’re ugly beautiful. Nobody will ever want you. Your own family didn’t want you. (They’re idiots.) You’re a nobody princess. Invisible Loved. Only seen (by idiots) when somebody  an idiot wants something and then thrown away again. Used Needed. Discarded Wanted. Worthless Precious. You’re going to be alone here forever for a very long time. Nobody Somebody special will ever want you forever. Don’t give up yet. 



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For the past few days I've gone back and forth with myself as to whether or not I was ready to put this out into the universe. Then, tonight, I read something that my amazing friend, Joel, wrote. (Yes, Joel..you are amazing, all survivors are.) I read his post and then we were texting back and forth. Joel always encourages me to write, to share, and to be me...and this...this post is a part of me.

See that graphic on the left? I found that when I was looking for something that said what a mother is. Here's a secret that I haven't shared with anyone who isn't exceptionally close to me. My mother was none of those things.

Amazing - My mother was determined to be a part of my life, when she felt like it, when it made her look good.
Loving - The first lie I ever remember my mother telling me happened when I was in no more than the first or second grade. I'm still waiting for that dollhouse with the electric lights.
Strong -  My mother couldn't be without a man that she put in front of her children.
Happy - I guess I can't speak to this, but my mother never seemed happy, certainly not when she was screaming at me that she hated me, wished I'd never been born, and that I'd ruined her life.
Selfless - My mother dropped me off at my grandparents' house when I was still a toddler because she couldn't be bothered to be a mother.
Graceful - My mother has never accepted anything or acted with grace. She'll lie to your face if she thinks it will get you out of the way and then do whatever she'd planned to begin with. I've heard her talk behind my back when she thought she couldn't hear me and she tore me apart in front of my children.

I no longer have a relationship with my mother, but she has affected every inch of my life for the past 39 years. I used to say that I learned how not to be a parent by being the daughter of my mother. People will point out that I was raised by my grandparents. That's true and they weren't bad people, but they'd already raised their children, my grandfather had health problems and my younger sister who was his princess. For the most part, I was left to raise myself while they dealt with my mother's drama or my sister. It left me clueless about so many things and left gaps that I had to try to fill in myself.

When my own children came along, I was terrified. What if I were like my mother? What if I was a terrible parent? What if my children turned out like me, broken at the core and left to try to rebuild themselves? My boys are teenagers now and I still live in fear that I'm doing something wrong. Am I too tough on them? Not tough enough? Do they know how much I love them? Have I been able to instill the confidence in them that I never had without it crossing over to them being egotistical idiots? Am I raising them to be independent, giving, loving members of society who only want to improve upon what's here?

I know that all mothers worry that they're not doing a good job. I also know that my fears of being like my mother had me deciding as a teenager to never have children of my own just in case. Clearly that decision didn't stick, but I think about this all the time. When I'm having a bad bipolar day and I feel my control slipping when one of them has pushed me and I say something to them and watch their faces, my heart breaks because I know where that voice came from. I worry that my apologies and my love and how rare it is that it happens isn't enough. I worry that I didn't break the cycle...

Mother's Day is a love, hate, panic kind of day for me every year. I have no mother to celebrate or appreciate. I declared myself an orphan and I meant it. As hard as it was, removing the toxicity of my birth family was one of the best decisions that I made. Still I mourn not having the kind of relationships that I see on tv, in the movies, or even with a few friends and their parents.

As a mother myself, I long for the breakfasts in bed, the days off, the hey let's do whatever mom wants today kind of mother's days. Part of me judges how good of a mother I am by that one day a year. As a mother to teenage boys, I know how ridiculous that is and sometimes I cling to the little things like Roger wanting to go grocery shopping with me because he was bored and I'm pretty fun to talk to..or Ben saying he'll help me with the house by doing dishes if I want. Still, my heart worries and it takes my head right along with it and in the end, mother's day...a day to celebrate me just leaves me in tears, completely rung out.



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Every once in a while someone will ask me when my struggles with bipolar disorder began. I never really had an answer but for whatever reason, the question popped into my head last night and I spent some time actually thinking back over my life and the answer surprised me.

Most people with bipolar disorder start showing symptoms in their mid 20s. I'm not sure if that's the case with me. I would say that I was showing warning signs a good decade before that. I was in high school when I sat on my bike on the side of the highway where we lived. Now, to most of you, that wouldn't be a big deal. If this were an infomercial this is where the sales guy would say, "But wait! There's more!" Let me tell you about that day...

It was a typical sunny day. There was nothing majorly wrong in my world. I had decided to go for a bike ride around town so I was sitting at the end of our driveway, waiting for the traffic to clear when it happened. I looked up and saw my school bus coming down the highway. She must have finished her route and was on the way back to the bus garage. With a sort of cold detachment, I looked down at my bike, back up at the bus, and wondered what it would be like to ride in front of it and get hit. Without a second thought, my feet were on the pedals and I was racing through the gap. I made it to the other side before she hit me. She told me later that I'd nearly given her a heart attack.

It should have been a warning that perhaps my brain didn't work the same way as everyone else around me, but nobody noticed when I would do these sorts of things. The only thing that was ever noticed was that my grandmother used to comment how I was the least compassionate person that she knew. She never noticed that it was only in certain situations.

Even now, I know that people are puzzled how I can be the woman that people say has the biggest heart and who is always there for people and yet at times, I am completely cold. It's not an uncommon symptom of bipolar disorder. Emotions can be crazy, no pun intended. They're always intense but sometimes they just disappear and you're left just feeling numb. As hard as it is for those around me, it's harder on me. I know I should feel something and the fact that I don't, even over something big, scares me. It makes me wonder if I'm not slightly sociopathic during those times.

There have been other times throughout my life where I've had that same detachment when it comes to pain or death, but there have only been two times that I have gotten to the point where there was no detachment and I had planned out how I was going to kill myself. I think that perhaps it was with that first time that I never truly recovered and the bipolar had set in. It was always there, but that emotional break gave it a chance to become something I no longer had the strength to fight against.

It would be another 15 years before I would get a diagnosis. In between I would watch my marriage fall apart (and always wonder a little if this played into at all), move away, be diagnosed with depression (which happens far too often because people with bipolar disorder seek help when they're depressed and doctors don't always think to ask about the other side), have my heart broken into a million pieces, move back to Michigan and lose at least one other person I loved intensely due to this disorder and his inability to deal with what it did to me.

So, if you asked me when it all started, it's still hard to say. I've lived with ptsd since I was a toddler so I will never know if those early days were that or warning signs there would be worse to come. I can only say that once you've been through hell and back and lost track of how many times, you realize that deep down you're a fighter and you will fight until you just can't anymore and you pray that when those times come, you have those who love you who will hold you up until you have the strength to stand again.




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I've been struggling since Sunday night and while this wasn't what I had planned on writing about, I find myself needing to get this out of my head and out into the universe. You see, I'm not sure if my reaction to something is "normal". In fact, I'm fairly positive that it isn't and since a friend of mine has been trying to hard to understand what it's like to be me and live in my head, I thought maybe, just maybe this might be a good example for not only him, but for anyone who wonders what bipolar disorder can be like.

Some of you may know that for the past six months or so I've been absolutely blessed to be editor on a series of all ages comics. It's been so good for me. I've felt as if I have some value and perhaps more importantly, as if I'm a part of something. The group who works on these books is pretty set... the writer/letterer/owner, a cover artist and an interior artist. I thought that I was part of that group too, but now I'm pretty sure that I'm not. The writer was texting back and forth with me about upcoming deadlines and there wasn't one for me on the new book. To say I was crushed is putting it lightly. I cried myself to sleep and even now, two days later, I'm crying writing about it.


I haven't spoken to him about it because I'm afraid that he'll tell me that he doesn't need me or want me working on this or any other project. It's been a long time since I've allowed myself to get so wrapped up in the anxiety. Still, I keep remembering how I was once told not to ask the question if you don't really want to know the answer.


Part of me is 100% sure that I'm overreacting. Then there's the "dangerous" part that can list sign after sign that I've never been a valued part of things. It's so hard to have an ongoing battle within your own head and yet even harder to just put the fears into words to another person. I so badly want to be a part of this and I know that I've told him more than once how wonderful a thing it is for me to be allowed to work on the projects.

The reality is that I know that my work has value and has been valued. Still, I've allowed this insecurity to ride along with me since the very beginning. I respect the man in charge, but more than once, I've felt as if he lets me work on things as a favor to me and not because he truly wants me on a project.


I don't want to thrust my insecurities on him and so I sit here trying to decide what a reasonable reaction is...a reaction that won't chase him (because he is a dear friend) out of my world. I always worry about people leaving me. It's ridiculously hard for me to trust someone enough to let that guard down. Maybe I should just lay my "crazy" line of thinking out before him and run the risk of him getting upset with me. Maybe I should just stay quiet and convince myself somehow that I was never a part of things and that this amazing thing is now no longer a part of my life... or maybe somehow I could find a reasonable reaction..




Quotes taken from: Bipolar Burble

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Over the past few weeks, it's been pointed out to me that I've changed...the girl who used to be so open has hidden herself away, she's more careful with what she says and she doesn't really talk to anyone anymore. Sure, she posts on social media, but it's shallow. It's not what's inside her. It's just enough so that people will leave her alone.

Those people are right. Losing Reece changed me. It woke up every feeling of insecurity and worthlessness that I've ever felt. It took me to a place that I never thought I would see again. A few weeks ago, I planned on killing myself. While I'm glad that I didn't, living with these feelings has been incredibly hard. I've shut myself off to most people. People scare me. There. I said it. People scare me.

There are very few people that I trust right now and it's to those people that I turn. They're doing their best to remind me how amazing and awesome I am and while I don't argue with them, it's hard for me to believe them. What happened to the girl who was starting to believe that she could do anything? It's as if she got knocked down and then trampled on until there was nothing of her left but a battered and bruised shell.

The thing about bruises is that they heal. Some take longer than others, but broken bones, broken hearts, and bruises all heal. It's a process and for someone who constantly has a voice in their head that tears them apart, it can be a long process. Yes, I've hidden myself away but I needed to. I needed to focus on myself and deciding if I were worth the effort. I'm not ready to come out yet. I need this time with me so I can try to be okay again. I have doubts that I'll ever find happy again, but right now, okay seems like a pretty good place to be.

Yes, people scare me, but I know that over time I'll slowly start to stick my head out again. I'll find my place and maybe even love again, but right now, I'm going to be quiet. I'm going to protect my heart because it's fragile. The wrong thing said by someone I care about starts the tears flowing. Letting even a few in has been incredibly hard when all I want to do is hide. We're all built with the instinctual fight or flight response. Mine has always been flight. By letting even one person in, I'm trying to fight. I'm trying to silence the awful feelings of worthlessness, of being forgettable, of being a nobody unworthy of anything good.

I'm here...and I'm fighting...but for me, right now, it's a silent fight...



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