Five years ago today I got the call that would lead to the end of something that had started 10 months previously. Looking back, I think I can say that it was the day that I finally lost myself after the previous 5 years of fighting to find myself again. I suppose that I ought to give some background so that this makes sense to someone other than me...

In 2005, Peter and I agreed that it was time for a divorce. In June 2006, the divorce was finalized. Memorial Day weekend 2017, I left the house that we had bought together and everything I knew to move to New York. To say that I was lost is perhaps the understatement of the century. I left behind everything I knew and in some ways, my very identity. For the 10 years or so before that, I had been known as Peter's wife. Since 2000, I had been someone's mom. There was no me outside of those two roles. I didn't have any local friends. The only people I socialized with were online.

For the next five or six years, I fought to figure out who I was without being someone's wife or mother. (Of course, I was still the boy's mom but I had made the heartbreaking decision to leave the boys with their dad because he had the job, the money, the insurance, and the location where all of Ben's team were located.) I missed almost an entire semester of school due to a depression so bad that it crippled me and gave me panic attacks whenever I tried to get into the car to go anywhere. I ended up in therapy that was mostly useless because the therapist decided that my entire issue was that I was lonely. I wasn't lonely, I was lost.

I did finish that semester of school by some tiny miracle, dropping most of my classes, and having some incredibly understanding instructors. I finished the following year as well and while it improved, I never really shook that depression. Later, I would be diagnosed as Bipolar II. I graduated with honors with a degree in Psychology and was once again faced with the idea of having nowhere to go. The people I had been renting from wanted me out and I wanted out. The atmosphere was unhealthy on almost every level. In the end, I decided to "come home". I needed to be back with my boys. I found a house to rent in Sunfield, about 25 miles from them. It wasn't perfect but it was at least within driving distance. I threw myself back into being their mother. I drove (and still do) every day to town to do homework with one or both of them. I went (and still go) to all of their events. This was a me that I knew.

Slowly, piece by piece, I recovered from losing the world that I knew and I started to build up a new one. I was finding me again. I started writing again. I started crafting again. I slowly purged the things that I had accumulated and that I really had no need for. I felt as if I had close friends, even if they again lived nowhere near me. I started working out and eating better. In fact, I think I lost close to 75 pounds and for the first time in a long time, didn't hate myself when I looked in the mirror.

My Grandparents

Then, my world started to crumble again. The only person who I had ever felt loved me unconditionally got sick and suddenly everyone was leaning on me for strength and acted as if I could somehow magically fix it. I should have been stronger. I should have said no, but I didn't. They knew what cards to play. They reminded me how she'd taken me in when my own parents didn't want me. Before I knew it, I was spending almost every weekend at her house cleaning, organizing, purging, sorting and with my poor boys in tow. It wasn't fair to me and it wasn't fair to them, but the guilt laid on me was too much for me to say no to.

I stopped working out. I stopped cooking because I was tired and stressed and I was starting to crack around the edges. I was trying to keep everything normal but nothing was normal and the guilt of the fact that I was dragging my children into it added to everything. Five years ago today, my grandmother died after being sick for 10 months. I'm not going to lie. I was glad. I was glad that she was no longer suffering and I was glad that it was over. Except, for me, it wasn't over.

For the next six weeks, my family would guilt me into going through ever box that had been packed and sorting it into things they could sell and things they could toss. I was exposed to their greed, their hypocrisy, and their selfishness. They were allowed to mourn but I was expected to work. During that six weeks, I was pushed to my breaking point and at the end, when I finally had the strength or perhaps the desperation to say no more, it was too late. I had lost myself again. I had lost myself and I had lost the few close "local" friends that I had thought I'd had. I went home and buried myself..literally.

Boxes and boxes of her things had made their way to my house either because I'd brought them there or because they'd been dumped there. On top of that, I had started to surround myself with stuff in a desperate effort to feel some sort of security. In the years that followed, it would only get worse. There are very few who know the true conditions that I was living in and in some ways, still live in. I wish I could explain how this was "okay" to me but I can't because it wasn't. The worse the house got, the worse I felt. The guilt, the anxiety, all of it overwhelmed me until I was crippled and frozen by it.

Five years ago, I lost myself again and I'm just starting to find myself. Some of you have seen the tag Reclaiming Me either here or on Facebook. That's a very real thing for me.  Just over a year ago, I started purging my house again. I've backslid at times and made huge strides at others. Eight months ago, Nick convinced me to work with him on a book series. When he brought it up in exchange for doing something for me, we both knew that it wasn't a fair deal but neither of us cared. I think he knew I needed to push myself, that I needed a challenge and as for me, I felt ready to take that challenge. Oh, I've had major bouts of anxiety and self doubt since that agreement, but I finished book one and it's had good feedback.

Five years is a long time and I'm not back to the place I was before it happened. I wish that I could say that I was, but I'm not. Every day is a challenge on some level. Today, I woke up and my power was still out because of a wind storm yesterday. I was cold, tired from waking up repeatedly because i was cold, emotional because of today's anniversary and while what I really wanted was to have a message saying I love you, I had one that felt harsh...harsher than it really was but a tired me is a vulnerable me. I'm not going to lie. I laid on the couch for an hour and just cried. The world felt like it was just too much for me. Just thinking about it has me in tears again. This morning I relived the loss of everything that mattered to me and it's still in my head... but I got up, changed into jeans, and drove to someplace warm that had outlets so I could recharge things in case there's still no power when I get home tonight.

Five years is a long time, but it isn't forever and today I'm a little bit stronger than I was then. Today, I got up off the couch. Today, I walked out my front door. Today, I wrote this. Tomorrow, I will write more. Two years from now, I will make a final decision on where I'm moving to and hopefully, I will have the courage to do it. I know where I want to be at that point. It's not just up to me though, but today, under the fear and the emotions, there is hope.



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Edit: This was written a week ago, but for reasons..yes, reasons...I waited until today to post it.



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For the past few days, I've had multiple posts running around in my head, but I wasn't in a mental or emotional place where I could sit and write without it sounding like I was having some sort of breakdown. I want to start out by assuring everyone that I'm okay. I'm just having a really rough week, but I'm still here and I'm still fighting and that's the part that really matters. Now...on with the post....

Yesterday something happened that put me into a near panic attack like state for almost the entire day. It got so bad that I ended up with a migraine, which oddly enough may be the best thing that could have happened, but we'll get to that. So, what happened?

A friend of mine took the day off from work to celebrate his wife's birthday. He made her breakfast in bed, gave her amazing presents, and perhaps the best gift of all, he gave himself to her for the day. The day really was all about her. I'm sure you're shaking your head wondering what this could have possibly triggered. Fear. It triggered the biggest bout of panic and fear that I've had in a long time.

You see, I have a long history..39 years worth at this point of being tossed aside by nearly every single man who I have ever let get close to me and seeing what he was doing for his wife made me
afraid. I was afraid..and still am, though I'm working on it..that I will never have anything like that. I will never have anyone love me that much.

One thought..seemingly innocent.."I would so badly love for someone to love me like that." turned into a day of hell. My mind spiraled to the point where I was sure that it was impossible. If people saw me the way I see me...well, surely there isn't a single soul out there who could possibly love someone as messed up as me. I cried. I tried to fight my way out of it, but the harder I fought, the deeper I sank. I sank until I could no longer function and I gave up. I had a migraine, no rational way to explain the panic I was feeling, and nobody who I would completely subject them to the entirety that is the insanity that is my brain. So, I gave up. I shut down the laptop and I laid down on the couch. I tried to watch a movie, but I couldn't focus. My mind wouldn't stop. It kept right on going with its lies and nonsense... "You have an upcoming anniversary with someone and I bet they don't even know the date and they're not going to do anything special for you. You'll never be loved like that."

I don't know what suddenly changed. The movie was about over (Life of Brian, for anyone curious. I hadn't seen it yet and thought funny might help) and in the final scene, they start singing this ridiculous song, one I've heard over and over again and suddenly something clicked. All day long, I'd been thinking that I was jealous or envious, but the reality is that I was afraid. None of those three emotional states are rational, but somehow fear is easier to deal with. I know fear to be a way that depression keeps its hold. Depression lies and uses fear to help.

Fear is the reason that I don't lose weight. Fat is a buffer against rejection. When my ex-husband cheated on me and it led to our divorce, my grandmother asked me if I thought it had anything to do with my weight gain throughout our marriage. It hadn't, but the question was out there and as I laid there last night, silence in the house, I realized the fear is keeping me from a lot of things. I don't lose the weight because what if I did and nothing changed, nobody wanted to be with me. I don't go out (partially due to finances) because what if I met someone (male/female/whatever) and I liked them and then I never heard from them again?

Fear and depression pipe up in their twin voices with a single message. It's okay because you don't deserve those things anyway. Nobody could possibly love you or want to be your good friend with your past, with how you are. It's an incredibly hard mental prison to break free from. I've given my heart fully and openly, showed my entire self to just a few people ever and of those, two of them stopped talking to me and have pushed me completely out of their lives. Fear uses that as evidence that it's right.

Knowing that fear is trying to become the motivator in my life is a blessing. Remember I said that the migraine may have been the best thing that could happen to me? This is why. It allowed me to shut out all of the outside noise that bombards so many of us every day. No Facebook, no Twitter, no music, nothing but me and when I can get to the core of me, I can find the problem. Knowing the problem allows for me to find a solution. As you may have heard, knowing is half the battle. The other half is the fight to shut down those voices, but if Fear is the enemy of love, the solution is love. Loving myself and my flaws, acknowledging them but not letting them rule me. It's not going to be easy. I have over 30 years of conditioning to conquer. Still, if I can love myself, take care of myself, and yes, even spoil myself, I'll be doing the best thing that I can do.




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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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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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I'm tired and not the normal kind of tired. I call this depression tired..this unnatural need/desire to sleep all of the time. I feel as if I only have the energy to be up for tiny pockets of time and then I want to sleep again. It's hard to function when all you want to do is sleep and even though you battle, there's no real winning the war.

I know what triggered this, but like the battle for energy, there's nothing I can do to change the cause. I went to a convention last weekend and it was good. It was wonderful being back out among people and not just any people, but people who love indie comics as much as I do. I even helped do a panel which was amazing. It felt so good to talk about things that I knew and to have zero doubt that I knew what I was talking about.

I have to admit just remembering that experience has put a smile on my face. You see..I had planned on writing a personal post about my time in Columbus, but this wasn't it. It is now. You never know where things are going to go when you sit down to write, or at least I don't.

So, here's the thing...Columbus was a test for me. For the past year, I've shut myself off more and more. Some have noticed, most haven't. It's easy to hide when you don't live near anyone and everyone is so busy with their lives that they don't notice when you quietly slip away. Very few reach out and say hey, where did you go? I'm lucky that very few doesn't equal zero. Still, I needed some answers.

As I shut myself away, I slowly convinced myself that my other site would be better off without me. I wasn't sure if I still had the passion to do what needed to be doing. After all, the best person to run a site is someone who feels passionate about what the site does. With the struggles I've had over the past year, I wasn't sure if that person was me anymore. So, I decided that I needed to either find out or hand the site over to my second in command.

The test? Take myself off to a convention that is strictly 100% tiny indie comics..no vendors, no larger indie publishers that we already work with, just tiny indie guys. I figured that by the end of the weekend, I would know just how I felt about the industry and my future with Geek-o-Rama. Turns out that I was right. By the time I got back to the hotel room Sunday night and had a chance to reflect, I had my answers. I still love what I do. I love meeting new people and hearing about their passion for an industry that isn't the easiest to break into. I love being able to give bits of advice (though seriously, I may need to start charging consulting fees) and being able to share what I (and my amazing staff) do with them. Don't get me wrong, I still love working with the bigger indie publishers, but my heart will always lie with the underdog.

Honestly, it came as an incredible relief. I was afraid that this was one more thing that had been taken from me. It wasn't though and over the summer, I plan on diving back into the pool and working harder than ever.

To close out this post, how about a Top 5 list of random things from SPACE 2016?

1. Spending $5 to purchase an 11 year old's first comic and an art print from her is something that will never stop bringing a smile to my face. It's important to support our children's passions.
2. Having towels in your hotel room is really a good thing and hotels should be on top of that.
3. There's something great about making random connections on the road with people you'll never see again, but in that moment, you connected.
4. Waffle House post con with two really fun people is an experience that I hope to have again. One of the toughest parts of conventions is the sitting alone in a hotel room with takeout afterwards.
5. I really do love what I do and I need to stop letting anxiety get in the way of getting out there. 

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I never wanted to go back and yet here I am. It's been about six weeks since everything seemed to fall apart and in those six weeks, I've slowly been trying to piece my world...myself...back together again and all it took was a couple of pictures and I'm on the floor, curled up, crying all over again.

PTSD can be a bitch like that. All it takes is one little thing and suddenly you're reliving everything all over again. I thought I was getting better. Sure, there were rough moments, but I'd kept going. I'd fought. Even in the worst of it, he told me that I would get back up again and go on kicking ass like I always did.

I'd been trying to condition myself for things that might come...things that might hurt...things that might trigger, but I didn't expect them to come the way they did. I didn't prepare myself. I have this cold spot. It's right in the middle of my chest. If you touch it, the skin is actually colder there. It's as if seeing what I did sent an ice arrow right through me and it's so cold that it burns. It'd been weeks since that had happened. I was stronger. I was ready to move on.

Now, it's as if everything just happened. I want to hide. I cry. I sob. I pant trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. My skin feels like there's something crawling and I have to fight not to scratch. Every single awful thing keeps running through my head like a movie reel. I stare at my screen...at pictures of friends...and I whisper help me, someone please help me. Take me from this hell...but they can't hear me. I'm alone in this awful place.

Why do I write this? I write this to save myself. Maybe if I share this with the world then maybe there's a chance I can survive this. Maybe I can tap more into the anger that's deep inside of me...anger at myself for giving anyone this kind of control in my life and anger with him for letting his cowardice lead to cruelty. The fact that it's in there means there's hope. I'm not totally lost to this. Maybe if I share this, someone else will realize that they're not alone when it happens to them.

So what's next for me? I don't rightly know. More and more I'm starting to think that therapy is something I should seek. There's also the voice of someone I love in my head telling me to fight, not to hide...I don't know what I'm going to do. Hiding keeps me safe from the world and the scary things in it. Nobody can hurt me if I don't open myself up to them.  I feel as if I don't really have anyone that I can talk to about this. The platitudes don't help a lot though the thought behind them is appreciated. Those who try to intellectualize this just make it worse. My support network has gone eerily quiet, even when I've tried to reach out. I don't judge. I know life gets busy and that there's not always the time for things like this.

For today, I'll make some lunch...and wish that I weren't always the one reaching out to those I love...and maybe let the cat have her way in her desires to sit on me.



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I should probably apologize for falling off the face of the Earth, but all I'm going to say is that the past few months took on a life of their own and everything came to a head last Tuesday.

I'm not going to get into a lot of details here because on some level, they just don't matter. What matters is the end result.

As most of you know, I deal with a multitude of mental issues every day...bipolar 2, ptsd, anxiety, ocd...and most of the time, I manage. This time, I didn't. In the midst of a depressive cycle, the man that I had fallen in love with decided that he wanted to pursue a relationship with someone else. It was too much. I've been fighting my own demons for months and I was emotionally exhausted. I had nothing left.

So, last Wednesday, while driving into town to do homework with the kids, my brain wouldn't stop ticking. It wouldn't stop thinking about everything and suddenly, I had this moment of clarity..the kind where everything seems to fall into place. I didn't want to live anymore. I wanted to die. This wasn't just one of those passing thoughts. It was as if a lightbulb had gone off in my head. There's no reason for me to be on this planet. I could die and life would go on for everyone else and it would be okay. Everyone had someone. They didn't need me.

I did homework with Ben. I tried to spend time with Roger. I tried not to cry. The one person who I had trusted more than anyone on this planet reached out to me and I told him. Even though just seeing his name caused me physical pain, I told him. He reached out to others who tried to contact me. I ignored them all. I didn't want to be talked out of this. The decision felt right.

When it was time to leave the school, I sat in my car saying goodbye to my children, to those that I love. I sat there crying for a while, the pain raw and consuming. Then, I started my car and headed out of town. As each car passed me, I prayed that it would hit me and I would die. I scouted places where if I drove my car off fast enough, it might roll or hit a tree or cause enough damage that I wouldn't live. As I got closer to home, a truck stopped a ways up in front of me and for a few moments, my foot didn't reach for the brake. I thought if I ran into him, it might kill me and I almost didn't hit the brake. In the end, I did...simply because I wanted to come home and finalize some things...then, the next night, I would do it. Some would say this was me looking for a way out, but it wasn't. I wanted to die. I just didn't want to leave more chaos behind me than was going to happen anyway.

In the end, I made it home alive and since I'm here writing this, you can guess I didn't go out the next day and off myself. Some tiny thing shifted and while every day has had its battles, I'm still here. Still, I'm tired and I'm fragile. Sometimes I'm living minute by minute, not day by day. Mantras that worked in the past are now contorted by what has happened. My brain changes you are loved to you are alone. The battle with myself is one of the hardest that I've fought.

Is there a moral to this story or even a point? If there is, I'd say that it's a simple one. Take care of those you love. Don't accept I'm fine as a response to how are you? Get details. Care enough to listen. Be there for one another and if nothing else, hold someone's hand so that they don't feel as if they're alone as they struggle simply to survive.



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Yesterday, I wrote about my friend dying on Tuesday. Sadly, he wasn't the only person who died that day. The internet was filled with people mourning the death of author Terry Pratchett. I know numerous authors who write touching tributes, including how it was his fearless writing inspired so many others.

That got me to seriously thinking (a 30 minute drive all by yourself is great for that!). My friend is gone. Mr. Pratchett is gone. What legacies did they leave behind? What legacy do I want to leave behind?

If you talk to me on any sort of regular basis, you've heard me say that I don't want my boys to remember me for having hoarding problems or any other number of negative things. I've never really stopped to consider what positive things I want to leave behind for them...so today, I'm going to.

I want them, and anyone who knows me, to say she wasn't afraid to do things, even when she was afraid. You see, fear is a natural response to the unknown and as someone who has found stability to be essential in her life, rocking the boat with some unknown is a big deal. I want my children to see that even when things get uncertain, I didn't give up. I kept going and was all the better for it.

Really, that's it. That's the legacy that I want to leave behind. I want people to say hey, her life was crap at a lot of points, but she not only survived, she created a life where she thrived. So, to honor both my friend who lost his battle to cancer and a prolific writer, who even when diagnosed with Alzheimers, never gave up, I'm going to do more things afraid.

I know that it won't always be easy. Depression will try to slow me down and at times will slow me down. Life will get in the way. The universe will throw an amazing amount of crap at me (like this past week, for example). That's the way things work.

I'm going to be honest...and this may be a bipolar upswing talking...but as sad as I am, I'm also happy. I'm happy that I get the chance to seriously dive into life. I still have life left to live. I have the ability to sit down and write and create. I have the ability to record my stories (which has been a request). I've been sitting on my butt and making buttprints in the sands of time. It's time that I make keystrokes and roads and love and all of the good things.

What are you going to leave as your legacy?

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
As part of my doing it afraid, I've decided to seriously dedicate myself to my writing. It's time that I stop fearing what may happen if I try to publish and just do it. Unfortunately, my laptop has literally started melting and it badly needs to be replaced. Yep, sometimes the universe just throws things at you. Instead of sitting here and using it as an excuse to not write, I'm asking for your help. I've setup a GoFundMe and the funds collected will go towards buying a new laptop and getting some much needed repairs to our only vehicle. If you're interested in donating, please check  out the link below.

A Hand Up, Not a Handout



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As some of you may know, I found out yesterday that a friend of mine had passed away the afternoon before. His passing shouldn't have been a shock. For as long as I've known him, his health has been out of whack.  Still, when you lose someone who is so young, it throws you..it threw me..There is a part of me that still can't believe that he's gone...

And he's not the only one. In the past few years, I've lost track of the number of people who have died at an early age. I won't say far before their time because who am  to judge when someone's time is. I will say that they left this planet before those who loved them were ready to let go. Maybe before people had a chance to tell them that they were loved...

Which brings me to why I'm writing this post...I don't know if Darrin knew that I loved him. I sure hope that he did.  I hope that he knew just how many people loved him. I've been on his Facebook page today and the outpouring of memories has been overwhelming. If he were here, he'd be overwhelmed..of course, if he were here, it's entirely likely that none of these posts would have happened.

Does that seem wrong to anyone else? Why do we wait to share our love and our happy memories until after a person is gone? We've all seen the meme things on Facebook that say, "Hey, share a great memory of me...or of how we met."  We roll our eyes and move on by. How many of us stop to think about the fact that by simply taking 5 minutes out of your day and answering one of those, you could be changing someone's day? I've had a really tough time of it lately and I posted one of those because I thought it might be a fun pick me up. One person took the time to answer it. Granted, he made up a seriously ridiculous story, but it made me laugh and it brightened my day and it made me feel special that he had taken the time to come up with it.

When I was 15, my grandfather died. What most don't know is that the last words I spoke to him were in anger. I was a teenager who didn't feel that life was fair (and it wasn't) and I wanted things to change, but because I was a teenager, I had no idea how to make that happen. So, we fought. We fought and a few hours later, he died without us ever fixing that. I've lived with that for 23 years.

Over the past few years, I've lost friends...some I've lost to death and some have just simply drifted away, but after losing my grandfather and a couple other people suddenly, I never wanted anyone that I loved to not know that. I have friends who grew up in homes where love was shown by helping out, etc. The families weren't touchy feely or vocal about their feelings. That's fine. That will never be me. If you're close to me, you'll know it and I will never walk away from a conversation without telling you that I love you. Should something happen to me or to you, I want us both to know that you were loved. After all, it takes mere moments to share that with someone...so why don't we?



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*Better mom = better than I give myself credit for. It's easy for me to see the negatives in my own life and allow myself to sometimes think I'm not enough for my boys. By no means do I mean better than the four kiddos mom. She's actually a bit of a rockstar for going through what she is and keeping her kids from running amuck.

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I've spent the past 30 hours wanting to write here, even needing to write here but not knowing what to say. I always find that to be such a sad irony; the girl who has a writer's soul not knowing what to write. I guess let's start with what the doctor said...

I broke it down for some friends like this:

1. It turns out that I'm brilliant. IQ testing, for what it's worth, put me at smarter than 90% of the people on the planet.
2. I have PTSD that mostly likely began when I was about 3 and has continued untreated well into adulthood. The other "traumas" that I have gone through have only made it worse and in part most likely led to...
3. What is most likely Bipolar II disorder. The testing that I did wasn't geared towards that but it did come up as a possibility and after discussing my symptoms that the testing didn't go over, he's pretty convinced.

So...now what? Now, I wait to hear back from my primary care doctor to see if they'll write me a prescription for a lithium based medication. I also have to call and set up a therapy schedule with a therapist who specializes in trauma therapy for women and children.

On paper, that's where I am right now. Inside my head, I'm so far from there. The stress and anxiety of yesterday has led to exhaustion and depression today. Add into that what one friend calls the "female chemical factory" that's going on inside of my body and I'm left wondering what the point of it all is.

I'd love to be able to say don't worry, I'll be fine, but the reality is..or at least the reality inside of my own head...I don't know. I don't know if I will ever be "fine" again. I look around and I see people smiling and laughing and so much of the time, it feels as if I don't even recognize those emotions. I put on a brilliant show, but deep down, I'm not sure what happy even is.

There are times..maybe too many times..that I sit and think about how I wish nobody really cared about me because then I could just vanish. Somehow, I could just cease to exist on this planet and the world would be such a better place. The oddest part? When I have those thoughts, I'm disconnected from them. There's no deep emotional well that they're coming from. If I were to say it out loud, it would be said in that same bored tone like, "Yeah, I should take the garbage out."

So I would love to say don't worry...because I'll be okay, but instead it's don't worry, you'll be okay. Who knows, maybe I will be too. After all, this is only 2/3 of my world...the rest of it is nothing like this...

For now though, I'm going to leave you with two posts..written by someone who has said and illustrated it so much better than I can right now. She's been there, so she understands...please go and read these and leave her your support.

Adventures in Depression Part I and Adventures in Depression Part II



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Tomorrow is the day where I find out if I'm officially crazy. I've said it before and I guess I'm going to say it again...I don't know which idea is scarier..the one where he looks at me and says there's nothing wrong with you or the one where he looks at me and says yeah, you were right. You have entire subscriptions to issues. I've spent so many years fighting this and I'm so tired. I'm so dang tired and scared.

I'm tired of the days where I wake up and my brain just doesn't work right. It's so hard to explain. It's like I'm in a room and one minute, it's open and light and airy. The next minute, it's filled with dense fog and suddenly there are walls that I can't see and I keep smacking into them. If I try to push past it, I get terrible headaches.

I'm tired of the days where everything seems to be okay but then suddenly I'm caught up in this whirlwind of fear and anxiety and all I can do is sit and rock while I cry, whispering please can't someone help me? Those are the days where I feel so incredibly alone. I feel as if nobody on the planet has the time to just sit and spend a bit of time talking to me. Those are the days when I want to throw myself at the feet of some and beg them to just hug me and tell me that it's going to be okay because okay is the last thing that I can see.

I'm even tired of the up days. The up days where everything is remarkably clear and I can focus and my brain works at super sonic speeds and I get a thousand things done. I'm happy and cheerful and optimistic and nothing can bring me down. They also leave me exhausted, both mentally and physically. Plus, I can't maintain those levels and when I crash, I crash hard.

I'm tired of living life on this rollercoaster where there are times when I don't feel as if I have any control. I'm tired of the "side effects" of living a life this way. I need answers and tomorrow, I will get answers. It's been close to two weeks since I sat in that room and took a battery of tests. Before I took the tests, the psychologist told me that he thinks part of my problem is that I'm too smart and that I'm not using my brain to its potential so it gets bored and bored brains are bad things. He wasn't surprised that I found myself doing editing since it requires a high level of intelligence and attention to detail. Then, I took the tests and I left feeling like an idiot. It's not surprising. The tests are meant to challenge your brain and mine hasn't been properly challenged in a long time. It's like using muscles that haven't been used in years..they moan and groan and struggle.

Tomorrow, I get answers and I'm scared. Deep down I know that it will all be okay but on those upper levels, I'm scared and I just want someone to hug me, to hold me and to tell me that it's all going to be okay.




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I haven't been posting here regularly for a while now. Usually I come back and I make some lame excuse or laugh off my absence. Today..Today, I'm going to tell you the truth of where I've been.

I've been right here. I've been sitting here, staring at this screen and wishing desperately for the knowledge of how to tell any of you who still read here that I'm not okay. I'm not fine. If I say those words, odds are that they're lies because while I so desperately want to be, I'm not fine and I'm not okay. I haven't been for a long time.

Oh sure, there are good days. Everyone has good days, even me. There have been days where I feel like I'm on top of the world and nothing can bring me back down. Those days are almost too good. They give me hope and for a brief shining moment, there's clarity.

Then, there are the bad days. Oh God, the bad days nearly kill me sometimes. Those are the days where I sit and cry because my life just feels impossible. Those are the days where I look down at my wrists and I think about how good it would actually feel to slice open that fragile skin. I don't want to die. It's not about death. It's about feeling something other than whatever is holding me down.

I met a boy not so long ago and he was wonderful. For the first time, perhaps ever, I opened myself up to him. I showed him the good days and I showed him pieces of the bad days. It was hard because I was so afraid that the "truths" of the bad days really were the truth. The voices that tell me that I'm useless, that I'm ugly, that I'm stupid, that I don't deserve happiness..I was so afraid that he would look at the real me and just confirm those things. He didn't, but he still broke my heart. You see, I showed him the real me and he said the real me doesn't exist.

Do I exist? That's such an awful question if you think about it. We all want to exist. We all want to be important in someone's world, don't we? To have someone say that you don't exist and then prove it by completely shutting you out of their world is just awful. It's been a couple of weeks and it still fills me with a horrible amount of sadness.

You see, I do exist but I exist within a world that not many people understand or even get to see. I live in a world where I may be on top of the world for a few days and then below the bottom of the ocean for a number after that. I ride a chemical and emotional roller coaster that makes no sense to many who haven't lived it themselves.

There are days when I don't want to get out of bed, where all I want to do is pull the covers up over me and pretend that I don't exist. It would be so much easier than trying to push through it. How do you explain to the people around you, the people who tell you how smart you are, that there are days where trying to think or put together coherent thought is like being in a smoke filled box where you can't see the walls and so you keep slamming into them as they move in closer and closer to you? That the very attempt at trying gives you awful headaches but you keep trying because you don't want anyone to see just how much you struggle with something that other times comes so easily? How do you explain that sometimes it's like there are two of you living inside your own head? There's the completely logical, rational, totally you girl..your true personality and spirit..but then there's this emotionally rabid creature that just reacts without reason. How do you explain that it's that second girl who desperately seeks out love and affection, even when it's not healthy? It's that girl who will crumple into a weeping pile over something said without any intent of harm or malice?

Those are the bad days, the days where I spend all day fighting myself until I'm an exhausted mess by the end of the day. Those are the days when I try to avoid people and yet everything within me screams to be with certain people. You see, I have what I call my safe zone..those people who have known me for ages and yet still accept me, even on the bad days when I know they don't understand what's happening with me. They're my 5 safe places. The irony is that I can't easily access any of them but they're the 5 that deep down I know that if things got bad enough, they'd be there.

It's not all bad days though. There are the way too good days too. The days where I wake up and I'm on top of the world, nothing can stop me and it's going to be amazing. Those are the days where I'm like a machine. I can accomplish amazing amounts of things and I'm happy, cheerful, bubbly and everyone loves me.

The problem with those? It's not normal or healthy either. A person cannot maintain that level of omgtheworldisawesomeandyesitalklikethisonthosedays. My brain moves at hyper sonic speeds and it's not unusual for me to have half a dozen things going on at once in it. I could be hearing a song, arguing with myself, thinking over some problem, sorting out a schedule and all this going on while I'm actively doing something else. Other times, my body is still as still can be because my brain is moving so fast that I don't need to move. For me, they can last no more than a few days and then the crash comes and I go through a series of bad days. Then, if I'm lucky, it balances out and I have
"normal" days for a little while before the whole cycle starts again.

You see, this isn't just depression. I've done depression and this is something more.  If I had my guess, it's Bipolar II disorder. My guess isn't good enough though, so I'm seeing a clinical psychologist next week. I need to know what's wrong with me and if it's even possible for me to live a normal life. I need to know if I can be just me without all of this holding me down and holding me back. I know that I will never get the boy back or help him to understand that I loved him enough to
show him the good and the bad, but maybe I can help other people understand what it's like to live with this by writing about it. It's a scary, scary place where so often I feel incredibly alone, so alone that I panic and will reach out to people who have no idea just how badly I need them to hold my hand and to tell me that it's going to be okay.

I'm just a girl, lost in her own world, who needs to know that even when she's "crazy", she's still loved.




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While today is Saint Patrick's Day, that's not why I've come to write. I know that I've been neglectful of all my sites lately but sometimes, in life, you need to handle life and writing takes a back seat. Today, I came to write about one of the wonderful pieces that have caused me to be away.

Do you see that shamrock over there? Do you know what I love best about it? I love that it's made up of four hearts. It has four hearts with one stem. So does one of the most wonderful pieces of my life right now. You see, I've found family. Oh I know that I've had a birth family and that there are certainly friends in my life who have made up a family of another sort, but this family is different.

This family is made up of three amazing people who didn't have to accept me. In fact, on some levels, it would have been so much easier to completely shut me out. They didn't though and that's just proof of how wonderful they really are. Over the past few weeks, we've gone through our tough times and I'm sure that all of us have wondered if the bruises were worth it. They've shown me though just how strong love can be and how strong they are. They have inspired me to be a better person than I am and to open up myself to each of them.

So today, while some are drinking Guinness and eating corned beef, I'm just here being thankful. Saint Patrick might have brought Christianity to Ireland, but these three people have brought me so much more. They've shown me love, strength and the sheer joy that can come when someone wraps their arms around you. They've shown me what it means to really and truly believe in someone. They've let me in and not only that, but they've wrapped their arms tight around me and asked me to stay. I cannot begin to express what any of this means to me.

We're not together right now and I don't know when we will be but I do know that none of us will ever really be alone again. We all carry a piece of the others, no matter where we are or where we go. I love them..each and every one of them and I carry the knowledge that they love me. So while we are four hearts, we are part of one whole..one family and it's something that I am thankful beyond measure for.


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Bonus Fact! This isn't me.

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