Pixies and Posies, Part One

Song of the day: Charlotte Martin “Bones”

So, I have this thing that I tend to do. Since I was 16 and started having panic attacks ( which directly coincided with my first job-interesting, isn’t it) I tend to have a complete emotional and mental breakdown, quit my job or barely scrape by in school, and go on some kind of anti-depressant medication. Then, in a couple of months, when all of my problems and temperamental difficulties don’t magically go away, I stop taking my medication out of disillusionment. And in a couple of month, I crash again and start the cycle over. This has happened at least five times-I’m counting different medications, here. I’ve pumped my body through of almost every SSRI anti-depressant available, and never found that magic pill to make me a normal, functioning human being girl thing.

Out of this, I’ve come to two conclusions. One is that I’m never going to be a normal, functioning human being girl thing. I’m really not. Okay. Two is that if I seem to be non-responsive, or just get a little agitated and manic on, all of these different drugs, maybe it isn’t a problem to be solved with drugs.

What I’m really trying to say is maybe I don’t need to be fixed. This is not a failure. I’ve been trying to change myself into something I’m not, someone I’m not since I was born. And I’ve been nothing but encouraged to fit in, to fix myself, by those closest to me, molding me out of shape, smooth clay roughened weak and distorted by time and false frames. Children are less malleable than they seem-it’s all a surface affectation created in the search for love and survival.

And me, I’ve been a worse case than most, I’m not even good at pretending, at playing along. I’ve tried. So hard. Did everything I was supposed to, half-heartedly, without any joy. I’ve never been good enough at anything. I’ve always been wrong, in the wrong place, having the wrong words, not thin enough, not tall enough, not brave enough, not happy enough, not self destructive enough to warrant attention. To exist.

No wonder I’ve felt like a ghost hovering on the fringes of life, as though I’ve been living in a different wrold than anyone else. As though my bones and skin have dissipated, leaving a gentle shadow to meander lostly through the world. I’ve given up so much of myself in the process of just trying to survive and exist that I have nearly forced myself into oblivion. I’ve been cut in portions, each section cordoned off by thick ropes and guards who yell at me in voices that are not my own.

Yelling is the only way I’ve ever been able to make my voice heard. My parents yelled at each other, and argued, and still, never heard each other. When I yell, everyone hates me, but they almost listen. My words aren’t enough, my words have hidden themselves in my chest, in my gut, closed off, knowing that they’re unwanted. How does a girl get to this place? It’s not as though I woke up one morning with this new feeling that I was useless and insignificant, unwanted and undeserving of existence. My parents hovered and smothered, proclaimed their love loudly and seemed to encourage me to grow and flourish. Tendrilling so deeply underneath was years of fear and their own abandoned dreams of wholeness and creativity. What they said was not what they did, and what they taught me.

From them I learned to ignore my intuition, to struggle towards goals and attachments that didn’t resonate, towards things I could never do, and was not meants to do. Somehow I learned and deeply soaked up the belief system that I have nothing of worth to offer the world, and that I am a fragile and silent creature. Broken bird wings from the start.

I honor and love that fragility, it is a part of me, my thin skin and sensitivity, the joy of gentleness and soft voices are thoroughly embedded in some of my chambers. My weakness is a blessing that I hold dearly. At heart I am guileless, and have no need for jealousies or competitions. Underneath I have this strangely connected system, a skeleton held tightly together with pieces of wool and disparate lengths of silk.
But all of this is invisible to the outside, and serves no purpose in the modern marketplace of the world. I am not economically sound, and therefore no one wants to bother investing in my. I have nothing to offer capitalism but empty hands and a desire to create without unhealthy destruction( more on healthy/unhealthy destruction later I’m sure). Doing things that are frustrating and meaningless literally kills me.