Eat, Pray, Love Phoenix 'Mental Ward'

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, I was trying to take the edge off. I have been laying in bed in my pajamas for months. The shit hits the fan if I’m running around trying to fix everything or if I’m laying in bed. I had already enjoyed everything that Netflix had to offer, take a pill, I hate myself, take a pill, look at my ass? When the fuck did this happen? Take a handful. There are clear indications that you have lost the will to live, other than hating the sound of every breath you take. I have run out of words. I have nothing, not one thing to say about anything. The worst thing to say to a person that is depressed is remind them that they ’have so much’. Or ’so many people love you’. It doesn’t matter how many people love you, if YOU don’t love you. I’m in the middle of season two on ‘Lost’. Take another pill. Everyone is a ’social drinker’? Can I watch the small children so you can have some ‘me’ time? Fuck yes. Drop off some small children with my insane exhausted ass. I can’t even get out of this bed so should we tether the child to a pole of some kind? After the first month of not getting out of my bed, crying, then crying more, my husband John or one of my daughters, Jennifer, April or Carly, would just crack my bedroom door and say, “You okay? Need anything?” The older girls would bring their sons in my room and drag them to my bed by their collars. “Give your grandmother a kiss.” I’m there, haven’t done my roots for who knows how long, black on top, blond on the bottom, and I think at this point I may have cultured some dreadlocks. “Kiss grandma damn it!” The sweet kid gives me a kiss. “Now tell her you love her. TELL HER YOU LOVE HER GOD DAMN IT!” And here’s the part. One of those little boys would give me the forced kiss, but every time, they would look right in my eyes and smile. You know why? They like me. They want me back in the kitchen making them chocolate milk. They want me to pick them up, so for a second my heart would soften. That would only last a minute or so because then I would remember that small children, let’s face it, they don’t know that much. They also like Dora and Spongebob Squarepants. Take another pill. Depression rolls over you like someone dumped water on your head and it rolls all the way down to your feet. Sometimes, we get depressed because of what they call ’Situational Depression’. That means something is going on or has happened and now you can’t stop your heart from breaking. Then there is ’Chronic Depressive Disorder’, where there is no actual reason, one day you climb in bed and don’t get out until you have dreadlocks. So, I’m trying to take the edge off and I take some pills, very small pills. My daughter Carly, who has been sober and in recovery for almost three years takes me to the emergency room. Just now I write that and it breaks my heart in to a billion pieces. It fucking makes me sick. How could I do that to my daughter? Not just Carly but all of them. Huge, huge, huge regret that I put her and all my family through that. It makes me sick to my stomach. That evening fills me with overwhelming regret, even though most of it I can’t remember. God, I would do anything to never have caused hurt to my beautiful girls. I love them so, so much. The other side of the coin is that I hate the weakness in an act like that. Am I weak? All I have ever wanted my daughters to see when they look at me is strength. I want them to think I can overcome anything and now I ruined it. I am rubble, a heap, nothing left. Except for my Jamaican heritage. The following morning I wake up and from previous experience I know exactly where I am. The very first word out of my mouth is, “Fuuuuck.” I stare at the roof, look to my left, nothing, look to my right, nothing. Rooms in the mental hospital are empty because people will try and kill themselves with the craziest things. I roll out of the bed, still under the influence of god knows what and stumble to the door. I walk out in the hallway, holding the wall, and I see a woman at the end of the hall that I later find out is my ‘case worker’. That’s what poor people have. Case workers. The people with good insurance get Physiologists with nice offices and picture frames with degrees from Yale or Harvard. I got a case worker with a big stain on the front of her shirt. She sees me coming and she bends down like you would if you saw a groggy toddler walking down the hall with pajamas with feet in them. “Look who’s awake! Look at you! Good for you!” Then under my breath I said, “Fuuuuck.” We get to her cubicle and we’re sitting across from one another and she begins to talk to me like I’m a giant baby. Why do people talk to crazy people in a baby voice? “Why is Dina sad? Huh? Why are you feeling so sad? Who’s sad! Who is sad! I’m going to bite your tummy! I am!” All of the sudden, the wind blew in my fucking direction. Finally a break! For an insane drug addicted alcoholic it was like winning the Powerball. This case worker looks at me, of course not realizing who she dealing with and says, “Your doctor has prescribed you Percocet for your migraines.” On the inside I am praising baby Jesus. I look in her eyes, she looks in mine and adds, “As needed.” She writes some things on a paper and says, “How bad is your headache now?” I say, “Well. (In the most migrainey kind of way possible) It’s bad.” A half an hour later I’m on the Lido Deck learning a line dance, at least that’s what my brain is doing. Let me talk about the definition of ‘as needed’ because I did have the discussion with the pharmacist at the ‘med’ window. When you say to a normal person to take a narcotic ‘as needed’, they only take it when they need it. As needed. When I hear ‘as needed’ I think ‘I need it’. Which I know is just a twist in the words, but what a big difference it makes. I’m at the med window as often as possible. After a few days we stop the ’what level is your pain?’ routine because every time I go to the window I say, “Eleven. My pain is at eleven.” He says, “It only goes to ten.” “My pain goes to eleven.” The mentally ill can hack any line from Spinal Tap and completely get away with it. This is a part of the hospital for women only so I liked that. We had group therapy all day long and weaved in to that were activities. At first these activities made me feel humiliated. Do they think we’re idiots? But as the days passed, I, like any crafty, fun, high person, looked forward to them. One activity was music class. It’s a big box filled with drums of all kinds and one tambourine. Each morning I would ask what time music class was because I wanted that tambourine. All the other ladies would play a native Indian drumming noise in rhythm with the activity leader and I would play the tambourine like Lori on the Partridge Family. You know, the hip out, boom, hand out, boom, repeat. After a few days I really looked forward to the activities which I feel showed an indication that I was actually back sliding in to a state of permanent insanity. If we had a lazy activity leader and she would give us a piece of paper and tell us just to spend an hour writing. I would bend my head and think, “Damn. What about doing some beading? Or playing some drums? Or drawing? This is dumb.” We are sitting at a table putting sparkly little jewels on a piece of string. The women, including myself, are actually picking up tiny pieces of beads and saying, “Oh! Look at this one! It‘s so shiny! That one is gorgeous Helen!” I shit you not. There is a person that walks around the table and it’s their job is to say, “That is so pretty Dina. Really. Who you gonna give that to?” Like I’m a fucking idiot. Like I’m gonna get out of the place and show off all the things I made while I was on the brink of fucking insanity in the mental hospital. Here mom! I traced my giant adult hand print on a piece of paper and made a turkey out of it. Does anyone need an ashtray that won’t sit flat made out of brown clay? I don’t have one friend that likes me enough to be gifted a piece of paper with cotton balls glued on it and still want to go to lunch in public with me. No one will know about this. Ever. I would rather tell someone I shit my pants. Come on lady! What happens on the crazy boat, stays on the crazy boat! People sometimes get mad at me for making jokes about serious things but it’s how I pull myself out. It’s the only way I know. The other part of the truth is that the entire week I was there, I couldn’t stop crying. And the pain pills could only help my sadness ‘as needed’. I still just didn’t care one way or another. Didn’t want to die, didn’t want to live. Just didn’t give a shit. During one of my crying episodes, I was called in to an administrative office and asked how I was feeling. With tears streaming down my face, I said nothing. They said, “So you feel better?” I didn’t say a word. I was discharged. I went home and got back in bed. But soon the crying stopped and then one thing happened and I had to get dressed and another thing and I had to shower and everyday, I got better. Everyday, a little bit better. No more pain pills. (And how many times are we going to hear that from you Dina?) It wasn’t magic, it wasn’t overnight. I got my hair colored. I went to the tanning booth. I started playing with my grand boys and then one day I look back and it’s like I was never in that place. I know it’s not this easy, but, I have to protect my heart. My heart is worth protecting. If it’s not something I can embrace, I simply can’t embrace it. If it’s something I can’t change, I just can’t change it. I’m still strong, but my strength is more focused on what is good, and funny and loving. Which is most of my world. Good, funny and loving. I think that’s how I would describe my life. I’ve done some things that I’m not proud of. But I’ve done some things that I am really, really proud of. And I realized that it was only the depression that made my ass look bad. I have an amazing ass. The only real proof that I was there is a sparkly bracelet that has the name ‘Carly’ on it. And the letters are accompanied by shiny stars and beautiful gems. At least, that’s how I described it when I presented it to her.

Eat, Pray, Love Phoenix 'The Olive Garden'

I have been blessed that I lived most of my life without depression. I have had things happen that depressed me, or upset me, or broke my heart. But it was always a situational event and a clear reason for my depression. I would hear people say they have 'depression', and I really never got it. I always felt these people were mentally weak and they needed to knock it off and carry on. After a year and a half of lying in my bed in my pajamas, crying everyday for and hour and sometimes longer, I get it. Other than the normal stresses of life that I am actually used to, nothing is going on. The sun is shining. The bills are getting paid, well, most of them, and in this economy that's bragging. My mom is getting sicker and falling much more. I look at my mom, knowing how much her life has sucked from beginning to end and wonder if this will be me. She doesn't want to go in to a home, she has some kind of phobia about it and so because of the level of total suck that has been her life, okay. I will go each day the best I can. My husbands heart condition is not great. He was in the hospital last week and I slept next to him during the day and we watched TV. I snuck him in his electric cigarette and the nurse caught him with it. She said she wouldn't say anything as long as he would not smoke real cigarettes. He wasn't thrilled about the hospital food so Carly and I snuck him in healthy food from the healthy food restuarant across the street. Last week my oldest daughter made her most threatening suicide threat and I was informed by several people that this time she may actually do it. I had a nightmare that she cut up her face with a razor blade in a drunken blackout, her eyes were swollen shut and she was crying and asking me what happened. Her face was covered with hundreds of stitches and in my dream I didn't know how to tell her what she had done. I remember crying inside, like the way parents do when they have to be strong. My face like stone and my insides collapsing. My middle daughter, we have come to the conclusion that we can't have a conversation, about anything. So we don't. If someone would have told me when she was little there would be a time that we would have nothing but pain between us and we wouldn't be able to have a conversation, I wouldn't have believed them. Some days the depression is all day and other days it's four or five hours. Once a day someone says, "Why are you crying?" I say, "I have no idea." There was a day I was suicidal and that feeling fills me with fear. It's become a phobia, that if the depression over comes me, I will go back there in my head and then all fucking hell will break loose. The thing that pisses me off the most about it is the complete lack of control over it. I will be going along my day, then with zero warning, it feels like the sky goes black. Like a monsoon. You know how you hear that little crackle of thunder when it's about to rain? It's like that. Everything is dark and then the crackle of thunder in my stomach. Everytime I think, "Oh, god, here it comes." Then I go to bed. Sometimes I will lay in bed for a few hours and then it's gone. Sometimes I lay in bed for days and I only come out to get food to take back to my bedroom. The people in my house are coming and going, because they are alive. Big plans, things to do, people to meet with. Back in my room. I know people who are fighting for their lives. I know 4 people with stage 4 cancer and they fight like fucking soldiers. It amazes me. I think, what if cancer came knocking at my door? Would I be ready to battle? Fight for my life? I take care of mom. Then I put on socks and lay down. Shower? Why? I do brush my teeth. But that's it. That's my day. I think that people feel that I am feeling sorry for myself and the thing is that, I have felt sorry for myself before. I know how that feels. This feels different. This feels like my feelings are hurt, and yet no one is hurting my feelings. You know how when someone says something really mean or hurtful, that ping in your heart? That's how my heart feels all day long. I just fucking feel sad. I have nothing left. I'm empty. And where is God? I pray most of the day and I wonder if I'm just using up some of my words for the day for no reason? My mom prays all day long and in return she has gotten 76 years of misery and heartbreak. What the hell? I have questions. People say, we don't always have all the answers. Unacceptable. I want some answers. What's my point. Okay. Well, after a year and a half believeing that I would wake up tomorrow and feel like the old me, I have come to realize that I have an illness. And if I am going to feel better I have to fight. I have to fight for my own life. Do you get that this is the actual problem? I don't cae about my life so the cure for this is to care about my life? The problem is that if I was crossing a street and a big truck was coming at me, I would not put a pep in my step and I may stop and hold my arms out and embrace the truck. I don't care if I'm here or not. I look at my future and I see nothing but darkness. I. Don't. Give. A. Shit. These people that are going around the world living in the most horrendious lives. A guy who is only a HEAD and the head is rolling down the fucking street, "Yeah, I'm only a head but I'm studying for my GED and learning to play the piano with my tounge." Really? What makes these people fight so hard for their lives and I have a complete disreguard for my own? They have a reselience of the human spirit. I have Netflix and sobbing fits. So it's not going to go away. I have to do things that I do NOT want to do. A few days ago, Carly said to me just say yes. She wanted to take me on a hike. A fucking hike. I haven't worn shoes for months. I'm pale, I look homeless but I have a pool. I haven't showered in, who the hell knows how long. Just say yes. We get to the hiking place and we start up the mountain. As I walk and complain Carly says, "Every negative thing you say takes the beauty out of it." So I'm silent, breathing really hard because the only thing I am intensly commited to is chain smoking. The trail was crowded with people. Carly says, "See all these people? You think they are climbing this mountain for their physical health. But they are actually climbing it to feed their spirit. And to feed their soul. You need to do activities that feed your soul. Like hike. Or paint a picture. Or cook a really weird Indian dish. That's how you will get back to normal. All we have in this life is out body, our mind, and our soul. If you feed those things, everything else works out." I am now heaving because I can't breath and I look out and wonder how they will air lift me out of here. I said, "So. Do like an Eat, Pray, Love? But, do it in town? Because I can't afford to go to Italy or Tibet?" "Yes." Carly walks in front of me not breathing hard at all. I thought it would be funny as people passed and I was breathing so hard to say to Carly so the people could hear me, "You said we were going to the Olive Garden!" The people would laugh, Carly would shake her head. Then all the sudden, we got to the top. After I sat on a rock and caught my breath I was able to look out and see the city of Phoenix from every direction. There were butterflies everywhere, flying around. I was really proud of myself. I almost cried but there were so many people up there. After a while we began our descent back down the mountain and I commented on how proud of myself I was because of the difficulty of the trail. Carly smiled and after asking what she was smiling about she said, "Love you mom. But this is the babyiest trail in Phoenix. I wouldn't take you on a hard hike." So the whole way down I commented about the difficulty of the trail. She ignored me laughing. Then something happened. I don't know why I said it, I don't know why I had to ruin everything. Carly was saying something about my spirit and being in the now and I blurted out, "What am I going to do when dad dies of a heart attack? What the fuck am I going to do." This created a screaming fight about how negative I am and I said I am not negative, that's my fucking reality and what about mom and what about Jen and what about my grandsons and what about my hair.... You get it. She walked away and said, I am not speaking to you until you stop saying things like that. I followed behind with my head hung. We got in the truck and I said, "There was a high level of difficulty." I enjoyed the hike. I would do it again. I know she is right and I know I need to fight for my life. I need to say yes when everything inside me says no. I am going to try. I bought gym clothes. I shit you not that I walk by that bag of fucking workout clothes and it mocks me. "Hey. Cry baby. Go join a gym. You're making me sick." So, I will try to fight for me. Everyday isn't perfect. Day after the hike, in bed all day, crying like a fucking idiot. Yesterday, only spent 5 or 6 hours in bed. Today, so far so good. I am cutting the ribbon on Operation Eat, Pray, love, Phoenix. If I can find some sissors.

Eat, Pray, Love Phoenix The Big One

You walked in a whole person and walked out in pieces. The one day you have been trying to remove from your head for 35 years. I want you to know that you were just a child and that day was not about you, but about the pain of the adults around you.
Sometimes, the people that are suppose to protect us simply get it wrong. They make huge mistakes. Huge. You will understand that when you grow up and you are responsible for protecting your children, and you make huge mistakes.
You walked out that door, looking down at your feet, looking at the concrete, and feeling numb and invisible. You knew that you were not as loved as other people. You did not matter. The young girl that was there the day before, no longer existed. You were gone.
So you put all these feelings and the numbness in a bag and walked down the road for 35 years. Invisable and unworthy.
We must rework that day. I want you to walk out that door, and take my hand. I want you to stop looking at your feet and lift your head. I want you to stand up straight and tall and together we will pick up the pieces. I will hug you and tell you I love you, and tell you it's not your fault.
You can't place such power behind the actions of others because you don't know why they do what they do. Even grownups. They may have been a child that was also broken and their pain could be worse than yours.
Most people have that one day they are trying to recocile in their mind, and when they can't they will do what you did. Walk away, shake it out of your head because the pain it will bring would be unbearable. And we all think by just pretending it didn't happen, it will go away. But it doesn't go away. The bag you carry gets heavier and heavier and as you get older, you eventually have to drop it. To drop it, you have to look at it. That day. The big one.
Everyone has a 'big one'. A moment that altered their life and made them in to someone they didn't want to be. The moment they became unworthy of love, ugly, stupid, humiliated, invisable.
I want you to know, that I know, I left you behind. I guess I did that because I had to survive somehow. I left you. Like the other people, I got it wrong.
I want to take you by the hand, and tell you that you are good. You are worth so, so much. You are not invisable or stupid or ugly. You did not deserve the events of that day.
You are going to grow up and make huge mistakes. Huge. But you are also going to make people happy and make people laugh. More important than that, people are going to make you laugh. You will laugh so hard that your stomach hurts. You will laugh so hard, you pee your pants, which makes you laugh more. You will have three daughters that love you. You will have a really hot husband. You will go places to make people laugh, like Los Angeles and New York. You will publish a book.
We have to take that day and turn it around and stop giving it power. People made mistakes. Their intent was not to distroy you or even to hurt you. I know that the choices the adults made didn't really have anything to do with you and had everything to do with their pain and hopelessness. You were just another young person that happened to be there when their faith emploded. You were a bystander that was torn apart.
I sorry I left you there on that sidewalk. But we can walk together, me and you, the rest of the way down the road. But we have to look up and be proud that we are the person we have become. Drop the heavy bag of shit and take care of our heart and our spirit. I will take care of you. You are the best part of me.

Eat Pray Love Phoenix 'Po Folk'

I've been in bed for over a year. May I be frank? I wasn't wild about the movie Eat, Pray, Love. Although Julia Roberts is always great to look at in any movie. The thing that bothered me the most, not that this is this lady's fault, but, she had to be loaded. To pretend a nervous breakdown or depression is not easier when your tear drops are falling on your pile of money is ridiculous.
I wondered, "What about us Po Folk?" What do we do when we don't fall on the Italian tiles but on the linoleum floor, in pieces. Our world destroyed. What do we people, who live in normal houses or even a fucking hovel, what about us? We can't jump on a plane and most of us couldn't even do an over niter in a motel 6 in an adjoining city.
So my little journey back to the real world has to be reasonable and some days, straight up, get your shit together without even leaving the house. Make yourself feel better. Without narcotics.
What I am trying to do on these days is to think of things that elevate my heart. And things that I will do on my Eat Pray Love, when I get the money to do it.
I am going to get a tattoo. I'm fifty. I don't give a shit.
Last summer, I was withdrawing from pain killers. For the people who haven't done this I will say without a doubt, the hardest physical thing I have EVER endured. I have never been so sick for so long. Couldn't eat, sleep, drink, smoke, close my eyes, cried for so many days in a row I pulled the muscles in my throat and neck... fucking horror, day, after day, seeming like it was never going to stop.
I didn't have insurance so I had to do this in my bedroom with the help of my three daughters, and they were amazing. It's sucks when 'mom' is withdrawing from narcotics.
At about day five, I had lost about ten pounds, couldn't talk because of the crying, but I did summon the strength to smoke. I sat outside the back door of the house and it was about five in the morning. I hadn't slept in five days for more than an hour or two.
My daughter Carly comes out and sits next to me and lights a cigarette. She had been in treatment for almost a year from meth and heroin and had been clean for two years so she knew how I felt.
Carly said, "I remember when I first got to treatment and I felt so sick I thought I was going to die. Then one morning, really early, after I had been there about ten days, I woke up and went outside to smoke. I sat on a rock and right then I noticed the sun coming up. I realized that this morning I felt better physically than I had for many, many years. And I watched the sunrise and I cried because I was so happy."
The following four or five days were more of the same, no sleep, can't eat, crying, oh god help me. Then on about day nine, I slept a solid five hours. I woke up and for the first time I thought I could actually drink a cup of coffee with my french vanilla creamer. It was really early in the morning but I didn't care because I finally got a little sleep. It was a miracle. I walked out the back door with my coffee, lit a cigarette and sat down. Carly walked out and sat next to me. I smiled at her. She smiled at me and said, "Sunrise?" I said, "Sunrise." We both sat quietly looking out at the imaginary sunrise. I smiled and actual smile.
So I'm going to get the word Sunrise. It doesn't need to make sense to anyone but me. I have wanted to do this for a while but I was waiting until I was in perfect condition because of the meaning for me of the word Sunrise. I thought I had to be in perfect condition so the tattoo would make sense. BUT, what I'm thinking is that for me, when I'm feeling broken or sad, I could look at that and remember. It could be a reminder that if I just keep going, keep getting up, at some point, the sun will rise.
Side note: Would I trade being a crazy drug addict to be a normal person? Yes. In a minute. But, since that isn't how I rolled, I will say this for sure. Normal people do not have great stories like this. I'm sorry. Just us Po Folk can be over come with emotion at the sight of an imaginary Sunrise.

Eat Pray Love Phoenix I Felt a Feeling

This is not the first time this has happened in the past year, but it came from so far out of nowhere, it startled me. It was because of an event that happened many years ago and it popped in my head like it had just happened. Within minutes, I was reduced to the most guttural cry and that's the best way to describe it. It felt like it was scraping the bottom of my stomach. I was enraged, and sad, and so, so out of my mind with heartbreak. There was no Buddha, or mountain, or bitter sweet memory. I was broken wide open with no warning what so ever.
People have said that I am strong. They have even said that my strength inspires them. But in my journey to unravel myself, I have been enlightened to things about myself that are not authentic. I don't think my strength is strength, I think it's fear. It just looks like strength.
I have spent an entire lifetime not processing one single feeling, especially feelings about traumatic events. On purpose. I have never allowed myself to feel things. I am so fearful to actually feel something, I just pretend it didn't happen or I fix it. If I can fix it, I don't have to feel anything about it. If I can't fix it, it didn't happen. Walk away.
My process as a mother and as a person is take action, quickly. Don't think about the details of why everything is on fire, just put out the fire. Move. Don't stop. Ever.
So now, at the age of 50, my brain is getting all up in my business. Apparently, all those things from a lifetime that I have said, "That was a long time ago." My brain is sort of throwing a surprise party and saying, "Remember that? You're going to deal with that right now!" There's not a million different things, but about 10 things, big things, that I was so 'Strong' I walked them off and now it looks like I'm going to make it up on the back end. Totally without my permission. Totally without my control. All of those times that I said, I have to be strong, I have to do what I have to do, I can not fall apart, I need to be there for other people.
I still believe we need to be strong when something horrible or unfair or traumatic happens. We gather our strength and move toward something better. BUT, even the strong need to stop, just for a minute and process our feelings. Sit in it for a minute. Go ahead and feel the burn.
If you can't feel your feelings because that's how you learned to manage your head, I don't know that this is the definition of strength. I think it's more of a weakness. When that's all you know, how to walk away from an event and pretend it didn't happen, that's the way you do it.
Of course there is the opposite kind of person. The one that is always feeling the feelings and wanting to feel more about how they feel about the feelings. Okay, man. I get it. You have some feelings. Damn.
Here's what I know for sure and I'm telling you this because if you are the 'strong' one, you may need to look back about 35 years. All that shit that you walked off? It's still there. What you have to do is look at it and not turn away. Even if it's something that happened 20 years ago, there is not one thing wrong with crying and screaming and saying, that was bullshit. That almost destroyed me. That hurt me and I am still hurt. I'm pissed off at this person and I feel betrayed by this person.
Here's what happens if you don't really look back and go ahead a feel all those things. You are going to be standing in Target, minding your own business. Someone is going to walk by and look like or smell like or laugh like... and there goes the snowball down the hill, you're holding a bottle of Windex sobbing uncontrollably while people stare, so you scream, "Have you never seen a person have a fucking feeling before!?"
Pretending the thing didn't happen, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Pretending you don't have any feelings about the event, does not make it so. I think most people have at least one day of their life they would like to just pull out of their memory and pretend that day didn't happen. So we spend our lives trying to shake off that day, act like it didn't happen, but what we are doing is actually allowing that day to effect everyday. That one day controls everyday. And because of the fear of standing toe to toe with that memory, our refusal to do so gives that memory complete power over our lives. It's like caring around a giant bag of shit for 35 years. People are saying, "What's that awful smell." And we say, "Oh. It's my giant bag of shit. I take it everywhere." You will actually expect that if someone loved you, they would actually hold your bag of shit.
If you had an event where you were hurt, and it was so painful that you avoided the pain of being hurt, you will spend the rest of your life feeling like everyone is trying to hurt you. When in fact, it's not the case. You're still living off the original experience and applying it to your everyday life because you never addressed the original pain. You're still hurt because you've never allowed yourself to feel anything about that event. I know how childish this sounds but it's accurate. The person or people from so many years ago, that actually deserve to be shit on, never get shit on. But every person you come in contact with for the rest of your life? Welcome to my shit party. Get comfortable. Whatever feeling you have that is overpowering, you can look back to a moment in your life that gave you that initial feeling and see how you have carried it your whole life. At some point you have to drop the bag of shit and hope it doesn't happen in Target.
So, I cried and cried, and today I still feel a little bit sad. But I did look at the thing. I didn't run away or take a pill or diminish the events. I know in a day or so I'll be fine and it's another demon conquered. That gives me strength. That makes me strong. The saying, "You can run, but you can't hide." Actually you can hide. But one of these days, you're going to be in Macy's, and all hell is going to break loose. To be honest, I don't think a person is truly authentic until they have an emotional breakdown in public. Could be just me.

Eat, Pray, Love Phoenix

There is a place, in a person with chronic depression, that I can only call 'nothing'. Everyday, in depression, you take a step further, and further from the world. From your family, your life, everything. Everyday another step toward the end of the earth. Your view of your life becomes grey and interactions with others create a numbness. We all have a chance at living as long as one of our life sustaining sources are in tact, even if only by a thread. Our heart, mind, spirit, soul, if at least one of these things is still dangling by a string, we have a chance.

But as we step, another step, out of our lives, we get to the place where we step off the edge of the earth. That doesn't mean the point where a person takes their life. But that's when a person COULD easily take their life.

A step off the edge of the earth is a feeling of relief. Because when you take that step, there is nothing. No sadness, no feeling, no thought, no pain, just, nothingness.

Standing in that place, while everyone else is still on solid ground, there is no meaning, or memory of a time when you were a participant in it. It's just you. And nothing.

When people say things like, "You have so much!" Or, "So many people love you!" When you are not connected, even to your self, you see their lips moving and all you think is, "Letters, that make words, that make a sentence...." It's numbing. Yellow and purple and the rain and the sun, are all one thing blended together to create grey.

Even if I only say the words, 'I am worth fighting for' and I don't really believe that, it is something instead of nothing. Even if I am only hanging by that fragile thread, it's something. I still feel separate, but I can still see land from where I am. I feel too tired to take that step back, but I'm going to take that step no matter how heavy my legs feel. I pray for all of us, people who are broken in half. I know it seems impossible, but we have to fight, that's the only way to escape nothingness.

I want to WANT, something.

Three Years

You know that bible story about the birth of Jesus and the little drummer boy that didn't have a gift so he played the drums? That's what I'm doing right here.
Carly is three years clean and sober today. I thought, what do you give someone who is this courageous and amazing? Nothing seems to 'say it'. So I thought I would do a little drummer boy but with words and not drums.

I've watched you turn into the person you always were. I've seen you become a beautiful young woman, who laughs so hard you have to hold your stomach, and cries without falling.
The past three years you have held up so many people who were falling apart. Including me. You did it with such strength and kindness and compassion. You give of yourself without ever being prompted because of a soulful and spiritual knowing that you're needed.
I know people don't really understand where you were, but it's important they know where you are now. Once I was doing a TV interview and they wanted you to come along. Who wouldn't want to do that? You. You said to me, "Mom. You enjoy all of that. But I like my little life. I love my boyfriend, my dog, I love my crappy job. I like to come home from work and watch movies with my boyfriend and my dog. I don't need anything else." You couldn't have described yourself better. But your life isn't little, it's simple. It's uncluttered and you don't need the insanity to be happy. Your life is as big as you desire and it is rolled out in front of you to be as complicated or as simple as you please. That's the amazing part to no longer being a hostage.
It's hard to imagine before when I watch the person you are now. You have become the person I go to when I wonder if I'm loosing my mind. I say, "Do you think I'm crazy if..." Then I launch in to a forty minute rant and you say, "Yes. I think you're crazy."
You hike and drink Chi Tea. You meditate. You juice your food. You believe in God and you pray. You nuture every part of your being so you will stay healthy. Although, I can twist your arm to eat a hot dog from Sams Club. You told me they were the greatest hot dogs in the world and you were correct.
My point is that I love this girl. I love to hear you laugh. I love having to go in your room and tell you and Andy to be quiet because you're wrestling and screaming and laughing. I love seeing how much you love Andy and he loves you. I don't like when you kiss your dog on the mouth. That will never change.
To say I'm proud of you would be a huge understatement. It's just not enough. You, Carly, are a fucking rock star. Three years clean and sober. Happy third:) I pray God will continue to bless you. You climbed a very steep mountain and your strength inspires me, your heart inspires me. I am so, so lucky to have a person like you in my life. I'm grateful every single day that I know you. I'm thankful that you have become the person that God brought you here to be and we are blessed to have you.
PS... I don't know how to play the drums or I would have:) Love, love, love you. Mum